Said Nate Cohn, in "Nate Cohn Explains What the Polls Got Wrong" (The New Yorker).
I'm also seeing this today in The Washington Post: "Why Texas’s overwhelmingly Latino Rio Grande Valley turned toward Trump." Excerpt:
“Hispanics have been acculturated in Texas over many generations and because of that, their perceptions are much more like that of the Anglo population,” said Jason Villalba, president of the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation.University of Texas San Antonio political scientist Sharon Navarro said the conservatism of some Texas Latinos is nothing new, particularly in rural communities. The difference this year is that Republicans did the work to court these voters and tailor their message about the election around the economy and jobs.Republicans said they are convinced that the margins they won in the Rio Grande Valley and beyond is a sign that the region’s politics are trending in their favor....
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83 comments:
Catholics
going the path of Italians
Good sign ranchers not bringing socialism from down South
Once you find out there's an alternative to the lefts hive mind, it frees you up to enjoy life.
At least here in eastern Kansas, immigration was very much on the mind of local hispanic, but in a different way -- they appreciate that Trump pretty well stopped the influx of illegals, whom they detest as "maldichos mojados" [damned wetbacks]. Once it became clear that Trump was serious about immigration they began ratting out the illegals to ICE. They'd seen the substantial downward pressure the illegals put on wages, particularly in construction and landscaping ... and their families had suffered for it.
Trump changed that for them.
Hispanics along the border have ties or at least familiarity with Mexico. When it comes to cartels and MS13, it appears they don't want some.
Funny the dems haven't twigged to that, or if they have, perhaps the dems think that's racist or something.
Umlaut?
The Democrats have had these quaint theories that citizens of Hispanic descent, whether their families had been American citizens for generations (N.B., some of the men who died at the Alamo fighting for Texas independence had names like Juan and Jose and Manuel and Ignacio) or whether they were recent immigrants who had gone through the hoops for legal residency and naturalization, would actually welcome downward wage pressure from Hispanics here through illegal means. Turns out they were wrong.
Yes of course. The 'expert' from the Northeast goes to the "they must simply be stupid and just not smart enough to vote how we think they are supposed to vote."
Insufferable people, these 'experts' that we keep hearing from. They've not lived a day outside of their eggshell. They ought to. It might make them better at their jobs.
Still "too early", Nate?
Why is it "too early", Nate?
Could it be that.....
WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE RESULTS IN YET, NATE????
But yeah, sure. Keep telling me I'm dumb.
@Temujon +1
I was going to add that many of them remember how Trump tried to negotiate with Democrats to regularize the status of DREAMers, only to have Democrats storm out of the meeting alleging that Trump used the word (where is my fainting couch?) “shithole.” They know who tried to help them and who couldn’t be bothered.
My county in South Texas (not border) is very working class, very Hispanic, and stayed red in every race other than a couple of judges and a popular DA with a Hispanic surname. Hispanic guy in the house across the street from me (industrial sales) and his black wife (nurse) display a Trump flag. What does Biden or the Dems offer them? They earn what they have and want to keep it. They don’t want handouts and don’t want to pay for others’ handouts, presumably.
I detected a "Latinos are white" excuse.
As predicted everywhere.
My predictions about voting have been correct on all the particulars.
I did not predict the level of fraud that Democraticals are attempting.
I did not imagine they would be so brazen.
Who would have thought, a few years ago, that Hispanics would save Texas from turning blue?
Anecdotal about the conservatism of Hispanics:
The area where I live has a large population of Hispanics, mostly Guatemalans. At some of the oceanside parks I frequent, (on the weekends) it's mostly Hispanic FAMILIES enjoying the beautiful weather and clear waters. Not so much with blacks and whites. They get married, have children and raise families. I don't see that in the lower income other races.
THEOLDMAN
It looks like Trump managed to increase rural support overall, including rural whites and rural Latinos. If preliminary results hold, that suggests that Trump's rural support was offset by a loss of white support in the suburbs and exurbs.
The rural and urban divide is as old as civilization, a term practically synonymous with urbanization, and has been a persistent dynamic ever since. It was one of the themes of the Epic of Gilgamesh and 4,000 years later it was expressed in Jefferson and Hamilton's competing visions of the Republic. The southern agrarians predicted Marx by saying that capitalism would uproot communities, destroy traditional values, and turn people into soulless consumers. Shay's Rebellion, the pretext for a new convention, was driven by rural resentments over harsh debt collection efforts by the Eastern Massachusetts merchant class.
