Friday, April 17, 2009

The Poor Of Texas Call To You

I realize that fellow Democrats talking about the advantages of having Texas secede from the union are just treating Rick Perry's speculation with the disrespect it deserves. But Democrats from more progressive states shouldn't forget that their influence as fellow Americans is protecting minorities, gay people, single women, and poor white Southerners* from being left alone in a cage with the rich people and religious fundamentalists who will otherwise eat them. The former groups are all majority-Democratic constituencies. See them not as ungrateful beneficiaries of your tax dollars and your efforts to keep a pro-choice majority on the Supreme Court, my friend from a city where most people know that hummus and baba ghanoush are tasty foods and not terrorist groups, but as the good folk you're trying to rescue from the forces of evil.

*Paul Rosenberg had a great OpenLeft post on the poor white Southerners a while ago. Basically what you see over the decades from 1950 to the present is that rich and middle-class white folks switch in big numbers the Democrats to the GOP.

2 comments:

ikl said...

If you look at exit polls from the 2008 election, it is less clear that there is a strong income gradient in support for Dems and the Presidential level among white Southerners. There is in Arkansas and WV, but not so much in most other states that I looked at. So I wonder a little bit about this data. Most Southern states have a fair number of whites who identify as Democrats but tend to vote Republican for President and Senate. I'm not sure what this group looks like socio-economically. But I wouldn't be surprised if it were more downscale . . .

Ron E. said...

Non-poor white liberal Democratic Southerners like me would like to be remembered too!