Do you know any poor white people?

[Intell]

Oh God, I hate these comments and the poor white-hating done.

Yes, absolutely.  This is plain ignorance.  This is why Democrats have no hope of winning West Virginia.  This is why Matt Bevin is governor of Kentucky.  This is what is the matter with Kansas.  This is why George W. Bush won in 2000.   

The fact that someone calls themself a "progressive" would make fun of Appalachians the way people in this thread did is pretty amusing.  It goes to show how tribalistic much of our politics is.

^ I agree with this, poor people suck cos' they vote for republicans, but I'm sure rich, worker exploiting Steve Jobs is great cos' hes da gay, and he's democrats, it's beyond childish.

[Lyin' Steve]

Oh God, I hate these comments and the poor white-hating done.

Yes, absolutely.  This is plain ignorance.  This is why Democrats have no hope of winning West Virginia.  This is why Matt Bevin is governor of Kentucky.  This is what is the matter with Kansas.  This is why George W. Bush won in 2000.   

The fact that someone calls themself a "progressive" would make fun of Appalachians the way people in this thread did is pretty amusing.  It goes to show how tribalistic much of our politics is.

Yes it's like the so called "tolerance" crowd who tolerates everything until someone disagrees with them. Democrats doing this and name calling should be ashamed.

I had to grow up around this.  NPR and MSNBC were the news 24/7.  Poor whites who voted Republican were "those stupid, stupid people", "the Republicans have lied to them so much that they vote against their own interests and don't even realize it", "there are just a lot of bigoted, backwards people in this world" and other such things.

I'm sorry to hear you had such a childhood.  May I ask how you saw the light and weren't scarred for life?  It sounds like you came around to realize rhetoric for what it is my good friend.

If you're being serious, it was all the identity politics that really turned me off from the left as a group or personal identity (I always questioned individual foreign and domestic policies and tuned out extreme rhetoric).  The left started going deep into "Republicans are racist, sexist, homophobes, whereas we democrats will agree to whatever any activist group promoting race/sex/LGBT issues demands of us" in 2012.  I started noticing, for example, that The Daily Show wasn't making fun of racist hicks in Mississippi or the Westboro Baptist Church anymore, it was making dishonest arguments against normal people or blowing up non-issues to try to burn down a strawman.  People were posting things from Salon or other left-wing sites on my Facebook feed that were totally misleading or attacked me (mostly as "doomed to ignorance") just for being a straight white man.  I ran two public-speaking-related organizations on campus and in 2013 freshmen started coming in who would try to make these ridiculous, dramatic arguments about how they were shaken to their core by some man at the grocery store who said "work hard, play hard, that's the American way" (I remember this speech vividly) or other such things (they weren't called "microaggressions" yet).

After a while, anything I heard out of left-wing sources I automatically started to reject, and I started seeing things from the other side's perspective.  Sometimes I found myself agreeing with the right on issues, other times I would reject the left initially, think about it a while, and then find myself agreeing with the left.  For the most part my positions on issues I've put thought into never changed, only my perspective and the way I took the positions of the democratic party for granted.

[Intell]

I see this forum's oddly specific boner for poor white Appalachian "populist" men (but not really populist, just generic right wingers) and making them "see the light"/vote Democratic is alive and well. Some things never change I guess.

What do you mean?

I see you're new here. Many of the lefties/Democrats on this forum have some odd fascination with poor white Appalachian men, and are desperate to get them to vote Democratic by any means necessary. It's quite an odd phenomenon. As I said earlier, it would be like the GOP constantly pining for the days when Vermont was a red state. Granted, we do have a few of those here, but not anywhere near the scale of the former. Times have changed and coalitions have changed, get over it already. The GOP already has.

Also, per Atlas leftie rules, poor white Appalachian men are the only people immune from criticism and should be treated with the utmost respect. But you can bash blacks all you want for voting for the she-devil, and are free to hold positions viewing gays and illegal immigrants as less than human. That's just respectful political disagreement after all.