At some point in the first decade of the 20th century, the urbanized population outnumbered the rural for the first time in human history. The US became a majority urbanized country at some point in the 1920's. It's nearly 85% now. The cultural differences and power imbalance between the white, urban, college-educated professional class and the white, rural working class is a major driver of the polarization in the US.
Everywhere except for five specific cities run by Democrats and still counting today.
Nope. Couldn't be about immigration. Must be that Hispanics are dumb.
“Hispanics” are white and Black, rich and poor, and come from at least 3 continents. Until the Census Department. decided on this label, there was no broad categorization of these disparate people. It has been an invitation to stereotype and run stupid studies which are exercises in finding patterns in random numbers.
Don’t forget to include Juan Williams.
He has another set of explanations.
Yup, too early to crunch the numbers but not call the election. Makes absolute sense, since we need more accuracy in the former.
I'm of Irish-Catholic descent. I didn't vote for Biden. I don't feel any particular affinity towards him.....I remember when Kennedy became President. It was a big deal, a kind of validation of an Irish Catholic identity. All that's faded now. I don't go to church, and being Irish isn't anywhere near the most important part of my identity...At a certain point in time, Hispanics will stop thinking of themselves as Mexicans or Cubans and start thinking of themselves as Americans. There's an expiration date with identity politics.....I don't know any Italian who voted for DeBlasio.
@Bart Hall 5:08AM
That scenario explains everything we need to know here. Legal immigrants despise illegal immigrants, and do not care what ethnicity they are. I used to be married to a legal immigrant from Hong Kong, many years ago. She is as conservative on this issue as any redneck white dude from rural America. She always has been. Trump has nothing to do with it.
The Left refuses to accept that essential and evergreen truth about Immigration.
The legal vs illegal question goes much deeper than the Left wants to admit. It neatly divides the pool of candidates into two pools: those who follow laws and want to fit into American society and work hard and raise their families in peace, and therefore we welcome them via legal channels, vs. those who don’t do any of that and therefore we do not want them no matter what ethnicity they are.
This is the reality of how it works, and how we should talk about it.
Here in a largely Hispanic county in AZ, most of my Hispanic neighbors either own small businesses or work for small businesses. They obviously see Trump as favorable to their livelihoods.
My county voted Trump, BTW.
My most fervent Trump fan Friend is a Mexican immigrant with dual citizenship
Maybe one day political people will begin to see us as people and not as part of a clump they've chosen for us
Characters in Dilbert stopped wearing masks yesterday. Anybody besides me notice?
Polls aren’t in error. They are deliberately falsified in favor of Democrats.
During the height of the BLM marches and all the pandering rhetoric by politician dems that was voiced in support of them, I thought to myself, "If I were Hispanic, I would resent this". Oh, sure, the "people of color" terminology would be thrown in as a sop but it was really all about the Blacks.
I've yet to see any of the leftist media in their "analysis" of why trump and the republicans did so well want to talk about the looting and rioting over the summer.
Why wouldn't Hispanics (many who lost their small businesses not only to illegal, draconian covid shutdowns, but had their businesses destroyed by BLM terrorists) vote against the left.
As I've said elsewhere, the ability of the Trump to build support in the Black and Latino communities makes the loss of the NeverTrumpers almost meaningless.
So it makes sense to me that if we stop talking immigration and Hispanic voters start assessing the President without that in mind
Yes, of course, Hispanics may ave rejected liberals, but they didn't reject liberalism so there's no need for liberals to do any self-examination, no soul-searching, to figure out why they lost. It's not because of them.
Don't you go changin'!
Latino males love fascist strongman.
Jesus, Howard. Can you be more racist. Not even hiding it any more.
Well. I guess fascism and racism go hand in hand so what did any of us expect.
Howard the Racist.
And now they learn that voting Republican means having your vote stolen. Nice.
Good thing I'm not on Twitter or that would have cost me my account. When is Blogger going to get with the program?
Lots of Hispanics, especially those legal to vote, support Trumps position on immigration. Why would people of legal status who follow the law support open lawlessness?
If hispanic/latinos can be re-branded as white/anglo when their BELIEFS change, then what's the point in defining groups by race?
My favorite part of the article is how condescending and bigoted it is. The tone is: Why would latinos/hispanics vote for trump? Let's blame education and anglocization for it because if they were well educated and kept their culture, they would never vote for him.
The stupidity of the authors and refusal to actually engage in the hard work of understanding their well versed reasons is breathtaking.
