Why do rednecks side with the Republican Party?

Page 1 of 10 [ 153 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 10  Next

DarthMetaKnight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,105
Location: The Infodome

26 May 2017, 4:30 pm

Hi all. I just need to talk about something that has been bugging me for my whole life.

Republican Party: The Republican Party is run by greedy billionaires. They pretend to be Christian even though they obviously have never read the New Testament. They don't care about the environment. They regard all non-billionaires as pawns. They create wars in order to make money. These wars feed the Islamic State and create refugees. These refugees end up coming to the West. Some of these refugees become radicalized and commit terror attacks. The victims of these attacks are usually in the lower economic classes.

Rednecks: Most rednecks are lower/middle class people who live on farms. These farms will be destroyed by global warming by the end of this century. Rednecks will call you a communist if you disagree with the Republicans on anything ... even though the Republican Party is destroying everything that rednecks love.

I'm not saying that rednecks should vote Democrat. The Democratic Party is also terrible because it is also owned by billionaire lobbyists. The rednecks would be politically independent centrists if they were really fighting to defend their way of life.

war industry delenda est


_________________
Synthetic carbo-polymers got em through man. They got em through mouse. They got through, and we're gonna get out.
-Roostre

READ THIS -> https://represent.us/


androbot01
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Sep 2014
Age: 53
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,746
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada

26 May 2017, 5:13 pm

Quote:
Some may take a slightly more sophisticated approach and say your elite education means you are out of touch with real people. In other words, “sit down and shut up.”
...
First, you learned critical thinking. I can still remember the professors who challenged me to make decisions with good information, rigorous reasoning, real deliberation. I know we didn’t have much of that in this past election, but we have to get back to it. After all, in the words of my predecessor in the Senate, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

And your education gives you more than knowledge. It gives you the power to keep learning and apply what you know to improve your life and the lives of others. Because you are beginning your careers with one of the best educations in the world, I think you do have a special responsibility to give others the chance to learn and think for themselves, and to learn from them, so that we can have the kind of open, fact-based debate necessary for our democracy to survive and flourish.

^From Clinton's speech today. I think it addresses what you're talking about, in a somewhat veiled way.



kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

26 May 2017, 5:30 pm

I'm no Republican---trust me!

But not all Republicans are the way the OP described.

What he's describing, I believe, is more like the ideology of those who are "alt-right."



Aristophanes
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 Apr 2014
Age: 42
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,603
Location: USA

26 May 2017, 5:56 pm

I live in a small rural town, and I'd say you're very misguided. Most 'rednecks' (your term, not mine) don't live on a farm. The rural group you're referring to lives in small towns that 100 years ago or so would be called 'farm towns', but any more those towns are just small towns. The vast majority of 'farms' are actually under corporate control, the 'small farmer' you're thinking about has been virtually dead since around the time a gas powered tractor came around. Over 70% of the food in this country is produced by a 'mega-farm', i.e. a corporation, or a very large privately owned business. Most modern farms don't even till with what you probably think of as a tractor, they till with a robotic tractor (no human operation) allowing even more food to be produced with less labor. As those jobs have been mechanized fewer and fewer people have employment in those areas.

From the 1950's-1990's large swaths of small farms were bought out by these groups to create the farming system we have today. Most of the money came from private investors tied to big cities, and while selling a farm brought a lot of money initially to those that owned land, it also ruined the fabric of the city in place since the farms were a consistent source of jobs and thus income for low-skilled labor and now it's gone: replaced by a large business where the majority of the profit doesn't get recycled in the small town, rather to investors in god knows where. In essence it was a 20th century carpet-bagging operation, at least that's how most locals feel about it.

So, that animosity bleeds over into the voting booth. True, there are rural Democrats and big city Republicans, but by and large if you look at an election map by county and not by state you'll see that progressives and Democrats tend to live in populated cities and conservatives and Republicans live in sparsely populated areas. The farming part is only part of the divide in politics, both areas have completely different concerns as well. Example: shoot a gun in a crowded area and you create a dangerous riot type situation (big city), whereas in some rural areas a gun is virtually necessary because there are still large predators on the land (I see bears on my property once every blue moon, but they're there).

