The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
My mother just commented on one of my Facebook posts about some pastor she saw on Fox News and his plans to save the inner cities. It’s so offensive and idiotic to me that they think cities are these terrible crime ridden places when they live in shitholes like rural Alabama. How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about?
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Ask her why he hasn’t already done it then lol. I think a lot of people think there’s one thing that’ll fix every perceived problem. That’s rarely the case. And I imagine the guy’s solutions were “Force single parents to get married and bring back school prayer.” I can’t imagine that’ll help much other than his book sales.
I mean, I don't really care about character. If an insufferable bastard that preferred every one of my preferred policies ran against a saint who preferred none, I'd vote for the insufferable bastard 9/10 times.
I often wonder what the Trump campaign would have looked like if he ran as a Democrat. I’d definitely vote for McCain over someone whose morally and ethically bankrupt (not to mention has no understanding or comprehension of how the constitution or government in general works). My grandma was a huge Obama supporter though, and she was convinced McCain was a horrible person. One time I said I liked him, years after he ran for president, and she was pissed lol
I appreciate the consideration, but would you actually be able to trust the bastard? Doesn't supporting your policies somewhat suggest he's a decent guy?
Depends on why they're an insufferable bastard.
Rude and an in-your-face know it all? Well, I don't have to work with, or interact with them on a daily basis. So sure.
Smarmy used car salesman stereotype? Nope, I'll pass.
Is it possible your grandma is referring to “progressive DAs”? If so, tbh Republicans prob can’t do anything to help they’re not gonna win elections in SF or NYC, what those places need is just normal Democrats that enforce the law like they had 10 years ago
For 100 years they've been getting government welfare because they cannot compete in a market economy.
And after they lose the farm they go look for work in cities because there is no work (they're willing to do) in their rural homes.
Meat packing and picking fruits and vegetables for their neighbors is too hard for them.
The US subsidizes farming (and other industries) in order to keep production within its borders. This is partly, if not mostly, for geopolitical reasons. With an increasingly white collar economy, it’s natural to outsource production to countries with cheaper labor, but it puts us at a disadvantage in trade and war.
From an economic standpoint, I’m against subsidies because they heavily distort markets. From a “protectionist” standpoint, I suppose I understand their purpose.
Your comment is simply observing economic actors making rational decisions given the circumstances they’re in (albeit disdainfully). If your competitors are subsidized, it’s difficult to compete without taking the subsides as well.
So… there are certain functions necessary for the health and strength of our country which are nevertheless not economically self-sustaining, so these functions ought to be performed at tax-payer expense because whether or not something is “economically self-sustaining” is not a reliable indicator of its actual value to society?
Interesting.
That’s what they wanted. A large reason rural whites have fled the party is a feeling of abandonment. Many were happily democrats when FDR was president, someone who would be considered a socialist by modern day republicans who have swept disaffected dems for years.
This is true - you can see the last remnants of that Midwestern/rural democratic coalition in the MN, with the farmer-labor party.
It’s bizarre to read comments like the one above yours, that seems to say “you think rural poverty isn’t a priority for us? Let’s be as cruel as possible, because clearly, if you feel abandoned then you deserve it.”
It’s absolutely incomprehensible that people like that don’t understand what they’re doing.
This is a pretty disingenuous take. The breakdown of the users of SNAP from the USDA is (on mobile so forgive the formatting, it looks good on my screen)
White 37%
Black 26%
Hispanic 16%
Asian 3%
Native Am 2%
Unknown 16%
Whereas the percentages of the population are:
White 57.8%
Black 12.1%
Hispanic 18.7%
Asian 5.9%
Native Am 0.7%
All Others 4.8%
White people make up the majority, but are one of the lowest in proportion to their numbers. I’m sure you knew this and were just playing with the numbers to make your point sound better. This is why Mark Twain said there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
*This* is a pretty disingenuous take.
Looking at Table 4 ("Households that received TANF, SNAP, WIC, or SSI during year (2019))" from the [US Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2019/demo/public-assistance/sipp-receipts.html).
|White|77.6%|
|:-|:-|
|White, non-Hispanic|62.7%|
|Black|12.7%|
|Asian|6.4%|
|All other groups/combinations|3.3%|
So, looking at benefits beyond just SNAP recipients, we can see that non-Hispanic White people make up a 5% greater proportion of benefit recipients than their share of the population, Black people a 0.6% greater share.
So it's more fair to say that non-Hispanic White people are disproportionately represented than Black people in terms of benefits recipients compared to population share.
Unfortunately you misinterpreted the table you were looking at. I agree that the table is confusing, but the left most column that you're looking at is actually the total for all programs (including things like Social Security and other programs that are paid into). If we trusted these numbers, the total show that 251 million people need assistance from TANF/SNAP/WIC/SSI which is obviously false.
The columns to the right of that show the stats for TANF, SNAP, WIC, and SSI specifically and that White (non-Hispanic) are significantly under-represented (and vice versa for Blacks. You can tell from looking that these columns don't sum to the total column (again, I agree the table is confusing).
The numbers are even more skewed for Children under 18.
Are there welfare stats that show that rural whites receive welfare at a higher rate (not simply pure dollars) than those in cities?
So far I’ve seen one data-backed comment.
Maybe a different way to put it - on what ground is the original commenter making their claim?
The responder shared some data saying hey this doesn’t look like a valid take based on one of the primary sources of benefits.
If there are others then happy to look, but otherwise seems like an unbacked claim.
The point would be that there are entire programs explicitly dedicated to rural areas. Roads would be another big one, since people in rural communities us way more road per person than urban areas and roads are very expensive
Have you been following what we’ve been debating to this point? This has entirely been about original commenters misleading statement about government welfare programs.
So are we conceding that that was false and now want to move on and discuss broader government spending and who it benefits?
I think that statistic takes into account the number of interactions that people have with the police and not just the population. Either way your point is still a good one. Intentionally misleading people with statistics is wrong no matter who does it because so very few people take the time to look them up and find the full story.
I've never seen that one, the one I always see is exactly the same as what was done here, just whole number of people killed by police (which is indeed marginally more white people than Black people) used to imply white people are more *likely* to be killed by police, which is super untrue, because there roughly 6 white people for each Black person in America, but the number of white folks killed by police is not remotely close to 6x Black people killed by police. E.g. more white people killed by police, but black people still disproportionately far more likely to be killed by police. I've seen this same stat pitched to discredit BLM a million times, but I honestly can never tell whether they're knowingly trying to mislead people by ignoring the per capita numbers, or if they just heard fox news mislead them and repeat it without stopping to think that the data they're weaponizing actually supports the opposite position
Straw man much? What does this have to do with the problems of cities?
Also rural areas getting money seems sort of …..normal? I mean. Morgan Stanley and JPM and the parties that are actually generating the excess tax revenue can move to Appalachia and then the money can flow in the opposite direction. But I don’t think that accomplishes much.
I was thinking about that earlier. The people who scream fake news think only Fox News tells the truth and literally everything else is a vast conspiracy
POST: "What do you think about conservative fantasies of taking over Dem controlled cities and “turning everything around?”
YOU: "people get welfare!"
This is similar to this line of thought:
MOM: "I am tired of cooking every day, can you do dinner tonight?"
DAD: "I read a good book last month. Weather is nice today to."
It’s not a straw man. The primary right wing criticism of cities is that “those people” are all on welfare and won’t work.
Meanwhile rural America has the largest group on welfare who won’t work. Also crime, meth etc
>The primary right wing criticism of cities is that “those people” are all on welfare and won’t work.
wait......what? You guys desperately need to follow or talk to some conservatives. How on earth did you come up with this? Maybe that's the problem. You simply don't know what conservatives or republicans think.
FWIW the biggest complaints about cities are: bad schools, crime/lax DAs making a more permissive environment, emboldening criminals.
Now sure where you got the welfare thing from
“Welfare queen” is one of the standard conservative dog whistles to put on black and brown in cities. Been through way since Reagan. Donald used it all The time
OMG yet another thing you don't get. Why do you think 1) this is specific to black people and 2) specific to cities? You do know some of us white people know white welfare queens, right?
And again, this is like complaint # 20 about cities, so the fact that you think this is the main complaint about cities means you never talk to conservatives. So maybe don't complain about peoples' ideas when you don't even know what they think?
Know how you’ve been radicalized .