Prove me wrong, Rusty.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_in_South_America
https://www.amazon.com/Latin-American-Dictatorships-Era-Fascism/dp/0367243857
J Farmer thinks analysis of exurbs and suburbs is possible?
When Trump won more individual, alive, human votes than in person in history?
Smug smugs smugly.
I'm with Jim. Why the umlaut?
I don't think I've ever seen preelection or pre-election spelled with an umlaut.
I can't eve recall the last time I saw an umlaut on an english word in something written in English.
Is this guy just being pretentious? Is there a particular reason for the umlaut here?
I'm surprised that Ann didn't mention it. It seems like the kind of thing she normally would blog about.
John Henry
Howard's defense is that they are all the same and therefore he is not racist.
Should we tell him?
I've spoken here before about the bogative nature of the word "hispanic" and "Latino"
If it does have any use as a word to describe generically spanish speakers (Mainly Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican)in the US, it is way out of place here.
The people in the article are of Mexican ancestry. They may, or may not, have any Spanish ancestry. There were not that many Spanish in Mexico, relatively speaking. So it is likely that many, if not most, have no ancestors from Spain.
Why not just call them Mexican-Americans?
John Henry
Ok I get it, "educated" does not mean what it used to mean. It used to mean you had acquired knowledge; now it means you've been been teained to pick up on certain social cues to conform.
This is why my profs used to say the answer to our social problems was Education. With education, we'll all think the same.
Though they wouldn't admit it when pressed. Because conformity was Bad in every other context.
Sorry it took me so long. Duh.
Hispanics have been acculturated in Texas over many generations and because of that, their perceptions are much more like that of the Anglo population
The WaPo way of saying that those brown people are getting uppity.
Blogger Shouting Thomas said...
Characters in Dilbert stopped wearing masks yesterday. Anybody besides me notice?
Adams talked about this a week or two back.
He has to turn the strips in 3 months in advance so he had to make a guess as to when mask wearing would stop. He guessed after the election. He now says he thinks his guess was wrong.
He also sells each strip multiple times. First through the newspapers, then through books, coffee mugs and other stuff.
A Dilbert of 20 years ago still seems fresh to a new generation of readers.
Strips with people wearing masks will not be usable in the future (5-10 years from now) as they will look very strange. He said he preferred to err on the side of sooner rather than later so he could minimize the number of strips that are useless for future sales.
John Henry
If you think a lot of Blacks and Hispanics voted for Trump today, just wait until the illegal votes are removed.
"I don't know any Italian who voted for DeBlasio. "
Perhaps because they know that DeBlasio is not his birth name and he is not of Italian ancestry. Warren W took the name DeBlasio as a flag of convenience when he set out on his voyage to destroy America as we knew it.
Just to keep the narrative in context: What Trump did was to be commended, but he almost certainly still fared far worse with Latinos than GWB, who people seem to forget captured 44 % of their vote in 2004.
The Hispanics I know in Austin, Texas, include both multigenerational citizens and soggy shirted day laborers. Both groups share a strong devotion to their families, at least a nominal Catholic faith, and very strong work ethic. The Republican Party should have 100% of this vote. It doesn't because of welfare run by Dems, who use it, and the fear of losing it, to keep the poor Hispanics on the Dem plantation.
Trump's economy got them jobs, and they noticed this. Do it more.
"The difference this year is that Republicans did the work to court these voters" - this makes me think of the work that Texas A&M has done to court minority students. Rather than change their admissions criteria, as UT did, they decided to take the A&M message to the Hispanic communities in Texas. They told them "Aggie values are your values" and so on. And it worked. 25% of A&M College Station undergrads are Hispanic now - a few % points more than UT Austin.
“Here in a largely Hispanic county in AZ, most of my Hispanic neighbors either own small businesses or work for small businesses. They obviously see Trump as favorable to their livelihoods.”
Our old neighborhood, in a west PHX suburb, was probably majority Hispanic (I think mostly Mexican, but not sure). Great neighbors most of the year, except for a couple holidays, with the entire extended family in the backyard, playing salsa music until late. And the house across the street had too many cars. But one thing that stood out, to me, was that they all had side gigs. Brother of the girl next door might work in a paint store during the day, but laid pavers for back yards on the side, in the evenings. Child care, cleaning, gardening, painting, carpentry, auto repair, etc. and you can easily find it done on the side by someone in the community. Sure, there might be a bit of mañana, about how quickly they get it done. But I have been having a worse time getting the slab for my garage poured in MT - by Anglos.
