Why did Little River County, AR swung so hard to the Republicans in 2008?

[RINO Tom]

Huh. I didn't even realize there was such a large bloc of Kerry-McCain voters. I thought that the financial meltdown would have prevented any WWC erosion in 2008, but I guess I was wrong.

WWC voters in less racist parts of the country did the predicable thing — swung hard against the incumbent party. But in more racist parts of the country — the South, Appalachia — they preferred Kerry to Obama for reasons of "economic anxiety." In the midst of the worst downturn since the Depression, mind you. Yeah, there's just no denying it — they're racist white trash . It's a cancer that Lincoln and Grant and Sherman should've eradicated, but now we're stuck with it, sadly.

I'm so glad the forum is still JUST classy enough that we don't have users saying things like "Black trash" about poor areas of Detroit or "Latino trash" about poor Hispanic communities in Texas.

Stay classy!

[RINO Tom]

Cases like this where so much of the swing happened at once and against the national shift in the process essentially disprove the hypothesis that these areas swung hard due to generational replacement.

Few people claim generational displacement can ever be responsible for a rapid swing in one or two elections.  However, it is relevant to increasing the swing, and all too often we see people talking about counties and states as if they are exactly the same as they have always been (i.e., therefore the same subset of voters must have all switched their minds).

[RINO Tom]

Huh. I didn't even realize there was such a large bloc of Kerry-McCain voters. I thought that the financial meltdown would have prevented any WWC erosion in 2008, but I guess I was wrong.

WWC voters in less racist parts of the country did the predicable thing — swung hard against the incumbent party. But in more racist parts of the country — the South, Appalachia — they preferred Kerry to Obama for reasons of "economic anxiety." In the midst of the worst downturn since the Depression, mind you. Yeah, there's just no denying it — they're racist white trash . It's a cancer that Lincoln and Grant and Sherman should've eradicated, but now we're stuck with it, sadly.

I'm so glad the forum is still JUST classy enough that we don't have users saying things like "Black trash" about poor areas of Detroit or "Latino trash" about poor Hispanic communities in Texas.

Stay classy!

What are you going to do, elect me president? Suck it up, snowflake.

Just don't claim to be overly tolerant, which I'm sure you do.  Lol.  You are yet another WONDERFUL, edgy addition to the forum.

[RINO Tom]

I'm sure they had very logical reasons for shifting heavily towards the Republican Party in the midst of a financial crisis and an environment where Obama was winning by 7 points in the national popular vote. It couldn't POSSIBLY be racism playing a factor, nope, I'm sure they would have voted for Alan Keyes against a white Democrat because of gay marriage or whatever.

Why do people feel a need to pick one reason constantly and lump everyone together?  Sure, I bet there were some racist Democrats who refused to support a Black nominee ... I'm also sure a non-insignificant number of Yellow Dogs continued to die since 2004 ... I'm also sure some conservative-leaning independents who voted for Kerry because their grandpappy was a Democrat saw Obama's comments about "clinging to guns" as pretty damn insulting and said they'd never vote for another Democrat again ... I'm also sure that there were some plssed off Clinton voters who were never going to vote for Obama.

The ENTIRE shift cannot be explained with just one of those.

[RINO Tom]

I'm sure they had very logical reasons for shifting heavily towards the Republican Party in the midst of a financial crisis and an environment where Obama was winning by 7 points in the national popular vote. It couldn't POSSIBLY be racism playing a factor, nope, I'm sure they would have voted for Alan Keyes against a white Democrat because of gay marriage or whatever.

Why do people feel a need to pick one reason constantly and lump everyone together?

Because 90% of your party supports Trump, and you aren't the One True Scotsman, hombre.

Sure, I bet there were some racist Democrats who refused to support a Black nominee ... I'm also sure a non-insignificant number of Yellow Dogs continued to die since 2004 ... I'm also sure some conservative-leaning independents who voted for Kerry because their grandpappy was a Democrat saw Obama's comments about "clinging to guns" as pretty damn insulting and said they'd never vote for another Democrat again

What about Mitt Romney's comments about guns? Or Donald Trump's? This BS is just getting too ludicrous to even entertain. Yes, a sizable subset of the Republican base is racist, including an immense number of white Southerners. Sorry, deal with it.

When you're making statements like the bolded in response to a thread about the 2008 election and, specifically, why formerly DEMOCRATIC voters might have left the party a full eight years before Trump was elected ... maybe it's time to listen to Mom and actually go to bed so you aren't tired at school tomorrow.

There are very *unbecoming* elements in a "sizable subset" of the Democratic base, rife with sexism, crime and what some incredibly insecure and angry people might call "trashy" attributes.  They just happen to be non-White, so you ... forget about them?  Accuse anyone of retorting your blatant bigotry with being a bigot himself?  Walk through a poor area of Chicago, and ask yourself how enlightened ALL of your voters are.  Of course, you have the built-in triggered response of claiming anyone who calls these folks "trashy" is a racist, while Republicans are just supposed to sit back and shut up as you literally dehumanize their voters, but the point is good people don't judge entire groups of people by their anecdotal experiences and stereotype them all.  When my friend got mugged by a Black man in Milwaukee, I didn't assume something negative about all Black men everywhere and - since they vote about 90% Democratic - reshape my entire view of the Democratic Party and anyone who has the nerve to associate with it ... when you see one news story about a neo-Nazi rally, you apparently see it fit to craft a view of all White Southerners?  LMAO. 

