LMAO , if Appalachia was so racist why did they trend D in the 1970s and 1980s while the Deep South Trended Hard R(It was more D relative to the Nation in 1988 compared to 1968).
The Reagan administration was viewed as anti-union, especially after the crackdown on the air traffic controllers’ strike in 1981. Back then, union membership in Appalachia was quite high so this should easily explain the D trend there at least in that decade. It also explains why Reagan/Bush tended to run well behind their statewide numbers in the Appalachian parts of states like KY, OH, PA and VA.
The point he’s making is worth noting. Democrats weren’t like *open* about having any “racist” voters in 2012 or 2008 or 1994 or 1980 or any other year. It’s only once voters leave their team are they appropriately labeled as amoral, subhuman trash, lol. If their words rang hollow when I was on this site in 2012 or 2004 when I was growing up or 1980 when my parents were watching politics unfold ... what’s the point in listening to them yap about it in every thread now? If rural Blacks shift 10% Republican in the next ten years, we’ll be reading some of these psychopaths talking about how “Yeah, there USED to be some way-too-religious, under-educated homophobe bumpkins from AL and MS in our party, but that was way back in 2018! Trends have really accelerated since then.” I’ll wait until 20xx when the Democratic Party is fully *perfect* to give a shlt about the type of “analysis” that is as intellectually stimulating as “Black voters in Chicago would never vote Republican because they’re an assortment of adjectives I find despicable.”
That elementary BS belongs on other sites, regardless of who’s President.
Racism, homophobia, and religious bigotry are all abominable. People used to get away with those, and they don't now.
We are in a time of gutter politics in which identity largely decides who votes and how. It will take a shared danger to cause Americans to congeal behind some benign leader with a transformative agenda. Maybe the gutter politics will create the danger that could include a politician taking it out on his political opponents in the form of economic decisions that ruin those people -- and bring about a depression, starting a war for profits which brings quick profits to warmongers but turns into a calamity, or gives us hyperinflation.
I strongly encourage liberals to quit talking about "rednecks", "hillbillies", and "trailer trash". Mountain South culture is as valid as, for example, Italian-American culture. (I would probably fit in better in Italian-American culture, Mafia groupies excluded, than in Mountain South culture, even if I am not an Italian-American). Don't disparage the manufactured housing which might be a more rational way of dealing with land and housing shortages. I have visited such places in Census work and political canvassing.. and the population living in such places is far more diverse than stereotypes suggest. To be sure, that excludes people with upscale income -- but far better the Hispanic farm laborer on the whole, the retired couple that downsized, or fast-food worker than the late Jeffrey Ep-swine with his mansions, "Lolita Express", and impressive connections at one time.
Appalachia and the Ozarks are forgotten areas in America... and what is to say that people who live there do not want to join the economic mainstream? They have no obligation to conform to the norms of any other culture in America. Just take formal education seriously, and get a chance even in a plutocratic society.
