U.S. Presidential Primaries 2024!

[Angrybk]

On 3/13/2023 at 3:37 PM, Skywalkre said:

A few things I've heard in recent days.

1) Peter Zeihan mentioned in a recent daily update how a political pollster he knows well told him how Moderates in the US overwhelmingly hate Biden's policies... but back in the midterms they showed up in force because they hated the Trump-backed candidates even more and helped give the Ds the effective win that they got.  If they showed up like that in a midterm imagine what will happen if Trump himself and more of his cronies are on the ballots in '24.

2) Several pundits have mentioned how many of the early R primaries are winner take all... and as such even if Trump sticks around just 30-35% he could jump out to a commanding and early lead.

3) Saw a few pundits talking about overall favorability ratings amongst Rs.  Trump was the overwhelming leader with like 80% with DeSantis just behind him.  Someone like Haley was down around 40-50%.

Made me wonder... why?  How?  Trump is a whiny man-child with a laundry list of issues.  Using Haley as an example I asked about what reasons there were NOT to like her a few weeks ago... and got nothing.  Why are Rs getting behind someone that would likely guarantee a D win, saying they view him in an overall context more favorably, then someone like Haley who no one really knows a lot about.

I sometimes think the lack of support for Haley (and some of these other low % showers) is that the media doesn't hate them... and Rs are just knee-jerk reacting and supporting whoever the Left seems to hate the most (as if that's some useful metric of value in a politician).

Re point 1, Biden was dead in the water in 2020 until black democrats had a “holy shit, if it’s gonna be Warren or Sanders we are screwed!!” epiphany and rallied behind him. One thing democrats are still failing to realize is that the people of color they claim to represent are a lot more conservative than white ponytail Twitter people. 

[BansheeOne]

Heh. One of my casual dates is a German-Nigerian/African/Native-American girl from LA (the result looks like a younger variant of Angela Basset; she's also wildly smart and studying international law). She hates Trump, but can totally understand why people would vote for him - she can rant at length about Spanish-speaking staff who feel too entitled to communicate in the language of the land. 😄

[nitflegal]

14 hours ago, Angrybk said:

Re point 1, Biden was dead in the water in 2020 until black democrats had a “holy shit, if it’s gonna be Warren or Sanders we are screwed!!” epiphany and rallied behind him. One thing democrats are still failing to realize is that the people of color they claim to represent are a lot more conservative than white ponytail Twitter people. 

And yet they continue to vote for the people who consistently go way left when they have power.  I can't decide if they are foolish enough to keep trusting after continually getting bit or whether their conservatism is overblown BS.  I tend to believe its the latter.

[NickM]

8 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Heh. One of my casual dates is a German-Nigerian/African/Native-American girl from LA (the result looks like a younger variant of Angela Basset; she's also wildly smart and studying international law). She hates Trump, but can totally understand why people would vote for him - she can rant at length about Spanish-speaking staff who feel too entitled to communicate in the language of the land. 😄

How funny: my high school age daughter thinks only racist whites do that

[Ivanhoe]

1 hour ago, nitflegal said:

And yet they continue to vote for the people who consistently go way left when they have power.  I can't decide if they are foolish enough to keep trusting after continually getting bit or whether their conservatism is overblown BS.  I tend to believe its the latter.

Not overblown, but overpowered by highly-charged emotional responses to pervasive narratives.

For example, the narrative that black parents have to "have the talk" with their teenagers about the massive risk of getting gunned down by a white racist cop. A rational action would be to "have the talk" with their teenagers about the massive risk of getting gunned down by a fellow black, but that would require them to be in a rational headspace. 

[urbanoid]

8 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

Not overblown, but overpowered by highly-charged emotional responses to pervasive narratives.

For example, the narrative that black parents have to "have the talk" with their teenagers about the massive risk of getting gunned down by a white racist cop. A rational action would be to "have the talk" with their teenagers about the massive risk of getting gunned down by a fellow black, but that would require them to be in a rational headspace. 

The talk about 'gangsta culture' being shit and a recommendation to follow the instructions of police officers would probably make sense too.

[17thfabn]

1 hour ago, Ivanhoe said:

For example, the narrative that black parents have to "have the talk" with their teenagers about the massive risk of getting gunned down by a white racist cop. A rational action would be to "have the talk" with their teenagers about the massive risk of getting gunned down by a fellow black, but that would require them to be in a rational headspace. 

