The Reagan "Democrats" aren't coming back to the Democratic Party

The so-called Reagan Democrats, the Blue-collar angry white males who left the Democratic Party because they objected to Democratic supported feminism and affirmative action, are talking like they recognize that they are getting the economic shaft and might return to the Democratic Party. It's clear that the Republican Party is not going to do anything about the economic problems such as health care, free trade and the loss of manufacturing jobs to overseas companies they face. Digby points out their real dilemma.

I feel for these fellows' economic plight. They have been getting the shaft for 30 years and there's no end in sight. But until they get over their bigotry I just don't see them voting for the Democrats because the cognitive dissonance is just too great --- the Democratic party is too diverse for them to feel comfortable.

Digby's right.

No matter what the economic cost, those while males as a group will not give up their feeling of superiority over Blacks and Women. They've lived their entire lives with their feelings of innate superiority over women and Blacks to support them when they felt really down. Voting for either a woman or a Black Man will be an admission that they have lived much of their lives for a lie. That simply isn't an admission they are going to make.

The cognitive dissonance of the majority of the white make working class voters, the so-called Reagan Democrats, is going to make it very difficult for them to see how the Republican policies are not related to their real problems are, nor will they admit just how incompetent and corrupt the Republicans have repeatedly shown themselves to be in running government. People strongly resist learning things that contradict what they already think they know, and that resistance increases when what they think they know is very important to them. People also strongly resist admitting that they have been "conned." So the cognitive dissonance of the white working class males who make up the Reagan Democrats is going to be a primary target for conservative spin-masters.

One such group, the Republican multimillionaires for multimillionaire dominance (RMFMD, AKA "Freedom's Watch") are going to be playing this cognitive dissonance up with every dollar, innuendo and lie they can throw at Obama (currently the Democratic Party front-runner.)

I have said this before. All the signs point to this being that nastiest Presidential election any of us now living have ever seen. The conservatives, with no successes and no real positive program to run on have little chance of actually winning the election. They have no long-term goals they can achieve if they lose this Presidential election and they will happily sacrifice any reputation as being honest, moral good people if such sacrifice will let them win the Fall Presidential election.m So they have every reason to use all the tools in their very substantial arsenal of nasty tricks. Why not? If they win the win will cancel out any damage to their reputations. A win will simply make nasty politics seem like sharp, effective politics. And if they lose?

They will leave the public eye and not have to account for their behavior. They will just move somewhere into conservative think tanks (or sinecures like the Pepperdine Law School Presidency that Richard Mellon Scaife bought for Ken Starr or the Hudson Institute where "Scooter" Libby promptly moved after his conviction for orchestrating the exposure of an American CIA Agent) to wait for another Republican administration they can move back into.

All in all, the Reagan Democrats will not be voting for a Democratic candidate this year, and it is unlikely they ever will again. They aren't Democrats now, if they every were. The core reason is the curse of America, racism.