Counter-Currents
1,261 words
Amanda Marcotte recently wrote that “White men, as a group, vote Republican because they vote their resentments.”
The New York Times article she cited didn’t say or even imply anything about resentment. It did say that straight, working-class white men vote Republican because the Democratic Party has devoted the majority of its resources to appealing to women, gays and the various groups of less-white men who are nostalgically referred to as “minorities.” The Democratic Party has been on the opposite side of issues that working-class white men have cared about for decades, and according to the Times piece, many strategists within the party think it’s a waste of time trying to win them over.
Working-class white men vote Republican because the Democrats have made it clear that they care about representing the interests of everyone but working-class white men. These guys vote Republican because Republicans actually make an effort to tell them what they want to hear.
Basically, white men vote Republican because they’re suckers.
The likes of Marcotte say that working-class white men are motivated by fear and resentment, but the majority of people who vote Democrat are doing it for nobler reasons.
They’re not. Most of them are voting for their own short-term self-interest.
Sure, there is a small class of progressive white men who make a big show of putting everyone else’s interests first. They demonstrate their moral superiority by standing up — mostly online — for whatever “rights” they believe that women or blacks or illegal immigrants or transsexuals or chickens are somehow entitled to.
Everyone else is just voting for stuff they want.
Women vote Democrat because they understandably want the convenience of being able to kill their unwanted children. They vote Democrat because they want free birth control and they want free healthcare for the kids they decide to keep. Women also vote for Democrats because Democrats offer special programs to help women get education and jobs.
Women have always depended on men for protection, but they’d rather depend on many men than just one or a few, so they are happy to vote for measures to increase “security.” As a group, women don’t like or understand guns, so they vote Democrat because Democrats promise to take guns away from men — usually those working-class white men — and give them to the big group of men in the government.
Men have historically been suspicious of what big groups of men will do when they have all of the weapons.
Blacks vote Democrat because they are smart and racist. They were going to vote for Obama no matter what he did because he was black, and like sensible people they figure it is better to have one of your own in power. Democrats, as a group, are known for caring more about giving free stuff to black people. Blacks are smart, because they know that it is always better to get something for free than to pay for it.
Blacks also know that you don’t need a permit to buy a gun. You just go buy one from that guy down the street and, you know, take care of business. White men are afraid to buy guns without following the rules, so more rules means less white men with guns. This is good for black men, because they like the convenience of being able to wear a hoodie in the rain without getting shot by nervous white men with guns.
Latinos vote Democrat because their families came to America to take advantage of employment opportunities and all of the benefits and protections that America offers to its citizens. They figure more benefits and protections are better than less, and Democrats always offer more benefits and protections.
In places with a lot of Latinos, Democrats say that you shouldn’t have to go through the trouble of becoming a citizen to get those benefits and protections. This is convenient for Latinos who are not citizens, because using a dead person’s social security number can sometimes be inconvenient.
Gay people vote Democrat because Democrats offer gay people stuff they think they want. Aside from marriage and the sadistic thrill of being able to force Christians to make wedding cakes, this includes free healthcare. Free healthcare comes in handy when you’re a man who occasionally has sex with guys he met 30 minutes ago on Grindr, or a lesbian who occasionally gets drunk and has sex with men. (See the first point about women above.)
Transsexuals vote Democrat because they want the government to pay for the very expensive cosmetic surgeries and hormones that are necessary for them to become who they really are. Also, they are confused about which bathroom to use, so they want more special bathrooms for confused people.
(Chickens are not technically allowed to vote yet, but we hear they want to be free range, which sounds libertarian.)
As Gari Day, the white male bus driver featured in the Times article said, “Republicans make you work for your money, and try to let you keep it.”
He probably doesn’t understand how the government can afford to keep giving everyone free stuff forever. He probably does figure that some of that money for the stuff other people want is coming out of his earnings. But he’s not alone in that — I’ve yet to see a successful Democrat turn down a tax break. No one actually wants to pay more taxes.
Aside from voting to keep more of their own money and to keep the guns they bought, a lot of these straight, white, working-class men are not asking for anything. They’re too proud for that.
As old-fashioned voters, they see themselves as part of the government. They’re not just trying to get more stuff from the government and come up with reasons why they deserve it. They’re voting for a society that works the way they think things should work.
And that’s why they’re suckers.
Democratic and Republican politicians, like everyone else, see the government as a way to get what they want. Politicians want power and status. To get elected, they accept money from regular people, from rich men, from businesses, and probably from foreign countries. In return, they promise favors. That’s how the system works.
