Reblogged:Vance: A Failure of Identity Politics?

[Gus Van Horn blog]

An article at The New Republic contends that Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance as his running mate on the same basis for which he ridiculed Joe Biden's selection of Kamala Harris:

"[Racism] is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men." -- Ayn Rand (Image by Zoe Askew, via Unsplash, license.)

Trump has begun to experience a slip in swing states, as well. Polling from late 2023 and early 2024 in Wisconsin, a key battleground state, showed that Trump's net favorability rating among white men had dropped 22 points, from plus eight points to minus 14 points. Trump saw major slips with self-identified Republicans, rural men, and white men who did not attend college, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. These groups have a sizable overlap and make up a crucial part of Trump's base.

In an effort to reclaim these voters, Trump tapped Vance to be his running mate, as someone who could theoretically appeal to both college-educated and non-college educated white men, touting his widely popularized white working-class roots alongside his degree from Yale Law School.

"You need a white guy to get the white guys we lost. The Hillbilly Elegy guy is the one to do it," MAGA political operative Vish Burra told The Bulwark. "Trump needs Vance because he's good on camera and he sounds right. He's not one of these people you can dismiss as a MAGAloid or a barbarian."

So far, it's not totally clear that Vance is up for the task of white guy retrieval. [links omitted, bold added]

It immoral and impractical to make hiring decisions on the basis of race, which is why I oppose "affirmative action" hiring quotas just as much as I oppose Jim Crow laws politically -- and it angers me to see pandering like this (including Joe Biden's past selection of Kamala Harris) on the part of aspiring office holders whom one would ideally see opposing such measures.

This is especially true when I see someone like Trump (or any number of other modern Republicans) who holds himself out as the opposite of the left, while emulating it -- except for which group is the target of the pandering.

Nobody can speak for the aggregate preferences of any particular demographic group, but it is possible to make an educated guess. Trump's pick of this walking electoral liability makes it all the easier, because my guess is that Vance represents a doubling-down on many things that surfaced during and after Trump's term that could alienate someone who is receptive to a decent alternative to the Democrats.

Vance is a religious nut -- whose views come across as weird because they're alien to most Americans. He's an anti-abortion fanatic, unlike the solid majority of Americans who want it legalized at least up to a point. And his Ivy league background understandably both puts off less educated voters (who've been primed by Trump's own indiscriminate attacks against "the elites") and fails to convince more educated voters (who won't be bullied by it as Trump apparently hopes they will).

One would hope in this day and age that it wouldn't be necessary to tell an adult that just because two people might look alike doesn't mean they think alike, but I guess that proposition entails a level of mental development that many people never achieve.

-- CAV

Link to Original

[Jon Letendre]

The New Republic contends that Trump is racist. So let’s repeat that vicious and counterfactual smear over and over and try to make it stick. Objectivism!!!

Edited July 31, 2024 by Jon Letendre

[tadmjones]

From late 23 to early 24, lol. Polling showed a decrease in favor-ability leading up to and including the court proceedings, what does his favorability look like among the same group when it was shown the NY state trials were/are total bs ? How about after getting shot in the face ? lol

I would wager that Vance is there in part to sure up more religious voters vis a vis abortion, because Trump is saying he believes in exceptions , and that he is glad the question has seemingly returned to the 'states'.

Edited July 31, 2024 by tadmjones

[whYNOT]

22 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

The New Republic contends that Trump is racist. So let’s repeat that vicious and counterfactual smear over and over and try to make it stick. Objectivism!!!

I am heartily sick of - racialism - or, making everything "about race", elevating and gaining special favors for and political pandering to, a "group". Avidly in pursuit of power. Racialism ~is~ racism, in disguise. The Democrats mastered this trick, aka identity politics, and their pet media exported it to the world to our ethnically mixed societies' detriment elsewhere. Personally, I think Trump is by no means a race supremacist; he has always seemed too inclusively *American* to be that. \But the opposition will ride his crass (un-Woke) comments as Racist, til the cows come home. They are the true racialists/racists. "Objectivism!", Jon. Define and identify accurately. 

Edited August 1, 2024 by whYNOT