It is the racism. There isn't another answer. Trump and Brexit have made this more blindingly obvious than ever.
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People using food banks didn't know who to vote. They didn't trust Corbyn.
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Except there are other answers. In reality there's never just one reason. Ever.
It does kind of fit the UK though. People really are not able to afford to feed themselves here. We have 2000 foodbanks that's the official estimate its probably way more which is more than Mcdonalds. We have teachers telling stories of starving children that arent able to concentrate because they are so hungry. Life expectancy and so many measures are dropping like stones. We have so many people working and they can't even barely afford to feed themselves and live. Everyones scared of falling into our non existent, punitive safety net. We have decaying underfunded public services(austerity), barely anyone can afford to buy a house anymore. But everyone still loves the Government and funny blonde guy that is doing all this to them, and they blame the foreigner or the poor and unemployed/disabled shirkers that are just beneath them.
As a start maybe take accountability for your own platform if you are Labor/Not-Tory
We are not them isn't a platform. It says nothing about who you actually are.
Name these other reasons that affect white voters but not other minority groups who are far more likely to be living in low income households and persistent poverty.
Honestly, invest in said isolated places.
Thriving places usually lead to diversity.
I don't disagree hugely with anything you're saying here. England obviously has huge cultural problems, which, to me, seem to stem from way more than just classism. The history we get taught centers England as the world's protagonist, "we invented everything and saved the world a million times, and did you know we actually abolished slavery so racism doesn't exist, but yeah ignore all the murder". It's totally easy for 4th and 5th gen immigrants to get swept up in that shit too. It's a large base level xenophobia in England, driven by the world's biggest superiority complex.
Just listening to how contemptuous some English MPs have sounded this year about Scotland and Ireland.
The shit that Nigel farage and the sun and daily Mail push, that isn't classism, it's out and out racism and xenophobia. Classism obviously plays a part, but the xenophobia, to me, seems like the key piece of the puzzle.
The places this shit doesn't exist, or exists less are the places where diversity exists. I think that means something.
If I were Scottish I'd want nothing to do with England too.
Probably correct. I'd like to see a progressive political campaign centered around that.
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That was the thing that surprised me the most. I have worked in the public services for over much over a decade and I have seen what austerity did to it. Can't these people see that?
Oh racism is a big issue too, I just wanted to highlight the classism issues in the UK that have plagued us since the wars and only gotten worse since. It's almost a sport these days for some to try and make themselves feel better by pretending they are higher up the class ranks than they actually are.
Hence Turkeys voting for Christmas by going Tory.
For all the racism there is, a portion of the poorest who watch the Queen sit on a throne of gold and address the nation believe that in voting for the elite/posh/rich, they will somehow by proxy be "better off" themselves. Or they can walk around the streets holding their heads up high because they too are part of the Tory club.
If you go into some of these food banks and ask why they voted Tory, not everyone is going to answer "Because of the immigrants". Some are truly fucked up in the head by the class wars. They fear those Jeremy Kyle used to bring on his shows to engage in the poverty Olympics.
This country, and our papers/media, have done terrible things to demonise the poor/disabled/disenfranchised or even people who lose their jobs and temporarily ask for social security help. So much so many in said positions hate others in similar positions to them, hence we get what I title as the poverty Olympics.
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You seriously believe that the only other option is racism? That there are no other reasons why anyone poor and white would vote Tory?
Look them up, maybe ask some of them if you know any. I'll name a few though. For starters, the press portrayal of Corbyn. Then you have those that remember the winter of discontent, and link that with renationisation of industries under a Corbyn labour government. The abolishment of the married couples tax break. The dithering over brexit, the poor handling of the antisemitism issue.
And before you reply with the obvious answer siting statistics, they are very rarely black and white. Take brexit for instance. If you voted brexit, you're racist. So does that mean 37% of black Caribbeans are racist because they voted leave according to BESIP figures? I have serious doubts that that is to only reason.
That didn't answer the question.
Why aren't minorities voting Tory for those same reasons then?
lol it's bigotry my dude. How else can you explain that it's only overwhelmingly white straight people who vote conservative?