As a teen my parents never had to give us a talk about respecting and obeying the police because we were already taught to respect people in general and authority figures such as adults, teachers, coaches and police. 

I have worked with six black men that have had their sons shot to death in the mean streets.

NONE were shot by the police.

Three were involved in criminal activity, two of which were involved in dealing drugs.

One thing my parents did try was to have me not hang out with certain people, because running with a bad crowd could get you in trouble. By and large they were right, and I was about 50% compliant in not hanging around with those guys. Luckily I never got in trouble.

One of the sons of black men who was involved in drug dealing that was shot to death, his girlfriend was with him when he was murdered. She too was  murdered. Her parents would have been better off to give her the talk about not hanging out with the bad element, than the talk about "THE Police".

[Josh]

11 hours ago, nitflegal said:

And yet they continue to vote for the people who consistently go way left when they have power.  I can't decide if they are foolish enough to keep trusting after continually getting bit or whether their conservatism is overblown BS.  I tend to believe it’s the latter.

Michael Che had a great one liner that illustrates why this occurs: “Voting democratic is like wearing a condom…I’m not into it, but it’s a lot safer”.

The GOP is so blatantly anti black in its policies, whether it see itself that way or not, that the black vote really doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

[DKTanker]

7 hours ago, Josh said:

The GOP is so blatantly anti black in its policies, whether it see itself that way or not, that the black vote really doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

Please, just one example of a GOP policy that is specifically anti-black.

[nitflegal]

8 minutes ago, DKTanker said:

Please, just one example of a GOP policy that is specifically anti-black.

More to the point, after half a century of being taken care of by the Democrats in what metric are African Americans better off?  If I accept your thesis that the Republicans are anti-black in presentation then is it fair to say that the Democrats are anti-black in action?

With that said, what you have described is what I have heard from many black friends and colleagues is exactly what you describe.  I would argue they are wrong that the Republican party is generally anti-black but I would suggest they are black-ambivalent.  I've bitched for years, including on this forum, that the Republicans have written them off and don't talk to the black community or try and meet their needs.  Look how Trump moved the needle simply by talking to them and targetting even a limited amount of policies at helping them.  That's where I can understand the instinctive resentment of the black community, the Republican party doesn't give a sh*t about them.  If the Republican party goes true populaist I hope (not a lot of confidence but I've knocked on a lot of doors for (R) candidates who engaged with the inner city) they talk to poor disadvantaged people and talk about school choice and taking on teacher's unions about failing schools, outreach programs, job training, etc.  I know the typical conservative response is that those populations are made up of ferals or lazy people and having spent a lot of time in those areas that is a huge part of the population.  However, we're writing off the people who work two jobs and do homework until midnight with their kids.  I challenge anyone to go to an inner city magnet school lottery and see single moms and dads, parents in maintenance uniforms and scrubs, desperately trying to get their kid a slot in a school that isn't a battleground and tell me those are people beneath help.  I did interview prep for my church in the inner city and when you see that single mom with four kids who suddenly had the epiphany and decided they and their kids deserve better and put them though medical technologist certification while their mom watches the kids so they can break the cycle. you want them to have the support they need to suceed and be an example to others.  I want the Republicans to do something for those people to make that a viable option.  But they don't donate money so I doubt it will ever happen.

Mini-rant over.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, DKTanker said:

Please, just one example of a GOP policy that is specifically anti-black.

The absolute rejection of the BLM movement. The general consensus that there is no such thing as systemic racism in MAGA circles.

[Josh]

Desantis is slipping in the polls already. This article notes that there is huge variation between polls as to who is ahead, but that what is definitely true is that Desantis is dropping in all of the polls over time. I think this was inevitable once he started actually having positions on things and Trump started working on him. Desantis is in the unenviable position of not being able to go blow for blow with Trump for risk of alienating his supporters.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/upshot/desantis-trump-polls.html

[urbanoid]

2 hours ago, nitflegal said:

More to the point, after half a century of being taken care of by the Democrats in what metric are African Americans better off?  If I accept your thesis that the Republicans are anti-black in presentation then is it fair to say that the Democrats are anti-black in action?

