"Today, White working class people are struggling. Their real incomes have stagnated and even fallen. "
Not sure why you're mentioning "white" in this context. As you can see from this chart, incomes remain on the same statistical track regardless of race. And if nominal incomes track, so do real incomes. This proves that everyone, regardless of race, faces the same problem of wage stagnation against inflation. It's just being experienced in different ways by different racial groups due to income disparity.
(https://www.pgpf.org/sites/default/files/0272_income_race_historical-full.gif)
"And White people loved the welfare system. They voted for FDR four times. Each successive president after him strengthened the welfare state and added more benefits to it."
A review of politics from the 30's shows significant opposition to the welfare priorities of FDR. There was no "love" for the welfare state; but in the context of the Depression (which was far worse than the economic downturn of 08-09) and WW2 (which put all the wage earners between the ages of 20 and 40 in a uniform and took them away from their families) there was such substantial concern for the future of the nation and day to day survival that the country was unwilling to make any political changes. Implying that the politics of this period were entirely based on welfare access is a historical rewrite which minimizes the more pertinent factors of the period, which were the Great Depression and World War .
"However, when The Civil Rights Movement gave Black people the same access to the social welfare system that White people had had for decades, White people turned against that system. White people went from praising economic assistance as a necessary hands-up to denigrating it as a wasteful hand-out."
It was white people who created both the welfare system and civil rights legislation of the 60's. So, basically, your contention is that white people hated their own programs. Tough hill to defend.
But, at any rate, opposition to those programs didn't kick up until the economic struggles of the mid-70's, because profligate government spending had been (rightly or wrongly) tabbed as the cause of the economic malaise of the period, which can be summed up in these charts. So if I can call your attention to the period 1970-1990:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?id=UNRATE&nsh=1&type=image/png&width=600&height=400
As you can see, that period was one of economic distress; we have not since experienced the trifecta of high unemployment, high inflation, and high interest rates. These were the factors that drove the politics of the period.
"So, when Reagan campaigned on the promise of weakening the welfare system, many White people were more than happy to vote for him. They were willing to destroy their economic lives and those of their children as long as they were convinced that Black people would have it worse."
I remember the politics of that day very well. The concern was that government overspending had created the above inflationary/unemployment/interest rate environment that was destroying the economic lives of all Americans (see my first comment above.) The phenomenon was also found in the UK, and was addressed in similar fashion by Margaret Thatcher. Here's how (referring to the above charts):
In 1974, inflation hit 11.74%. It dropped to 9%-ish and 5%-ish the following two years, but then skied back up until it hit 13.55% in 1980. And in addition, unemployment was rising during the mid 70's, hitting 8.2% in 1975, then kicking around the 6-7% level until it peaked at 10.8% in 1982.
If you're under 65, you've never experienced anything like this. Give it some thought. When you're trying to stay employed and/or feed your family during economic conditions like that, the farthest thing from your mind is racial issues (which may be one of the reasons why racist sentiment in the US has been on the decline since the 70's.)
"White working class people voted for Reaganomics Even though WWC knew Reaganomics would mean they would no longer have pensions, they would no longer have living wages, they would no longer have the other safety nets they used to have, they were willing to vote for it because they knew the policies would hurt black people more."
See above comment. The priority, regardless of the race of the citizen, was staying employed and feeding their families, not racial politics.
"In fact, with the full hindsight of the wreckage his policies have wrought upon their lives"
Full hindsight shows you that (see above data) that Reaganonmics was implemented to *solve* the trifecta problems of high unemployment, high interest rates. and high inflation that were pervasive in the 1970's. Reagonomics has its critics -- nothing is perfect, granted -- but the critics often ignore the fact that we've had far better economic conditions since Reagan (with the Dot-Com/9-11 and 08-09 recessions noted) than we had in the 70's. To illustrate:
I bought my first house in 1981 for $42,000. That was 63% of the 1981 median house price, so today (does math) it would be a "below average cost" $250,000 home. That was just prior to the effect the Reagan chokehold had on interest rates, which were sky high back then.
I financed that house at 15.75% interest, and I was happy to get it. (It was a negative amortization loan, but that's another abuse of the past which is another story.)
Today, financing a 250K house at the prevailing (3.6%) rate would cost $909 a month (20% down). But at the Reagan era rate, that monthly payment would be $2,649 a month.
That was the **economic shit** that Reaganomics addressed. Can you imagine an America today where a house which is 17% BELOW the median house price costs $2,650 a month to live in? And where the average household has a take home pay of (does math) $4,250 a month?
Our living standards would be crap, obviously.
It's easy to sit back, insulated in the bubble of the 2000's, and say "That president's programs were so bad that the only explanation is racism." But that assumption will usually lead you to a false understanding of history. Racism is a horrendous problem both now and then, but when the economy is under stress, it becomes the least of the voter's concerns.
In the case of the period 1974-1984, like the Great Depression/WW2, conditions were putting so many families at risk, regardless of race, that the economic survival was the priority -- not race politics.
