We all watch the same television, so why does the South have such dramatically different opinions about Barack Obama from the rest of the country? Seriously. I’m not asking this to pick on the South or because I expect an answer that denigrates southerners. I just want to know, what are the issues that are driving down Obama’s approval ratings in the South, when the Northeast is giving him a 87% thumbs-up?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Forsaking the obvious (race), I believe that the highest concentration of the most partisan Republicans are in the South, and that’s your primary driver. How many Republican Representatives do the Northeast have in Congress? How many Republican Representatives do the South have? Therein lies the difference.
Oscar, I would agree with you, but the preponderance of Radical Republican representatives in Congress from the South is a symptom of whatever afflicts the South, not the cause. These people have been elected into office because of the way the folks in the South think. The elected officials can’t make their constituents think a particular way.
I suspect that driver behind the South’s way of thinking is the ongoing split between rural and urban cultures. The South continues to exhibit a more agrarian atmosphere than many other areas of the country. The division between urban America and rural America began long ago, with the rise of the immigrant populations in the cities, particularly on the East Coast. That influx of Irish immigrants helped fuel the rise of the No-Nothing Party, which bears a striking resemblance to the modern Republican Party. Living in isolated towns with closed social communities receiving the echo-chamber hate messages broadcast over modern communication will scare just about anyone, which leads to a lack of thought and just gut reaction to fear. That’s what we’ve seen for the last eight years from the Dumbo Party. It’s a good thing they can’t fly.
I believe the South’s urban v. rural population is larger percentage wise than the Midwest’s.
I would say that the big split in the South is city v. suburban. Most southern cities–Memphis, Atlanta, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Charlotte, Birmingham, Jackson, Miami, Tampa, etc., etc., are democratic strongholds.
If anything, rural southern areas–outside of appalachia are fairly split between dems and repubs.
While that may be very generally true nationally, the suburban areas of those southern cities are very hardcore republican. Why? I have seen stats that southern whites’ income levels are somewhat higher than white income nationwide, those suburbs have attracted hordes of “northerners” eager to escape the “vexations” of northern city life, and the military presence is much stronger in the south than elsewhere.
And of course, let’s not forget religious fundamentalism.
That was actually my point – the concentration of partisan Republican voters in the South yields Republican Representatives in Congress and a lower approval rating for a Democratic President, much the same way that the concentration of partisan Democratic voters in the Northeast yields Democratic Representatives in Congress and a lower approval rating for a Republican President, all other things being equal.
Throw in race and Obama’s doing good to hit 50-50 in the South.
Utah and Wyoming are small states in a variegated West. Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia are big states with roughly 45% and change Republican electorates. South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama are medium-sized states with 45%-60% Republican electorates.
And then there’s Louisiana.
And Texas is a large (population and land area) state with 50% or so Republican electorate.
The next question is why these states Republican strongholds and not others. A variety of historical cultural factors that contribute to a wish to escape from federal regulation (polygamy, segregation, gun laws) and more people involved in “conservative” forms of religion.
from the dead it’ll be interesting to see how these folks credit George W. for their newfound jobs.
I’ve talked to a few veteran friends that are on the conservative side of center and the general consensus is the proposed tax increases, even though it will not effect them directly. Even when pointed out it still doesn’t seem to register. That and the talking wingnut heads whipping the morons into a frenzy on something new everyday.
understood that the flag waving, NASCAR boosting, gun promoting Republicans have been fucking them for years. I’m sorely tempted to post that well known internet diatribe against “the south” – but I won’t. I will say, however, that these are the welfare states – the states on the federal tit.
The developing dust-up over Defense programs is showing the real problem that Southern Republicans and their constituents must confront: no clout. Southerners have been able to maintain the gravy-train which started back during the opening years of the New Deal because they had Congressional delegations with loads of seniority and the clout to bring home special favors. With the collapse of the Republican Party in Congress over the last two elections, very few senior Republicans can influence policy and the distribution of plum projects. Just look at Newt Gringrich’s old district where the F-22 fighter is built by Lockheed-Martin. They’re facing the very real prospect that program will be killed outright, along with a scale-back in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter which they support as well. Terminate those two programs and you will hear Georgia howl (and Texas too). The same outsize largesse has been channeled all over the South over the last thirty years. Maybe this time, it will stop.
heh.
Preemptive statements that you AREN’T doing it doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing it. In other words I don’t believe you and I count this one.
#1- do we really watch the same TV?
#2- how much conservative radio saturates the south?
#3- how strong is the impact of the religious affiliation?