*side note: this map is an excellent one to look at, it shows results by county, not state, and it shows the amount of voters in each county by height (3-d and rotatable).
https://blueshift.io/election-2016-county-map.html



DarthMetaKnight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,105
Location: The Infodome

26 May 2017, 6:00 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
I'm no Republican---trust me!

But not all Republicans are the way the OP described.

What he's describing, I believe, is more like the ideology of those who are "alt-right."


I wasn't describing all Republicans. I was describing the leaders of the party and the corporate overlords who bribe them.

The alt-righters are usually opposed to neoconservative imperialism. That's why some of them have been turning against Trump lately. Give credit where credit is due.


_________________
Synthetic carbo-polymers got em through man. They got em through mouse. They got through, and we're gonna get out.
-Roostre

READ THIS -> https://represent.us/


kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

26 May 2017, 6:09 pm

I wouldn't even call Trump a "true" Republican, actually (maybe he is in moments where "true Republicanism" would be expedient. Do you believe he seriously believed that NATO was "obsolete?" He might not even know the definition of "obsolete").

His "ideology is "no ideology." It's "every person for his/her self." This extends to his foreign policy.

If there is an "ideology," it's Social-Darwinist-corporate in nature. He is more like P.T. Barnum than any politician I know. With tinges of Huey Long.

The man has no sense of diplomacy, no sense of history. He has probably already alienated the "alt-right."



DarthMetaKnight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,105
Location: The Infodome

26 May 2017, 6:35 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
I wouldn't even call Trump a "true" Republican, actually (maybe he is in moments where "true Republicanism" would be expedient. Do you believe he seriously believed that NATO was "obsolete?" He might not even know the definition of "obsolete").

His "ideology is "no ideology." It's "every person for his/her self." This extends to his foreign policy.

If there is an "ideology," it's Social-Darwinist-corporate in nature. He is more like P.T. Barnum than any politician I know. With tinges of Huey Long.

The man has no sense of diplomacy, no sense of history. He has probably already alienated the "alt-right."

Donald Trump is a man who exists purely to bring the "alternative right" back in line.

While he was on the election trail, Trump reached out to white nationalists and libertarians. What do they have in common? They are right-wing, but they distrust the Republican Party.

Trump made himself look like a paleoconservative while he was on the election trail. This is because paleocons are partway between white nationalists and libertarians. Now that he is the president, he has switched back to neoconservative mode.

Fortunately, the alt-right isn't fooled ... for the most part.

Obama was Bush 2.0. Trump is Bush 3.0. We will never have real change until we realize this.


_________________
Synthetic carbo-polymers got em through man. They got em through mouse. They got through, and we're gonna get out.
-Roostre

READ THIS -> https://represent.us/


Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

26 May 2017, 7:45 pm

I think a big part of it is conservatives appealing to so called "redneck" voters with hot button issues they wheel out, such as immigration, abortion, evolution, LGBT rights, etc, especially since liberals take the opposite side of those arguments. Or they appeal to pre-existing prejudices against immigrants (both legal and illegal), political rights for non-whites which they believe has gone too far, the social safety net which they think the lazy are taking advantage of, etc. The right tells them what they want to hear: that these people who have it worse than themselves are somehow stealing resources that should go to said rednecks. Throw in stopping the pulling down of Confederate statues and flags, and they'll vote against their own economic interests.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


Chronos
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Apr 2010
Age: 44
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,698

26 May 2017, 8:23 pm

DarthMetaKnight wrote:
Hi all. I just need to talk about something that has been bugging me for my whole life.

Republican Party: The Republican Party is run by greedy billionaires. They pretend to be Christian even though they obviously have never read the New Testament. They don't care about the environment. They regard all non-billionaires as pawns. They create wars in order to make money. These wars feed the Islamic State and create refugees. These refugees end up coming to the West. Some of these refugees become radicalized and commit terror attacks. The victims of these attacks are usually in the lower economic classes.

Rednecks: Most rednecks are lower/middle class people who live on farms. These farms will be destroyed by global warming by the end of this century. Rednecks will call you a communist if you disagree with the Republicans on anything ... even though the Republican Party is destroying everything that rednecks love.

