Exactly. People all over America are saying that illegals are taking their jobs and a bunch of coastal liberals are trying to convince them it’s not real? Maybe believe them to start with. Talk to them. Don’t just start ivory tower intellectualizing like you’re Matt Yglesias talking about how Biden is in terrific shape.

Well, okay, so just like this article talks about, people often find it easier to declare a source of a problem, rather than describing a symptom they're having.

Illegals aren't taking their jobs - there's plenty of studies evidencing that that's not true. *BUT*, people are feeling:

  1. under-employed
  2. under-paid
  3. in some level of pain, economically
  4. feeling insecure, financially

Sure, propaganda plays a part of the experienced pain people have; but it's often not all of it. Propaganda is less effective when people are comfortable.

They're saying gas is too expensive.

They're saying rent is too high.

They're saying houses cost too much.

They're saying a cocktail shouldn't cost double digits.

They're saying they can't afford doctors or health insurance.

The complaints are specific about specific changes in affordability, not 80's AM radio talking points. They mostly aren't suddenly saying illegal immigrants are taking their jobs.

(Certainly some people are, but it's not really a bigger contingent than any other time in the last... 30? 40? years...)

We shouldn't be giving participation trophies to people who slept through world history class and then fall for recycled demagoguery about how it's the poor who are sucking up all the wealth and not the rich.

White Americans’ feelings of being “last place” are associated with anti-DEI attitudes, Trump support, and Trump vote during the 2024 U.S. presidential election - https://advances.in/psychology/10.56296/aip00046/ | https://doi.org/10.56296/aip00046

Abstract: Due to racial wealth inequality in the U.S.—inequality that benefits White Americans on average—many Americans associate White people with wealth. Yet, many White Americans report feeling like they, personally, are “falling behind.” We conducted a five-wave longitudinal study with a representative quota sample of non-Hispanic, White Americans (N = 506) during the 2024 U.S. presidential election. We found that White Americans who feel they are falling behind White and Asian Americans, while also being close to being passed by Black and Hispanic Americans, within a perceived tight status hierarchy, reported the most support for DEI bans and Trump, controlling for objective status. Further, White Americans with these status perceptions were most likely to vote for Trump in the 2024 election. We conclude that White Americans’ subjective perceptions of their position in the racial economic hierarchy meaningfully relate to political attitudes and behavior.

The Findings: Using a statistical technique called Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), we identified distinct groups based on where people subjectively ranked themselves and other racial groups on the American status ladder.

* We found a specific group of White Americans (~15% of our sample) who perceived themselves as "tied for last place" with Black Americans.

* Crucially: This group was the most likely to vote for Donald Trump and support bans on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

* Importantly, this effect held true even when we controlled for their actual income, education, age, and gender. In other words, feeling like you are losing status predicted voting behavior more strongly than actually having low status.

Reddit AmA with the authors: https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1qz9158/we_are_pr...

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