US Politics returns: the post-Election thread

[Week]

10 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

There were also a lot of reported voters who were disillusioned by Obama's strong talk on race in the second term; his talk about Trayvon Martin being 'his son' apparently upset a lot of voters who went against him. My suspicion is that there is simply going to be a backlash against any president in office, period.

Obama's speech was such a emotional, human moment that - to me - was really moving. To hold on to that speech as a offense is a level of fragility that is astounding. His framing of the discussion was such a reasonable, personal, and common way to approach an issue - I mean, consider the cacophony (valid or not) of republicans who came out against the Access Hollywood tapes with reasoned (in their minds) arguments of "what if it was my daughter/wife/sister/etc.?"

[Kalbear]

Just now, Week said:

Obama's speech was such a emotional, human moment that - to me - was really moving. To hold on to that speech as a offense is a level of fragility that is astounding. His framing of the discussion was such a reasonable, personal, and common way to approach an issue - I mean, consider the cacophony (valid or not) of republicans who came out against the Access Hollywood tapes with reasoned (in their minds) arguments of "what if it was my daughter/wife/sister/etc.?"

Sure.

For them, however, it was a confirmation that instead of a black man not acting like he was a black man, he was (gasp) actually caring about black people. Before this they could pretend that he wasn't about that, and honestly given his policy attempts that was largely reasonable. But that crossed a line. He took sides in a racial disagreement, and that was bad for them. 

So yeah, those people that said it wasn't about racism? Hah. 

It's also interesting to think of how many Republicans switched to Democrats and now have switched back. Similar to Clinton no one has just mediocre opinions on Obama. He is either very liked or extraordinarily disliked. 

[ummester]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No, the argument is simple words, at this level, can and do (as I demonstrated) have impact.  Therefore, brushing aside the impact by claiming "words don't matter" is shortsighted at best.

Did the Russians/Japanese actually retaliate? If Nixon did actually drop bombs, you can bet they would have actually retaliated.

Actions will always speak louder than words - violent physical actions (short of those that annihilate the opposition) will always have a violent physical reaction. Words will not always have a physical reaction.

I'm not saying words don't matter, of course they can matter. I'm saying they never, ever, matter as much as actions. And, for the record, I don't condone racism, especially acts of racism but nor do I condone forcing all even slightly offensive talk underground, because that will breed resentment.

The Western populace has developed a very thin skin.

[Week]

1 minute ago, ummester said:

nor do I condone forcing all even slightly racist talk underground, because that will breed resentment.

That is not how I would frame the discussion. The intent is to elevate understanding, empathy, and depth of thought for those willing and capable - the rest (a tiny minority) can log back on to Stormfront.

[ummester]

6 minutes ago, Week said:

That is not how I would frame the discussion. The intent is to elevate understanding, empathy, and depth of thought for those willing and capable - the rest (a tiny minority) can log back on to Stormfront.

If it means the same thing, why does the framing matter? I find the way you have framed it is too emotively pandering, which is exactly what I'm arguing against.

You know that a broad majority of people will read 'The intent is to elevate understanding, empathy, and depth of thought for those willing and capable' and think what a condescending bleeding heart liberal, don't you?

[Squab]

5 hours ago, BloodRider said:

Sounds like you hear what you want to hear.

Maybe.  I do try to participate in places where views are generally different to mine so I'm not surprised by election results.

[Week]

12 minutes ago, ummester said:

If it means the same thing, why does the framing matter? I find the way you have framed it is to emotively pandering, which is exactly what I'm arguing against.

"Forcing all even slightly offensive talk underground" is not the same has working to prevent it in the first place. Your argument is against censorship (effectively). I am arguing that - to be crass - people need to grow the fuck up and look behind their own (white) navel.

It is not emotively pandering - there isn't an emotional argument. The United States is a diverse country, and will grow more so, which will be felt across the economy and sociopolitical atmosphere. Continuing to rail against that is damaging to the future of the country.

 

" You know that a broad majority of people will read 'The intent is to elevate understanding, empathy, and depth of thought for those willing and capable' and think what a condescending bleeding heart liberal, don't you? "

I put it that way intentionally. Everyone is capable of "willing" and nearly everyone is "capable" - therefore, I'll leave possibility of a small basket of deplorables that can waste their time on Stormfront. People are offended (clearly - evidence: you) by the most minor turn of phrase and I'm not inclined at the moment to pander to it.

[Swordfish]

19 hours ago, Altherion said:

Now you tell us.

More seriously, this remorse happens every time the party holding the Presidency changes. Everybody agrees that the expansion of executive power needs to stop... but they don't agree at the same time and it takes a truly extraordinary individual (e.g. George Washington) to say: I could expand the power of the Presidency, but, for the good of the country, I am going to limit it even though it means limiting my own power. Obama didn't do it and Trump is not going to do it either (although he might anger Congress enough that they do it for him).

