Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Leftist Bill Scher: ' No, Obama Probably Wouldn't Have Beaten Trump'.

Politico reports:
Obamacare looms large, despite the fact that it is one of the most tangible benefits Obama delivered to working-class Americans, regardless of race. Yet the reaction to the program was undoubtedly tinged with racism. Political scientist Michael Tesler uncovered in his book Post-Racial or Most-Racial?: Race and Politics in the Obama Era, that “racially resentful” whites were far more likely to support government-provided health insurance before Obama began his push for the Affordable Care Act in 2009. But once the president led the charge, Tesler found, many “Americans thought blacks would benefit more than whites.”


Tesler’s statistical analysis is backed up by the reporting of Vox’s Sarah Kliff. She spoke with Kentucky Trump voters in Obamacare plans, but who don’t receive subsidies, complaining about “the ones getting the welfare and food stamps” and “the people that don’t want to work” benefiting from government handouts.

Trump voters were also angered by how Obama handled race issues as president, especially his defense of Black Lives Matter activists. The New York Times Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones spoke with Obama-to-Trump converts in Iowa and found “they had come to feel at odds with their party; it no longer reflected their own cultural norms. … Obama really turned [one voter] off when, after a vigilante killed a black teenager named Trayvon Martin, he said the boy could have been his son. She felt as if Obama was choosing a side in the racial divide, stirring up tensions.” ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis, after speaking to voters in Ohio, noted one who had “grown somewhat disenchanted” with Obama after supporting him, then “talked about how much the Black Lives Matter protests against shootings by police officers grated on him” and lamented, “If I say anything about that, I’m a racist.”
An article, well worth your time.