US Politics: Passing Gas In Public is Abhorrent Behavior

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

It's now official. O'Reilly is out. Good riddance.

 

To quote the wise philosopher Nelson Muntz, "HA HA!"

 

[denstorebog]

12 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Consider the rest of American history. Trump is hardly the first populist either on the left or on the right. He is unique in some sense because he won (which is rare) and he did so without ever holding any other political office (which is unprecedented), but there have almost always been significant divisions within the major parties. In fact, the same argument can be made for the Democratic party: is it the party of Obama and Clinton or that of Bernie Sanders? Almost certainly the former, but supporters of the latter are only slightly short of a majority and they're not happy about it. In both cases, the groups which are at the periphery of the party will make a lot of noise, but in the end, they are unlikely to abandon the establishment of their party because the alternative is even worse.

The parallel to the Democrats is obvious, but I still think there's a stronger polarization going on on the right. I think the left can still, at least for an election or two, coalesce around either an establishment candidate like Biden or an outlier like Bernie, and get most everyone on board. At least enough that it doesn't seem like a lost cause from the start.

The situation seems different on the right. The alt-right is a sizeable group now, and they share a strong sense of identity that is nurtured by aggressive smear attacks against not only the left, but equally against the "cucks". In fact, their opposition to the right-wing establishment seems just as important to their identity as their opposition to liberals. It feels like they're almost sworn to their own little community to abandon ship if they're not catered to from now on.

[Swordfish]

8 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

The parallel to the Democrats is obvious, but I still think there's a stronger polarization going on on the right. I think the left can still, at least for an election or two, coalesce around either an establishment candidate like Biden or an outlier like Bernie, and get most everyone on board. At least enough that it doesn't seem like a lost cause from the start.

The situation seems different on the right. The alt-right is a sizeable group now, 

Is it?  Hard numbers on this seem incredibly difficult to come by.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I would bet O'Reilly goes to Breitbart as well. Trump supported him last week, now I'm really interested in seeing if he will throw O'Reilly under the bus and say "Sad news but what he did was not right", or if he will attack Fox News for "Bad for not supporting the man that made Fox great!".

I hope even Trump isn't stupid enough to take a person with the allegations O'Reilly has against him into the WH.

If only the guy in the White House did not have similar problems.

[Altherion]

18 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

The situation seems different on the right. The alt-right is a sizeable group now, and they share a strong sense of identity that is nurtured by aggressive smear attacks against not only the left, but equally against the "cucks". In fact, their opposition to the right-wing establishment seems just as important to their identity as their opposition to liberals. It feels like they're almost sworn to their own little community to abandon ship if they're not catered to from now on.

Where are you getting this from? "Alt-right" is an amorphous concept -- they rarely call themselves that and the beliefs of the people who are thus labeled are quite varied. The largest outlet at which they congregate is Breitbart and you can read the Breitbart comments to get a sense of just how different these people are from each other. They do agree on their hatred of Clinton, the latter's celebrity supporters and yes, certain Republicans... but to say that they're opposed to the Republican establishment is a severe overstatement. They may claim to be thus, but in practice, they voted not only for Trump, but also for a variety of Republican Senators, Representatives and state legislature members who, for most intents and purposes, are the Republican establishment. A future Presidential candidate will need to refrain from openly provoking or denigrating them, but if that is done, a figure like Pence or Kasich could probably win their loyalty without alienating too many others.

[S John]

58 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Consider the rest of American history. Trump is hardly the first populist either on the left or on the right. He is unique in some sense because he won (which is rare) and he did so without ever holding any other political office (which is unprecedented), but there have almost always been significant divisions within the major parties. In fact, the same argument can be made for the Democratic party: is it the party of Obama and Clinton or that of Bernie Sanders? Almost certainly the former, but supporters of the latter are only slightly short of a majority and they're not happy about it. In both cases, the groups which are at the periphery of the party will make a lot of noise, but in the end, they are unlikely to abandon the establishment of their party because the alternative is even worse.

If it were the party of Bernie Sanders I don't think we'd be looking at President Trump.  White working class voters in the North cost the Dems this election.  The R's hammered Hillary over her Wall Street connections (among many other things) that Bernie could never have been accused of - and not only had Bernie not forgotten about white working class voters, they'd been a point of discussion for the Bern for a long, long time.   