Given how lazy Mexicans, in particular, are reputed to be, it was a big surprise to discover how enterprising they were. Esp the side gigs, as I mentioned above. Never seen it before with other ethnic groups (having spent most of my life in upper middle class White America). But it is more than that. I spend 4-5 months many years ago working in a brickyard in Boulder CO. The owners, both CU grads, wanted to hire CU students. They rarely lasted a week. Instead, the hard work was done by Mexicans, who would come up for the season, send most of the money back home, live like kings, with servants etc, the rest of the time, and return, year after year. Working with them on the line, it was fascinating to discover that they could enjoy the back breaking work that CU students couldn’t do, and have fun at it. About every 15-29 minutes, a couple of the young guys would get into a race, to see who could stack the most bricks. This would go on for maybe 5 minutes, allowing the rest of us to kick back and smoke a cigarette. Then back to work for the rest of us. Once I could answer ¿Que Pasa? (Nada) and ¿Que Hora? (Easier to just show them my watch) and work by their rules, it was almost enjoyable. You would go home bone tired every day, but the time flew by.
BTW - one of the interesting facets there was the deep rooted Roman Catholicism there. Little shrines in a lot of the homes. Candles with pictures of Mary and/or Jesus in the local Dollar Tree. And a lot of the houses had fake (or real) windows criss-crossed with iron bars - the sign of the Cross, to ward the inhabitants from evil spirits. As a Protestant, I didn’t notice how ubiquitous they were until pointed out by my RC partner (who has Hispanic relatives by marriage). Turns out, we had one too.
Grifters and mountebanks whose basic agenda consists of statism and coercion aspiring to loftiness: priceless.
@Birkel:
J Farmer thinks analysis of exurbs and suburbs is possible?
By "analysis," I guess you mean the single sentence I wrote on the subject: "If preliminary results hold, that suggests that Trump's rural support was offset by a loss of white support in the suburbs and exurbs."
I guess it doesn't get more smugly resolute than that!
Come on, Birkel, I know being a petulant man-child is your schtick, but do you have to be boring, too? At least try to entertain me in the middle of your incessant whingeing.
The media keeps telling us that only white people care about law and order. That seems pretty racist, and as you can see from reading Howard, it's changing minds. But maybe he's always thought way. I'm not saying it's genetic, but like being gay, maybe there is some component that's built in to racists and they can't help it.
After living for over a decade in a metro area that is about 40% Hispanic; I've come to the conclusion that most working and middle class Hispanics life aspirations aren't too different from those of Whites or Blacks of the same class. They want to pay off the house, send their kids to college, and maybe have enough left over for an RV, boat, or a couple of Harleys for when they retire.
The left cannot see this. They can only view them as refugees ripe for manipulating for votes.
Why not just call them Mexican-Americans?
Because most of them are not from Mexico. The “Hispanic” (or “Latino”) label encompasses people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who really get offended at the suggestion that they might be from Mexico. In South Florida it includes Cuban refugees and people descended from Cuban refugees. Elsewhere it includes people who came here from Puerto Rico, and people descended from people who came here from Puerto Rico, some as far back as the 1950s (“West side Story”). I have even seen it extended to Filipino-Americans.
And that’s what’s wrong with this identity group — its too broad. It tries to cover people from too many disparate backgrounds and with differing life experiences. It would be like using “white” to include both poor Scots-Irish Baptists living in Appalachia and wealthy urban-dwelling Jewish lawyers.
Oh, wait.
Bruce Hayden gets it. Enterprising and hard working really describe the Hispanics in my 'hood. Most have day jobs as well as their own businesses on weekends and evenings. Grandma usually helps with babysitting, defraying child-care costs. Getting work done is not the challenge it is in WA state where engaging a mechanic or a plumber is like pulling teeth. Only thing I see differently from Bruce is that, while there are many Catholics in the Hispanic population, there are also a growing number of Pentecostal and Baptist Hispanic congregations.
@John Henry:
I've spoken here before about the bogative nature of the word "hispanic" and "Latino"
I agree that Latino/Hispanic are very muddled terms, especially given that they are listed along terms like "black, white, and Asian," all of which are racial categorizations. Latino is an ethnic designation. Racially, Latinos are hybrids of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. But despite the amount of admixing in Latin America, the society still forms a kind of rough racial caste, with people of primarily European ancestry at the top, the various mulatto and mestizo populations are in the middle, and the predominantly black and Native American populations are at the bottom.
Hispanics want to work.
And Biden doesn't mind having babies killed with government money.
Howard said...