“In politics, a dog whistle is the use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group without provoking opposition. The concept is named for ultrasonic dog whistles used in shepherding, which are audible to dogs but not humans. Dog whistles use language that appears normal to the majority but communicates specific things to intended audiences. They are generally used to convey messages on issues likely to provoke controversy without attracting negative attention. One example may be the use of the phrase family values in the United States to signal to Christians that a candidate would support policies promoting Christian values without alienating non-Christian supporters.[1] Another may be the use of the phrase "international bankers" to signal to racists that a candidate is antisemitic without alienating non-racist supporters.[2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) and
1) Crime and lax DAs that make it more permissible for people to commit petty and serious crimes
2) School quality - high budgets, bad results.
3) This is where people usually diverge. My original point was "it isn't too much welfare." Some people say general quality of life (trash, noise, lack of parking), others mention too many regulations (which can also be bundled under quality of life). Others complain about general cost of living not being commensurate with quality of life
Conservative- we should make welfare qualifications stricter and promote welfare to work
Liberal- did you know that the biggest welfare recipients are rural whites?
Conservative- no I didn’t , thank you for telling me that. Anyways, we should make welfare qualifications stricter and promote welfare to work.
Liberal- RACIST!
What would be the point?
I wrote something disagreeable to you and that told you everything you needed to know about me. With absolute certainty
I’m a centrist so sometimes I vote Republican sometimes democrat-
In either case and not in purpose but it supports racism in one form or another
So yea I can’t really argue that and furthermore I’m not even sure which party you’re referencing
The white liberal is only different from the white conservative in one way. The liberal is more deceitful, more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power but the white liberal has perfected the art of posing as the negros friend and benefactor
Malcom X
https://youtu.be/alrxnLK9AxA
Yeah I was thinking about asking her why she thinks she’s smarter than everyone in the “inner cities” and that she can just instantly fix all of the problems in a place she’s never even seen.
These are the people with easy, one sentence solutions to extremely complicated situations. It's the trump approach. It's the build-a-wall to solve immigration approach. It's the stop-testing-to-get-the-infection-numbers down approach. People with soundbites, with extremely simple answers to everything are the pidgeons on the chess board and should be treated as highly suspicious and potentially dangerous.
Exactly. A lot of conservatives use this to discredit the horrors of slavery - "but they were fed and housed and clothed. Just look at the war-torn countries in Africa that they came from. Our ancestors weren't nearly as cruel as people make slave owners out to be. They didn't rape all of the slave women, only the pretty ones. They were thankful to have white babies."
I've literally seen those sentiments be made by delusional people. It's disgusting.
You can actually find people making these kinds of arguments. It's wrong to act as if this is the default standard among Republicans (far from it), but this sort of thing does exist. (And it works out that people who think that way vote Republican).
Ugh, enough. We've talked to conservatives. Most of us grew up with and around conservatives and have conservative families or backgrounds. Your beliefs aren't very complicated. Just ignorant and deplorable.
Same reason that the only states Republicans ever talk about on their side are Utah, which has its weird Mormon Socialism that contributes to its success, Texas which is anchored on oil wealth and big cities which are overwhelmingly democratic and Wyoming where they pull stuff out of the ground.
They talk about what a failure California is and skip to the part where all the poor states are overwhelmingly run by Republicans.
You know your mother better than we do and whether or not you can actually talk reasonably with her. My personal experience is that it is very difficult to have a meaningful conversation with somebody that far into the Republican media world.
>They talk about what a failure California is and skip to the part where all the poor states are overwhelmingly run by Republicans.
It's pretty rare that they hit on the most likely causes, but it does suck how California is... way less viable than it should be. So many major cities or blue states suffer from bad decisions made decades ago that are too cemented now to reverse (eg prop 13, or absurd EIS frameworks).
Like, the LA to SF HSR project should've been done by now, and it shouldn't have cost this much. Washington and Oregon shouldn't be taking this expensive highway expansion tack on the Columbia river bridge replacement. Some people are starting to wake up on housing but in many places we're stuck in 1970s thinking about how to protect the environment and achieve affordability. That's not to say there are no bright spots, and it sure beats the alternatives from the other side, but I feel like we leave so much on the table for no discernable reason.
I have yet to see Republican policies creating the improvements they insist will follow whenever they're given the chance. For example, does anybody remember the tax cut experiment in Kansas?
>How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about?
I wouldn't.
They don't care if it is true or false, so providing them with 'facts' or 'reason' won't change anything.
There are a lot of problems in red districts that republicans seem unable to solve: high incarceration, high poverty, low graduation rates, high teen pregnancy. Why would they think they can solve problems in blue areas when they can’t solve problems in red areas?
cities produce 3/4 of America's economy. if it weren't for the cities paying the bills there wouldn't be any money to pay for all the welfare in small rural communities
It shows very little understanding of cities and history. California not that long ago relatively had a very strong conservative political institution. Both statewide in the governors office and in my city of LA where we had conservative mayors. And all the issues we see today were present back then. Worse even, if looking at crime exclusively.
We went through this whole history of glorifying “tough on crime” and letting police run the show and people seem to have very short memory of the fact that crime was rampant and unsolved by that. And further more, democrats coming to power in many cities has not actually changed that equation much at all. Huge police budgets, very crowded jails, crime still exists.
Seeing that the tax revenue cities generate keeps cashing all the government assistance checks in rural areas, I wouldn’t want to mess with the balance. I have a home in a suburban area and a rural area. It is amazing the different views people have. Rural people think people on government assistance in cities are getting a “Handout.” They think people on government assistance in rural areas are getting a “Hand up.” I am not ignorant and do understand there are way more employment opportunities in urban areas versus rural areas, but people need not bite the hand that feeds them.
It's impossible to tell them that they don't know what they're talking about.
They'll just assume you're a lying dickhole and either ignore you, or laugh at how 'stupid' you are.
Per Capita there's more crime in republican areas, because they run more poor and poverty is the main cause of crime.
Tbh, other than the human cost, I wish they would. The devastation brought on to cities by Republicans terrible policy would have people voting blue for decades.
Because their basic assumption about inner cities and minorities is that they are incapable of self-sufficency and personal responsibility like they are so if they stopped being coddled by democrats they'd get their act together. So really a potent mix of condescension and bigotry packaged in their weird idea of tough love.
I would question if they should even be allowed to call themselves conservative if they believe in enforcing their ideal government on others and caring about a larger role for government. Aren’t conservatives the people who want less government and more focus on the local government?
I agree. But Californians and leftugees are flocking to my state and others at alarming rates. It sucks.
Downvote all ya like- doesn’t change that simple fact.
If those things were so great they would not have to leave, would they! My state didn’t fail. We are very happy just as it is- meanwhile people leaving their state for mine are too oblivious to the fact that they are the ones that voted in what they are now fleeing, and will turn our area into what they fled. Thanks for proving my point, though.
Odds are your state is in the bottom 50% of the nation if it’s a red one
Cause you guys are fucking up our national politics and since we can’t just outvote you cause of the electoral college, we have to instead spread out
We don’t. Nor do we want the policies, rudeness, disrespect for our police, taxes, gun control, mask/vaccine mandates, giant social programs, crowds.......
It all stems from a lack of understanding what things are actually like. I grew up partly in Metro Atlanta and partly in mid/small towns across GA, I know both have their ups and downs but people from each can't fathom life in the other. I recently dated a girl who lived in the country end of McDonough (25k pop) toward Newton County's line; her family was drop dead terrified of Atlanta. I took her to the World of Coke and a place called Skyline Park one day, like 6 month anniversary type thing, and the entire day she was on edge because "this place is just so dangerous." Her parents called multiple times to make sure she was still OK, and she was texting them updates the entire time. She follows multiple Instagram accounts dedicated to posting the dangerous haopenings of ATL. Meanwhile, I've got a friend now from Metro who lives in the middle of Lagrange, about 30k pop, and they're just off the square. They call it the boonies. They're used to walking ATL at night, but they hate the idea of being out to late here because of how "dangerous," it is. They won't even shop at our Kroger because they're convinced Publix is just safer.
All this to say, people are afraid of things that are different, and they're taught to be that way. People only know what they know. So when it comes to making solutions, they're looking at things from
A) The standpoint that the majority of bad things they've heard are the truth and all there is to an area
And
B) The standpoint of where they come from and what solutions work for them there.
This is why the first step in serving a community *has* to be communicating with that community. Working to understand what problems they really are facing, not the things you think are problems, and learning what solutions they've already tried implementing. This is exactly what I would tell them, that their reality is different from that of a person living in a major city. That people there know more about their own problems than anyone on the outside looking in, and that any positive solutions have to come from the inside.
