"Trump would not have risen to power if these people weren't willing to do what these people did."

[MomInTheCrowd]

Title is a quote from Dr. Jonathan Metzl in an interview on John Fugelsang's podcast last Friday, 03/01/24 called "Weekend Interviews". Absolutely worth the time to listen to how Dr. Metzl explains his research. Start at 34:00.

[link:http://www.johnfugelsang.com/podcast|

Dr. Metzl is the author of a book called "Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland". Paperback – May 12, 2020

The hardcover came out before Covid (paperback has new afterword to address this). The author had worked for over 10 years to suss out why good white folks in the Heartland vote against their best interests. It is to maintain their white power over the real or imagined "other", despite DIRECT EVIDENCE that it is KILLING THEM. They are good with taking one for the team, with being martyrs for the politicians to maintain their status at the top of the sh*t heap they are creating, by knowingly dying for an ideology.

Surprisingly, despite and it's not limited to caucasians, the tradeoff was "give me your life and I will give you power".

Description of the book:
"In election after election, conservative white Americans have embraced politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as physician Jonathan M. Metzl shows in Dying of Whiteness, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, Metzl examines how racial resentment has fueled pro-gun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. He shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, falling life expectancies, and rising dropout rates.

Now updated with a new afterword, Dying of Whiteness demonstrates how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation rather than chasing false promises of supremacy."

[RestoreAmerica2020]

1. Thank you for posting. Booked marked for later. N/t

[MomInTheCrowd]

2. you bet. the interview is worth the time.

[tulipsandroses]

3. It's hard to have sympathy for these folks

They would rather cut off their nose to spite their face. I remember an old article about coal mining areas turning down aid from President Obama. Aid to pay for education and job training for more in demand jobs.

How then can you blame other people for your misery?

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[rubbersole]

5. "Cooperation" is their mantra...

..cooperation with the orange idol. "He speaks for us." Everything else is fake news. The coup continues...

[betsuni]

6. K&R

[PunkinPi]

7. K&R

[Solomon]

8. K&R

[calimary]

9. Great post!

I missed it the first time around.

Makes a lot of sense. You’d think at least some of these folks would start putting 2 and 2 together and getting 4, instead of hoping for 139.

[Caliman73]

10. They do not understand the core of Conservatism.

This is what Conservatives, the leaders of the movement, have done throughout American history. The terms "Cracker" and "Hillbilly" were not terms the Black people came up with to fight back against White people. They were terms of derision created by rich White people to denigrate poor White people. When they saw poor white people, Native Americans, and Black people moving toward a solidarity against the oppression they were all suffering, the wealthy White people began to offer distinctions in the treatment of poor White people and even Native Americans with regards to Black people. Positions of "overseer" and other positions of authority over Black slaves were given to poor White people. Native Americans were able to own slaves in some areas.

They used racial animus and status as tools to prevent poor people from banding together. It has been this way for a long time. All of the bullshit planks in the Conservative movement and Republican Party (small government, fiscal responsibility, etc...) are just there to attract people in order to get them to vote against their economic interests.

Having gay people marry, I would argue, does absolutely NOTHING to harm families in rural areas, but giving tax breaks to millionaires and corporations and having those tax burdens shift down to middle and working class people certainly does. Conservatives, while they absolutely do want to control the social aspects of society, are willing to simply use those issues as a wedge to ensure that they can accumulate and keep more money for themselves. MONEY is first, the rest is just the icing on the cake.

As Ian Danskin put it in his "Alt Right Playbook" series on YouTube, "so long as they aren't at the bottom, they have some investment continuing as is because it authorizes them ... to fuck people up". They get little material benefit from Conservative or further right wing policies, but they get to wield the power of the state against people they don't like.

[orthoclad]

11. LBJ nailed it

Give the white lower classes someone to look down on.

Then add a tablespoon of fear, and stir well.