I see, you don't get what people are saying, which shows that you cannot comprehend anything.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow. Just wow. I knew NYMillennial was a complete and utter dick, but IceSpear too? You make me ashamed of being a Democrat.


Anyway, one of my closest friends is from a working-class background and still struggles with economic hardship. I don't know if that qualifies as "poor" strictly speaking (and of course what that means in France is rather different from what it means in the US), but I voted yes.

[James Bond 007]

Oh God, I hate these comments and the poor white-hating done.

Yes, absolutely.  This is plain ignorance.  This is why Democrats have no hope of winning West Virginia.  This is why Matt Bevin is governor of Kentucky.  This is what is the matter with Kansas.  This is why George W. Bush won in 2000.   

The fact that someone calls themself a "progressive" would make fun of Appalachians the way people in this thread did is pretty amusing.  It goes to show how tribalistic much of our politics is.

Yes it's like the so called "tolerance" crowd who tolerates everything until someone disagrees with them. Democrats doing this and name calling should be ashamed.

I had to grow up around this.  NPR and MSNBC were the news 24/7.  Poor whites who voted Republican were "those stupid, stupid people", "the Republicans have lied to them so much that they vote against their own interests and don't even realize it", "there are just a lot of bigoted, backwards people in this world" and other such things.

I'm sorry to hear you had such a childhood.  May I ask how you saw the light and weren't scarred for life?  It sounds like you came around to realize rhetoric for what it is my good friend.

If you're being serious, it was all the identity politics that really turned me off from the left as a group or personal identity (I always questioned individual foreign and domestic policies and tuned out extreme rhetoric).  The left started going deep into "Republicans are racist, sexist, homophobes, whereas we democrats will agree to whatever any activist group promoting race/sex/LGBT issues demands of us" in 2012.  I started noticing, for example, that The Daily Show wasn't making fun of racist hicks in Mississippi or the Westboro Baptist Church anymore, it was making dishonest arguments against normal people or blowing up non-issues to try to burn down a strawman.  People were posting things from Salon or other left-wing sites on my Facebook feed that were totally misleading or attacked me (mostly as "doomed to ignorance") just for being a straight white man.  I ran two public-speaking-related organizations on campus and in 2013 freshmen started coming in who would try to make these ridiculous, dramatic arguments about how they were shaken to their core by some man at the grocery store who said "work hard, play hard, that's the American way" (I remember this speech vividly) or other such things (they weren't called "microaggressions" yet).

After a while, anything I heard out of left-wing sources I automatically started to reject, and I started seeing things from the other side's perspective.  Sometimes I found myself agreeing with the right on issues, other times I would reject the left initially, think about it a while, and then find myself agreeing with the left.  For the most part my positions on issues I've put thought into never changed, only my perspective and the way I took the positions of the democratic party for granted.

I can't agree with you more on liberal sites, how Democrats are a rubber stamp for any group that votes for them, and that white men are attacked just for our race and gender unless we're gay.  It's making America a more dangerous place like your campus of freshmen know it alls.

[Figueira]

Actually IceSpear does kind of have a point. I have seen people here argue, for example, that the Democrats should abandon environmentalism in an effort to win West Virginia, which is incredibly ridiculous.

However, "Other people on Atlas are bigoted too!" isn't an excuse to be bigoted. Classism is a form of bigotry.

[Thunderbird is the word]

He misspoke, I think he was going overboard in trying to appease the identity politics left. It's a lose lose situation though as if he just talked about the poor he'd be accused of ignoring racial issues.

[Meclazine for Israel]

I will see your 20,000 poor white people, and raise you 30,000 poorly educated white people.



Dale Jrrrrrr!

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It was one of the most tone-deaf things that Bernie said in the debate.

He misspoke, I think he was going overboard in trying to appease the identity politics left. It's a lose lose situation though as if he just talked about the poor he'd be accused of ignoring racial issues.

It might have been a misspeak, but it's a hell of a time to do it.