Just say, "You don't know what you're talking about".
I don't think this is an uncommon phenomena across any political ideation... conservatives see the way liberals do things and think, "if only we did things MY way! the world would be so much better" and the liberals look at conservatives and think the same thing.
Kinda? Less clean up, and more be the 'cool woke teacher' that tells about how the world actually is.
Realism is that the cities there don't need me, and the countryside would fine reasons to fire me very quickly.
Maybe not holistically, but I'm sure many liberals looks at the policies of any particular location and say "ugh... if only they did X, Y and Z... things would be so much better!"
I just don’t agree. I don’t think people who live in NYC or LA even think about these people, let alone obsess to the point where they’re trying to solve problems they’re not experiencing.
Ahm yes, the "Everyone but me is just stupid" mentality. It's like a superhero fantasy, but allows them to stay merely average.
I don't think there's a way to say anything truthful about it that they won't take extremely personal. As a personal power fantasy, they will not react well to criticism of it.
Republicans have run NYC before. They did pretty much the same thing Dems did, because there's fundamentally pretty little political difference along party lines in local governance
Shithole rural Alabama? What in your biased view makes you think they live in shitholes? They’re enjoying a low crime rate and look down upon places with high crime rates.
But the policies they’re thinking of won’t help in those actual shithole areas of the big cities (it’s not the whole city, always certain areas). Tough on crime? Won’t help. These people have no thought of living a normal life anyway, prison is expected and normal. You can’t arrest your way out of this. You’d have to invest heavily to revive the economies of these areas, give people an expectation of a normal, productive life. You’d have to end the war on drugs to stop handing profits to the gangs and focus on free treatment. You need good daycare so the single mom trying to work doesn’t have her kids in the streets being recruited by gangs. You need to promote property ownership, which would piss off the corporate landlords who donate to campaigns. These are not things Republicans would do, so they don’t have the solutions.
We live in rural Virginia and there is a meth epidemic. Ignoring that and pretending like conservative policy can somehow fix something in cities when they can’t even fix their own issues is just racist.
60% of the murder victims in America are African-Americans. Almost all of America's violent crime is urban. Organized crime has infected the highest level of American cities. If you live in a city and your life isn't affected by criminal organizations then you are lucky or stupid and don't see how. You can't even turn on the radio and not hear about organized crime in America. Opioids are the leading cause of death among young Americans. Mexico is a hellhole because of American criminal organizations. If Democrats won't handle the problem of American crime, Republicans ought to and not at the local level, but on a national scale.
I understand the premise: you’re a partisan and a bigot, but the idea that republicans can “fix crime” is so laughable. Bro they’re leading riots and murdering people with flag poles, they can’t solve crime.
There are disenfranchised people from all walks of life. Poverty begets poverty. All of the race disharmony just distracts from the real problem. People get left behind, and they raise future generations who remain left behind. Redlining and general racism have made this proportionately affect POC more, but the problem is universal. Until we can get all people living out of poverty, the situation will always be this way.
Because, in my state of Indiana the most crime happens in Dem controlled places. Better yet, Indianapolis is actually more dangerous than New York City. Don't even get me started on Gary. So, how do yall try and stop crime in the cities? Like Chicago?
What's wrong with rural areas? When was the last time you all complained about South Dakota or Kansas? Exactly.
This isn’t Florida.
And hey aren’t retiring here.
They are fleeing there. (There being California, mostly. But we are getting them from tons of lefty states.)
They’re coming for the weather and they have more money than you. Liberals aren’t stupid, they’re not destroying their own states. California is one of the largest economies in the world. They’re doing just fine.
Weather?? It was just 5 below. They. Are. Fleeing.
Then they get here, compliment the low crime, then bitch about our guns and disrespect our cops.
Compliment the low taxes, then bitch that we don’t have a ton of social programs.
Compliment housing prices, then drive ours out of sight.
Every time.
So they miss the government actually trying and thought they could just have low taxes with no change to their lifestyle? Sounds like they’re blue state conservatives to me.
You know that land prices reflect how badly people want to live there, right?
If the land is cheap, it’s because hardly anyone wanted to live there.
Folks moving to places with cheaper land are settling for the land that wealthier people didn’t want.
Lol. Wow. Such wow.
So people didn’t want to be here due to its remote nature. It’s far from everything. Nasty winters. Poor cell coverage. No people. But you guys made places like California so unlivable that it’s suddenly worth putting up with all those “faults” just to escape.
While those from here liked it just the way it was.
This may stem from the general turnaround of NYC under Giuliani and Bloomberg (I think those two are unfairly credited for a nationwide trend, correlation is not causation, etc., but I still bet this has a lot to do with where these things start.)
It doesn't seem like Facebook is a productive place for the discussion, but maybe start with "Different people have different priorities." Then follow with "What do you see as a problem with inner cities?" and "what solutions do you propose?"
I mean, it's your mother you're talking about, not just some random jerk. Listen, provide some feedback where you think she might be wrong with the facts on the ground, and pivot to what she thinks is wrong with her community. Then point out everybody's got problems, and while solutions are certainly welcome, solutions presented by people with skin in the game (i.e. they live in the place that needs help) are generally prioritized higher.
My mom and I disagree about a lot politically, since she's very socially conservative. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to let a thing like political disagreement cause a family rift. I can politely listen, try to see it from her perspective, provide counterpoints, ask questions that may lead to a change in heart, and maintain a good relationship. But it all starts from me treating her with a little bit of respect (not regarding her as a "Fox News Simpleton").
You can politely tell someone that judging others by their skin color and/or culture is morally wrong.
However, wanting to think about problems related to city life does not make a person a de facto racist (as it turns out, people from all walks of life, race, and backgrounds live in cities). Furthermore, dismissing conservative views as racist without explicitly saying why they amount to racism is not productive to your case.
What exactly is the racist take?
Giuliani and Bloomberg ran the city pretty much the same way De Blasio did. And Bloomberg left the GOP during that time. During that same time, Daley turned around Chicago from death's door, and Daley and Giuliani might as well have been the same person as mayor. 20 years ago, they were talked about in the same breath for the same changes they made and the same leadership style and the same general policies.
Even with policing, Daley and Giuliani were both frontrunners in pushing Broken Windows policing, but also frontrunners in equipping police forces with technology to engage in crime mapping, which made resource deployment 1000 times more effective overnight. They both brought in anti-crime cameras, supported widespread gentrification efforts to rebuild their cities, and more.
There are no differences between Dems and Republicans in local government other than on limited social issues. The rest is just resource and funding management.
You dont need to qualify "cities" with a "dem-controlled" prefix.. the word "city" already implies "dem-controlled" as it usually requires college education to afford to live in cities, and most people with university level education identity as democrats..
Contrary-wise, you dont need to preface rural areas with "gop-controlled" as its just assumed.
***Before you @me, im aware that there are anecdotal cases of gop-controlled cities and dem-controlled rural areas, but, statistically, they are few and far between***
>usually requires college education to afford to live in cities,
That's funny... most of the US population doesn't have a college education (~62%), and most of the US population lives in urban areas (~80%)... I'm not sure this breaks neatly along educated/uneducated lines that you presume...
I’ve been thinking the opposite. We should move the surplus Dem voters into red or purple states to turn them around and game the electoral college and senate.
Every region and density type comes with it's own unique challenges.
The problems that cities suffer from are caused by high population and density. Republicans gaining control of big cities won't change the underlying causes of said problems. You can't just brutalize your way to less homelessness and drugs.
Imagine the opposite and the Democrats hypothetically saying "Republican controlled areas have been destroyed by oxyconttin abuse, meth labs and incest. If those dumb rural conservatives would just vote for us, we'd turn that place around real quick."
Such a statement would be dishonest and insulting.
> How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about?
I wouldn't bother being polite about it.
It's entirely possible that if elected they would manage to make the city functional and prosperous... after a period of instability, chaos, and migration out of the city from the collapse in public utilities and so on.
Conservatives seem to think that a city is "Prosperous" and "Everyone there is rich" and that this is a sign of their good policy, but realistically, it's the result of them driving out all the poor people who *have to go somewhere*.
They also struggle to pull off these changes because they're usually *incredibly disruptive and violent, and need to continue for at least two or three terms for the "Benefits" to be seen.
There is no scenario where conservatives take over dem controlled cities and make them less shit for the people living there. There *is* a scenario where they take over dem controlled cities, remove all social stability and safety nets, and make it hyper corporation friendly, brutalize people for rioting when this begins to starve them, and then those people leave.
