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Andrew Burleson's avatar

I also wonder to what extent all these things correlate with wealth / income. Most of rural America is really struggling economically, and I think it’s hard for people who are seeing their communities die to believe that they somehow have a special advantage in life. It may be true in aggregate, but individuals aren’t statistics.

John McWhorter has advocated for changing affirmative action in universities to focus strictly on low income families, and I recall a while back that Texas A&M made a big program to recruit first generation college students. Those kinds of programs will still greatly benefit racial minority groups, but because they aren’t explicitly racial they don’t exclude the possibility of a very poor or low status white person from benefitting, which leads to less opposition and less resentment.

Lastly I strongly agree that there’s a messaging problem. Many on the left have become infected with this idea that America is an evil nation, some think irredeemably evil. That seeps into the messaging and drives away most of the country. If we’re all evil then what are you going to do if you’re elected, punish us for our sins? How is that going to help? To win in America it helps to believe that America is a fundamentally good nation that is always overcoming its flaws and moving toward the “more perfect Union,” and you have to cast a positive vision of how we can all win and make things better for everyone together.

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J. J. Ramsey's avatar

I wonder what would happen if the same people who were asked, "Do you agree or disagree that white people in the United States have certain advantages because of the color of their skin?" had instead been asked, "Do you agree or disagree that black people in the United States have been treated worse because of the color of their skin?"

That difference in framing could be huge. Most white people, especially those who aren't at least upper middle class, don't think of themselves as having *extra* advantages, but may recognize that others are treated worse than they are.

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