 

Yeah.  Remember when raising concerns about these executive orders was considered irrational slippery sloping and alrgely dismissed out of hand?

That said, I don't think Trump quite rises to the level of Washington.

 

 

15 hours ago, Altherion said:

They ran a data-driven campaign using an algorithm to optimize their resources (including campaign appearances, celebrity concerts, TV ads and county-level campaign offices). The problem is that when you do this, you have to give the machine some data to work with and the data they used included polls which turned out to be wrong. When something like that happens, there needs to be a human being who looks at the output and says "Wait a minute... that doesn't look right." I work with data in physics and it's not easy to do this even there.

In politics, the problem is a whole lot harder and people who can do this are quite rare. Ironically, the Clinton campaign did have such a person (Bill Clinton, who told them that their attitude towards the white working class was problematic), but they basically told him that his ideas were old and he should shut up and let the campaign handle it. Hillary Clinton appears to have been unable to see the issue or even acknowledge it when it was pointed out to her.

 

Sort of.  I do wonder though if they could have gotten them even had they targeted them.

It is possible that HRC just was not a palatable candidate to taht demographic for reasons that have already been discussed here at length.

Targeting them is one thing, getting them to vote for you is something else.

 

9 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

A couple of things here:1. If more minorities flee to the Republican Party, then Republican Party as we know might not be the same. I actually would think it would be a healthy development if both parties had healthy minority constituencies. Though I don't see it happening anytime soon, which is unfortunate.

Agreed.  That may be an upside to this election cycle, that we break down those barriers of 'all white people vote this way, and all minorities vote this way', and acknowledge that within those demographics, there is a lot more diversity of opinion and politics than that.

[DunderMifflin]

21 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

 

 

Agreed.  That may be an upside to this election cycle, that we break down those barriers of 'all white people vote this way, and all minorities vote this way', and acknowledge that within those demographics, there is a lot more diversity of opinion and politics than that.

Or if we can't stop pitting the skin colors against each other at least stop the fantasy that all bigotry votes for the same team.

[OldGimletEye]

10 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Or if we can't stop pitting the skin colors against each other at least stop the fantasy that all bigotry voted for the same team.

This is something I'd expect a conservative type to say.

What is really needed here is the Republican Party to do better outreach towards minority voters. But, I don't see it happening.

The problem with the Trump win is I'm afraid the Republican Party will continue with its mainly whites strategy.

Not every one that voted for Trump is necessarily a racist. But surely the white resentment vote went largely to Trump.

What we really need here is two parties that take the concerns of minority voters seriously. We don't have that right now. And that is extremely destructive.

[DunderMifflin]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

This is something I'd expect a conservative type to say.

What is really needed here is the Republican Party to do better outreach towards minority voters. But, I don't see it happening.

The problem with the Trump win is I'm afraid the Republican Party will continue with its whites only strategy.

Not every one that voted for Trump is necessarily a racist. But surely the white resentment vote went largely to Trump.

Do you think only whatever a conservative type is perpetuates the myth that bigotry votes the same way?

It's an absurd, lazy, and self serving method of determining bigotry.  

What you are implying here is that simply based on who one votes for, no other criteria or information needed, is a valid way to determine a bigot from a non bigot. It's a fantasy.

[DunderMifflin]

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

 

 

What we really need here is two parties that take the concerns of minority voters seriously. We don't have that right now. And that is extremely destructive.

For once we totally agree on something

[OldGimletEye]

6 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Do you think only whatever a conservative type is perpetuates the myth that bigotry votes the same way?

It's an absurd, lazy, and self serving method of determining bigotry.  

What you are implying here is that simply based on who one votes for, no other criteria or information needed, is a valid way to determine a bigot from a non bigot. It's a fantasy.

If you read what I wrote, I didn't quite say that.

What's lazy, absurd, and self-serving are your continual false equivalencies and denial of reality.

By all means, continue to believe in the fantasy that there were no racial overtones in the Trump vote.

[OldGimletEye]

2 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

For once we totally agree on something

Yes, that would be a healthy thing for our country.

[Swordfish]

5 hours ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

I'm kinda torn on this subject. On one hand, I agree with Jonathan Chait that PC culture had gone too far and was stifling discourse on the Left, and I agree with Jonathan Haidt that identity politics is poison to a multicultural society, but when it comes to Trump...

I may disagree with speech codes on college campuses or "callout culture" on many Liberal parts of social media, but how can you not point out that Trump's behavior is beyond the pale, or "callout" Trump supporters who either support or ignore his misogyny and white supremacy? I mean I don't, because I avoid getting into arguments on facebook, but still.

