Where have all the white men gone?

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Joanne Cabry

by Joanne Cabry

I’m not having much success with Claire’s practice of ‘Counting Our Blessings on the Morning After” when I think about what happened on Tuesday in Sussex County.  (Claire’s post)

But after reading an  article in the NYT  (here) about the voter changes in Prince William County, Virginia maybe there is some reason to hope. When I lived in the DC area Prince William was a very conservative district, but this article quotes a Tom Davis, a former GOP Congressman for that district as saying, “There are just are not enough middle-aged white guys that we can scrape together to win. There’s just not enough of them.” 

So I posted the article on FB under the title “ Maybe there’s hope for Sussex?” The first response was from a savvy Delawarean who said  ”No, it seems all the cranky white guys have moved to Sussex.”

What do you think? Are the voters moving to Prince Williams a different demographic from those moving to Sussex? Is there hope for change in Sussex?  I just don’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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4 Responses to Where have all the white men gone?

  1. Claire Snyder-Hall says:
    November 8, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    There absolutely is reason to be hopeful when we think of demographic change. (Are you surprised that I am optimistic??) I do not think the majority of folks moving to Sussex are racist old geezers. I am not sure why I have this impression, but I think a lot of the voters in the 20RD who voted the wrong way were 80 and older — which is not to say that there are not older folks who are progressive, but the 20RD is religiously conservative and historically rural, and there is a lot of resentment about change among the populace. Combine that with an ignorant racist backlash against Obama that drove up turn-out and entrenched homophobia that was stoked by a (probably) nationally funded, well organized anti-gay movement, and you have the recipe for disaster.

    The Republican Party is explicitly discussing how they are going to see increased losses if they continue to be the party of the white man. 70% of Latinos voted against them, and the Latino community is growing fast.

    Reply
  2. Ann Nolan says:
    November 9, 2012 at 2:17 pm

    Hope for change?? I am not optimistic. The only way you can change a xenophobic population is to reach the children. You have to be taught to hate.
    How to reach the children?? That is something that we might want to talk about.

    Reply
    • Joanne Cabry says:
      November 10, 2012 at 9:17 pm

      Ann,

      I would love to figure out how to engage more young people. Let’s put it on the agenda for the next Progressive Democrats meeting.

      Reply
  3. DennisB -- delaware progressive blog contributor says:
    November 10, 2012 at 9:23 pm

    J — well, from a personal standpoint (hee hee), I’d say that not only cranky white guys have moved to Sussex county….

    Reply