Democratic (Party) Direction

ha! if we're going to go down memory lane, this was fun.

yeah, don't forget that America was intensely concerned with to which precise decimal point obama was of german ancestry rather than widely but shallowly registering the fact of those german roots, well-publicized in connection with the massive speech he gave in berlin in the middle of his overseas tour in the summer of '08 as planned by a very smart campaign famous for its "microtargeting" of the electorate and surely aware of the german-american cast of both the contemporary ethnic composition and historical root culture of the middle america from which he sought to identify as hailing.

obama kenyan roots - About 370,000 results
obama irish roots - About 1,540,000 results
obama german roots - About 8,040,000 results

being a smart-ass means never having to the confront the possibility that i might have identified a perhaps-highly salient political/demographic factor that you had never considered, expressive of my deeper understanding of the electorate/country, i guess.

― it's not a tuomas (benbbag)

(...)

Obama "Kenyan roots" 30,800
Obama "German roots" 6850

Hmmmmm

― a strawman stuffed with their collection of 12 cds (jjjusten)

sorry to dredge up things totally unrelated to anyone who might be posting in this thread, although the condescending tone of the original posts makes me not so sorry

You guys figure out where the German-Americans went yet?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/trump-and-the-white-vote
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/4/1607288/-Did-German-Americans-voting-for-one-of-their-own-help-elect-Trump
http://www.electionanalysis2016.us/us-election-analysis-2016/section-4-diversity-and-division/why-are-the-german-americans-trumps-most-loyal-supporters/

somehow the weirdest thing to me, out of everything, is that you won't just say who you are

by the way, not sure if you read all of that first buzzfeed link you posted, but

https://i.imgur.com/p6ZNQPj.png

The Dailykos article just shows that Trump did well in states that have a high German-American population, many of which lean Republican anyway, without commenting on how well he did with German-Americans specifically, relative to previous candidates. The Buzzfeed article actually says that German-Americans disapproved more strongly of Obama than did other large white American communities, and that people who identify strongly as German-American tend to be more likely to support any Republican, not just Trump.
xp!

The take-away from the Urlaub article also seems to be that the German-American community tends to have conservative leanings generally, not that they identified with Obama and then with Trump because of some kind of ethnic solidarity.

The Buzzfeed article actually says that German-Americans disapproved more strongly of Obama than did other large white American communities

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, March 16, 2018 3:41 AM (fifty-eight seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Between September 22 and October 2, 2016, yes.

:-|

best to remove emotions and personal history from the equation and just let hard science settle the score

gabbneb was right
About 6 results (0.32 seconds)

gabbneb was not right
About 19 results (0.52 seconds)

You may have noticed that German-American Donald Trump had been a national political candidate for over a year preceding that poll, and more than five years earlier had started to build that national political profile upon an effort to delegitimize the Presidency and obscure the ancestry of Barack Obama.

gabbneb: "I am the FBI."

*half* German-American

He actually is not "half" German-American. His maternal ancestry is primarily English.

first rule of holes: stop digging

m bison otm

The take-away from the Urlaub article also seems to be that the German-American community tends to have conservative leanings generally, not that they identified with Obama and then with Trump because of some kind of ethnic solidarity.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, March 16, 2018 3:42 AM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was kam zuerst, das Huhn oder das Ei?

https://pa1.narvii.com/6609/4e1cd18d0384e0369c23e3dbcb2d630da0183979_hq.gif

let me just go ahead and do a hard thread reset, this should only take a few minutes

https://i.imgur.com/8xz940A.png

there we go, now we're fresh

People, there's a link just after Bookmark. Use it wisely.

back to the thread topic, i feel this image perfectly encapsulates the spirit of "people who want joe biden to run for president"

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYL1seNXUAAHcJi.jpg:large

“The suburbs” is not necessarily a useful category in determining whether or not labor was a key factor in the vote. You need a little more information than that.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), 16. marts 2018 04:19 (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm just paraphrasing. How about maps showing that Lamb did much better in areas where a larger percentage was college educated than in areas where a smaller percentage was college educated?

Don't e.g. teachers' unions count as "organized labour"?

well they get summers off

best to remove emotions and personal history from the equation and just let hard science settle the score

― Karl Malone, Friday, March 16, 2018 3:45 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed.

Here was the primary ancestry (per census 2000) in every county that flipped by more than 15 points from voting for Obama in '12 to voting for Trump in '16:
Huerfano, CO: German
Las Animas, CO: Spanish
Windham, CT: French
Quitman, GA: African
Allamakee, IA: German
Boone, IA: German
Bremer, IA: German
Buchanan, IA: German
Cedar, IA: German
Cerro Gordo, IA: German
Chickasaw, IA: German
Clarke, IA: German
Clinton, IA: German
Des Moines, IA: German
Dubuque, IA: German [Dubuque has the highest percentage of residents of German ancestry of any large community in America]
Floyd, IA: German
Howard, IA: German
Jasper, IA: German
Jefferson, IA: German
Lee, IA: German
Louisa, IA: German
Marshall, IA: German
Mitchell, IA: German
Muscatine, IA: German
Poweshiek, IA: German
Tama, IA: German
Union, IA: German
Webster, IA: German
Winneshiek, IA: German
Woodbury, IA: German
Worth, IA: German
Alexander, IL: Irish
Carroll, IL: German
Fulton, IL: German
Henderson, IL: German
Henry, IL: German
Jo Daviess, IL: German
Knox, IL: German
Mercer, IL: German
Putnam, IL: German
Warren, IL: German
Whiteside, IL: German
Delaware, IN: German
LaPorte, IN: German
Perry, IN: German
Vigo, IN: CarpathianGerman
Elliott, KY: "American"
Somerset, MD: African
Androscoggin, ME: French-Canadian
Aroostook, ME: French
Franklin, ME: French
Kennebec, ME: English
Oxford, ME: French
Somerset, ME: French
Washington, ME: English
Bay, MI: German
Calhoun, MI: German
Gogebic, MI: Finnish
Lake, MI: German
Macomb, MI: German
Manistee, MI: German
Monroe, MI: German
Shiawassee, MI: German
Van Buren, MI: German
Beltrami, MN: German
Chippewa, MN: German
Fillmore, MN: Norwegian
Freeborn, MN: Norwegian
Houston, MN: German
Itasca, MN: German
Kittson, MN: Norwegian
Koochiching, MN: German
Lac Qui Parie, MN: Norwegian
Mahonmen, MN: Norwegian
Mower, MN: German
Norman, MN: Norwegian
Traverse, MN: German
Swift, MN: German
Winona, MN: German
Blaine, MT: American Indian
Hill, MT: German
Roosevelt, MT: American Indian
Robeson, NC: American Indian
Benson, ND: American Indian
Ransom, ND: German [ND has the highest German-American population percentage of any state]
Sargent. ND: German
Steele, ND: Norwegian
Thurston, NE: American Indian
Sullivan, NH: English
Salem, NJ: German
Cayuga [Stupid Fucking White Man], NY: Irish
Cortland, NY: English
Essex, NY: French
Franklin, NY: French
Madison, NY: German
Niagara, NY: German
Oswego, NY: Irish
Otsego, NY: German
St. Lawrence, NY: French
Seneca, NY: German
Sullivan, NY: German
Washington, NY: Irish
Ashtabula, OH: German
Erie, OH: German
Ottawa, OH: German
Portage, OH: German
Sandusky, OH: German
Stark, OH: German
Trumbull, OH: German
Columbia, OR: German
Erie, PA: German [Erie is a top-10 large county for German population percentage]
Luzerne, PA: Polish [Luzerne is the only Polish-ancestry-dominant county in America]
Kent, RI: Irish
Chester, SC: African
Corson, SD: American Indian
Day, SD: German
Marshall, SD: German
Roberts, SD: German
Ziebach, SD: American Indian
Cowlitz, WA: German
Grays Harbor, WA: German
Pacific, WA: German
Adams, WI: German
Buffalo, WI: German
Columbia, WI: German
Crawford, WI: German
Dunn, WI: German
Forest, WI: German
Grant, WI: German
Jackson, WI: German
Juneau, WI: German
Lafayette, WI: German
Lincoln, WI: German
Marquette, WI: German
Pepin, WI: German
Richland, WI: German
Sawyer, WI: German
Trempeleau, WI: Norwegian
Vernon, WI: Norwegian [one of the few among the 20 or so counties in which German is the most common non-English language that are not also among those with the highest proportion of Pennsylvania German speakers; the others all voted for Romney in '12, but shifted Republican between '12 and '16 by as many as 45 points]

Here are the states with the largest percentages of German-Americans and the degree to which their margin shifted towards Obama in '08 (from '04) and towards Trump in '16 (from '08) [compare to national margin shifts of +10 and +5, respectively]:

North Dakota (47%): +19, +27 (#4 Trump state)
South Dakota (45%): +13, +21 (#7 Trump state)
Wisconsin (44%): +14, +13 (Trump flipped, Kerry and Gore had both nearly lost)
Nebraska (43%): +12, +10 (#11 Trump state)
Minnesota (38%): +7, +9 (2nd highest college-educated population percentage among these states, highest turnout of any state in both '08 and '16, 2nd-closest Clinton state)
Iowa (36%): +9 (Obama flipped), +18 (Trump flipped)
Montana (27%): +18, +20
Ohio (27%): +6 (Obama flipped), +14 (Trump flipped) (3rd largest of these states)
Wyoming (26%): +8, +14 (#1 Trump state)
Kansas (26%): +10, +5 (3rd lowest non-hispanic-white and 5th highest college-educated population percentages among these states; )
Pennsylvania (25%): +8, +11 (Trump flipped; largest of these states)
Missouri (24%): +7 (Obama almost flipped), +18
Indiana (23%): +22 (Obama flipped), +20
Colorado (22%): +14 (Obama flipped), +4 (highest college-educated and 2nd lowest non-hispanic-white population percentages among these states; hispanic population grew 40% 2000-2010; 4th-highest turnout in both '08 and '16)
Oregon (21%): +12, +5 (4th lowest non-hispanic-white and 6th highest college-educated population percentages among these states; hispanic population grew 65% 2000-2010)
Michigan (20%): +13, +16 (Trump flipped) (4th largest and 5th lowest non-hispanic-white population percentage of these states)
Illinois (20%): +15, +8 (2nd largest, lowest non-hispanic-white and 4th highest college-educated population percentages among these states)
Idaho (19%): +13, +7 (#10 Trump state)

first rule of holes: stop digging

― A is for (Aimless), Friday, March 16, 2018 3:50 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/040/257/timecubeflierimg.gif?1318992465

hey, they got al capone on tax evasion - if moo v goes down for wasting everybody's time with walls of text that give everybody hand cramps from scrolling, i'm fine with that.

If 'German' is the 'primary ancestry' of most counties in the US, that list doesn't necessarily prove much.

bean bag, everything you are talking about can be explained by whiteness and not some 19th century fixation on many generations-removed european nation of origin, distinctions muddied each subsequent generation by the crossfuckin of various "ethnic" whites.

signed, an italian-american on my maternal grandmother's side

Was it over when the German-Americans bombed ILX?

https://imgur.com/a/NMxZW

I think the idea that Obama's popularity had something to do with his German ancestry to be a v fascinating and provocative assertion but I think I need to see exactly how that played out. Do you think there's something about Obama's temperament that he inherited from his mother that resonated w/ German voters? Or do you think they *knew* he had German ancestry and they liked that? (That seems v unlikely to me considering the ignorance of the general populace about far less esoteric information.) What are the dynamics within which this ethnic affiliation/affinity played out?

his thick, nearly impenetrable german accent obv - amazing he ever got anywhere in politics with that but clearly once he reached the national level it was a winner, just look at those percentages

Why, why are you all taking the bait like this. Just give him his SB, add him to your killfile, and move on

bean bag gives this place some pep, no way do i wanna FP him

Old IL senate codger: “Obama—what is that, Irish?”

“It will be when I run for President”

(from Remnick’s Obama bio)

Your ignorance of Harmonic Cube is demonic

Why ban him? He's entertaining and a change of pace from the manifold Trump impersonations and breathless updates.

the prosecution rests

bean bag, everything you are talking about can be explained by whiteness and not some 19th century fixation on many generations-removed european nation of origin, distinctions muddied each subsequent generation by the crossfuckin of various "ethnic" whites.

signed, an italian-american on my maternal grandmother's side

― NBA YoungBoy named Rocky Raccoon (m bison), Friday, March 16, 2018 3:50 PM (forty-nine seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I intended to do this elsewhere and with more forethought, but since you press the point...

I am not at all surprised that someone who identifies with their Italian-American heritage might be particularly invested in subsuming their and others' European(-plus?) ancestry within the rubric of 'whiteness', the contemporary defense of which I regard as a continuing defense of a racist ideology that goes beyond simple recognition of the vast social impact of racism, past and present, and the system of legal (and illegal) slavery with which it has substantially intersected in America, into an attempt to perpetuate, consciously or otherwise, the (now-threatened, depending in significant part upon the going-forward legal status and racial self-identification of Mexican-Americans) majoritarian status of European peoples, which status in turn acts as an element of what may be termed white privilege or white supremacy. Such status would be complicated significantly in the present moment were Europeans identified by the various particularities of their ancestry rather than their unifying 'race'. Consider in this regard that Italian-Americans are substantially less numerous than (often necessarily undifferentiated) African-Americans, who outweigh them by more than two to one.

While most who insist upon 'whiteness' (at least in a context like this one) are, I presume, good people at least nominally concerned with overcoming white privilege/supremacy, in doing so they are in fact reinforcing their own belonging to that majoritarian group, with whatever present status it confers, in the same define-up-not-down manner that predecessors who may not have been defined as white upon arrival in America (as in the case of Italian-Americans among many other later-19th-century-plus immigrant groups) may have engaged. I would go further and suggest that many of the most loyal Trump supporters, at least outside his rural/small-town base, belong to precisely those groups that are presently or historically most anxious about their degree of 'whiteness'.

Ancestry is history. The impact of racism is history and sociology. Whiteness is ideology.

Just one among many references to which one could advert - https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1206&context=qc_pubs - from which I quote, "the literature produced by Italian/American writers contains the fuel to fire the slogan of whiteness studies coined by Ignatiev and Garvey 'Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.'”

sund4r, bison, mordy otm

3/4 of my grandparents were german-american. this conversation is bonkers. given the size and spread of this 'ethnicity' (and the fact that 18th century "germany" didn't even exist) there is probably not a less self-conscious hyphenated-american group

worth talking about: protestantism and american catholicism, the midwest, political economy of midsize american cities and their hinterlands, or just rurality generally.

mass unconscious recognition of germanness? idk this is verging on phrenology

*19th

Do you think there's something about Obama's temperament that he inherited from his mother that resonated w/ German voters? Or do you think they *knew* he had German ancestry and they liked that? (That seems v unlikely to me considering the ignorance of the general populace about far less esoteric information.) What are the dynamics within which this ethnic affiliation/affinity played out?

― Mordy, Friday, March 16, 2018 4:18 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know by any means that his minor German ancestry played a significant or even any role in his vote, even if there's evidence that could be read to suggest same to one degree or another. Many of the disproportionately-German states and counties that voted for him are also disproportionately located in proximity to the state with which he was best identified, and in which he lived and worked for most of his adult life until becoming President. Do I think that a truly substantial number of voters were aware of his ancestry through their own efforts? No, of course not. Do I think that some were made aware through an unusual degree of attention to his ancestry vis-a-vis his 'white' predecessors? Yes. Do I think that he may have made an effort to highlight his German ancestry in part through his trip to Germany during the campaign? Maybe. Do I think that some white Americans of German ancestry may have perceived him consciously or otherwise as one of 'their people' (however defined), even if they were unaware of his German heritage? Possibly.

worth talking about: protestantism and american catholicism, the midwest, political economy of midsize american cities and their hinterlands, or just rurality generally.

mass unconscious recognition of germanness? idk this is verging on phrenology

― goole, Friday, March 16, 2018 4:56 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that all of those things are worth talking about, and don't entirely deny the verge.

I'm excited about this new direction the democratic party is headed in you guys

Germanness in America I think matters a great deal esp in light of ethnic subsumption in the wake of WW2 and how unidentified Germanness contributed to American culture in a more covert way than gaudier Anglo influences. But, again, to make a claim that Obama's specific German heritage led to repressed ethnic German-Americans voting for him requires I think an extraordinary case. Why would they see him as a fellow German-American as opposed to a black man? Why would they see anyone as a German-American when they don't even really see themselves as German-Americans? The ethnic case is interesting but I feel like just not in this particular dimension where it's being asserted.

tall with a great smile, wife in terrific shape, of course he's a northern european