Actually IceSpear does kind of have a point. I have seen people here argue, for example, that the Democrats should abandon environmentalism in an effort to win West Virginia, which is incredibly ridiculous.

However, "Other people on Atlas are bigoted too!" isn't an excuse to be bigoted. Classism is a form of bigotry.

I think this absolutism is that biggest mistake. We're in a bad place, when the progressive movement demands purity and rejects nuance like so much of the right does.

The Democratic Party doesn't need to reject the policies on which it is now based, it shouldn't turn on environmentalism, social liberalism in order to placate people. But it doesn't mean that progressive politics cannot present real options to people in Appalachia etc who still deal with incredible poverty and lack of opportunities. Instead of people like Bill Maher saying that coal should die, there's no transitional plan to new industries or new careers. Yes, coal is not sustainable as the basis of a state's economy, and both Dem and GOPs are to blame for letting people think it will be.

[pikachu]

I guess I have two poor-hating democrats now, NY ass hat Millennial, Ice #Hillary for Life Spear, both of them are Hillary supporters who would have thunk.

And if you are a leftist, and berate poor voters, for whatever reason you should honestly just stick to your liberal hypocrisy. The comments made by Ice Spear is disgusting, and things like this, to which working class voters believe that the democratic party  thinks of them is, is why TRUMP is crushing the GOP field due to blue-collar votes.

Tbf, Democrats do win the vast majority of the urban, minority working-class and poor and they do decently with the white working class outside of the South and Appalachia, which for some reason is always ignored whenever discussions about working-class voting patterns come up on Atlas. Obviously, Democrats should try to promote policies to help the working class of all races, but imo it'll be tough winning without changes in immigration and environmental rhetoric.

[DC Al Fine]

It's kind of funny to hear ostensibly left wing people express classism that would make a Tory toff blush.

[SingingAnalyst]

Sanders made a gaffe. Get over it. I'd probably say the same thing if I were a candidate speaking at a forum in Flint. The statement, while obviously false, has a grain of truth to it. Sanders still carries WV in the primary, and Clinton gets trounced in WV in November.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's kind of funny to hear ostensibly left wing people express classism that would make a Tory toff blush.

The tragedy of modern US politics.

[This account no longer in use.]

The wonderful people in this thread are a big part of the reason why I don't support Clinton or Sanders.

[jaichind]

To be perfectly honest, I do not know any poor people of any race.  All my friends are in the top 1% in terms of income.  All my relatives and co-workers are all in the top 5% in terms of income.  Only exception would be vendors of all sorts (cleaning lady, gardeners, handyman, heating guy, nannies etc etc) which I would not even say I know them well beyond the transnational nature of our relationships. 

[YaBoyNY]

I guess I have two poor-hating democrats now, NY ass hat Millennial, Ice #Hillary for Life Spear, both of them are Hillary supporters who would have thunk.

And if you are a leftist, and berate poor voters, for whatever reason you should honestly just stick to your liberal hypocrisy. The comments made by Ice Spear is disgusting, and things like this, to which working class voters believe that the democratic party  thinks of them is, is why TRUMP is crushing the GOP field due to blue-collar votes.

wow rly makes u think huh

Maybe if you had even the slightest idea of what growing up with a jobless single-parent is like, you'd understand why I have nothing but contempt for inbred Appalachian hicks who literally sh**t away their votes at politicians who have no interests but "muh guns", "muh abortion", "muh cultural values", and "it's dat dang ol' ns fault!" on their mind.

I don't owe these idiots any sort of respect or ing coddling for being poor, nor did I at any point ever expect anybody to owe me any respect or coddling for it.

So yeah, as an answer to the thread, I do: Myself before 25 and most of my family to this day. But continue to tell me of all people that Appalachian hicks are owed some sort of free pass or special attention.

[Figueira]

It was one of the most tone-deaf things that Bernie said in the debate.

He misspoke, I think he was going overboard in trying to appease the identity politics left. It's a lose lose situation though as if he just talked about the poor he'd be accused of ignoring racial issues.