I just spent 6 weeks in rural and semi-rural Arkansas. Where I was, radio and TV programming was significantly different in that there seemed far less of an emphasis on a broader range of perspectives being represented in channel lineups.
Where I was I also found much higher religious rigor and a corresponding lower curiosity level. Vulnerable minds whos ignorance has been easily weaponized by politicians and religious hucksters for generations.
Of course these same conditions are found all over the country, north, south, east, west, rural, urban. I’m sure there are towns very muck like the one I stayed in in many states. I do think though that it’s possible the frequency of such communities may represent a larger percentage of the whole regional population in the rural south than in other parts of the country.
It’s the culture. I don’t think it has much to do with rural vs urban, as rural areas in Wisconsin are more liberal than anywhere in the South. And as for southern cities being Dem strongholds, that is simply because their population is largely African American. (And if you think the South is mostly rural, you haven’t been to the South. Think Big D.)
The only liberal southerners I know (including the few in my family and my extended family) are liberal due to education and thinking outside the norm. They listen to NPR and think Rush is a joke. They are bucking the groupthink that surrounds them, which is never easy. It’s like being vegan at a steakhouse.
I think a lot of the root cause is race, and the perception that blacks are looking for a gov’t handout–thus the resistance to any govt interference, including higher taxes and govt healthcare.
While Southerners can be good people, and are as likely to help out an individual as any in America, as a group they resist the idea of “welfare”. Dems, and liberals, and Barack Obama, are seen as too eager to extend the hated welfare to those in need–who in the South are almost always African American. (I say this, having taken my mother to the charity hospitals that Louisiana has, and finding us the only whites there.)
I don’t see the South changing until its racial makeup is the same as the other states. Many schools and most neighborhoods are as segregated as they ever were, due to economics rather than official policy. You are far more likely to have a black garbage man and a white accountant than the reverse. Middle-class blacks are still an anomaly.
There are a lot of people fighting the good fight there, though, so who knows? If NC and VA can go blue, maybe Louisiana will one day too.
People adopt different framing for how they see things.
The most conservative and ideological restrict themselves as to what types of information they are exposed to. This means they aren’t watching the “same” TV.
Fox viewers don’t watch MSNBC, while some MSNBC views will watch Fox.
If you want to understand this mindset one of the best places to start is with psychologist Robert Altemeyer’s book on authoritarianism.
You can read it online and free at his web site:
http://theAuthoritarians.com
The “rightwing authoritarians” he studied tend to believe in a hierarchical social order, are followers of authority and don’t examine all sides of an issue. There is a strong correlation between this mindset and conservative political views.
Read his book and you will find the answer to your question and also discover why you can never win an argument with such people nor change their minds.
Let me add John Jost to this, or System Justification Theory. SJ theory is coming from the same place, essentially, so it’s more an elaboration rather than a competing theory.
I’m still mulling how Cognitive Dissonance interacts with SJ theory, since there’s obvious psychological pressure to blame the victim (so to speak) among poor Southern whites and this provides the cognitive glue that bonds whites of different social strata together in a common hatred of blacks.
Authoritarian attitudes underlie much of the right’s agenda, so we can see opposition to social welfare programs as a natural outcome of believing that inequality is a desirable outcome in society, as Altemeyer would argue.
SJ theory would add that it’s those who have suffered most (poor southern whites, in this case) who have the strongest psychological pressures to feel that that suffering was not in vain, i.e., that society is just and that their suffering had a greater purpose.
CD might argue that there are rationalizing aspects to the problem. The contradictory aspects of the situation — an example might be the belief that hard work pays VS. poor economic outcomes — leads people to create a negative stereotype of anyone who has failed economically in order to account for the discrepancy between the expected result under the hard work myth and the actual result, i.e., hard working people failed due to the economy.
Just a note — we see how the stories can reach spectacular levels of ridiculousness, as it did with Victoria Jackson’s (of SNL fame) recent claim that the reason she can’t find work is because Obama wants to punish successful people.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677#29685788
Frederick Douglass analyzed class resentment in his 1845 autobiography.
His observation was that poor whites were being forced to compete with slaves in the production of agricultural goods and since the slaves worked for nothing they were at a permanent disadvantage.
The big plantation owners realized this and figured out that it was better to promote racism as a way to divert the poor whites from focusing on their real economic enemies, the slave owners.
This same misdirection has been in use ever since. Much of the South still maintains a neo-plantation mentality with deference being giving to old line wealthy families by whites who feel they are their social inferiors. These whites, in turn, need to feel superior to someone and pick on blacks (and more recently Hispanics).