One of the inherent issues is that while Labour would say they will do xyz and publish a fully costed manifesto, these people who are trying to live on a per day basis will never go through it. On the other hand if someone says "Labour will spend money on xyz, where would that money come from?" it sends a more powerful message to them and since there is rarely ever going to be fact checking, the whole move from Labour to publish a fully costed manifesto gets countered.
It's wrong of that other side to lie or twist the facts and make the good look like it's bad. The people deserve the truth. But also for any side to win there needs to be a very simple message. Obama reached many people with just one word "Change" and was able to deliver his message. Labour has had "For the many not the few" for a while and it's a good message, but it obviously does not work and it should have been replaced a while ago for something better that reaches these people.
Point being, it doesn't matter what your intentions and policies are if people don't hear it. So you have to get them to hear you first and Labour has not been very good at that unfortunately.
It's wrong of that other side to lie or twist the facts and make the good look like it's bad. The people deserve the truth. But also for any side to win there needs to be a very simple message. Obama reached many people with just one word "Change" and was able to deliver his message. Labour has had "For the many not the few" for a while and it's a good message, but it obviously does not work and it should have been replaced a while ago for something better that reaches these people.
Point being, it doesn't matter what your intentions and policies are if people don't hear it. So you have to get them to hear you first and Labour has not been very good at that unfortunately.
It's a morality mindfuck. On the one hand you understand the most vulnerable people are the most susceptible to propaganda. On the other I want to believe even those people have an obligation to make an obvious moral judgement. I don't know. I'm so tired of the right wing around the world fucking people over and convincing them to vote for them nonetheless. Thanos snap all of them. Everywhere.
I do.
It's not like it's an accident they believe the shit they are fed.
Learning new things and taking time to understand politics isn't easy for everyone.
Tory voters shouldn't get an easy out of "they don't know what they voted for". Fuck that. They know, they always claim they know, so it's time for them to own it, they're not getting the easy out on this. They knew exactly what they were voting for and the fuckers don't care.
There's only so many times we can spell it out and only so many times we can have empathy.
There was only a 1% increase in Tory vote share over 2017, so the vast majority of people voting for the pricks hasn't changed. They don't care and never will, so let's have empathy for people who deserve it.
There's only so many times we can spell it out and only so many times we can have empathy.
There was only a 1% increase in Tory vote share over 2017, so the vast majority of people voting for the pricks hasn't changed. They don't care and never will, so let's have empathy for people who deserve it.
Tories are liars. If you vote for them, you know what you're getting.
i only have empathy when they realize they've been done in.
if they're still obnoxiously digging their own holes i can't, really can't be empathetic while they're so busy.
it feels like a waste. you have to combat them to keep things level, meanwhile they're trying to take us all downhill.
Energising poorer areas was a part of the Labour manifesto, but thanks to the media the manifesto is seldom the centre of attention (unless for some reason it can be weaponised of course).
Stupid poor white people would vote to have their organs harvested if it meant that maybe immigrants would get out of their neighborhoods
How many times do we have to give straight white voters the benefit of the doubt for fucking over everyone else? Because it's 2020 in 2.5 weeks and I'm kinda beyond merely sick/tired/disgusted of "they couldn't help it"
"Have some empathy". Where's theirs? Why don't you ask them? And while you're at it, how many chances do you think they should have in their full lifetime before they get to decide to maybe show some if it even exists?
I end this post with one of the truest quotes I've seen to come in the aftermath of this:
"Have some empathy". Where's theirs? Why don't you ask them? And while you're at it, how many chances do you think they should have in their full lifetime before they get to decide to maybe show some if it even exists?
I end this post with one of the truest quotes I've seen to come in the aftermath of this:
Makes you think. 🤔
It's quite amazing actually. They didn't even try to keep up the facade for a week. It's like "we got the biggest majority in decades time to swing our dicks around. Fuck you!"
Did you look at the graph you linked? It shows every social class voting Tory more than Labour, and at roughly consistent percentages aside from C2. Whereas the age groups prove my point precisely.
While I don't doubt the Tories won't deliver anything, that article is from November so the tweet framed it wrong "Comes out now".
I don't think an election result has ever left me more beaten down tbh. I got into a pointless argument with a friend afterwards where he was playing a both sides thing (despite voting LibDem) and said that my absolutionism regarding Tory voters being at best ignorant and at worst actively malicious made me "no different from the Brexit voters", which made me kick off and get super pissed off.