[Sivin]

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

I'd give him about a 4 out of 10. The fundamental problem was always going to be that to do anything substantial, he would need to either fight or persuade more or less the entirety of the establishment (Congress Republicans, Senate Democrats and the supposedly non-partisan judicial branch and federal bureaucracy). He has not done this, but it was hardly reasonable to expect him to do it so quickly. The greater problem is that the ways in which they have clashed (e.g. the laughable ACA replacement or the first version of the executive order regarding immigration from 7 countries) do not inspire confidence. He might have lost those anyway, but the sheer sloppiness certainly didn't help.

On the other hand, he has succeeded in reestablishing a small measure of fear of the law for those who brazenly break it with regard to immigration and his Supreme Court choice successfully weakened the filibuster so the first 100 days haven't been entirely bad. Basically, this is far from the best case scenario (in which, for example, he goes back to his views on healthcare circa the year 2000), but it's also far from him wholly selling out to the neoliberals so it's somewhere near the middle.

Thanks.

2 hours ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

Trump has 11 days to end of Sexual Assault Awareness month bigly.

I thought April was Autism Awareness month...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Swordfish said:

Is it?  Hard numbers on this seem incredibly difficult to come by.

Correct, largely because it's mainly an online movement. There are only a handful of self-identifying public leaders of the alt-right movement, if it can have a true leader at all. That said, they have a lot of political power relative to the size of the group.

41 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Where are you getting this from? "Alt-right" is an amorphous concept 

True, but it does have two core identifiers: disdain of mainstream conservationism and identity politics that large revolve around white superiority or at least western superiority. Practically everyone in the movement has at least one of those beliefs. I guess there is a third rail too which are internet trolls, but rarely do they not have one of those core beliefs.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Given his similar intellect to Trump's, as well as his lusty nature, maybe he should have always been Trump's Press Secretary:

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/rob-gronk-gronkowski-crashes-sean-spicers-white-house-briefing-w477806

[TheKitttenGuard]

19 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

I thought April was Autism Awareness month...

 

https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/326780-trump-proclaims-april-2017-national-sexual-assault-awareness%3Famp

Quote

President Trump on Friday proclaimed April 2017 as National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

"My Administration, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services, will do everything in its power to protect women, children, and men from sexual violence," Trump said in his proclamation on the final day of March.

Trump defended O'Reilly five days in

 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/05/media/donald-trump-defends-bill-oreilly/

Quote

"I think he's a person I know well — he is a good person," Trump told the Times. "I think he shouldn't have settled; personally I think he shouldn't have settled. Because you should have taken it all the way. I don't think Bill did anything wrong."

 

[Sivin]

41 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

 

https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/326780-trump-proclaims-april-2017-national-sexual-assault-awareness%3Famp

Trump defended O'Reilly five days in

 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/05/media/donald-trump-defends-bill-oreilly/

 

...

[Mlle. Zabzie]

We are all basically in the middle of something that Kafka wrote, and it's all fine.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

We are all basically in the middle of something that Kafka wrote, and it's all fine.

/It's a long way to go for the punchline, but I can't help but laugh. More Tolstoyesque than Kafkaesque probably, but it does feature an insect.

[Swordfish]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Correct, largely because it's mainly an online movement. There are only a handful of self-identifying public leaders of the alt-right movement, if it can have a true leader at all. That said, they have a lot of political power relative to the size of the group.

I'm not disagreeing here, but I'm genuinely curious how we know this.

I get the argument that with Bannon in the white house, they are represented, but with Bannon losing favor, what power do they wield?

it seems to me to be a diverse group in terms of how they might vote, and if we don't know how many of them there are...  Where does this power come from?

[TerraPrime]

14 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

I'm not disagreeing here, but I'm genuinely curious how we know this.

I get the argument that with Bannon in the white house, they are represented, but with Bannon losing favor, what power do they wield?

it seems to me to be a diverse group in terms of how they might vote, and if we don't know how many of them there are...  Where does this power come from?

Miller, too. Spicer could be on the way out, so maybe not count him. And before Flynn got ousted there's also Flynn. 

 

Edit: 

 

Also, the key is that Trump picked all these people, not by accident. The people he puts his trust in reflects his world views, too. So just because we get Bannon out (if we do), it doesn't mean the ideology is dead. This one starts from the top. 