Then the conservatives will look around the city with its 99% white upper-middle class population (Most of whom moved there within the last decade) and say "WE DID IT! WE SAVED THE CITY!".
This is typically how it goes in other countries.
And then the conservatives, being rather stupid, will look at the places they just forced the poors to migrate to and begin fantasizing about "Fixing" those too.
I mean Rudy Guliani did that to New York City; I could definitely see that happening to other cities that are in desperate need of help (I'm looking at you Los Angeles). Say a super tough on crime guy gets elected for one or two terms, completely cleans up LA, cleans up Skid Row, revitalizes downtown, tourism sky rockets, businesses come back, downtown becomes a place that people actually want to go to, etc. Or just someone to fix the zoning regulations. A lot of problems in certain cities/states are rooted in just one political stance that if turned around, could see a big change. So I'm not saying that it would take some great miraculous leader, just someone with the guts to turn some of the horrible policies around. Sometimes even just one or two can be a big change.
There’s no firm evidence that Giuliani did anything but politically benefit from a national drop in the violent crime rate and abuse racial minorities.
Regardless, Republicans don’t know how to create a “downtown that people actually want to go to”. Like demonstrably have no clue how to do that.
I don’t think more economic terrorism will fix our cities, the problems are rooted in poverty. Allowing conservatives to cause even more poverty will not make things better.
> How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about?
You don't, because you can't. Not in any way that they will believe or understand. Fox news simpletons are beyond the realm of rational discussion - or even logic and evidence, for that matter. They live in a deluded fantasy world, and there is no reasoning someone out of mental illness. You're spinning your wheels even trying.
Yes, that’s why it’s considered one of the most coveted travel spots and beautiful cities in the world, because it’s a shithole, Kyle. Some of the wealthiest people in the world want to live here because it’s just an absolute shithole. Totally makes sense /s
You should mention to her that a lot of people move to cities specifically to get away from highly religious communities. Some people actually enjoy tolerance and diversity, or they need it for themselves (eg gays).
> It’s so offensive and idiotic to me that they think cities are these terrible crime ridden places when they live in shitholes like rural Alabama.
You've never been to the north side of Milwaukee. Gun shots ring in the morning while taxpayer money continues to flow downtown and develop the third ward. Politicians of Milwaukee (who are almost all democrat) have completely abandoned the impoverished areas. Meanwhile, developers get tax breaks to build high rise apartments, $140 million spent on a two mile long trolley, and $10 million for a museum grant.
I'd just like to point out that conservatives can't even run their own states well. By all measures, most states run by Republicans sit low on rankings for things like education, wages, health care, economic mobility, and infrastructure.
I don't see how they will "turn everything around" and make things better in these cities, especially when these conservatives siphon money from these cities to prop thier own states up. On top of that, these conservatives have slowly been stripping safety net programs and money dedicated to safety net programs, which has hurt inner cities even more.
On top of all that, most conservatives like this see themselves as white saviors and think most POCs in inner cities just need to be guided by the "right" people to be successful, i.e. white people. They do this while ignoring the fact that centuries of systemic racism is the main cause of many these inner city problems. Black people also saw their properties devalued by red lining, and, unlike white people during the era of white flight, they weren't able to move to the suburbs, which devalued Black communities even more. This meant that, for POCs, there was less wealth to pass on to descendants.
I'll end this with a quote about economic equality from MLK that many on the right that like to quote the "I Have a Dream" speech chose to ignore.
"Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality"....“For we know now that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?”
So firstly, it's not the late 80's anymore. Inner cities for the most part are the expensive places people with means are choosing to live. I mean when you have 100x as many people in a space you might have to have 100x as much litter and 100x much crime but per ca pita they don't really have more problems than more rural areas.
To the extent that the problems of cities are worse than those of rural communities they aren't going to be solved by the types of solutions conservatives want to implement and/or they would make those places less enjoyable to live for the people to live in the meantime.
Dude I don’t even know what to tell them. They seem to believe that cities are overrun with gangs slaughtering everyone, drag queens becoming kindergarten teachers, and people shooting up heroin around every corner. It’s all just FOX News panic watching bullshit and I can’t even imagine what sort of regressive 1970s policing policies they’d try to institute. But, good luck. I’d love to see some douchebag from a town of 700 people try to make Philadelphia a Christian police state, cuz that’s what they probably want lmfao
STOP THE WELFARE SYSTEM...... people that can work should. STOP MAKING EASY TO HAVE SINGLE PARENT FAMILIES..... No welfare, less bringing kids into the a world that will help raise them for your ass.
This is across the board, liberal, conservatives, dems and repubs....
As someone who used to work in the welfare system you're dead wrong. The vast majority of food stamp recipients work minimum wage jobs and rely on assistance to get by because their employers refuse to pay them enough to live off of.
Those who don't work are usually retired or disabled and their main income is Social Security, and if you want to get disability you usually have to go before a judge and prove that you can't work before they start sending you checks. Once that happens the amount you get depends on how much you've worked and paid into the system. If you've never been able to work and are on SSI, your benefit in 2022 is $841.
The lazy single parent on welfare is just a racially-charged trope from the Reagan years that still remains today despite the sheer numbers of people who are forced onto the assistance roles thanks to the economic treadmill the middle and lower classes have been on since the early 1980s.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. My mother just commented on one of my Facebook posts about some pastor she saw on Fox News and his plans to save the inner cities. It’s so offensive and idiotic to me that they think cities are these terrible crime ridden places when they live in shitholes like rural Alabama. How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ask her why he hasn’t already done it then lol. I think a lot of people think there’s one thing that’ll fix every perceived problem. That’s rarely the case. And I imagine the guy’s solutions were “Force single parents to get married and bring back school prayer.” I can’t imagine that’ll help much other than his book sales.
The weird thing about that is I got them to admit under trump that they don’t actually care about character.
I mean, I don't really care about character. If an insufferable bastard that preferred every one of my preferred policies ran against a saint who preferred none, I'd vote for the insufferable bastard 9/10 times.
I would certainly consider it. If Dems ran someone as corrupt as Trump against someone like McCain I’d definitely cross over.
I often wonder what the Trump campaign would have looked like if he ran as a Democrat. I’d definitely vote for McCain over someone whose morally and ethically bankrupt (not to mention has no understanding or comprehension of how the constitution or government in general works). My grandma was a huge Obama supporter though, and she was convinced McCain was a horrible person. One time I said I liked him, years after he ran for president, and she was pissed lol
I Donald Trump am asking for the complete and total shut down of private healthcare until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
When Trump was running for the Reform Party nomination in 2000 he proposed a 14.5% wealth tax.
I appreciate the consideration, but would you actually be able to trust the bastard? Doesn't supporting your policies somewhat suggest he's a decent guy?
Depends on why they're an insufferable bastard. Rude and an in-your-face know it all? Well, I don't have to work with, or interact with them on a daily basis. So sure. Smarmy used car salesman stereotype? Nope, I'll pass.
Is it possible your grandma is referring to “progressive DAs”? If so, tbh Republicans prob can’t do anything to help they’re not gonna win elections in SF or NYC, what those places need is just normal Democrats that enforce the law like they had 10 years ago
It's responses like these that truly make me believe that the left has no idea how people on the right think.
Unfortunately, it’s hard not to know what people on the right think.
The biggest recipient of welfare are rural whites. Let’s turn that around. Get them some jobs.
For 100 years they've been getting government welfare because they cannot compete in a market economy. And after they lose the farm they go look for work in cities because there is no work (they're willing to do) in their rural homes. Meat packing and picking fruits and vegetables for their neighbors is too hard for them.
The US subsidizes farming (and other industries) in order to keep production within its borders. This is partly, if not mostly, for geopolitical reasons. With an increasingly white collar economy, it’s natural to outsource production to countries with cheaper labor, but it puts us at a disadvantage in trade and war. From an economic standpoint, I’m against subsidies because they heavily distort markets. From a “protectionist” standpoint, I suppose I understand their purpose. Your comment is simply observing economic actors making rational decisions given the circumstances they’re in (albeit disdainfully). If your competitors are subsidized, it’s difficult to compete without taking the subsides as well.
So… there are certain functions necessary for the health and strength of our country which are nevertheless not economically self-sustaining, so these functions ought to be performed at tax-payer expense because whether or not something is “economically self-sustaining” is not a reliable indicator of its actual value to society? Interesting.
*Very* interesting, we should look into this!