I don't think that you can consider these two totally separate issues though.

I think one logically leads to the other.  Call it 'little boy who cried wolf' syndrome if you will.

PC Culture, identity politics, call it what you want.  But jumping into that environment and telling someone who is already fed up with being brow beaten to death with often spurious claims of racism/sexism/etc that 'I want to build a wall, and I want immigrants to go through the legal process' is a blatant and obvious statement of overt racism is just not going to be received the way you want it to be.  I think that's the line that's getting blurred here.

There's no reason to treat overt 'ism's' with any kind of kid gloves.  You are not going to turn any reasonable person off with that kind of reaction.

But we should also recognize that there are shades of grey here, and that in some cases, and in some demographics, any opinion that disagrees with the progressive narrative is called an 'ism' whether it is or not.

An example fomr my facebook page last night.  A person who I do not know posted something along the following lines:

"Went to the store and bought some pepper spray. The clerk said 'I don't blame you with all the riots that are going on'.  I informed him in no uncertain terms that I wasn't afraid of the riots, I was afraid because with the election of Trump, a lot of people now think it's ok to come up and grab me by the *****>'  I bet this was the first time anyone ever checked him on his privilege, and so I was very surprised at how nice he was about it'.

That's the kind of shit people are complaining about when they talk about losing those voters that won Trump Pennsylvania.  Attitudes like 'He thought I was buying pepper spray because of the protests, so obviously he's a privileged sexist' response are not going to win you many supporters, even among moderate allies, or potential allies.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, SerPaladin said:

Yup. Akin to the surfers and quarterbacks I went through high school with and met again post college. Those were just the "disregard for consent" types I knew, you may know similar ones who were the rich boys or the popular guys or the guys with easy access to harder drugs. Or maybe you were lucky enough to grow up not knowing any of those archetypes. Trump's line started with "when you're rich and famous, they let you...", but for those guys, it was a consistent entitlement mindset of "when you're me..."

If you think that's limited to surfers and quarterbacks, then I think you've been watching too many 80's movies.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

41 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

It is possible that HRC just was not a palatable candidate to taht demographic for reasons that have already been discussed here at length.

Targeting them is one thing, getting them to vote for you is something else.

It's unlikely that she would have made some massive inroads with those voters, but simply not trying was a huge mistake, and could actually have helped push them to Trump.

Plus it also serves as a confirmation of the smugness of Clinton's senior staff. I doubt many of them ever get a serious job again.

[Swordfish]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

It's unlikely that she would have made some massive inroads with those voters, but simply not trying was a huge mistake, and could actually have helped push them to Trump.

Plus it also serves as a confirmation of the smugness of Clinton's senior staff. I doubt many of them ever get a serious job again.

Agreed.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, MerenthaClone said:

If anything, I think actively encouraging shitty behavior that you don't personalyl believe in but will benefit you is worse.  At least the bigot is acting from a position of (sometimes willful) ignorance.  The proposed "uses bigotry for personal gain" concept means that Bannon et al know what they're doing is wrong but don't care, unlike said dupe.  Small comfort to anyone harmed by either, but I'd find the bigot less personally objectionable. 

100% this. We don't know unequivocally if Bannon is antisemitic or not, but he was more than happy to use white nationalism for his own gain which is frankly disgusting.

Same goes for Trump. 

[ummester]

1 hour ago, Week said:

The United States is a diverse country, and will grow more so, which will be felt across the economy and sociopolitical atmosphere. Continuing to rail against that is damaging to the future of the country.

It's entirely possible that the diversity is directly proportional to social decline. Not ethnic diversity, but cultural diversity. When in Rome, as they say.

1 hour ago, Week said:

I put it that way intentionally. Everyone is capable of "willing" and nearly everyone is "capable" - therefore, I'll leave possibility of a small basket of deplorables that can waste their time on Stormfront. People are offended (clearly - evidence: you) by the most minor turn of phrase and I'm not inclined at the moment to pander to it.

I had no idea what Stormfront was until you posted it.

I'm not offended by the minor turn of phrase, I'm saying you are not in touch with how the vast majority feel. The vast majority don't waste their time on internet forums as we do, that, in a way, is a bit of a privilege. I can guarantee you, the majority feel a major disconnect between the establishment talking about inclusive PC values and them not having enough work.

1 hour ago, Week said:

"Forcing all even slightly offensive talk underground" is not the same has working to prevent it in the first place. Your argument is against censorship (effectively). I am arguing that - to be crass - people need to grow the fuck up and look behind their own (white) navel.

And that, as always, works both ways.

BTW - my navel isn't even fully white

[Westerosi Coast Gangster]

I didnt vote at all, but I daresay if Trump lost there wouldn't Republicans protesting something that was decided fairly (and getting run over lol). I can almost taste the tears.