[Swordfish]

35 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

Miller, too. Spicer could be on the way out, so maybe not count him. And before Flynn got ousted there's also Flynn. 

 

Edit: 

 

Also, the key is that Trump picked all these people, not by accident. The people he puts his trust in reflects his world views, too. So just because we get Bannon out (if we do), it doesn't mean the ideology is dead. This one starts from the top. 

Sure.  That all makes sense to me.  But Trump is somewhat of an anomaly here.

Did he pick those guys because the alt right got him elected, or did he pick them for other reasons?

it seems like they only actually have any lasting power here with the republicans if it's the first case.  if it's the second case, then they have power only as long as the whims of Trump provide it to them, and only via proxy through the guys he chooses to place around him.

And it seems like the prior can only be true if there are a LOT of them, and if they vote as a cohesive block.

Both of those things could be true, it just seems like it's hard to find any hard evidence of this either way.  though I admittedly have not spent much time on it, so it could well be out there and I just haven't seen it.

 

[TerraPrime]

35 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

Sure.  That all makes sense to me.  But Trump is somewhat of an anomaly here.

Did he pick those guys because the alt right got him elected, or did he pick them for other reasons?

it seems like they only actually have any lasting power here with the republicans if it's the first case.  if it's the second case, then they have power only as long as the whims of Trump provide it to them, and only via proxy through the guys he chooses to place around him.

And it seems like the prior can only be true if there are a LOT of them, and if they vote as a cohesive block.

Both of those things could be true, it just seems like it's hard to find any hard evidence of this either way.  though I admittedly have not spent much time on it, so it could well be out there and I just haven't seen it.

 

A little from column A, a little from column B. 

The hiring of Bannon was a clear signal to the alt-right that this is the campaign for them. While mainstream people (especially mainstream white) were busy ignoring the signs, the neo-Nazis clearly saw their fortune on the rise. The latest data analysis showed that fear of diversity was a stronger predictor for voting for Trump than economic anxiety or anti-globalization. Embedded in that group are the alt-right people. So they did help him win - I suspect they're the silent but uncounted votes - but you're also right that they're not politically organized like, say, the Green Party. For the most part they've existed on the fringe as counter-cultural guerrilla fighters. So where they would, or could, go from here is not clear. I hope, of course, the answer is "to hell," but I know better. 

And Trump has a history of white supremacist thoughts (there was a direct quote from him about successful people breeding successful offsprings, that "success" is passed on through genes). To me, it seems to stem from his narcissistic personality and the need from it to justify why he's so great (half his tweets are justifying why he's so great). So he easily latches on to the ideas of greatness being proven by wealth and status, and that's just a hop and a skip away from white supremacy. That part won't change and in that regard, he'll always be pulled towards those neoNazi types and favor them, because their ideology appeals to him. His form of racism is not that he thinks blacks and Jews are bad or worse, no. His form of racism is that he thinks whites are better. There's a difference. 

[Jaxom 1974]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I would bet O'Reilly goes to Breitbart as well. Trump supported him last week, now I'm really interested in seeing if he will throw O'Reilly under the bus and say "Sad news but what he did was not right", or if he will attack Fox News for "Bad for not supporting the man that made Fox great!".

Can't it be both?  Think of the source.

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Can't it be both?  Think of the source.

Good point.  

[mormont]

11 hours ago, S John said:

If it were the party of Bernie Sanders I don't think we'd be looking at President Trump.  White working class voters in the North cost the Dems this election.  The R's hammered Hillary over her Wall Street connections (among many other things) that Bernie could never have been accused of - and not only had Bernie not forgotten about white working class voters, they'd been a point of discussion for the Bern for a long, long time.   

No, this is just not true. For one thing, Sanders-supporting voters are not even near the majority of Democratic voters: he wasn't ever really near winning the nomination. For another, the idea that Trump won because of working-class Dems being disgusted by Clinton's Wall Street ties has been undermined over and over again. These voters did not vote for a billionaire because they were worried about Clinton's links to billionaires. They voted for Trump because they liked what they heard from him on race and immigration, as Terra points out: issues on which Sanders would have been even more out of step with their views than Clinton was.