It might have been a misspeak, but it's a hell of a time to do it.

It was a definitely a misspeak. Sanders has represented Vermont for over 25 years; he knows that poor white people exist.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I think this absolutism is that biggest mistake. We're in a bad place, when the progressive movement demands purity and rejects nuance like so much of the right does.

The Democratic Party doesn't need to reject the policies on which it is now based, it shouldn't turn on environmentalism, social liberalism in order to placate people. But it doesn't mean that progressive politics cannot present real options to people in Appalachia etc who still deal with incredible poverty and lack of opportunities. Instead of people like Bill Maher saying that coal should die, there's no transitional plan to new industries or new careers. Yes, coal is not sustainable as the basis of a state's economy, and both Dem and GOPs are to blame for letting people think it will be.[/quote]


I agree with that--we should definitely support alternatives to coal in order to help the Appalachian economy. But I've literally seen people on this forum say that the Democrats should remove environmentalism from their platform in order to win a few votes in West Virginia. I don't support environmentalism because it's "ideologically pure." I support it because we're all going to die if we don't embrace it.

[Intell]

I guess I have two poor-hating democrats now, NY ass hat Millennial, Ice #Hillary for Life Spear, both of them are Hillary supporters who would have thunk.

And if you are a leftist, and berate poor voters, for whatever reason you should honestly just stick to your liberal hypocrisy. The comments made by Ice Spear is disgusting, and things like this, to which working class voters believe that the democratic party  thinks of them is, is why TRUMP is crushing the GOP field due to blue-collar votes.

wow rly makes u think huh

Maybe if you had even the slightest idea of what growing up with a jobless single-parent is like, you'd understand why I have nothing but contempt for inbred Appalachian hicks who literally sh**t away their votes at politicians who have no interests but "muh guns", "muh abortion", "muh cultural values", and "it's dat dang ol' ns fault!" on their mind.

I don't owe these idiots any sort of respect or ing coddling for being poor, nor did I at any point ever expect anybody to owe me any respect or coddling for it.

So yeah, as an answer to the thread, I do: Myself before 25 and most of my family to this day. But continue to tell me of all people that Appalachian hicks are owed some sort of free pass or special attention.

You are an ass hat, a complete ass hat, you display a wholly ing lord of classim, that is worse than the ing tory conservatives.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Yes, and this kind of elitism is why Democrats can't win in places like IL-18. The school district I attended was 98% white, 60% of the kids were from single-parent homes, and more than half were from homes below the poverty line. Of the 40% who were not from single-parent homes, many were raised by grandparents.

The town where I grew up was also 99% white and had a per-capita income lower than that of Englewood, the poorest neighborhood in all of Chicago. Yet elected Dems in the state don't care about anyone or anything outside of Chicago.

Several people I attended high school with (I graduated in 2008) are in prison for drug offenses (meth). One got a 10-year sentence. Only about half went to college, and few of those graduated. In a district of 900 students, there was a time when they were expelling a student every month.


But Dems making comments like Bernie did last night and appeasing SJWs means they will never win there (and probably won't even crack 40% most of the time). Those people are sick of hearing about their white privilege while they struggle to put food on the table and clothes on their kids' backs. You ought to be proud of the fact that they work hard to make ends meet and don't vote for more of other people's money or whine about being oppressed.

You should know, though, that it is identity politics and social justice rhetoric that pushes away people in poor rural areas, and therefore, it is probably this rhetoric that is keeping Democrats from the House majority.

[BundouYMB]

I guess I have two poor-hating democrats now, NY ass hat Millennial, Ice #Hillary for Life Spear, both of them are Hillary supporters who would have thunk.

And if you are a leftist, and berate poor voters, for whatever reason you should honestly just stick to your liberal hypocrisy. The comments made by Ice Spear is disgusting, and things like this, to which working class voters believe that the democratic party  thinks of them is, is why TRUMP is crushing the GOP field due to blue-collar votes.

wow rly makes u think huh

Maybe if you had even the slightest idea of what growing up with a jobless single-parent is like, you'd understand why I have nothing but contempt for inbred Appalachian hicks who literally sh**t away their votes at politicians who have no interests but "muh guns", "muh abortion", "muh cultural values", and "it's dat dang ol' ns fault!" on their mind.