Northern racism exists as well, but it manifests itself in a more subtle way by separating people geographically. So we end up with a lot of all white suburbs and all black inner city districts. Even when blacks do move to the suburbs they end up in enclaves.
As a result many Nortnern whites have no social contact with blacks while growing up and little at work beyond superficial relationships. This leads to a lack of empathy for the problems of those in lower socioeconomic strata and a disinterest in paying for social programs.
By associating poverty, crime and poor educational achievement with blacks the elite also avoids having to support programs that benefit the much larger number of poor whites. A modern variation on Douglass’s thesis.
Good analysis.
The social scientific research that led the court to use busing as a remedy was supplemented to show that contact between ‘races’ helped when the economy was good but inflamed inter-group tensions during a poor economy.
There are obvious applications here. I would expect economic problems to exacerbate racial tensions beyond the baserate we would expect given the various effects discussed.
I posted this in the wrong place.
————————————————–
I would be remiss if I didn’t show the flip side, which is the part that’s often missed. We’ve done an excellent job of analyzing the S/M racist component of attitudes but there’s a blind spot in the analysis. It isn’t merely racism that drives attitudes, we could pull that element out completely and still fail to appeal to many Southerners.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=68225069-3048-5C12-00FA02842EFBC1AA
My point here is that what is often missed is that racist attitudes are often a measure of powerlessness. And this is yet another reason poor Southern whites are so likely to adopt a racist ideology. This is not different from the ‘pecking order’ dynamic, in which there is a need for lower status individuals to find someone to peck upon, but rather, it shows that falling social status gives rise to certain social pathologies. Moreover, white males were victims, too, quite certainly. Whereas the Republican were able to tap into their hatred, the Democrats tended to ignore them or misunderstand the nature of their plight.
The inculcation of Cognitive Dissonance is a typical tactic used by many cults. The purpose is not to shape a partcular view in the ‘followers’ minds so much as it is to use the confusion inherent in the dissonance as a disincentive for deeper cognitive thought and analysis on the part of those followers. In simple terms, CD is used to get people confused to a point where they simply throw up their hands after failing to make sense of it and to then reach the simpleminded position where they say, “Well, my guru (or pastor or congressional rep. etc), says this is true so I’ll just follow their lead without question.”
People are often quite reluctant to admit they’re confused by things, and the unscrupulous dirtbags who exploit this vulnerability do so deliberately, knowingly, clear in their intent to deceive.
I see more oldsters than children, so I like to think it’s a generational difference. There are people who grow up and go away from their provincial roots seeking change and adventure, and there are some who settle in and wrap themselves in conformity.
We definitely do not all watch the same television, and we don’t all see things the same. Birds of a feather flock to the same pond.
Thirty years ago Carl Oglesby wrote a book, The Yankee and Cowboy War, which tried to make heads or tails of the JFK assassination and Watergate based on the political landscape of America.
I can’t say that everything he wrote holds up, but in the book he did an interesting comparison of the cultural differences between the North and South. The South’s slave culture required a military presence because there was always the possibility of slave uprisings so there always had to be a militia presence to keep things in line. The slave culture also required a more delineated social strata, not only between black and white, but between rich white and poor white, and poor white and all black. Early on it was obvious that when left to themselves indentured whites and black slaves quickly found a lot in common, so it was necessary to keep them separate and powerless. All of the fear of miscegenation had to be legally enforced to keep it inflated. When a society is so heavily stratified, people absorb that stratification. The newly rich white suburbanites do believe they are better, that their interests are different from the poor, and that the improvement of the poor is actually a threat to their own welfare and interests.
There is a core difference. A democrat looks at society and seeks its total betterment. In a stratified culture one may, for example, deign to provide charity as a way to feel better about oneself and to help assuage another’s immediate jeopardy, but ultimately one who buys into class sees it as something to be preserved for one’s own sake. Which requires another’s submergence.
That’s funny, Booman, I didn’t even get this at first blush, it took me a few seconds.
Measuring it is tough, since there’s a lot of noise, but I know what I said in advance, so it’s entirely expected.
Oscar (above), says “besides the obvious” and goes on to discuss other explanations, and I have no problem with this, but I don’t think the obviousness of the problem should deter us from reaching the obvious conclusion.
What’s poorly understood by most people about Modern/Symbolic racism is how it manifests itself in other issues and purports to be about something else.
The diagnostic issue for me is/are attitudes related to work & taxes, and the expected development is that proposed changes in tax rates (i.e., rolling the Bush tax cut for the rich) or increased funding for government programs (extending unemployment benefits, etc.) will easily elicit complaints from the right about government policies rewarding the unproductive elements in society at the expense of productive members.