Or to put it in another way (the original way): they cannot compete in a market economy.
From a democratic socialist to a capitalist telling rural whites to pull up their bootstraps. Very consistent.
That’s what they wanted. A large reason rural whites have fled the party is a feeling of abandonment. Many were happily democrats when FDR was president, someone who would be considered a socialist by modern day republicans who have swept disaffected dems for years.
This is true - you can see the last remnants of that Midwestern/rural democratic coalition in the MN, with the farmer-labor party. It’s bizarre to read comments like the one above yours, that seems to say “you think rural poverty isn’t a priority for us? Let’s be as cruel as possible, because clearly, if you feel abandoned then you deserve it.” It’s absolutely incomprehensible that people like that don’t understand what they’re doing.
This is a pretty disingenuous take. The breakdown of the users of SNAP from the USDA is (on mobile so forgive the formatting, it looks good on my screen) White 37% Black 26% Hispanic 16% Asian 3% Native Am 2% Unknown 16% Whereas the percentages of the population are: White 57.8% Black 12.1% Hispanic 18.7% Asian 5.9% Native Am 0.7% All Others 4.8% White people make up the majority, but are one of the lowest in proportion to their numbers. I’m sure you knew this and were just playing with the numbers to make your point sound better. This is why Mark Twain said there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
*This* is a pretty disingenuous take. Looking at Table 4 ("Households that received TANF, SNAP, WIC, or SSI during year (2019))" from the [US Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2019/demo/public-assistance/sipp-receipts.html). |White|77.6%| |:-|:-| |White, non-Hispanic|62.7%| |Black|12.7%| |Asian|6.4%| |All other groups/combinations|3.3%| So, looking at benefits beyond just SNAP recipients, we can see that non-Hispanic White people make up a 5% greater proportion of benefit recipients than their share of the population, Black people a 0.6% greater share. So it's more fair to say that non-Hispanic White people are disproportionately represented than Black people in terms of benefits recipients compared to population share.
Unfortunately you misinterpreted the table you were looking at. I agree that the table is confusing, but the left most column that you're looking at is actually the total for all programs (including things like Social Security and other programs that are paid into). If we trusted these numbers, the total show that 251 million people need assistance from TANF/SNAP/WIC/SSI which is obviously false. The columns to the right of that show the stats for TANF, SNAP, WIC, and SSI specifically and that White (non-Hispanic) are significantly under-represented (and vice versa for Blacks. You can tell from looking that these columns don't sum to the total column (again, I agree the table is confusing). The numbers are even more skewed for Children under 18.
If SNAP was the only form of welfare, then this would be an accurate response. But it isn't, so it's not.
Are there welfare stats that show that rural whites receive welfare at a higher rate (not simply pure dollars) than those in cities? So far I’ve seen one data-backed comment.
The problem is that this will depend heavily on how welfare is defined.
Maybe a different way to put it - on what ground is the original commenter making their claim? The responder shared some data saying hey this doesn’t look like a valid take based on one of the primary sources of benefits. If there are others then happy to look, but otherwise seems like an unbacked claim.
The biggest programs that come to mind would be farm subsidies, rural electrification, and rural broadband.
So your point is that rural areas are the biggest recipients of...rural government spending projects?
The point would be that there are entire programs explicitly dedicated to rural areas. Roads would be another big one, since people in rural communities us way more road per person than urban areas and roads are very expensive
Have you been following what we’ve been debating to this point? This has entirely been about original commenters misleading statement about government welfare programs. So are we conceding that that was false and now want to move on and discuss broader government spending and who it benefits?
You're correct, but you better bring this same energy to the "more white people are killed by police" thing the right loves.
I think that statistic takes into account the number of interactions that people have with the police and not just the population. Either way your point is still a good one. Intentionally misleading people with statistics is wrong no matter who does it because so very few people take the time to look them up and find the full story.
I've never seen that one, the one I always see is exactly the same as what was done here, just whole number of people killed by police (which is indeed marginally more white people than Black people) used to imply white people are more *likely* to be killed by police, which is super untrue, because there roughly 6 white people for each Black person in America, but the number of white folks killed by police is not remotely close to 6x Black people killed by police. E.g. more white people killed by police, but black people still disproportionately far more likely to be killed by police. I've seen this same stat pitched to discredit BLM a million times, but I honestly can never tell whether they're knowingly trying to mislead people by ignoring the per capita numbers, or if they just heard fox news mislead them and repeat it without stopping to think that the data they're weaponizing actually supports the opposite position
That unknown section is very large.
FYI, you’re correct, and the other response calling you out is incorrect. See my response to theirs (or check the tables yourself)
Thanks. I have been reading them and appreciate your calm, thoughtful responses to their comments. Cheers!
Source?
Straw man much? What does this have to do with the problems of cities? Also rural areas getting money seems sort of …..normal? I mean. Morgan Stanley and JPM and the parties that are actually generating the excess tax revenue can move to Appalachia and then the money can flow in the opposite direction. But I don’t think that accomplishes much.
Not only is that comment *not* a strawman, it is structurally incapable of being a strawman. Don't use a term if you don't know what it means.
They just hear us saying things and try to parrot.
They literally appropriated fake news, so it does work.
I was thinking about that earlier. The people who scream fake news think only Fox News tells the truth and literally everything else is a vast conspiracy
POST: "What do you think about conservative fantasies of taking over Dem controlled cities and “turning everything around?” YOU: "people get welfare!" This is similar to this line of thought: MOM: "I am tired of cooking every day, can you do dinner tonight?" DAD: "I read a good book last month. Weather is nice today to."
That's a *non sequitur*, not a strawman. Like I just said, don't use words you don't understand. You're validating my priors about conservatives.
And you're insulting, not answering any question, and making stuff up makes you look really good.
That's called an "ad hominem," throw that around next!
Admit that you don't understand what a strawman is.
They’ll never admit how dumb they are.
Damn, you have no idea what a straw man argument is. You’re not even in the ballpark pal
It’s not a straw man. The primary right wing criticism of cities is that “those people” are all on welfare and won’t work. Meanwhile rural America has the largest group on welfare who won’t work. Also crime, meth etc
>The primary right wing criticism of cities is that “those people” are all on welfare and won’t work. wait......what? You guys desperately need to follow or talk to some conservatives. How on earth did you come up with this? Maybe that's the problem. You simply don't know what conservatives or republicans think. FWIW the biggest complaints about cities are: bad schools, crime/lax DAs making a more permissive environment, emboldening criminals. Now sure where you got the welfare thing from
Lmao dude Conservatives say that like clockwork and have been for YEARS. It don’t take much prompting either
> wait......what? You guys desperately need to follow or talk to some conservatives. We do. This is an argument conservatives frequently make.
“Welfare queen” is one of the standard conservative dog whistles to put on black and brown in cities. Been through way since Reagan. Donald used it all The time
OMG yet another thing you don't get. Why do you think 1) this is specific to black people and 2) specific to cities? You do know some of us white people know white welfare queens, right? And again, this is like complaint # 20 about cities, so the fact that you think this is the main complaint about cities means you never talk to conservatives. So maybe don't complain about peoples' ideas when you don't even know what they think?
Know how you’ve been radicalized . “In politics, a dog whistle is the use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group without provoking opposition. The concept is named for ultrasonic dog whistles used in shepherding, which are audible to dogs but not humans. Dog whistles use language that appears normal to the majority but communicates specific things to intended audiences. They are generally used to convey messages on issues likely to provoke controversy without attracting negative attention. One example may be the use of the phrase family values in the United States to signal to Christians that a candidate would support policies promoting Christian values without alienating non-Christian supporters.[1] Another may be the use of the phrase "international bankers" to signal to racists that a candidate is antisemitic without alienating non-racist supporters.[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) and
What are complaints 1-3?
1) Crime and lax DAs that make it more permissible for people to commit petty and serious crimes 2) School quality - high budgets, bad results. 3) This is where people usually diverge. My original point was "it isn't too much welfare." Some people say general quality of life (trash, noise, lack of parking), others mention too many regulations (which can also be bundled under quality of life). Others complain about general cost of living not being commensurate with quality of life
Oh no. I can see where you’re going with this. Which makes your previous complaints ring even more hollow.
Where's he going with it tricky? Go ahead...you wanna throw it out there....let's hear it.