I'm not saying that rednecks should vote Democrat. The Democratic Party is also terrible because it is also owned by billionaire lobbyists. The rednecks would be politically independent centrists if they were really fighting to defend their way of life.

war industry delenda est


The republican party is actually relatively diverse. Within the republican party you have...
Fiscal conservatives. These are people who oppose things big government and high taxes, and consequently, generous welfare systems.
Social conservatives. These are people who typically oppose things like gay marriage, transexualism, and abortion.
The religious right. These are typically religious christians who are also social conservatives.

It should be noted that someone who identifies as a republican may not fall neatly into any of these categories.

So why do "rednecks" frequently identify as republican. Well let's be more clear about what is meant by "redneck". You mentioned farmers. Farmers are often stereotyped as being unintelligent but this is far from the truth. It takes a lot of understanding of economics, and executive planning abilities to be a successful farmer. A person can even major in farming related professions at some universities. The real reason a farmer would oppose environmental initiatives is because these initiatives, while may be a wise investment in the long term, often make farming less profitable for the farmer in the short term, and farming is actually a cut throat industry with high overhead. Many farmers oppose big government because small government means less regulations they have to contend with.

If by "redneck" you mean someone who isn't very educated or intelligent, it's true that those with low IQs and those who are racist tend to favor the republican party. Note that this does not mean that those who are conservatives or republicans have a low IQ. It just means that those who have a low IQ are more likely to embrace conservative ideologies. Why does this party tend to attract such people? The reason likely is that conservativism is more simplistic than liberalism. It's more black and white and there's less to think about. For example, many conservatives will contend that a person is born male or female, and if they are male, their gender is male, and if they are female, their gender is female, end of story. They do not want to hear anything about intersexed conditions, or biological variability, or theories on brain sex, or psychological development. That is too complex and stressful for them to contend with. But to many liberals, a person can be a male or female, or something in between, and their gender need not match their physical sex.



ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,254
Location: Long Island, New York

26 May 2017, 9:22 pm

DarthMetaKnight wrote:
Hi all. I just need to talk about something that has been bugging me for my whole life.

Republican Party: The Republican Party is run by greedy billionaires. They pretend to be Christian even though they obviously have never read the New Testament. They don't care about the environment. They regard all non-billionaires as pawns. They create wars in order to make money. These wars feed the Islamic State and create refugees. These refugees end up coming to the West. Some of these refugees become radicalized and commit terror attacks. The victims of these attacks are usually in the lower economic classes.

Rednecks: Most rednecks are lower/middle class people who live on farms. These farms will be destroyed by global warming by the end of this century. Rednecks will call you a communist if you disagree with the Republicans on anything ... even though the Republican Party is destroying everything that rednecks love.

I'm not saying that rednecks should vote Democrat. The Democratic Party is also terrible because it is also owned by billionaire lobbyists. The rednecks would be politically independent centrists if they were really fighting to defend their way of life.

war industry delenda est


Because the Democrates have become associated with people the demean them and their way of life.


_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman


DarthMetaKnight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,105
Location: The Infodome

26 May 2017, 9:48 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
DarthMetaKnight wrote:
Hi all. I just need to talk about something that has been bugging me for my whole life.

Republican Party: The Republican Party is run by greedy billionaires. They pretend to be Christian even though they obviously have never read the New Testament. They don't care about the environment. They regard all non-billionaires as pawns. They create wars in order to make money. These wars feed the Islamic State and create refugees. These refugees end up coming to the West. Some of these refugees become radicalized and commit terror attacks. The victims of these attacks are usually in the lower economic classes.

Rednecks: Most rednecks are lower/middle class people who live on farms. These farms will be destroyed by global warming by the end of this century. Rednecks will call you a communist if you disagree with the Republicans on anything ... even though the Republican Party is destroying everything that rednecks love.

I'm not saying that rednecks should vote Democrat. The Democratic Party is also terrible because it is also owned by billionaire lobbyists. The rednecks would be politically independent centrists if they were really fighting to defend their way of life.

war industry delenda est


Because the Democrates have become associated with people the demean them and their way of life.


Perhaps we liberals need to work on our rhetoric then.

I have nothing against the rural way of life. It isn't my life, but it's none of my business.


_________________
Synthetic carbo-polymers got em through man. They got em through mouse. They got through, and we're gonna get out.
-Roostre

READ THIS -> https://represent.us/


sly279
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 11 Dec 2013
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 16,181
Location: US

26 May 2017, 10:40 pm

For a lot it's about gun rights, liberals oppose owning guns and demonize gun owners as child killers. Republicans do the opposite of the democrats and so support gun rights. Gun rights are as important to gun owners as gay rights are to gays.