Uhhhh.
Uhhhh.
I feel you. I've also taken a quite combative stance in the family WhatsApp group where it was all piled on to Corbyn. Pretty sure they voted LibDem in suffolk.
Maybe they took a look at Corbyn and his policies and made an informed decision that they didn't like him and they didn't like them and if that meant Boris, so be it.
Just because they are poor does not make them gullible.
Just because they voted against Labour does not make them racist.
Just because they are poor does not make them gullible.
Just because they voted against Labour does not make them racist.
That video from the BBC, it fully reminds me of my childhood. We were poor as fuck, and my mum absolutely struggled by to keep us fed. Moving from shelter to shelter, eating those wee cereal packs for 3 meals a day, sometimes getting a chip shop takeout so we had a warm dinner.
I used to always go to the polls with my mum as a kid, because I was curious what it was all about. She always told me she voted Labour because the Tories don't give a shit about the poor. She grew up in the 70's as a kid and the 80's as a teen, and saw how Thatcher did things. Always mentioning taking milk from kids in schools, and how despicable that was when it was such a tiny amount of money to spend to help those in need.
It really is true despair to see poor people get tricked into voting for the Tories. There's no policies there that will help them. They might hear "tax cut" but none of that will trickle to them. They don't even earn enough, or anything, to qualify as a human in the eyes of the Tories. They're just cattle to be managed, and that will never change, no matter how much money becomes available. Tories will just spend it buttering up their own opportunities.
I used to always go to the polls with my mum as a kid, because I was curious what it was all about. She always told me she voted Labour because the Tories don't give a shit about the poor. She grew up in the 70's as a kid and the 80's as a teen, and saw how Thatcher did things. Always mentioning taking milk from kids in schools, and how despicable that was when it was such a tiny amount of money to spend to help those in need.
It really is true despair to see poor people get tricked into voting for the Tories. There's no policies there that will help them. They might hear "tax cut" but none of that will trickle to them. They don't even earn enough, or anything, to qualify as a human in the eyes of the Tories. They're just cattle to be managed, and that will never change, no matter how much money becomes available. Tories will just spend it buttering up their own opportunities.
Anecdotal I know, but I've yet to speak to someone where this was the case. When I challenge them on their views of Corbyn, they're always regurgitating the same headlines from the media - they don't know anything about him.
Geoff gets it. (Once again!)
There's a ton of factors, but just shouting "They're idiots" or "They're racist" helps precisely nobody. People believing that their ills are being caused outside of Downing Street, while being given a bogeyman in the form of Corbyn are two *enormous* reasons. Does it make them gullible for believing them? When 4 of the biggest newspapers in the country are advocating it, not necessarily. Christ, look at this thread. That interview from November is being shared with a "NOW we find out about the nurses" message and people are going to lap it up. Does that make *them* gullible?
Poor whites will often line up to have their foot cut off, so long as a minority gets their leg removed. Why do you think the U.S has such difficulties implementing social safety nets? Just look at the entire voting history of the white working class from the passage of the civil rights act onward.
This type of logic also totally takes away any blame from the people who voted Tory
Labour weren't perfect this election obviously, but "at least its not Corbyn" is no excuse when the alternative is Johnson. People need to own the fact they supported an out and out racist, sexist, islamophobic, bigot. Because for all his faults, Corbyn was not those things. You can't support someone as bad as Johnson because Labour didn't offer you a perfect candidate and then get away with any criticism.
Exactly. Just like in the US. At the end of the day there was a choice between two candidates and far too many people (even if it is technically a minority of voters) chose a despicable candidate. No matter how flawed the other was, there really is no comparison between the two candidates.
I mean... no. If you voted for Boris because you thought a racist, Islamophobic bigot was the lesser evil/better choice, then yeah, you are a callous racist.
I've seen some interviews with Corbyn and he seems like one of the most genuine politicians I've ever witnessed. I don't know if he's secretly some awful person or whatever but he certainly seems earnest to me as an American who is not that familiar with British politics.
Or they read The Sun and saw a photoshopped image of Corbyn as a chicken and that was that.
If their decision was an informed one based on the policies that actually would make it so much worse.