With that said, what you have described is what I have heard from many black friends and colleagues is exactly what you describe.  I would argue they are wrong that the Republican party is generally anti-black but I would suggest they are black-ambivalent.  I've bitched for years, including on this forum, that the Republicans have written them off and don't talk to the black community or try and meet their needs.  Look how Trump moved the needle simply by talking to them and targetting even a limited amount of policies at helping them.  That's where I can understand the instinctive resentment of the black community, the Republican party doesn't give a sh*t about them.  If the Republican party goes true populaist I hope (not a lot of confidence but I've knocked on a lot of doors for (R) candidates who engaged with the inner city) they talk to poor disadvantaged people and talk about school choice and taking on teacher's unions about failing schools, outreach programs, job training, etc.  I know the typical conservative response is that those populations are made up of ferals or lazy people and having spent a lot of time in those areas that is a huge part of the population.  However, we're writing off the people who work two jobs and do homework until midnight with their kids.  I challenge anyone to go to an inner city magnet school lottery and see single moms and dads, parents in maintenance uniforms and scrubs, desperately trying to get their kid a slot in a school that isn't a battleground and tell me those are people beneath help.  I did interview prep for my church in the inner city and when you see that single mom with four kids who suddenly had the epiphany and decided they and their kids deserve better and put them though medical technologist certification while their mom watches the kids so they can break the cycle. you want them to have the support they need to suceed and be an example to others.  I want the Republicans to do something for those people to make that a viable option.  But they don't donate money so I doubt it will ever happen.

Mini-rant over.

And he could (and did) boast about 'lowest Affikin-Amurkin unemployment evah' and managed to get what? 10% of their vote?

What are the Rs supposed to do? Promise even more free shit than the Ds? Jump on the ridiculous 'reparations' bandwagon? Drop literacy and math requirements because those are evil huwhyte raysis inventions? State that crime is ok as long as it's a non-white crime?

[nitflegal]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

And he could (and did) boast about 'lowest Affikin-Amurkin unemployment evah' and managed to get what? 10% of their vote?

What are the Rs supposed to do? Promise even more free shit than the Ds? Jump on the ridiculous 'reparations' bandwagon? Drop literacy and math requirements because those are evil huwhyte raysis inventions? State that crime is ok as long as it's a non-white crime?

None of that.  Do the right thing and start investing long term in this (and all communities).  Focus on slowly turning the ship over years and even generations by providing opportunity.  Fight and lose and fight more until they win on charter schools and school choice so the minority of students who will take advantage of it all have a place in those advanced schools.  Tuition reimbursement for those going to certification programs and associate degrees for technican and technologist jobs.  Throw in child care for those who have a 3.0 average in those same programs.  Interview and job application mentoring since they usually don't have a social group who can help them write a good resume.  Use those same things and apply them to poor rural whites and give them the same hand up.  Same thing with poor hispanics in the SW, native americans, etc.  Or just keep bitching that without those opportunities those populations will keep voting for people who at least give them money which is a better deal than noting but a condesceding pat on their head that if they'd tried harder they would be millionaires.  

As to Trump, he did a few things, actually talked to their population, and almost doubled their support to a Republican.  Yet that's not significant enough to plot a path?

[17thfabn]

5 hours ago, Josh said:

The absolute rejection of the BLM movement.

BLM is anti black people. The huge jump in murder rates and other crimes has disproportionately  effected black people. The soft on crime is great for criminals of all races, terrible for good people of all types. 

[Josh]

7 minutes ago, 17thfabn said:

BLM is anti black people. The huge jump in murder rates and other crimes has disproportionately  effected black people. The soft on crime is great for criminals of all races, terrible for good people of all types. 

That is not how most of the black community thinks. Also you made no mention of systemic racism. If you don’t acknowledge that it exists, there is basically no discussion to have with the black community.

I do agree the Democratic Party has done little for them as well and is mostly talk, but the outright rejection of the idea there is even a racism problem in the first place and focusing on black on black violence whataboutism is a Do Not Pass Go for most of the black community. If the GOP wants to win that demographic, it has to acknowledge there is a problem, and the MAGA war on wokism (which few conservatives even seem to be able to define) seems if anything a step further backward in this regard.

[Josh]

Desantis has drawn a surprisingly polarizing line in the sand on the Ukraine issue. It seems weird he’d show his cards this early in the game (before he’s even entered). Perhaps he just felt the need to impress Tucker and his audience.

[urbanoid]

32 minutes ago, Josh said:

That is not how most of the black community thinks. Also you made no mention of systemic racism. If you don’t acknowledge that it exists, there is basically no discussion to have with the black community.

