Comment by unclebucknasty
4 years ago
Your analysis somewhat conspicuously omits the massive nationwide shift that was the ascendance of Trump and the far right over the time period you've noted. Is it reasonable to expect local news and politics to be insulated from such dramatic national shifts?
I've lived in Atlanta for over two decades. What's happened in Atlanta politics tracks with what's happened nationwide. It is not strictly a function of media or a random, spontaneous racialization.
Nor do I know anyone who feels we've been characterized as an "unreformed Confederate backwater". The idea that we've been so maligned is itself a media narrative. In fact, I live in an area that is staunchly conservative, majority white, and upper-middle class. The people I speak with abhor Trump and the style of politics he represents (which have been noted as favorable to your "unreformed Confederates"). This was visible in their repudiation of him in 2020, even while they voted GOP down balllot. It was visible again in the recent primary wherein the candidates Trump endorsed were largely shellacked.
So, it's somehat ironic that you're bemoaning the media's role in mischaracterizing Georgia politics, when you seem to be a victim of the same, and repeating certain narratives.
Likewise with your comment that black people are leaving blue states in droves to come to Atlanta, as if this is some recent phenomenon. That is simply a new right-wing media narrative that seeks to malign blue states and peel off support. But, black people have long sought Atlanta as a mecca, which has featured black political power for decades now and was even labeled an ascendant "Chocolate City" in a Parliament song of 1975.
Perhaps there was some national media painting of Georgia. After all, narratives do sell. But your analysis here is somewhat superficial and features its own skewed media-driven narratives.
> the massive nationwide shift that was the ascendance of Trump and the far right over the time period you've noted.
This never happened. What happened is that Democrats started to center the far-right in order to scare their constituents into voting, and Republicans stopped resisting Trump, who they were only against because he was an outsider to their patronage networks. The far-right haven't risen, the Democrats just spend all their time doing PR for them and trying to associate them with Trump to attract centrist Republican voters.
>This never happened. What happened is that Democrats started to center the far-right
That's a pretty remarkable statement. Trump is the far right. Are you arguing there hasn't been a hard right shift in the GOP since Trump?
BTW, your statement that Dems falsely centered the far right is actually true in the reverse. Republicans center folks they consider "far left", like AOC and "The Gang" as representative of some sort of scary communist takeover of Democrats. This is, of course, silly on its face. They have virtually no power to drive policy in the party. And, of course, they are not communists in any case.
Add to that, Dems rejected even Bernie to nominate grandfatherly ol' Joe...the most moderate Dem around who, quaintly, still believes in bipartisanship.
Other than Bernie and The Gang, the only "far left" I've seen is so-called "Antifa", which has no membership, but magically self-assembles and appears during election cycles to scare Republican voters to the polls before mysteriously dissolving again.
Still, GOP ads feature ominous threats about the far left and communism.
I get that things tend to appear mirrored from the other side, but there are facts. On 1/6, elements of the far right, to include actual militia members, did Trump's bidding. Their ongoing affinity for one another is no coincidence. He represents their interests and they clearly know it.
>Trump is the far right
The guy was a Democrat for most of his life.
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> Trump is the far right
Trump never was the hard/far right. He just used them for his own self-aggrandisement. And more and more of them are realising this, and turning against him in response.
After the Parkland school shooting, he came out supporting a modest tightening of federal gun laws (restricting gun access for under 21s), only to abandon the idea in the face of pressure from the gun lobby. [0] His initial response to "bathroom" laws was to oppose them, only later being talked into supporting them. [1] While publicly he welcomed SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade, reports claim that in private, he is very worried that it will damage his chances in 2024 by costing him the votes of suburban women; [2] it seems unlikely he has any genuine personal moral objection to abortion. Trump has always been pro-COVID vaccine, unlike many of his supporters. [3] The list goes on. His personal instincts on many social issues are moderate/centrist; a significant chunk of his conservatism was always just a put-on to convince conservatives to vote for him.
Given Trump never really believed in many of his own right-wing talking points, it is rather unsurprising that on many issues people on the hard right perceive him as having been "all talk but no action"–they wanted him to wage war against progressives in the federal bureaucracy, instead he sat in the White House shouting at cable TV. Stacking SCOTUS with conservatives was one of the occasional exceptions to that generalisation, but something which required no real effort on his part, he just did whatever his advisers told him to do. That's why many on the American right are now flocking to DeSantis, who appears to actually believe what he says far more often than Trump does, and who shows signs of being far more effective at delivery too.
> Are you arguing there hasn't been a hard right shift in the GOP since Trump?
Has the GOP base actually moved that much? I think the main thing that has happened, is that Trump single-handedly destroyed most of the GOP establishment's ability to control their own base – they'd grown used to being the tail that wags the dog, Trump just helped the dog to remember who's really in charge.
[0] https://www.grid.news/story/politics/2022/05/27/trump-propos...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/23/p...
[2] https://www.salon.com/2022/06/25/initially-said-ending-roe-v...
[3] https://time.com/6146907/donald-trump-covid-19-vaccines-base...
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Like the other commenter said, the current Republican framing of "it's not us that changed, it's liberals!" is revisionist nonsense. All of the previous most popular Republicans in the last 15 years, Bush Jr (president), Romney, McCain (presidential nominees) all despised Trump, the current direction of the far right usurping the party, and are/were basically voting Democrat now because they're scared of the far right's threat far more than centrist Obama/Biden positions. FFS, Republican cheerleader #1 Tucker has been praising Russia: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1497035201196617733