Oaklandsocialist notes: The author of this article is a young-ish working class guy who lives in a mainly white working class neighborhood in Philadelphia.

A shuffleboard contest

I went to a shuffleboard event here in Philadelphia recently. [Note: Shuffleboard is a game commonly played on the deck of cruise ships. This is a tabletop version of it that is played indoors by working class and middle class people.] It was majority white. There were some Black people and some Latinos, but for the most part, everybody was white. the majority of people there seemed to be supporters of Trump.

Not everyone enthusiastically supported Trump, but they seem to be likely to vote for him, especially because of the shooting. Not everyone could describe why they wanted to vote for him or as a result of the shooting, but it seemed to be the socially acceptable response to what occurred.

Most people’s opinion on Kamala was that they did not have one. They were glad that they did not have to choose between Trump and Biden, but nobody seemed to know enough about Harris to have a strong opinion, other than the hard-core Trump supporters who hated her because she was opposed to Trump. I did not hear much racist, or sexist dog whistling at all in relation to her, but there was a strong feeling from both those that supported and opposed Trump that if Biden was admitting he was unable to run for president again he should resign and Kamala should take over the presidency. There was a general feeling that something is truly wrong with Biden on a medical level and he should not be in any position that requires responsibility.

The two faces of Kamala Harris

In general, people knew very little about Harris. There was a conversation where somebody asked someone “Harris – isn’t she from Massachusetts?” And then another person said, “no, she’s from New York.” Somebody else thought she had been a defense attorney and that she really hates cops.

If a big issue is made of her covering up for Biden, that will be a very strong angle of attack. How long did she know he wasn’t okay? And how long was she lying about it? If that is stressed, I would guess that it would be effective.

As far as the DEI [“diversity, equity and inclusion] thing: That criticism is only strongly held by people that are pretty racist, like significantly racist, being that they think about race a lot as far as their judgment calls about people? So those would be the hardcore Trump supporters anyway. When I say people that are significantly racist, I mean more people that are enthusiastic, I guess, about the racism. Those people are definitely with Trump and have it baked into their thinking so much that they don’t even realize it. But, but when they make a judgment about something, race is at the forefront, even if they don’t understand how racist they are. Those are more the people that the DEI line works on.

There’s three opinions, basically, on that: There’s the opinions of the truly racist ones that putting a black person in is going to make stuff harder for white people. So we don’t want black people in positions of power. They’ll state that explicitly to other white people. Obviously not if black people are around. Then there’s people who, like I said, are significantly racist in their thinking, but don’t put it that way, and will make up reasons why she is there because, for whatever reason, they want to give more jobs to minorities. (By the way, with the DEI, not all the people who profess those racist attitudes are all white, some are Latino, and even some are black.) Then there’s the other group who see no problem with it at all and think a lot of this criticism just falls flat with them. People recognize it as racist, others just don’t care and don’t understand why it’s being raised. I would say it will be somewhat effective, but not to a great extent. I don’t see enough people like being dog whistled by that, I would hope. I don’t I don’t see it as being as effective as they think.

There were some that enthusiastically hated Trump. These feelings were expressed by both older and younger people. Not all the white the Black people there expressed hatred for him, even if they intended not to vote for him. This might be how they honestly felt or it might be a result of being around many white Trump supporters. The people that hated Trump hated him for the obvious reasons. The older people who hate him seem to still resent the fact that he is a rich New Yorker.

Regardless of who people want to become president, there seems to be a general sense that even though the election is going to be heavily decided by their vote that no candidates truly offers something that will make significant positive change in their lives. Other than a few Trump supporters who are truly delusional, most people feel that the interests of people are not served by either party.

What if a candidate did really raise the issues of importance and was denounced as being a socialist? How effective would that be? I do not think that would be as effective a line of criticism. A lot of those terms have lost their trigger factor. Ironically, some of the people who are supporters of Trump now were very excited about Bernie Sanders in previous campaigns. I don’t think that kind of anti-socialist criticism is as effective. I think that a more effective line of criticism would be if someone were to profess those attitudes and talk about things that make stuff better for everyday people, the line of criticism would be more likely to be “they can’t win, or if they get too close to winning, they’ll be assassinated.”

Trump after having been shot. He is sure to win some sympathy, and more.

In fact, one person said about Trump “If they’re shooting at him, he must be doing something right” Everybody laughed a lot at that.

Feelings around immigration were not as aggressive as one might expect them to be. Most people are aware that fentanyl is coming into the United States because people are willing to pay large amounts of money for it, and they do not think the border can be secure enough to keep drugs out. I heard no talk of immigrants coming to take peoples jobs. Most people are more worried about automation.

There seems to be a strange school of worship around Elon Musk that is closely associated with support for Trump. The reasoning for this is not clear, since nobody there could afford a Tesla and does not use Twitter. People seem to think that he is

Tony Stark, where superhero fiction meets real life politics.

some kind of Tony Stark that can solve everybody’s problems with science. [Tony Stark  is a Marvel comic superhero, something like a 21st century version of Superman. This view the writer observed is extremely significant. It shows how fiction as part of our culture blends in with politics. More specifically, it shows that all the fiction about superheroes encourages an attitude of looking for a savior rather than relying on self-organizing.]

Generally speaking, people are very pro Israel or anti-Israel for truly anti-Semitic reasons. There is sympathy for the children who are being killed, but very few coherent, moral positions are held on the topic. Everyone is supportive of Ukraine, but will sometimes complain about how much money we are sending. This argument does not hold up very long, and Trump supporters quickly abandon it if challenged in any significant way. This may have to do with old attitudes around Russia that are left over from the Cold War, but more generally speaking it seems to come from an understanding that Putin is the new Hitler.

A shuffleboard contest