I'm sure you'll turn into a decent enough poster when you age, but have some respect for the site, at least.  We don't need bratty little teenage partisans filling threads with heated projections about "THE OTHER PARTY."  This site isn't about that.  Take that BS to a forum dedicated to being a Democratic circle jerk; there are plenty.  There are several liberal, Democratic posters here who might even share your razor sharp views, but notice they carry themselves better ... we all go through a shltposting phase on this site, but yours is especially loud.  This site is not going to be a very effective platform to convince everyone that you are a better person - by being morally superior, educationally superior, more cosmopolitan or whatever other accolade you think is bestowed upon anyone who rejects the Republican Party - than anyone with differing views, so I would gain some nuance, newbie.

[RINO Tom]

Lol, okay.  You are talking to someone who voted for Hillary Clinton and quite regularly condemns Donald Trump, so ... not sure what you're babbling about, honestly.

[RINO Tom]

^ That certainly won't be taken seriously here, as Trump's best state is one of the least racially biased in the country.

[RINO Tom]

^ Kind of ironic coming from me, but this isn’t worth arguing with him.  You have provided this forum so much more knowledge, fresh perspective and much needed correction on more occasions than we can count.  This angry boi won’t be the last teenager who joins this forum to scream at us all how he knows everything and is entitled to frankly disgusting views because of it.

[RINO Tom]

LMAO @ Red Avs saying racism. Do you people ever get tired of bringing race into everything?

People don’t vote for what they want. They vote for who they are.

And who they are, are yellow dogs finally waking up to the democratic party being too socially liberal for their interests. Race was not in these peoples heads at the voting booth.

This is delusional. John Kerry was more socially liberal than Obama and he did pretty well with yellow dogs. keep in mind he was also painted as a "Massachusetts liberal", a "coastal elitist" and so on. as I said before, there are very few logical explanations for why so many voters would switch from Kerry to McCain other than racism.

McCain was more experienced in a time of crisis/they thought Obama was too uninterventionist, there are many reasons.

But Trump was the least experienced presidential candidate in American history, and he campaigned as an anti-interventionist. Southern whites supported him overwhelmingly. So ... yeah, we all get it. Some of you folks are in deep denial. Or, more likely, racists yourselves. Notice that no Republicans are ever willing to identity as racist, but a whole sh!+load of them say and do racist things all the time. I'm sorry, but the jig is up, the mask has fallen. Lying isn't going to save you at this point.

There are plenty of racist elements in the GOP, there have been since the 1850s.  Simply I dentifying with one of TWO parties doesn’t, however, make you guilty by association ... never has, never will, at least not for grounded people.

[RINO Tom]

I wonder if Bush 41 did better in 1992 than in 1988 in any of the same areas where McCain did better than Bush 43.

I think there is one county in Iowa that swung R.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke_County,_Iowa#Politics

Funnily, it trended D in 2004 and 2012.

This pattern isn't uncommon; mostly WWC areas in the Midwest where Kerry overperformed, Obama did mediocre in 2008 but where voters were turned off by Romney's personality.

There are plenty of relevant discussions to be had about Trump's stoking of racial tensions ... that should be obvious.  However, it is also quite obvious that Democrats will defend whoever their voters are as moral people, and they'll trash them when they're gone.  All of these snot-nosed teenagers who got fired up in 2016 and joined Atlas to tell everyone how smart they are probably don't remember this, but those "WWC" Midwestern areas were described on this very board as QUITE literally not racist/Southern enough to vote for the GOP back in 2012.  They were "Yankee," as posters would put it.  They were too Northern, and they were treated like the current "WWC" voters in Western Massachusetts and Vermont were - simply too enlightened to fall for the GOP's tricks.  A place like Orange County?  Practically Southern, fairly evangelical, QUITE intolerant, not nearly as enlightened as these places.  Once those WWC Midwestern areas ditched them, the narrative quite literally became they are just simply too racist for the Democratic Party.

A partisan believes his party upholds morals against an immoral opposition, and he will do mental gymnastics all day long to justify why those voting for him are doing so out of a moral cause.  The utter hypocrisy and 180 degree way this forum has done the Midwest dirty since 2016 should honestly shed most of the credibility that your average 2020 board or Presidential Elections Trend board poster has.

It could quite possibly be true that literally every single racist and undesirable votes Republican now, and there are ZERO immoral people left in the Democratic Party, haha ... but they treated it as if this were the case back in 2012 ... and 2008 ... and 2004.  Becomes hard to take the claim seriously when it always gets *worse*.  I'll just wait until 2024 to listen to this shlt, haha.