I don't owe these idiots any sort of respect or ing coddling for being poor, nor did I at any point ever expect anybody to owe me any respect or coddling for it.

So yeah, as an answer to the thread, I do: Myself before 25 and most of my family to this day. But continue to tell me of all people that Appalachian hicks are owed some sort of free pass or special attention.

You are an ass hat, a complete ass hat, you display a wholly ing lord of classim, that is worse than the ing tory conservatives.

You might not like what IceSpear or NY said but at least they said something. Their comments had, you know, content. Would you like to try, I don't know, rebutting that? Or just clutch your pearls and spam every thread with "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[YaBoyNY]

I guess I have two poor-hating democrats now, NY ass hat Millennial, Ice #Hillary for Life Spear, both of them are Hillary supporters who would have thunk.

And if you are a leftist, and berate poor voters, for whatever reason you should honestly just stick to your liberal hypocrisy. The comments made by Ice Spear is disgusting, and things like this, to which working class voters believe that the democratic party  thinks of them is, is why TRUMP is crushing the GOP field due to blue-collar votes.

wow rly makes u think huh

Maybe if you had even the slightest idea of what growing up with a jobless single-parent is like, you'd understand why I have nothing but contempt for inbred Appalachian hicks who literally sh**t away their votes at politicians who have no interests but "muh guns", "muh abortion", "muh cultural values", and "it's dat dang ol' ns fault!" on their mind.

I don't owe these idiots any sort of respect or ing coddling for being poor, nor did I at any point ever expect anybody to owe me any respect or coddling for it.

So yeah, as an answer to the thread, I do: Myself before 25 and most of my family to this day. But continue to tell me of all people that Appalachian hicks are owed some sort of free pass or special attention.

You are an ass hat, a complete ass hat, you display a wholly ing lord of classim, that is worse than the ing tory conservatives.

If that helps you sleep at night, paint me as a classist.

But I love nothing more than to help others who had a background like me. Not a lot to work with, but willing to work to improve themselves and not just buy into some pandering BS.

I am not, however, going to let somebody tell me I should coddle people who slurp up some pandering "it's teh gubmint and libruls fault!!!" nonsense. Are there good people in Appalachia? Yes. Do even the aforementioned idiots deserve help? Absolutely. Do I owe them any special treatment? No, I don't, and I'm letting you in on the secret that your shtick is just downright insulting to the poor.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

I guess I have two poor-hating democrats now, NY ass hat Millennial, Ice #Hillary for Life Spear, both of them are Hillary supporters who would have thunk.

And if you are a leftist, and berate poor voters, for whatever reason you should honestly just stick to your liberal hypocrisy. The comments made by Ice Spear is disgusting, and things like this, to which working class voters believe that the democratic party  thinks of them is, is why TRUMP is crushing the GOP field due to blue-collar votes.

wow rly makes u think huh

Maybe if you had even the slightest idea of what growing up with a jobless single-parent is like, you'd understand why I have nothing but contempt for inbred Appalachian hicks who literally sh**t away their votes at politicians who have no interests but "muh guns", "muh abortion", "muh cultural values", and "it's dat dang ol' ns fault!" on their mind.

I don't owe these idiots any sort of respect or ing coddling for being poor, nor did I at any point ever expect anybody to owe me any respect or coddling for it.

So yeah, as an answer to the thread, I do: Myself before 25 and most of my family to this day. But continue to tell me of all people that Appalachian hicks are owed some sort of free pass or special attention.

You are an ass hat, a complete ass hat, you display a wholly ing lord of classim, that is worse than the ing tory conservatives.

If that helps you sleep at night, paint me as a classist.

But I love nothing more than to help others who had a background like me. Not a lot to work with, but willing to work to improve themselves and not just buy into some pandering BS.