Prove me wrong, Rusty.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_in_South_America
https://www.amazon.com/Latin-American-Dictatorships-Era-Fascism/dp/0367243857
This is the kind of facile interpretation of history you would expect from people who use animal reasoning.
Throughout history we as a species have always sought the security and providence of the strong leader who tends to be corrupt because positions of power are magnetic to the corruptible.
But rarely did that leader have a majority or even close to a majority of active support. Mostly it was just the masses accepting the safe path and making animal level decisions.
Making blanket assertions based on skin color and lacking any higher level reasoning is not just racist, it is really stupid.
I would enjoin you to try to understand how the average person in Mexico or Venezuela feels and how they view their situation rather than a facile attempt to describe Trump as a fascist.
J. Farmer said...
@John Henry:
I've spoken here before about the bogative nature of the word "hispanic" and "Latino"
I agree that Latino/Hispanic are very muddled terms, especially given that they are listed along terms like "black, white, and Asian," all of which are racial categorizations. Latino is an ethnic designation. Racially, Latinos are hybrids of Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. But despite the amount of admixing in Latin America, the society still forms a kind of rough racial caste, with people of primarily European ancestry at the top, the various mulatto and mestizo populations are in the middle, and the predominantly black and Native American populations are at the bottom.
Our genes have predetermined our history for millennia. Animals always look to the tribe for security. Other tribes are treated as competitors and must be made subservient or eliminated.
It is the duty of every Human to understand these tribal instincts and help lift fellow humans out of this trap.
You particularly J. Farmer can see these deeper currents, but then you lapse into pure animal/tribal reasoning.
It should be the goal of all that are capable to overcome this hurdle and helping our race grow up.
That pesky old "education divide."
These chaps are mental mice scrambling to avoid the obvious. People are individuals, and (unless they have been brainwashed by the media and our education system) they think for themselves.
Trump voters liked the president's pro-America, pro-business, pro-employment, pro-freedom policies. They didn't like Joe Biden's creepiness and his life-long parasitic avoidance of real work.
So, unless something unlikely happens, we are going to get a guy who has never done a day of real work in his adult life in the Oval Office. He has never managed anything. He has never taken a real risk. He has occupied public office buried amongst a hundred others or hiding behind Obama since 1973.
Under these circumstances, what could go wrong for the people who make our country work?
@John Henry:
You particularly J. Farmer can see these deeper currents, but then you lapse into pure animal/tribal reasoning.
Can you give an example of what you consider a "lapse into pure animal/tribal reasoning"? I'm also confused by what you mean when you say "genes have predetermined our history for millennia" especially with regard to the "goal" of "helping our race grow up." Again, I don't know what that means or how one would do it in the first place.
Simple answer. Makers vs Takers.
And I think this was not an election on immigration
Biden promised to create an immigration amnesty if elected. DACA was most certainly on the ballot
Simple answer. Makers vs Takers.
That's it in a nutshell, Bob.
I've spoken here before about the bogative nature of the word "hispanic" and "Latino"
The term is inaccurate when used as a racial category. However it is useful to describe a difference in ethnicity. There are broadly two distinct ethnicities in the U.S., Anglo (derived from Britain) and Hispanic (derived from Spain). We rarely used the term Anglo, instead we refer to white or mainstream culture. The distinction is important enough that the US Census breaks out it's racial statistics between only two ethnicities, mainstream and Hispanic.
Blogger J. Farmer said...
@John Henry:
You particularly J. Farmer can see these deeper currents, but then you lapse into pure animal/tribal reasoning.
I'm not bothered by anything you say here but I am bothered that words said by others are being attributed to me.
Could you please be a bit more careful in attributions.
John Henry
Blogger Gahrie said...
Hispanic (derived from Spain).
But that is the problem in a nutshell. Many, perhaps most, of the people identified as "hispanic" have no ancestry to Spain no matter how far you trace them back.
Most Argentines, about 60%, trace their ancestry to Italy. Another 10-15% trace their ancestry to Germany. Both groups going back to the huge immigration waves in the 19th century. A lot of the rest are Indian ancestry.
Brazilians don't even speak Spanish yet are considered "Hispanic".
Few Mexicans have any Spanish blood. Even fewer central Americans Guatemala, Costa Rica etc.
Most Dominicans (Dominican Republic) trace their ancestry to Africa.
And hordes and hordes of Irish. Often in very high positions. Viceroy Ambrosio O'Higgins Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly and many others all born in Ireland. Are they and their descendants hispanic?
In Chile, there is a colony of Croatians that goes back 100 years or so. They still speak Croat as a first language, live a Croatian life and so on. Are they hispanic? Are you willing to say that a person who is 5th or 6th gen born in Chile is NOT hispanic?