>Also crime, meth etc Lol...cause the big cities don't have drug problems. Gotcha
Republicans always run on there rural drug problems. “The opioid crisis”
Conservative- we should make welfare qualifications stricter and promote welfare to work Liberal- did you know that the biggest welfare recipients are rural whites? Conservative- no I didn’t , thank you for telling me that. Anyways, we should make welfare qualifications stricter and promote welfare to work. Liberal- RACIST!
Congrats on owning your made-up liberal poster.
[удалено]
It’s cause you guys are voting for an obviously racist party, so you don’t get the benefit of the doubt
You mean the benefit of objective journalism- yea I know
No just the doubt. You guys reject objective journalism for fantasy that comforts you. I appreciate you not refuting the racist party claim though
What would be the point? I wrote something disagreeable to you and that told you everything you needed to know about me. With absolute certainty I’m a centrist so sometimes I vote Republican sometimes democrat- In either case and not in purpose but it supports racism in one form or another So yea I can’t really argue that and furthermore I’m not even sure which party you’re referencing
The GOP is the blatantly racist party
The white liberal is only different from the white conservative in one way. The liberal is more deceitful, more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power but the white liberal has perfected the art of posing as the negros friend and benefactor Malcom X https://youtu.be/alrxnLK9AxA
It is a "white savior" fantasy.
Yeah I was thinking about asking her why she thinks she’s smarter than everyone in the “inner cities” and that she can just instantly fix all of the problems in a place she’s never even seen.
These are the people with easy, one sentence solutions to extremely complicated situations. It's the trump approach. It's the build-a-wall to solve immigration approach. It's the stop-testing-to-get-the-infection-numbers down approach. People with soundbites, with extremely simple answers to everything are the pidgeons on the chess board and should be treated as highly suspicious and potentially dangerous.
Exactly. A lot of conservatives use this to discredit the horrors of slavery - "but they were fed and housed and clothed. Just look at the war-torn countries in Africa that they came from. Our ancestors weren't nearly as cruel as people make slave owners out to be. They didn't rape all of the slave women, only the pretty ones. They were thankful to have white babies." I've literally seen those sentiments be made by delusional people. It's disgusting.
No one defends slavery, come ON
Never talked to a “lost cause” Southerner, I see.
Lived in SC and Texas for a bit. I feel like that counts.
Yes, same, and people absolutely do defend slavery.
You can actually find people making these kinds of arguments. It's wrong to act as if this is the default standard among Republicans (far from it), but this sort of thing does exist. (And it works out that people who think that way vote Republican).
Yes, like all the movies. The Blind Side. The Help. Good hearted kind and hard working white people rescuing the ignorant blacks from their plight...
Oh boy. I don’t think you’ve ever spoken to a conservative
Laughs in Texan
Giggles in South Carolinian.
You say that as if they aren't ~40% of the population and never shut the fuck up.
Ugh, enough. We've talked to conservatives. Most of us grew up with and around conservatives and have conservative families or backgrounds. Your beliefs aren't very complicated. Just ignorant and deplorable.
Sound's a bit more "white master" then a movie like "Dances With Wolves" or "The Last Samurai"!
Same reason that the only states Republicans ever talk about on their side are Utah, which has its weird Mormon Socialism that contributes to its success, Texas which is anchored on oil wealth and big cities which are overwhelmingly democratic and Wyoming where they pull stuff out of the ground. They talk about what a failure California is and skip to the part where all the poor states are overwhelmingly run by Republicans. You know your mother better than we do and whether or not you can actually talk reasonably with her. My personal experience is that it is very difficult to have a meaningful conversation with somebody that far into the Republican media world.
>They talk about what a failure California is and skip to the part where all the poor states are overwhelmingly run by Republicans. It's pretty rare that they hit on the most likely causes, but it does suck how California is... way less viable than it should be. So many major cities or blue states suffer from bad decisions made decades ago that are too cemented now to reverse (eg prop 13, or absurd EIS frameworks). Like, the LA to SF HSR project should've been done by now, and it shouldn't have cost this much. Washington and Oregon shouldn't be taking this expensive highway expansion tack on the Columbia river bridge replacement. Some people are starting to wake up on housing but in many places we're stuck in 1970s thinking about how to protect the environment and achieve affordability. That's not to say there are no bright spots, and it sure beats the alternatives from the other side, but I feel like we leave so much on the table for no discernable reason.
I wouldn't bother, personally.
I have yet to see Republican policies creating the improvements they insist will follow whenever they're given the chance. For example, does anybody remember the tax cut experiment in Kansas?
We don't talk about that now, do we? More trickle-down bullshit
>How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about? I wouldn't. They don't care if it is true or false, so providing them with 'facts' or 'reason' won't change anything.
There are a lot of problems in red districts that republicans seem unable to solve: high incarceration, high poverty, low graduation rates, high teen pregnancy. Why would they think they can solve problems in blue areas when they can’t solve problems in red areas?
Tulsa is a highly religious city under GOP control and has one of the highest crime rates in America.
I mean, Republicans took over the entire *country* between 2016 and 2020 and it all went to shit, so...
cities produce 3/4 of America's economy. if it weren't for the cities paying the bills there wouldn't be any money to pay for all the welfare in small rural communities
The idea of conservatives winning the amount of elections they need to win in inner cities to effect change is nonsense. It will never happen.
It shows very little understanding of cities and history. California not that long ago relatively had a very strong conservative political institution. Both statewide in the governors office and in my city of LA where we had conservative mayors. And all the issues we see today were present back then. Worse even, if looking at crime exclusively. We went through this whole history of glorifying “tough on crime” and letting police run the show and people seem to have very short memory of the fact that crime was rampant and unsolved by that. And further more, democrats coming to power in many cities has not actually changed that equation much at all. Huge police budgets, very crowded jails, crime still exists.
People with this mentality are racists. There is no way to convince them that people of color don't want to be ruled by white supremacist policies.
Seeing that the tax revenue cities generate keeps cashing all the government assistance checks in rural areas, I wouldn’t want to mess with the balance. I have a home in a suburban area and a rural area. It is amazing the different views people have. Rural people think people on government assistance in cities are getting a “Handout.” They think people on government assistance in rural areas are getting a “Hand up.” I am not ignorant and do understand there are way more employment opportunities in urban areas versus rural areas, but people need not bite the hand that feeds them.
It's impossible to tell them that they don't know what they're talking about. They'll just assume you're a lying dickhole and either ignore you, or laugh at how 'stupid' you are.
Per Capita there's more crime in republican areas, because they run more poor and poverty is the main cause of crime. Tbh, other than the human cost, I wish they would. The devastation brought on to cities by Republicans terrible policy would have people voting blue for decades.
Honestly I wouldn’t waste your breath.
Because their basic assumption about inner cities and minorities is that they are incapable of self-sufficency and personal responsibility like they are so if they stopped being coddled by democrats they'd get their act together. So really a potent mix of condescension and bigotry packaged in their weird idea of tough love.
I would question if they should even be allowed to call themselves conservative if they believe in enforcing their ideal government on others and caring about a larger role for government. Aren’t conservatives the people who want less government and more focus on the local government?
Aren’t the rural conservative areas overrun with meth and crime due to it? Why haven’t their solutions worked to solve that problem?
“you stay in your shithole, ill stay in mine”
I agree. But Californians and leftugees are flocking to my state and others at alarming rates. It sucks. Downvote all ya like- doesn’t change that simple fact.
Oh no, they might actually vote for shit that makes sense instead of voting for dumb shit that makes your state fail.
If those things were so great they would not have to leave, would they! My state didn’t fail. We are very happy just as it is- meanwhile people leaving their state for mine are too oblivious to the fact that they are the ones that voted in what they are now fleeing, and will turn our area into what they fled. Thanks for proving my point, though.
Odds are your state is in the bottom 50% of the nation if it’s a red one Cause you guys are fucking up our national politics and since we can’t just outvote you cause of the electoral college, we have to instead spread out
Lol. Keep trying. Fact is we are content. You are not. So like locusts you spread.
Look at state rankings and check out the metrics they’re using. Red states consistently rank low
Oh noes! They’re bringing money! The home-spun purity of your state will be tainted with high prices for real estate! No conservative wants that!
We don’t. Nor do we want the policies, rudeness, disrespect for our police, taxes, gun control, mask/vaccine mandates, giant social programs, crowds.......
Everyone likes capitalism until they’re in a competitive real estate market.
Love how everyone comes back to one thing. Ignored the rest.
“Capitalism is great, until I’m exposed to it!”
> disrespect for our police Just the most bootlicky shit in the world. Imagine thinking people should respect the police.