I am not, however, going to let somebody tell me I should coddle people who slurp up some pandering "it's teh gubmint and libruls fault!!!" nonsense. Are there good people in Appalachia? Yes. Do even the aforementioned idiots deserve help? Absolutely. Do I owe them any special treatment? No, I don't, and I'm letting you in on the secret that your shtick is just downright insulting to the poor.

"some, i assume, are good people."

[Higgs]

Oh God, I hate these comments and the poor white-hating done.

Yes, absolutely.  This is plain ignorance.  This is why Democrats have no hope of winning West Virginia.  This is why Matt Bevin is governor of Kentucky.  This is what is the matter with Kansas.  This is why George W. Bush won in 2000.   

The fact that someone calls themself a "progressive" would make fun of Appalachians the way people in this thread did is pretty amusing.  It goes to show how tribalistic much of our politics is.

Yes it's like the so called "tolerance" crowd who tolerates everything until someone disagrees with them. Democrats doing this and name calling should be ashamed.

I had to grow up around this.  NPR and MSNBC were the news 24/7.  Poor whites who voted Republican were "those stupid, stupid people", "the Republicans have lied to them so much that they vote against their own interests and don't even realize it", "there are just a lot of bigoted, backwards people in this world" and other such things.

I'm sorry to hear you had such a childhood.  May I ask how you saw the light and weren't scarred for life?  It sounds like you came around to realize rhetoric for what it is my good friend.

If you're being serious, it was all the identity politics that really turned me off from the left as a group or personal identity (I always questioned individual foreign and domestic policies and tuned out extreme rhetoric).  The left started going deep into "Republicans are racist, sexist, homophobes, whereas we democrats will agree to whatever any activist group promoting race/sex/LGBT issues demands of us" in 2012.  I started noticing, for example, that The Daily Show wasn't making fun of racist hicks in Mississippi or the Westboro Baptist Church anymore, it was making dishonest arguments against normal people or blowing up non-issues to try to burn down a strawman.  People were posting things from Salon or other left-wing sites on my Facebook feed that were totally misleading or attacked me (mostly as "doomed to ignorance") just for being a straight white man.  I ran two public-speaking-related organizations on campus and in 2013 freshmen started coming in who would try to make these ridiculous, dramatic arguments about how they were shaken to their core by some man at the grocery store who said "work hard, play hard, that's the American way" (I remember this speech vividly) or other such things (they weren't called "microaggressions" yet).

After a while, anything I heard out of left-wing sources I automatically started to reject, and I started seeing things from the other side's perspective.  Sometimes I found myself agreeing with the right on issues, other times I would reject the left initially, think about it a while, and then find myself agreeing with the left.  For the most part my positions on issues I've put thought into never changed, only my perspective and the way I took the positions of the democratic party for granted.

I completely agree with you. Even if I changed on the issues or agreed with the left on most issues to begin with, I still couldn't be a Democrat because of that god**mn p**sy culture.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Both of the above posts are absolutely perfect. Wow.

Not helping people because of their political misinformation is absolutely disgusting. Not to mention, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of who the poor are. Even in Appalachia, the real poors don't vote.

[DavidB.]

wow rly makes u think huh

Maybe if you had even the slightest idea of what growing up with a jobless single-parent is like, you'd understand why I have nothing but contempt for inbred Appalachian hicks who literally sh**t away their votes at politicians who have no interests but "muh guns", "muh abortion", "muh cultural values", and "it's dat dang ol' ns fault!" on their mind.

I don't owe these idiots any sort of respect or ing coddling for being poor, nor did I at any point ever expect anybody to owe me any respect or coddling for it.

So yeah, as an answer to the thread, I do: Myself before 25 and most of my family to this day. But continue to tell me of all people that Appalachian hicks are owed some sort of free pass or special attention.

Do you even know anyone from Appalachia who is struggling to make ends meet? These kind of strawmen from middle-class New Yorkers are so easy.