DarthMetaKnight
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,105
Location: The Infodome

26 May 2017, 11:00 pm

sly279 wrote:
For a lot it's about gun rights, liberals oppose owning guns and demonize gun owners as child killers. Republicans do the opposite of the democrats and so support gun rights. Gun rights are as important to gun owners as gay rights are to gays.

Image
Karl Marx actually said this.
Marx was against gun control.


_________________
Synthetic carbo-polymers got em through man. They got em through mouse. They got through, and we're gonna get out.
-Roostre

READ THIS -> https://represent.us/


EzraS
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Sep 2013
Gender: Male
Posts: 27,828
Location: Twin Peaks

26 May 2017, 11:43 pm

Interesting. Someone here recently described Democrats as lower/middle class people. And I suppose the redneck republicans consider climate change science to be pseudo-science.



ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,254
Location: Long Island, New York

27 May 2017, 12:30 am

DarthMetaKnight wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:
DarthMetaKnight wrote:
Hi all. I just need to talk about something that has been bugging me for my whole life.

Republican Party: The Republican Party is run by greedy billionaires. They pretend to be Christian even though they obviously have never read the New Testament. They don't care about the environment. They regard all non-billionaires as pawns. They create wars in order to make money. These wars feed the Islamic State and create refugees. These refugees end up coming to the West. Some of these refugees become radicalized and commit terror attacks. The victims of these attacks are usually in the lower economic classes.

Rednecks: Most rednecks are lower/middle class people who live on farms. These farms will be destroyed by global warming by the end of this century. Rednecks will call you a communist if you disagree with the Republicans on anything ... even though the Republican Party is destroying everything that rednecks love.

I'm not saying that rednecks should vote Democrat. The Democratic Party is also terrible because it is also owned by billionaire lobbyists. The rednecks would be politically independent centrists if they were really fighting to defend their way of life.

war industry delenda est


Because the Democrates have become associated with people the demean them and their way of life.


Perhaps we liberals need to work on our rhetoric then.

I have nothing against the rural way of life. It isn't my life, but it's none of my business.


In our era of diversity and all sorts of things bieng unacceptable dumb redneck jokes and jokes about rednecks engaging in incest are still quite acceptable. How can they not assume "the establishment" hate thier very existence?


_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman


Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

27 May 2017, 2:35 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:
DarthMetaKnight wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:
DarthMetaKnight wrote:
Hi all. I just need to talk about something that has been bugging me for my whole life.

Republican Party: The Republican Party is run by greedy billionaires. They pretend to be Christian even though they obviously have never read the New Testament. They don't care about the environment. They regard all non-billionaires as pawns. They create wars in order to make money. These wars feed the Islamic State and create refugees. These refugees end up coming to the West. Some of these refugees become radicalized and commit terror attacks. The victims of these attacks are usually in the lower economic classes.

Rednecks: Most rednecks are lower/middle class people who live on farms. These farms will be destroyed by global warming by the end of this century. Rednecks will call you a communist if you disagree with the Republicans on anything ... even though the Republican Party is destroying everything that rednecks love.

I'm not saying that rednecks should vote Democrat. The Democratic Party is also terrible because it is also owned by billionaire lobbyists. The rednecks would be politically independent centrists if they were really fighting to defend their way of life.

war industry delenda est


Because the Democrates have become associated with people the demean them and their way of life.


Perhaps we liberals need to work on our rhetoric then.

I have nothing against the rural way of life. It isn't my life, but it's none of my business.


In our era of diversity and all sorts of things bieng unacceptable dumb redneck jokes and jokes about rednecks engaging in incest are still quite acceptable. How can they not assume "the establishment" hate thier very existence?


In all fairness, they should perhaps look at themselves in the mirror before they totally reject those jokes as being hurtfully devoid of truth. Intentional ignorance and contempt for the arts and sciences are nothing to be proud of. That, and considering that most so called rednecks claim 100% Scots-Irish descent, one has to question if some fresh blood in their gene pool wouldn't improve things a bit. Especially since close intermarriage was very common in redneck areas of the country until comparatively recently.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer