>It just doesn't make sense that he won because of
>'disenfranchised rural' whites who are racist. Racist rural
>whites voted for McCain and Romney too but they didn't win.
>Unless you are suggesting people BECAME racist during Obama's
>8 years?

Sorry, this turned into a horribly long post.

You subtly misinterpreted my post, I think. I'd say the vast majority of voters aren't basing their voting intention based on racism, but they can be swayed by arguments that have racism at their heart if the narrative has been twisted effectively... in today's climate, Trump's election, the Brexit vote and arguably the same during Obama and Hollande's elections and even Nick Clegg's impact in the 2010 British election there has been a strong pull for something that represents "CHANGE". They know something's gone wrong with western economics and clearly we need to be trying something new. Obama used that energy and kept it positive with a "Hopey Changey" message which caught the country's imagination when compared with McCains offer of a "Steady Hand". They voted for the Change, not specifically for "The Black man"... some had to hold their nose, I'm sure, but a lot thought that voting for such a "landmark" President *must* mean Change would follow.

But Obama was blocked from turning a lot of the accrued Hope into much of the planned Change by an extremely loud and energetic minority that use the mainstream and social media to skew and muddy the political conversation so that working class people eternally fight among themselves, never reaching the solidarity needed to force the genuine, lasting change that would raise up ALL people.

Something like the Obamacare discussion is a perfect example. Obamacare is a good thing for all poor people. I don't think you'd find many economists focused on the working classes that don't think universal healthcare is a pre-requisite for social mobility, but through some very astute sleights of hand, the conversation was shifted from "How many Americans can get treated when something awful happens to them?" to "Hitler was in favor of universal healthcare!", "In Britain elitist panels decide when you die!" and "Won't somebody please think of the EMPLOYERS!" - the conversation gets muddied with misinformation to the point it makes little sense anymore, but the upshot is that Obama can be painted to look ineffective, incompetent or worse, a liar - "he said 'Yes We Can!' We believed him! He hasn't got the job done!" Then someone like Trump comes along who also offers "CHANGE!" in big red letters, but looks like he might be just the right kind of asshole to make his version stick. So the voters go nasty instead of nice, but for largely the same reasons - shit hasn't been working, something has to change. This time the choice was between Trump's message of "Change" and Hilary's "Safe Hands". The electorate made a not dissimilar decision to the last two times, they chose Change... only this time the person offering it was an asshole. They don't care about assholes, they just want Change by any means. They don't even know what Change. Just CHANGE SOMETHING.

By keeping us focused on mountainous molehills like a local school choosing to stage a multi-faith "nativity" over the holidays, the 1 militant #blacklivesmatter supporter instead of the thousands of peaceful ones or the "rapists and drug dealers Mexico send us" they keep our instant answers for "Why does life seem shitter for me than it did for my parents?" focused on other people who are also being failed by society at large... keeping us focused on subtly changing the proportions of too-few tax dollars going to various working class populations rather than coming together to wrest a few more % points from the very top to pay for everything *all* of us need... it's old-fashioned divide and conquer for the information overload era.

I've always believed solidarity is the only way to effect change and history largely proves that to be true. When enough people get together, when it crosses population boundaries and when we stand up for *each other* rather than just ourselves. When societal opinion of a policy hits a quorum point, it changes. The powers that be know that and they'll use every tool at their disposal to delay our solidarity by another few years so they can keep bolstering their own lifestyles... they really don't care whether that leaves the working classes fighting a race war on the floor over the scraps falling from the top table... they'd much prefer that to all of us joining hands and rushing the fucking table.

The fact is, ALL poor people need raising up at the moment - just like they always have. The existence of any family that lacks money, happiness and aspiration is society's failing.

There are unique problems to minority communities and still unacceptable layers of institutional racism, so we absolutely cannot lose focus of the need for minority-specific funding and projects and to check the institutional privilege of white people, but we have to be careful of how funding drives to exclusive populations are presented to other poor people... poor white people also need to feel that society is looking out for them and that they're not being forsaken in the name of another perceived group's "progress"... that if you're a white kid born on a trailer park in Buttfuck, Alabama your life doesn't have to be dominated by poverty, abuse and addiction. Money for programs to raise poor people should never be visibly coming out of the pockets/opportunity pools of other poor people because that will only lead to bitterness and infighting between people who should be engaged in common struggle... it's really not that hard to turn an already bitter person into a racist. So we should be more careful to present funding and programs aimed at the working classes as coming from the top of society, whatever the destination otherwise that desire for "Change" in our own existences becomes a desire to trample people who *should* be our peers... there should be no feeling of "opportunity cost" when enacting laws to raise up poor people.

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forever.