> Marvin Gandall wrote:
>>
>> Forget the left intellectuals for a moment.
>>
>> The urban working class, especially men and women of colour, have a
>> pretty
>> consistent history of voting for the Democrats against the Republicans.
>>
>> Why is this? "False consciousness" - ie. they're just too dumb?
>>
>> I've made my own views known many times on on why the urban workers vote
>> Democratic, even in the so-called red states, but I'd like to hear how
>> Doug
>> and others explain it.
>
> "False Consciousness" is not a very useful concept -- too loaded with
> moralist over & undertones.
>
> The question is really a false question. They vote DP for the same
> reason I did from 1952 through 1064 -- and would have been to this day
> but for the schock of finding myself, before I even realized what was
> happening, in the midst of the great struggles of the 60s.
>
> It's what one did/does.
>
> What percentage don't vote at all?
========================
Ah, but you are a left intellectual, or at least were in the process of
becoming one up until 1064 - are you really that old? :)
You radicalized primarily on the basis of ideas. It was not your immediate material interests which led you to decide which of the two parties was more likely to meet your needs. I'm not at all not suggesting that workers can't or don't radicalize on the basis of ideas. But it is invariably on the basis of ideas formed in the context of their own struggles which they come to appreciate as universal. I'll wager that most everyone on this list radicalized in sympathy with other people's experiences.
Doug would know better what percentage of the population doesn't vote. Somewhere in my files I have a clipping identifying these voters as having the most backward social views. The left, in any event, has always oriented itself to the most "politically conscious" segment of the population.
So let me return to my question:
Given that urban workers don't vote DP for the same reasons as left intellectuals like yourself and that their choice, we agree, can't be explained as "false consciousness", would you then accept that it is because they have historically experienced the Democrats as the party which is more responsive to their needs than the Republicans?
If not, how would you explain it?