It would be too easy to rationalize talk of ‘rewarding the lazy’ as part of typical Republican rhetoric, but the fact that this diatribe occurs in the context of debate over the economic stimulus should be noted. The intent of the stimulus is to produce economic activity and thus allow willing workers to work, but the assumption by the right that a stimulus necessarily involves giving money to unproductive members of society reveals a primary proxy attitude of M/S racism.
I’ve created the term “proxy attitude” here to describe an attitude that is a manifestation of an underlying racist attitude. And it should be added that people who subscribe to M/S racism are not necessarily aware of the racist nature of their attitudes, although it’s usually the case that their racist attitudes are lying just below the surface and can be revealed through simple means.
Another issue area that shows dramatic influences of S/M racism is illegal immigration. It’s doesn’t take much digging to discover that the most fervent advocates of strict immigration policies are overt racists. We also see the “unproductive” meme in this issue, and arguments are often jury-rigged to make illegal immigrants appear as unproductive even though the opposite argument — “taking our jobs” — is used alongside it. The tax issue is also a favorite vehicle for advocating against illegal immigration, so illegal immigrants must be a drain on society, raising our taxes, etc., in line with Reagan’s welfare mother caricature.
It’s been my impression that much of the economic debate lately has been odd, and it honestly didn’t occur to me to look at the etiology of the attitudes. Arguing against economic stimulus when at the brink of a depression ranks up there on the stupidity scale, but I’ve become conditioned to expect spectacular stupidity so I hadn’t taken much notice.
The revolt against the stimulus by many Southern governors, particularly when it involves programs such as unemployment, etc., has strong racist influences. And the extent to which certain governors are opposed to extending unemployment while at the same time accepting money for other programs demonstrates that there is a sticking point underlying this issue. It’s not merely an accident or a quirk, there’s something about the extension of unemployment itself that’s being revealed here.
SYMBOLIC & MODERN RACISM — http://science.jrank.org/pages/10839/Prejudice-Varieties-Prejudice.html
Krugman writes about a national health care plan that was pushed under Truman(?) the south was against it not because of taxes but integrated hospitals. The south has moved a long way but that was only 60 years ago. Racism that ingrained doesn’t just disappear it has to fade over generations.
I agree, it doesn’t disappear, it usually goes underground, as it did with Symbolic and Modern Racism. Expressions of racism become couched in more acceptable terms and ideas.
What doesn’t occur to people when they make arguments for things like “state’s rights” is that the expression was merely a way of advocating segregation and was a rather open expression of racism. It was easy to tie this idea to a contrarian aspect of American culture — often called “independent” — but our interest in the structure of our government is negligible and limited to academics, etc. Nobody gets up in arms over the dry, technical issues of government.
It’s also worth examining what motivated the success of the Reagan Revolution. Was it because he lowered taxes? He did briefly, before he raised them again. Was it because he reduced the size of government? It grew. What was the purpose behind kicking off his campaign near Philadelphia Mississippi, where the three civil rights workers were killed in the 60s.
So, what was the magical element that Reagan brought to American politics?
This is best understood when looking at electoral maps of the period. Look at where Goldwater did well in his run (and where Wallace also did well later). Then look at how the Solid South shifts in the 70s and 80s, in the post-Civil Rights era.
Rick Perlstein does a good job of explaining these issues in his The Unspoken Truth about the GOP – Southern Discomfort
I’ve bolded the relevant text.
And it shouldn’t be forgotten that racism is a pillar for classicism. Skin color is so handy when you’re dividing up a population between the haves, the have littles and the havenots.
Divide and conquer, but this accepts social identity (somewhat) as a cohesive force and there are caveats.
The interesting outcome in situations where lower class people are asked to pass judgment on fellow members of the lower class is that they are often all too willing to mete out harsh punishment.
So what’s going on?
Altemeyer’s Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Jost’s System Justification Theory (SJT) show that a number of people are willing to get in goose step and it’s not a completely static group, as threats to one’s welfare drive push membership up.
It’s quite true that the “I was only doing my job” excuse (or I was only making the trains run on time) covers many ills, so creating a bureaucratic system that rationalizes and separates people provides an instrument, but it’s unrealistic to think that people necessarily come together in common cause.
Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? shows how little economic self-interest can mean when you’ve got a good story to tell yourself. The story for some lower class Kansans was that the market wasn’t free enough.
Results show that upper class juries will often excuse a fellow upper class member for his/her behavior (think of property crimes V. drug possession), so there is a sort of group solidarity.
