Reply #8: I grew up in a grey zone in a red state near a very blue zone! [View All]

(Thank goodness)
I think the poor southern whites, the ones I grew up with, who USED to vote for democrats, increasingly cannot see themselves as disenfranchised because of their racism. My town was very racist and I think the folks around me learned to associate the democratic party with the civil rights movement. So many said in those days: "I don't want a handout from the government like those folks on welfare!"
They didn't realize they were in the same boat; taken advantage of by corporations who moved in and set up plants where they know they can get cheap (uneducated) labor; underfunded schools keeping them dumb.
I watched my birth community go from loving, peaceful democrats; who would help anyone if they could, to hard core republicans over a period of 30 or so years. Regan was their new god!!! Like a grandfather, he told them what they wanted to hear and once and for all, with those Regan years, conspicuous consumption became fashionable and everybody had to have some! So everybody got a credit card, and now everybody is in debt. But they "Have" something, which makes them different from the "have-nots" I'll bet I couldn't find one person in the town where I grew up, who's skin is white, who would say they have anything in common with poor blacks and other working class minorities. They do NOT see themselves as the working poor and that is exactly what they are. Their lack of education and exposure, their belief of anything any white man tells them on TV if it sounds conservative enough, and their RACISM is what has aligned them to the republican party. This may hold true in other parts of the country, but it is definitely true where I grew up in the south.
I am fortunate to live in the blue zone now, and when I visit home, I can't believe how uninformed they all are. And they vote for Bush, the idiots. It's so sad.
I know what it is they want. They want "some", now that the worst sin you can commit these days is the sin of being poor!