It is a bullshit term.
In the case of Argentines, given the the high proportion of Italian ancestry and impact on the culture (Listen to how Argentinians speak Spanish, for example) Perhaps it would be correct to call them "Latins" since latin refers to Italy rather than Spain.
In any event, to return to my point, when you have a specific group, such as the Mexican-Americans in the article, they should be called by their group name, not by the generic name used to amalgmate a bunch of very disparate groups.
John Henry
Mexican Americans and even some aliens who have stepped into jobs in the trades vacated by anglos who have become inept college students or alcoholics are confronted with cheap competition from, and drug and human trafficking by, illegals and they don’t like it.
The Democrat Party is becoming more anti-family and pro-abortion and they don’t like that either.
@John Henry:
Few Mexicans have any Spanish blood.
I'm not sure what your source for this claim is. The majority of Mexicans identify as mestizo, and mestizos tend to be 1/2 to 2/3 European in ancestry and 1/3 to 1/2 Native American. The proportion tends to be less European and more Native as you move from north to south and from west to east.
Perhaps it would be correct to call them "Latins" since latin refers to Italy rather than Spain.
Latin refers to the romance languages of Spanish and Portuguese that are spoken on the continent.
John henry said...Few Mexicans have any Spanish blood.
I grew up with Mexican American families who identified as Spanish. They were very proud of their culture, but saw it as rooted in both Spain and Mexico. Friends from three different families mentioned to me that their ancestors were full blooded Spaniards.
Most of my friends were third generation - Grandparents moved from Mexico to Texas and parents moved from Texas to Chicago. The parents were upwardly mobil and often Republican business owners or managers. My generation was the first to go to college and they were more liberal than their parents, at that time..
"I grew up with Mexican American families who identified as Spanish. They were very proud of their culture, but saw it as rooted in both Spain and Mexico. Friends from three different families mentioned to me that their ancestors were full blooded Spaniards."
Simple test...
Under 5'8"...majority Mexican
Over 5'8"...majority Spanish
Gahrie said...
I've spoken here before about the bogative nature of the word "hispanic" and "Latino"
The term is inaccurate when used as a racial category. However it is useful to describe a difference in ethnicity. There are broadly two distinct ethnicities in the U.S., Anglo (derived from Britain) and Hispanic (derived from Spain).
I fit your Anglo derived from Britain description. Mostly. There's a sprinkling of German and other things. OTOH, my wife and her family is primarily Bohemian. Her grandmother was very adamant- not German, not Austrian- BOHEMIAN! Yes, I heard her once... In the small rural town I live in now, a large percentage of the people are primarily, if not wholly, Italian descended. It's here that I really learned what was meant by a "Roman nose". If someone here has one- they're Italian.
Two of my aunts wholly Norwegian.
America has long been a melting pot for real. Hence"E Pluribus Unum". In Britain, the Welsh, Irish, English, Scottish, and even Cornish, can tell each other at a glance and don't necessarily get along. Here, we're all lumped together as British.
Whether you have your own business or work for somebody else can be a factor. So is the shift in the Democratic Party away from the working class to the upper middle class and rich also has been a factor. Some voters see it and turn to Trump. Others don't realize that it happened and stick with the Democrats.
But that is the problem in a nutshell. Many, perhaps most, of the people identified as "hispanic" have no ancestry to Spain no matter how far you trace them back.
Apparently you completely missed my point.
Hispanic isn't about race, ancestry or even DNA. It's about ethnicity which is based on language and culture. Most of the people described as Hispanic have very strong ties to cultures descended from Spanish colonies.
It is also true that the various types of Hispanic in the US have far more in common with each other than with the Anglo population. (many, perhaps most, of whom have no ancestry to England)
@Gospace:
America has long been a melting pot for real. Hence"E Pluribus Unum".
E pluribus unum has nothing to do with a melting pot idea. It referred to the creation of a national government out of the 13 constituent states.
@Gahrie:
There are broadly two distinct ethnicities in the U.S., Anglo (derived from Britain) and Hispanic (derived from Spain).
I disagree with this dichotomy. Anglo-Americans are likely no more than 1/5 of the population, with the remaining bulk of white Americans descended from German, Irish, and Italian immigrants.
I also don't believe "Hispanic" is the optimal word to use in this context. As you noted, it refers to Spain and the Spanish-language. Latino and Latin America are more accurate descriptors. Hispanic does not describe Brazilians, for example. Also, Latin American connotes the hybridization between Iberians and Native Americans, typically resulting from Spanish men taking Native American women as their brides.