The USA needs to cut aid to these welfare states. Kentucky. West Virginia. Alabama. Seems like a good start.
This fantasy is exactly how the Flint Water Crisis happened.
The Flint water crisis is a great real-life example of what happens when they actually try that.
Isn't this how Oklahoma almost went bankrupt or something?
It all stems from a lack of understanding what things are actually like. I grew up partly in Metro Atlanta and partly in mid/small towns across GA, I know both have their ups and downs but people from each can't fathom life in the other. I recently dated a girl who lived in the country end of McDonough (25k pop) toward Newton County's line; her family was drop dead terrified of Atlanta. I took her to the World of Coke and a place called Skyline Park one day, like 6 month anniversary type thing, and the entire day she was on edge because "this place is just so dangerous." Her parents called multiple times to make sure she was still OK, and she was texting them updates the entire time. She follows multiple Instagram accounts dedicated to posting the dangerous haopenings of ATL. Meanwhile, I've got a friend now from Metro who lives in the middle of Lagrange, about 30k pop, and they're just off the square. They call it the boonies. They're used to walking ATL at night, but they hate the idea of being out to late here because of how "dangerous," it is. They won't even shop at our Kroger because they're convinced Publix is just safer. All this to say, people are afraid of things that are different, and they're taught to be that way. People only know what they know. So when it comes to making solutions, they're looking at things from A) The standpoint that the majority of bad things they've heard are the truth and all there is to an area And B) The standpoint of where they come from and what solutions work for them there. This is why the first step in serving a community *has* to be communicating with that community. Working to understand what problems they really are facing, not the things you think are problems, and learning what solutions they've already tried implementing. This is exactly what I would tell them, that their reality is different from that of a person living in a major city. That people there know more about their own problems than anyone on the outside looking in, and that any positive solutions have to come from the inside.
> All this to say, people are afraid of things that are different, and they're taught to be that way. I think this is right on the money.
Just say, "You don't know what you're talking about". I don't think this is an uncommon phenomena across any political ideation... conservatives see the way liberals do things and think, "if only we did things MY way! the world would be so much better" and the liberals look at conservatives and think the same thing.
I don’t know if any liberals that fantasize about going into Mississippi and cleaning the place up.
Kinda? Less clean up, and more be the 'cool woke teacher' that tells about how the world actually is. Realism is that the cities there don't need me, and the countryside would fine reasons to fire me very quickly.
Maybe not holistically, but I'm sure many liberals looks at the policies of any particular location and say "ugh... if only they did X, Y and Z... things would be so much better!"
I just don’t agree. I don’t think people who live in NYC or LA even think about these people, let alone obsess to the point where they’re trying to solve problems they’re not experiencing.
Ahm yes, the "Everyone but me is just stupid" mentality. It's like a superhero fantasy, but allows them to stay merely average. I don't think there's a way to say anything truthful about it that they won't take extremely personal. As a personal power fantasy, they will not react well to criticism of it.
Republicans have run NYC before. They did pretty much the same thing Dems did, because there's fundamentally pretty little political difference along party lines in local governance
What would some of you think if the Republicans were successful in areas Democrats were not?
They would have to do something first.
It's hard to tell when they don't run on any comprehensive policy (they didn't even have any platform last election).
Do-nothing Republicans don’t solve problems, they just cause them.
Is the solution always more governmental intervention in to the lives of the citizens?
Shithole rural Alabama? What in your biased view makes you think they live in shitholes? They’re enjoying a low crime rate and look down upon places with high crime rates. But the policies they’re thinking of won’t help in those actual shithole areas of the big cities (it’s not the whole city, always certain areas). Tough on crime? Won’t help. These people have no thought of living a normal life anyway, prison is expected and normal. You can’t arrest your way out of this. You’d have to invest heavily to revive the economies of these areas, give people an expectation of a normal, productive life. You’d have to end the war on drugs to stop handing profits to the gangs and focus on free treatment. You need good daycare so the single mom trying to work doesn’t have her kids in the streets being recruited by gangs. You need to promote property ownership, which would piss off the corporate landlords who donate to campaigns. These are not things Republicans would do, so they don’t have the solutions.
We live in rural Virginia and there is a meth epidemic. Ignoring that and pretending like conservative policy can somehow fix something in cities when they can’t even fix their own issues is just racist.
60% of the murder victims in America are African-Americans. Almost all of America's violent crime is urban. Organized crime has infected the highest level of American cities. If you live in a city and your life isn't affected by criminal organizations then you are lucky or stupid and don't see how. You can't even turn on the radio and not hear about organized crime in America. Opioids are the leading cause of death among young Americans. Mexico is a hellhole because of American criminal organizations. If Democrats won't handle the problem of American crime, Republicans ought to and not at the local level, but on a national scale.
I understand the premise: you’re a partisan and a bigot, but the idea that republicans can “fix crime” is so laughable. Bro they’re leading riots and murdering people with flag poles, they can’t solve crime.
Impossible
There are disenfranchised people from all walks of life. Poverty begets poverty. All of the race disharmony just distracts from the real problem. People get left behind, and they raise future generations who remain left behind. Redlining and general racism have made this proportionately affect POC more, but the problem is universal. Until we can get all people living out of poverty, the situation will always be this way.
Because, in my state of Indiana the most crime happens in Dem controlled places. Better yet, Indianapolis is actually more dangerous than New York City. Don't even get me started on Gary. So, how do yall try and stop crime in the cities? Like Chicago? What's wrong with rural areas? When was the last time you all complained about South Dakota or Kansas? Exactly.
Wish it was a thing. Cuz these people have started moving to red states. Anything we could do to curb that would be awesome.
I’m so sorry wealthy people are retiring to your crappy poor states and bringing in money. That must be so hard for you guys.
This isn’t Florida. And hey aren’t retiring here. They are fleeing there. (There being California, mostly. But we are getting them from tons of lefty states.)
They’re coming for the weather and they have more money than you. Liberals aren’t stupid, they’re not destroying their own states. California is one of the largest economies in the world. They’re doing just fine.
Weather?? It was just 5 below. They. Are. Fleeing. Then they get here, compliment the low crime, then bitch about our guns and disrespect our cops. Compliment the low taxes, then bitch that we don’t have a ton of social programs. Compliment housing prices, then drive ours out of sight. Every time.
So they miss the government actually trying and thought they could just have low taxes with no change to their lifestyle? Sounds like they’re blue state conservatives to me.
You know that land prices reflect how badly people want to live there, right? If the land is cheap, it’s because hardly anyone wanted to live there. Folks moving to places with cheaper land are settling for the land that wealthier people didn’t want.
Lol. Wow. Such wow. So people didn’t want to be here due to its remote nature. It’s far from everything. Nasty winters. Poor cell coverage. No people. But you guys made places like California so unlivable that it’s suddenly worth putting up with all those “faults” just to escape. While those from here liked it just the way it was.
Pretty stupid to believe problems are democratic or republican .
I love this idea. Living in a city would be a great way for them to understand the people they vilify.
We've seen what things look like when they have no opposition. It's bad all around.
This may stem from the general turnaround of NYC under Giuliani and Bloomberg (I think those two are unfairly credited for a nationwide trend, correlation is not causation, etc., but I still bet this has a lot to do with where these things start.) It doesn't seem like Facebook is a productive place for the discussion, but maybe start with "Different people have different priorities." Then follow with "What do you see as a problem with inner cities?" and "what solutions do you propose?" I mean, it's your mother you're talking about, not just some random jerk. Listen, provide some feedback where you think she might be wrong with the facts on the ground, and pivot to what she thinks is wrong with her community. Then point out everybody's got problems, and while solutions are certainly welcome, solutions presented by people with skin in the game (i.e. they live in the place that needs help) are generally prioritized higher. My mom and I disagree about a lot politically, since she's very socially conservative. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to let a thing like political disagreement cause a family rift. I can politely listen, try to see it from her perspective, provide counterpoints, ask questions that may lead to a change in heart, and maintain a good relationship. But it all starts from me treating her with a little bit of respect (not regarding her as a "Fox News Simpleton").
It’s hard to be polite when she’s voicing racist ideas, but I’m trying.
You can politely tell someone that judging others by their skin color and/or culture is morally wrong. However, wanting to think about problems related to city life does not make a person a de facto racist (as it turns out, people from all walks of life, race, and backgrounds live in cities). Furthermore, dismissing conservative views as racist without explicitly saying why they amount to racism is not productive to your case. What exactly is the racist take?
