The Trumpublican/Democrat divide

Yahoo recently published some polling which has concerning views from our Trumpublican friends. I recommend taking a look. Quite a bit of it is Covid stuff.

Let’s take a look at some of the lowlights I selected.

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• How concerned are you that native-born Americans are losing economic, political, and cultural influence in this country to immigrants?

I really don’t know how we can approach this perception by Republicans of their “loss” except through the lens of irrational grievance. For example, immigrants tend to make less money than the native born, and have slightly more in poverty. If immigrants approach equality, does that mean native born whites are doing worse? If an immigrant makes more, does that imply they didn’t earn it? As a matter of politics, ours is a representative government. What type of concessions can we make to address the perception of loss, except discrimination? As a matter of culture, what loss would it be if foreign cultures influenced and augmented our domestic culture, whatever that might be. Hasn’t it always been so? Would we lose, or would we gain?

What this question sets up, and what has been supplied in a 66% GOP concern is— they want their position to be unassailable. The gain of anyone else, is felt as a loss to them, even if they are not losing. Honestly, even though they are winning, it’s more important that someone else cannot do as well, than for all of us to do better.

• Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Discrimination against White people has become as big a problem as discrimination against Black people in the U.S.

There are, of course, no statistics anywhere to support this belief. It’s a belief, much like many of the insanities GOP believe to be true, it is not based in reality and not supported by any facts. It’s simply believed to be true and that is enough. There have been cases of discrimination against whites. Sure. Exceptions are not rules. There are rare examples. Polling suggests a great majority of whites who believe they are discriminated against, have no examples of why they think that is true, they just know it to be true.

• Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? A group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views.

“Replace” is nonsensical. The country doesn’t have an occupancy statement posted to the front of the club, and some of the dancers need to leave as new ones arrive. Silly. We can agree, the US Government has done a shitty job of addressing immigration concerns, no matter who is in power, for several decades now. We should also be mindful, the great divide occurred for GOP when single men seeking seasonal employment was eclipsed by families seeking status in the country. They GOP had a taste for cheap labor, but not possible citizenship. When women arrive with children, that became a motherfucking emergency that can’t be overstated.

There is no grand conspiracy to replace anyone, and that’s not even possible. If GOP was concerned about voting, they are out of their minds to not realize Latin Americans in particular are very conservative and have less education than the typical Democrat (ideal GOP demographic). Not to mention the incredible inroads GOP has made with Latina voters with their nonstop scare tactics. That has been very effective.

• Based on what you know about the recent shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., do you think it’s fair to describe the shooter’s motivations as “racist”

This is actually promising. Purely speculation, but I feel a part of the disparity here, is some of the counter-news that was immediately pushed in some conservative circles, that the shooter was actually a Democrat, and that’s the issue, or he was a crossdresser, and that’s the actual issue. It felt like an effort to confuse and misdirect from the obvious and stated intention of the shooter—an attempt to whitewash the existence of racism.

I highlighted the “not sure” part because:

• Authorities say the white man who carried out a recent shooting in Buffalo, N.Y. first posted an online manifesto accusing people of color of seeking to “ethnically replace my own people,” then traveled to a predominantly Black neighborhood to commit the crime. Based on this information, do you think it’s fair to describe the shooter’s motivations as “racist”?

See how those numbers changed? I’m really glad Yahoo took this approach. It implies, as suspected, that hard facts are not reaching a subsection of our Trumpublican friends in this case, and that a portion of them are willing to consider facts (in this case!).

• Partisan Violence: Which is a bigger problem in America today?

There are no statistics to support the GOP’s belief. It is purely a “belief”.

Finally:

• 2020 Election Results: Which comes closer to your view about who won the presidential election?

This hasn’t gotten any better. It’s worse. I don’t know what to say. What can we do?

There was no explanation given as to why “Dem” value is an asterisk.