Race and ethnicity are distinct but interrelated concepts. The primary difference is you can adopt an ethnicity (culture) but not a race (biology). Broadly speaking, the ethnic divisions in America are European-American, Latin-American, African-America, Asian-America, and Native-American. Of course, these can be further subdivided.
J. Farmer said...
@John Henry:
You particularly J. Farmer can see these deeper currents, but then you lapse into pure animal/tribal reasoning.
Can you give an example of what you consider a "lapse into pure animal/tribal reasoning"? I'm also confused by what you mean when you say "genes have predetermined our history for millennia" especially with regard to the "goal" of "helping our race grow up." Again, I don't know what that means or how one would do it in the first place.
Every tribe/race/nation in history with a few variations has a ruling class that is at best ambivalent to the people they rule, in tandem with a population that is generally subservient to them. They set up a variety of control mechanisms but these are just details.
Once you contrast the vast majority of nations to the very few outliers the pattern becomes obvious. And right now the only outlier really in the world is the United States.
But the Biden candidacy and the current attempt to steal this election are clear attempts by the corrupt ruling class to pull the United States back into the normal historical channels.
One of the tools they use to pull us down is diving everyone explicitly by race. This is a very similar tactic to using the caste system in India to maintain social order.
You cannot do anything about how you were born. If you take away hope from people based on how they were born and you leave them no path to dream or strive they will turn their energies to destroying you.
You have made some pretty flat declarations about certain races and their ability to help maintain a free society. You are not alone in this here.
Gahrie said...
Hispanic isn't about race, ancestry or even DNA. It's about ethnicity which is based on language and culture. Most of the people described as Hispanic have very strong ties to cultures descended from Spanish colonies.
It is also true that the various types of Hispanic in the US have far more in common with each other than with the Anglo population. (many, perhaps most, of whom have no ancestry to England)
The key distinction I would make here is the difference between Catholic and Protestant.
The Catholic Church is a nasty organization that has done a lot of damage since it's foundation. The problem with Catholic masses is that they tend to be naturally subservient to centralized power while maintaining a sense of moral superiority that is very easily manipulated. Catholic countries tend toward socialism and toward Crusade like activity leaders use to expand their power. Catholic countries are overwhelmingly corrupt matching the general acceptance of corruption by the populace.
Howard said...
"Prove me wrong, Rusty."
You have a tendency to lump people in to groups that your prejudices' can easily manage. You refuse to see people, especially people that you disagree with, as individuals.
It probably didn't dawn on you that the people that you so cavalierly pidgin hole might have come here to escape fascism.
And then there's you.
@Attonasi:
(1) Every tribe/race/nation in history with a few variations has a ruling class that is at best ambivalent to the people they rule, in tandem with a population that is generally subservient to them. They set up a variety of control mechanisms but these are just details.
That isn't actually true. For the overwhelming majority of modern human existence, humans have lived in stateless kinship-based band societies. These weren't class-based, and divisions of labor were along age and sex lines. Even after the development of agriculture in the neolithic and the rise of settled farming villages, those divisions remained. It was only once these developments grew large enough in size that surplus food development freed people to do other work. That is typically when you see the development of those attributes collectively identified as "civilization." The development of a writing and accounting system, a public organized religion that confers legitimacy on a monarch of some type, major public works, and the division of the population into social classes based on occupation.
(2) Once you contrast the vast majority of nations to the very few outliers the pattern becomes obvious. And right now the only outlier really in the world is the United States.
Except the US is not and never has been an "outlier" in that regard. It's always had a ruling class. The Constitution is an elitist document. And even ignoring that, see Robert Michel's "iron law of oligarchy."
(3) You cannot do anything about how you were born. If you take away hope from people based on how they were born and you leave them no path to dream or strive they will turn their energies to destroying you.
Who is advocating taking "away hope from people based on how they were born"? And what does that actually entail?
(4) You have made some pretty flat declarations about certain races and their ability to help maintain a free society. You are not alone in this here.
I am not even sure what an "ability to help maintain a free society" means. That isn't the way I talk. What I have said is that racial groups (not individuals) differ, on average, in cognitive ability and personality traits, that these differences are partly attributable to biology, and that this has serious social and political implications for American society.
