David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
1–10 of 79 posts
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#2> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism.
Hmm.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote...
> We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of Latinos. These numbers do not translate directly into support for the Republican Party; too many other factors are at play. Nevertheless, the results tell us something important: a majority across the groups we surveyed did not repudiate Trump-style rhetoric as obviously racist and divisive, but instead agreed with it.
Shor makes basically the same error as the authors of the New York Times piece above: assuming that opposing immigration and supporting law-and-order are inherently “racist” views.
Progressives need to ask themselves: is opposition to abolishing ICE (to use one of Schor’s examples) actually “racist?” Because if they just run with the assumption that it’s racist, they’ll force themselves into taking an incredibly unpopular position. As Shor himself points out, the people running the campaigns are ideologically progressive. Even if polling shows that abolishing ICE is incredibly unpopular, so long as they accept the premise that it’s the anti-racist thing to do, they will support it (or the far left will make them support it). This was basically the story of the 2019 Democratic primaries, where nearly every candidate embraced incredibly unpopular issues out of fear of being “called out.”
And “demographic destiny” won’t eventually vindicate progressives’ all-consuming view of racism. As the New York Times article above explains, a message focused around racial identity and the idea of pervasive “white supremacy” (like Elizabeth Warren ran in the 2019 Democratic Primary) actually polls poorly among Latinos (who are now the largest non-white group in the electorate). Meanwhile, Trump’s polling is up 100% among Black people and 60% among Hispanic people under 45 compared to 2016: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-losing-ground-.... If Republicans can convert that into votes, states like Texas and Georgia will stay solidly red. Shor is ultimately right. Democrats need to get back white voters in a country that will be 50%+ white for the foreseeable future. Because in the long run non-white voters aren’t as much of a lock as they assume. But they really need to introspect about why they would ever have thought otherwise to begin with.
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#3> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…
Yes that’s one of Shor’s weak er arguments.
Shor is a self-described progressive who wants to help elect Democrats.
He’s mostly useful as a critic of the left from the centre. His “facts don’t care about your feelings” rebuttals of leftist fantasies are incredibly useful to both the centre and the left.
(This also got him fired on the first day of Floyd protests when he posted research showing that the riots will backfire in the long run, politically!)
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#4> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…
Trump is obviously racist and divisive.
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#5> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…
What do you mean by demographic destiny? I assume that means something like, over time the demographic makeup of society will come to look more and more like "college-educated coastal progressives"? Do people really believe that? If so, that is hard to believe. "College-educated coastal progressives" tend to have few or no children compared to the "majority of the country". It would seem the demographic makeup will go in the opposite direction.
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#6David Shor could have used a study that looked outside the us.
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#7> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…
Trump is obviously racist and divisive.
Which group(s) do you assert he is racist towards?
As a White formerly-enthusiastic-supporter, I would now consider Trump the most openly racist anti-White president in US history. His promises of securing the border have been entirely unfulfilled (he even promised more immigration than ever in the face of a rapidly declining and disenfranchised White population); his contributions to Israel from the predominantly-White taxpayer have been the most 'generous' in spite of the nation state's relative prosperity and security compared to that enjoyed by most Americans, even while jewish organisations such as the ADL routinely malign White Americans for displaying any ethnic identity or pride; thousands of black, jewish, and wild White insurgents have been free to loot, vandalise, riot and terrify American cities and suburbs (and he even promised $500bn to black Americans as a direct result) while little old White women are prohibited from attending church; open anti-White racism has been allowed to proliferate under his watch, including popularisation of "Karen" racist dialogue, criminalising Whites who defend themselves against aforementioned violence, etc; and his continuous references to the increase in non-White employment and socioeconomic outcomes have become a meme in the pro-White community (including in his recent 60 Minutes interview where he basically listed the benefits of his presidency to every group except Whites), a total betrayal of his voter base and his country's narrow minority.
But somehow a woke activist can misconstrue the occasional Tweet into a thickly-veiled dog whistle and claim that he's a White supremacist? He's doing a very good impression of the polar opposite.
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#8> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…
What do you mean by demographic destiny? I assume that means something like, over time the demographic makeup of society will come to look more and more like "college-educated coastal progressives"? Do people really believe that? If so, that is hard to believe. "College-educated coastal progressives" tend to have few or no children compared to the "majority of the country". It would seem the demographic makeup will g…
[deleted]
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#9> And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. Hmm. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points... Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage o…
What do you mean by demographic destiny? I assume that means something like, over time the demographic makeup of society will come to look more and more like "college-educated coastal progressives"? Do people really believe that? If so, that is hard to believe. "College-educated coastal progressives" tend to have few or no children compared to the "majority of the country". It would seem the demographic makeup will g…
> What do you mean by demographic destiny?
Presumably he means the same thing CNN means by it. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/election-2020-trump-... (emphasis mine):
“It happened four years ago when Donald Trump scored an Electoral College victory with his turn-back-the-clock campaign to Make America Great Again. He'll have trouble pulling it off again. That's partly because the pace of demographic change keeps shrinking the America Trump evokes in the rear-view mirror.”
Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics
#10Wow. This guy is a really strange combination of brilliant and clueless.