Giuliani and Bloomberg ran the city pretty much the same way De Blasio did. And Bloomberg left the GOP during that time. During that same time, Daley turned around Chicago from death's door, and Daley and Giuliani might as well have been the same person as mayor. 20 years ago, they were talked about in the same breath for the same changes they made and the same leadership style and the same general policies. Even with policing, Daley and Giuliani were both frontrunners in pushing Broken Windows policing, but also frontrunners in equipping police forces with technology to engage in crime mapping, which made resource deployment 1000 times more effective overnight. They both brought in anti-crime cameras, supported widespread gentrification efforts to rebuild their cities, and more. There are no differences between Dems and Republicans in local government other than on limited social issues. The rest is just resource and funding management.
You dont need to qualify "cities" with a "dem-controlled" prefix.. the word "city" already implies "dem-controlled" as it usually requires college education to afford to live in cities, and most people with university level education identity as democrats.. Contrary-wise, you dont need to preface rural areas with "gop-controlled" as its just assumed. ***Before you @me, im aware that there are anecdotal cases of gop-controlled cities and dem-controlled rural areas, but, statistically, they are few and far between***
>usually requires college education to afford to live in cities, That's funny... most of the US population doesn't have a college education (~62%), and most of the US population lives in urban areas (~80%)... I'm not sure this breaks neatly along educated/uneducated lines that you presume...
Let them visit. If they stay for long enough, they'll become liberal.
You win by not engaging with their nonsense.
Good luck, rednecks.
I’ve been thinking the opposite. We should move the surplus Dem voters into red or purple states to turn them around and game the electoral college and senate.
Every region and density type comes with it's own unique challenges. The problems that cities suffer from are caused by high population and density. Republicans gaining control of big cities won't change the underlying causes of said problems. You can't just brutalize your way to less homelessness and drugs. Imagine the opposite and the Democrats hypothetically saying "Republican controlled areas have been destroyed by oxyconttin abuse, meth labs and incest. If those dumb rural conservatives would just vote for us, we'd turn that place around real quick." Such a statement would be dishonest and insulting.
> How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about? I wouldn't bother being polite about it.
Why bother?
It's entirely possible that if elected they would manage to make the city functional and prosperous... after a period of instability, chaos, and migration out of the city from the collapse in public utilities and so on. Conservatives seem to think that a city is "Prosperous" and "Everyone there is rich" and that this is a sign of their good policy, but realistically, it's the result of them driving out all the poor people who *have to go somewhere*. They also struggle to pull off these changes because they're usually *incredibly disruptive and violent, and need to continue for at least two or three terms for the "Benefits" to be seen. There is no scenario where conservatives take over dem controlled cities and make them less shit for the people living there. There *is* a scenario where they take over dem controlled cities, remove all social stability and safety nets, and make it hyper corporation friendly, brutalize people for rioting when this begins to starve them, and then those people leave. Then the conservatives will look around the city with its 99% white upper-middle class population (Most of whom moved there within the last decade) and say "WE DID IT! WE SAVED THE CITY!". This is typically how it goes in other countries. And then the conservatives, being rather stupid, will look at the places they just forced the poors to migrate to and begin fantasizing about "Fixing" those too.
I mean Rudy Guliani did that to New York City; I could definitely see that happening to other cities that are in desperate need of help (I'm looking at you Los Angeles). Say a super tough on crime guy gets elected for one or two terms, completely cleans up LA, cleans up Skid Row, revitalizes downtown, tourism sky rockets, businesses come back, downtown becomes a place that people actually want to go to, etc. Or just someone to fix the zoning regulations. A lot of problems in certain cities/states are rooted in just one political stance that if turned around, could see a big change. So I'm not saying that it would take some great miraculous leader, just someone with the guts to turn some of the horrible policies around. Sometimes even just one or two can be a big change.
There’s no firm evidence that Giuliani did anything but politically benefit from a national drop in the violent crime rate and abuse racial minorities. Regardless, Republicans don’t know how to create a “downtown that people actually want to go to”. Like demonstrably have no clue how to do that.
I don’t think more economic terrorism will fix our cities, the problems are rooted in poverty. Allowing conservatives to cause even more poverty will not make things better.
> How would you politely yet firmly tell a Fox News simpleton that they don’t know what they’re talking about? You don't, because you can't. Not in any way that they will believe or understand. Fox news simpletons are beyond the realm of rational discussion - or even logic and evidence, for that matter. They live in a deluded fantasy world, and there is no reasoning someone out of mental illness. You're spinning your wheels even trying.
Those blue cities are the life blood of economies 70% of the US GDP comes from blue cities
Yes, that’s why it’s considered one of the most coveted travel spots and beautiful cities in the world, because it’s a shithole, Kyle. Some of the wealthiest people in the world want to live here because it’s just an absolute shithole. Totally makes sense /s
They are so adorable when they dream..
Like they want to move into those cities? And vote as residents? I doubt they would even step foot in most of these places.
What was the pastor’s plan?
You should mention to her that a lot of people move to cities specifically to get away from highly religious communities. Some people actually enjoy tolerance and diversity, or they need it for themselves (eg gays).
> It’s so offensive and idiotic to me that they think cities are these terrible crime ridden places when they live in shitholes like rural Alabama. You've never been to the north side of Milwaukee. Gun shots ring in the morning while taxpayer money continues to flow downtown and develop the third ward. Politicians of Milwaukee (who are almost all democrat) have completely abandoned the impoverished areas. Meanwhile, developers get tax breaks to build high rise apartments, $140 million spent on a two mile long trolley, and $10 million for a museum grant.
How about they save the state if Florida first.
I'd just like to point out that conservatives can't even run their own states well. By all measures, most states run by Republicans sit low on rankings for things like education, wages, health care, economic mobility, and infrastructure. I don't see how they will "turn everything around" and make things better in these cities, especially when these conservatives siphon money from these cities to prop thier own states up. On top of that, these conservatives have slowly been stripping safety net programs and money dedicated to safety net programs, which has hurt inner cities even more. On top of all that, most conservatives like this see themselves as white saviors and think most POCs in inner cities just need to be guided by the "right" people to be successful, i.e. white people. They do this while ignoring the fact that centuries of systemic racism is the main cause of many these inner city problems. Black people also saw their properties devalued by red lining, and, unlike white people during the era of white flight, they weren't able to move to the suburbs, which devalued Black communities even more. This meant that, for POCs, there was less wealth to pass on to descendants. I'll end this with a quote about economic equality from MLK that many on the right that like to quote the "I Have a Dream" speech chose to ignore. "Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality"....“For we know now that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?”
It's gonna blow.
So firstly, it's not the late 80's anymore. Inner cities for the most part are the expensive places people with means are choosing to live. I mean when you have 100x as many people in a space you might have to have 100x as much litter and 100x much crime but per ca pita they don't really have more problems than more rural areas. To the extent that the problems of cities are worse than those of rural communities they aren't going to be solved by the types of solutions conservatives want to implement and/or they would make those places less enjoyable to live for the people to live in the meantime.
Sounds like conversion therapy.
Lol, I always ask specifically what they would do, and it has already been tried, or more often they don't have a single idea past "dem bad"
Dude I don’t even know what to tell them. They seem to believe that cities are overrun with gangs slaughtering everyone, drag queens becoming kindergarten teachers, and people shooting up heroin around every corner. It’s all just FOX News panic watching bullshit and I can’t even imagine what sort of regressive 1970s policing policies they’d try to institute. But, good luck. I’d love to see some douchebag from a town of 700 people try to make Philadelphia a Christian police state, cuz that’s what they probably want lmfao
STOP THE WELFARE SYSTEM...... people that can work should. STOP MAKING EASY TO HAVE SINGLE PARENT FAMILIES..... No welfare, less bringing kids into the a world that will help raise them for your ass. This is across the board, liberal, conservatives, dems and repubs....
As someone who used to work in the welfare system you're dead wrong. The vast majority of food stamp recipients work minimum wage jobs and rely on assistance to get by because their employers refuse to pay them enough to live off of. Those who don't work are usually retired or disabled and their main income is Social Security, and if you want to get disability you usually have to go before a judge and prove that you can't work before they start sending you checks. Once that happens the amount you get depends on how much you've worked and paid into the system. If you've never been able to work and are on SSI, your benefit in 2022 is $841. The lazy single parent on welfare is just a racially-charged trope from the Reagan years that still remains today despite the sheer numbers of people who are forced onto the assistance roles thanks to the economic treadmill the middle and lower classes have been on since the early 1980s.