J. Farmer said...
That isn't actually true. For the overwhelming majority of modern human existence, humans have lived in stateless kinship-based band societies. These weren't class-based, and divisions of labor were along age and sex lines. Even after the development of agriculture in the neolithic and the rise of settled farming villages, those divisions remained. It was only once these developments grew large enough in size that surplus food development freed people to do other work. That is typically when you see the development of those attributes collectively identified as "civilization." The development of a writing and accounting system, a public organized religion that confers legitimacy on a monarch of some type, major public works, and the division of the population into social classes based on occupation.
But all of those things boil down to the same thing. They are all mechanisms for the leaders to control and to feed on the energy of a subservient mass of people. There may be differences in the laziness and level of corruption but Venezuela on that level is not much different than a village in Africa or a clan of prehistory sloth hunters living in caves. I would guess that accounting accuracy in Cuba is not much better than some old woman reading cracks in bones either.
Except the US is not and never has been an "outlier" in that regard. It's always had a ruling class. The Constitution is an elitist document. And even ignoring that, see Robert Michel's "iron law of oligarchy."
But the primary differences is in how in the nature of contracts and our social contract that force the ruling class to seek affirmative consent of the masses. Even the biggest corporation is forced to sell things to a willing customer. Only lately have those social contracts been broken with atrocities like Obamacare.
I am not even sure what an "ability to help maintain a free society" means. That isn't the way I talk. What I have said is that racial groups (not individuals) differ, on average, in cognitive ability and personality traits, that these differences are partly attributable to biology, and that this has serious social and political implications for American society.
I agree in aggregate on the numbers. But Howard and Inga are stupid people. The average antifa member is probably 90 IQ and white as wonder bread. Most of the damage to our society is being done by white people.
Most of the issues facing black people in this country can be fixed by fixing the black family and getting black kids fathers. But white kids without fathers fair just as badly, there just aren't as many of them.
I don't think race is the thing we should be focusing on.
Hispanic (derived from Spain)
No, it's not. “Spain,” now, properly the nation/kingdom so-called, is very recent on the long historical timescale, only dating back to the personal union (by marriage) of two states — the Medieval kingdoms of Aragon and Castile — in the late 15th century.
Calling their merged kingdom “Spain” was simply a propagandistic attempt by the newly unified and renamed polity to convince folk everywhere that theirs was the totality (or at least the important part) of the whole “Hispanic” (Iberian) peninsula — totally eliding Portugal, also vastly important as part of the peninsula and history.
But, compared with the relatively newfangled modern term “Spain,” “Hispania” — referring to the entire geographic Iberian peninsula — is ancient.
For instance, one finds on the famous Antikythera Mechanism of (probably) the late 2nd century BC (!) an inscription made in the mechanism's copper plate referring to certain ancient eclipses occurring in (using the Greek alphabet) ΙΣΠΑΝΙΑ — that is: “Hispania.”
Thus, rightly, all persons biologically or culturally descended from the cultures and states of the entire Iberian — Hispanic — peninsula (not just Spain per se) by rights may be correctly termed Hispanic.
@Attonasi:
They are all mechanisms for the leaders to control and to feed on the energy of a subservient mass of people
For about 95% of human history, there were no "leaders" or "mass of people." A much more prevailing theme in human history is social cooperation. What you're describing is a phenomenon associated with the emergence of states. Societies organized at the level of the band or even small farming villages are relatively egalitarian. The social stratification you're describing is something you get with the emergence of cities, and in terms of human history, this has been a relatively recent development. It's only been in the last couple hundred years that the divine right of kings has given away to self-determination as an organizing political principle.
Even the biggest corporation is forced to sell things to a willing customer. Only lately have those social contracts been broken with atrocities like Obamacare.
The US has a very long history of violating the terms of the social contract, even ignoring all the philosophical problems with social contract theory. A piece of paper cannot constrain a state. But also, even in your own example, what you're really talking about is the power of the federal government. States have much broader authority under their so called police power. It was only around the end of the 19th and early 20th century that the Bill of Rights were incorporated and held to bind the states. Even then, the federal government made it illegal to criticize US entry into WWI.
Most of the damage to our society is being done by white people.
That's likely true, especially considering whites have a disproportionate amount of the power and thus a greater capacity to do damage.
Most of the issues facing black people in this country can be fixed by fixing the black family and getting black kids fathers. But white kids without fathers fair just as badly, there just aren't as many of them.
Even if that were true, it isn't clear how you "fix the black family." Also, the black-white gap in single-parenthood does not explain the black-white gap in criminality. Or the black-white gap in athleticism for that matter.
I don't think race is the thing we should be focusing on.
We can't not focus on it. Race has been baked into the system since the founding of the Republic.
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