election demographics

James Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Wed Nov 8 08:33:39 PST 2000


As I seem to recall, Seynour Lipset back in the late 1980s published a study of the American electorate which demonstrated that despite the acendency of Reagan & Bush back then, there had been no rightward shift in the American electorate during the '80s.

------Original Message------ From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Sent: November 8, 2000 3:13:05 PM GMT Subject: Re: election demographics

Actually, if he had no power, it would be rather entertaining to listen the Shrub. He has a real gift for malapropism.

I don't believe the stuff about the "right turn" in the electorate. I have been persuaded by the poll data ana analysis presented by Rogers and Ferguson, which attacks the idea that the electorate has become more conservative. On balance, this isn't so. The electorate we have is more liberal on race, gender, and even gay and lesbian issues that the electorates that put Kennedy and Johnson in office; and when asked questions about concrete policy options, it supports a broadly liberal New Deal/Great Society set of policies. That has become more conservative, or more aggressively conservative, is the ruling class, which is of course what matters, as it puts up the dough. There's a saying in Chicago: votes count, but dollars decide.

--jks


>From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: election demographics
>Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2000 09:55:38 -0500
>
>At 02:24 PM 11/8/00 +0000, Justin wrote:
> >Gore. But the Repugs are worse than they were under Nixon, too; and the
>Dems
> >are are only marginally better than the Repugs, although they are enough
> >better to make a real difference in people's lives.
>
>
>If not anything else, I dread the prospect of listening to that dyslexic
>moronic fratboy Bush for the next four years.
>
>But I as I said earlier, the Dem's shift to the right is not a result of
>ideological blindness - but going where the votes are. This is a very
>conservative country, Justin, with all kinds of religious fanatics (2/3 of
>USers believe in hell - more than the percentage of population in other
>developed countries admitting any religious sentiments at all), petit
>bourgeoisie, and the new economy noveau riche crowd that tend to give a
>sympathetic ear to conservative ideologies focusing on individual
>success/responsibility while ignoring social and systemic ramifications of
>individual actions. The only way to overcoming that consrvative bias is
>through collective solidarity - and things simple ain't going that
>direction nowadays.
>
>wojtek
>
>

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