People who don’t want anything from the government are useless to politicians, because they are difficult to manipulate and impossible to please. The government, like every big bureaucracy, is in the growth business. Making the government smaller isn’t in the short-term interest of any ambitious bureaucrat. Contraction only makes political sense when you’re trying to reduce an opponent’s sphere of influence.
Democrats promise more government, and more free stuff. Republicans promise less free stuff for poor people, and promise to lower taxes in return, but they rarely manage to lower taxes for anyone but rich guys who — let’s be real — were usually born into money and didn’t work any harder than the guys driving buses. Many of the wealthy elite are white guys, true, but they care about as much about the working-class white guys as the Democratic Party leadership.
White men are suckers because they haven’t figured out that the America they believe in is already gone, and that they are the only ones who aren’t asking for whatever they can get while the gettin’s still good. They’ll vote reliably Republican as long as the Republicans keep talking about self-reliance and how things shouldwork, and that will free up Republican politicians to do favors for people who actually want stuff.
Source: http://www.jack-donovan.com/axis/2014/04/white-men-vote-republican-because-theyre-suckers/
6 comments
“The government, like every big bureaucracy is in the growth business.” And as Old Ed Abbey said, “growth for growth’s sake, is the ideology of the cancer cell”. We all know where that ends….
Great essay!
As long as white men are going to be separated out from “men” in general, then it seem worthwhile to separate out white women as well. And if Marcotte and Donovan had bothered to do that, they would see that in the 2012 national election a majority of white women voted GOP along with white men.
Indeed, perpetuating the stereotype of the GOP as the “angry old white men” party is to play along with the liberal narrative. It’s just not true.
The GOP is the U.S.’s white people’s party. Most white men and women vote for it, and something like 80 or 90% of all GOP voters are white.
So Donovan’s explanation of female voting behavior is certainly wrong – at least when it comes to white women.
Personally, I think it’s important to not perpetuate the lib progressive myth that white men are all alone voting Republican. It hasn’t quite sunk in to the libs that white liberals a minority among whites, and that their declining numbers (thanks to the low birth rates due to their trendy anti-natalism) places them on track for a steady decline in political relevance as they disappear among the rising brown mud tide.
At any rate, if trends that have been underway for awhile now continue, the Dems will continue to shed white voters, and the GOP will become more starkly the party of American white people – a party of white people which, for the time being, will continue telling itself the lie that it’s a “colorblind party.” The moment when these white people look in the mirror and acknowledge that their party is the party of white people could be a very significant moment.
“…a majority of white women voted GOP along with white men.”
Vick, are you sure about this? The stats I read shortly after the 2012 elections said that, although the majority of married White women with children voted Republican, the majority of single White women, including single moms, voted for BO. I don’t remember the breakdown for White women as a whole.
So what? Even if you are right about White Women, that just means they’re suckers too. The Republican Party is indifferent if not hostile to Whites. Your thesis doesn’t address the topic of this article. The Party Elite will fight tooth and nail to keep from ever becoming the Party of White People. Look how they have appropriated the Conservative Tea Party. It would far wiser to leave and start a 3rd Party then try change people who have always been for the rich first and foremost.
This article is mostly correct, although the comment about lesbians is off. They vote Democrat for the same reason as their male counterparts.
Mistaking Bisexuals for Homosexuals is all too common, especially if they’re female.
Some thoughts:
The Libertarian Party is largely white men. The LP sometimes comes under criticism for this, but look at it the other way ’round. What is wrong with non-whites such that they do not believe in liberty? And why is liberty a largely white thang?
Recently, I see the Rand Paul wing of the libertarian movement (emphasize small “l”) is trying to do GOP outreach to blacks and Hispanics. I have enough practical experience in politics to be very, very pessimistic about them going anywhere with this. But it should be interesting to see their reaction when they get shot down by minority voters. Will they learn?
Oddly enough, years ago I knew of Green Party members who attempted to do outreach to Hispanics. They failed miserably. Why? Well, as one activist pointed out, “Hispanics told us that ‘my family always voted Democrat and always will–and so will I’.”
It just may be dawning on these outreachers that minorities could care less about their great talking points. If so, what do they do?
Which gets back to white voters. What if the GOP came out and said: “We are going to end affirmative action, minorities only contracts, black studies programs, ‘diversity’ indoctrination, section 8 housing, and all the rest of the race rackets. Oh yeah, we are also going to stand up against the Sharptons and Jacksons, plus really, really enforce immigration law. And even set up organizations to organize the white community.”
First of all, they would get a sizable voting demographic that normally stays home on election day. They would also undercut plenty of organizations which mobilize black voting power. And they might gain that emerging Republican majority.
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