But it’s a tilt towards protecting the privileged. Caesar is protected but many are willing to enjoy their Bread and Circus on a Roman Holiday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Roman%20holiday
I would be remiss if I didn’t show the flip side, which is the part that’s often missed. We’ve done an excellent job of analyzing the S/M racist component of attitudes but there’s a blind spot in the analysis. It isn’t merely racism that drives attitudes, we could pull that element out completely and still fail to appeal to many Southerners.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=68225069-3048-5C12-00FA02842EFBC1AA
“
this (above) was meant to be posted below, after rdf’s last post on Frederick Douglas
God, Guns and Abortion. In that order. I’d add homophobia but you can throw that in with number one. Even when it reeks of hypocrisy religion is a force to be reckoned with in the south. When a 3000 year old book is used for guidance in daily life then your going to run into a different way of thinking. So its is reflected in the polls.
Race
Bible Belt
Resentment still about the Civil War
Nixon’s Southern Strategy
LBJ passing the Civil Rights Act
NRA
I could go on all day. There are many wonderful progressives (and probably more committed ones than anywhere else) in the South, but the majority population has been poisoned by years of Republican propaganda, race baiting, etc. After a while that has an effect. Just ask the Germans.
Ed J has it correct about at least one thing:
Southerners don’t realize they are welfare recipients that get back more money/services from the federal coffers than they pay in.
This little tidbit shows up in the paper every once in a while, but it is easily ignored.
If they are confronted – in the national news and other venues – with this basic fact time and time again, it may become common knowledge, and, then they might all of a sudden have to take a new look at themselves and see that they are no better than any other part of the country.
I live in the South, BTW.
Have any of you ever lived in the south? I have been in Alabama since 1979 and I’ll make this real simple for you – Obama is black. You can couch it in god, guns, and gays or whatever other rationale you would like but you have to a be a white person in the south to hear what white people say when they think its “safe”. Taxes, socialism, marxism, communism is all bullshit. They just can’t say or publish what they really feel. You have no idea how pervasive racism still is in the south unless you live here.
The answerS to the question is in ‘Albion’s Seed’. by David Fischer.
Any questions about why a particular American group is the way they are starts there.
nalbar
OCD – as a fellow Southerner, though not by birth, I agree that race is a HUGE factor in all of this.
If you happened to notice my post right above yours you will see that I am trying to figure out a way to get Southerners to see themselves as more a part of a nation, not a region, and to see their fellow countrymen (such as the dreaded Northeastern Libruls) on an equal basis.
I’m not sure how to accomplish this other than making them see that they are not as independent as they think they are, and, that the dreaded Northeastern Libruls pay for a lot of what the South gets.
Thoughts? (Sorry – will have to respond later)
My Michigan born, partially raised in Georgia SO, said it is pure and simple racism. Nothing more, nothing less.
This is an interesting discussion but, it seems to me, maybe a tad too theoretical, considering that a concrete test of the proposition is looming. Several southern governors, among them Jindal of LA, Sanford of SC, and Perry of TX, have stated that they will reject the unemployment relief in Obama’s stimulus packagae. In every case, a fierce fight is expected in the state legislature, with a strong possibility of overriding the governor’s decision. The governor’s rejectionof the funds may have something to do with racism; it certainly favord employers over workers. But the opposition is obviously based on need for the funding, and has nothing to do with race one way or the other. I predict that any governor that wins this fight, if any of them do, will thereafter find himself widely condemned in their state and will be thrown out of office at the next opportunity.
Here is just one link on topic:
http://www.indigojournal.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=564
Its not just the south. Indiana, especially Marion County. Western Michigan. Southern Illinois. A good chunk of southern California. Central PA. There’s more besides the South
Mostly it is about race. Secondly it is about distrusting anyone smarter than themselves. OK that may be unfair, but chunks of this nation put no premium on intelligence, education or achievement. Obama’s Harvard and Columbia eduation and his ability to put a coherent sentence together actually works against him.
They’d rather clear brush with W or do shots of Crown Royal with Hillary.
…chunks of this nation put no premium on intelligence, education or achievement…
Nail, meet head. Anti-intellectualism, which is in many ways a signal characteristic of what passes for American civilization, is particularly strong in the South. Here, you can see it clearly in its true form, which is not so much anti-intellectualism as it is indifference to, and failure to recognize the value and significance of, education and intelligence.
Remember all of the Republican bitching about all of the experts in the Clinton administration? The simpletons don’t like it when it is suggested, directly or indirectly, that if the world’s problems were amenable to simple solutions, simpletons would have built a utopia by now.
Add to that the fact that this intellectual president is black, and both the simpletons and the racists are up in arms.