I do agree the Democratic Party has done little for them as well and is mostly talk, but the outright rejection of the idea there is even a racism problem in the first place and focusing on black on black violence whataboutism is a Do Not Pass Go for most of the black community. If the GOP wants to win that demographic, it has to acknowledge there is a problem, and the MAGA war on wokism (which few conservatives even seem to be able to define) seems if anything a step further backward in this regard.

Is it whataboutism if 90% of blacks are killed by other blacks? 

The question remains how many of their own voters will they alienate if they start bending over backwards for 'oppressed minorities' like the Ds do.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Is it whataboutism if 90% of blacks are killed by other blacks? 

The question remains how many of their own voters will they alienate if they start bending over backwards for 'oppressed minorities' like the Ds do.

The black community generally believes that police officers disproportionately use violence against black suspects and they understandably want to hold them accountable. That’s where BLM came from. That issue isn’t really being addressed by either party, but the Dems generally accept that it happens. Again, this is the fundamental complaint of BLM - holding police officers accountable. Whether you believe in systemic racism in law enforcement or not (and I do, and if you are interested in a book that examines the concept I can recommend something my lawyer friend recommended to me), black on black violence is just an extreme form of what aboutism that avoids their complaint. You may feel that complaint is fabricated but they do not.

[urbanoid]

16 minutes ago, Josh said:

The black community generally believes that police officers disproportionately use violence against black suspects and they understandably want to hold them accountable. That’s where BLM came from. That issue isn’t really being addressed by either party, but the Dems generally accept that it happens. Again, this is the fundamental complaint of BLM - holding police officers accountable. Whether you believe in systemic racism in law enforcement or not (and I do, and if you are interested in a book that examines the concept I can recommend something my lawyer friend recommended to me), black on black violence is just an extreme form of what aboutism that avoids their complaint. You may feel that complaint is fabricated but they do not.

So the police officers are quilty of... pattern recognition, given the US crime statistics. The other thing is how they react to police instructions, quite often it's like they want to commit 'suicide by cop'. 

[DKTanker]

10 hours ago, Josh said:

The absolute rejection of the BLM movement. The general consensus that there is no such thing as systemic racism in MAGA circles.

Name one rule, law, or regulation that is racist (racist in the sense that hurts blacks).  When you do, tell us why the Biden administration, with their cohorts in congress, didn't repeal those rules, laws, and regulations.  
As for the BLM movement, it was and is rejected for the cynical Marxist power play that it is.  

Edited March 17 by DKTanker

[DKTanker]

10 hours ago, Josh said:

Desantis is slipping in the polls already. This article notes that there is huge variation between polls as to who is ahead, but that what is definitely true is that Desantis is dropping in all of the polls over time. I think this was inevitable once he started actually having positions on things and Trump started working on him. Desantis is in the unenviable position of not being able to go blow for blow with Trump for risk of alienating his supporters.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/upshot/desantis-trump-polls.html

Nobody should discount your, and the left in general, desire to see the Donald win the GOP nomination.  To that end the MSM will do everything within their power to help Trump destroy DeSantis.  

[R011]

11 hours ago, Josh said:

The absolute rejection of the BLM movement. The general consensus that there is no such thing as systemic racism in MAGA circles.

Considering BLM is anti-police, anti-White, Marxist, and based on lies (Zimmerman, Ferguson etc.), why would you be surprsied that Republicans who've noticed this aren'tr supporting them?

[Josh]

5 hours ago, urbanoid said:

So the police officers are quilty of... pattern recognition, given the US crime statistics. The other thing is how they react to police instructions, quite often it's like they want to commit 'suicide by cop'. 

I’m not going bother getting into the statistics and details on this site. If you want to seriously understand the subject, I’d start with the book “The New Jim Crow” which analyzes how the US legal system discriminates against the poor in general and minorities in particular. I also think the police firing on unarmed black people more than any other ethnic group is pretty well documented in and of itself in news media.

In any case regardless of what you believe, if you tell an ethnic group that its concerns are bullshit, it isn’t going to vote for you. Presumably that is a concept you believe in regardless of any of your other impressions of racism in the US.

Edited March 18 by Josh

[Josh]

4 hours ago, DKTanker said:

Name one rule, law, or regulation that is racist (racist in the sense that hurts blacks).  When you do, tell us why the Biden administration, with their cohorts in congress, didn't repeal those rules, laws, and regulations.  
As for the BLM movement, it was and is rejected for the cynical Marxist power play that it is.  

In Florida even discussing the idea of systemic racism in schools is illegal.