U S Elections: Authoritarians, Populists, and Socialists, Oh My!

[MerenthaClone]

1 hour ago, Stan the Man Baratheon said:

Agreed!

Then why did you compare them as if they were the same?

[Ormond]

25 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Can't link cause phone, but Kevin Williamson of National Review actually writes the words "They deserve to die" of the downtrodden white communities supporting Trump.

I don't feel like paying a quarter to look at the original article, but here is a quote from it in "The Daily Caller" that includes the line you mention:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/12/national-review-writer-working-class-communities-deserve-to-die/

“The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible,” the conservative writer says. “The white American under-class is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul. If you want to live, get out of Garbutt [a blue-collar town in New York].”

And yup, the above is every bit as bad as most of what Trump himself has said about the Muslims and Mexicans. It is completely classist and utterly appalling -- the OxyContin and subsequent heroin problem (heroin being the replacement for OxyContin when it was reformulated by the manufacturer after complaints) is very largely the fault of the drug company that pushed the stuff. And just as the large majority of African-Americans in big cities were NOT crack users even at the height of that problem, the large majority of poor whites in rural areas are NOT users of OxyContin or heroin even though it is a huge problem. This is absolutely disgusting victim-blaming. 

[Azul DeLaRosa]

8 hours ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Well, considering a lot of the foreign policy desaster that is the Middle East can be laid at Bush the Lesser's feet (I wouldn't claim Obama and Clinton were flawless over there, but they got dealt a terrible hand and managed at least one success in getting the Iran deal done), I'd say that yes, he was that bad. 

I agree. But looking at Trump and Cruz has me almost not hating Bush as much. 

[karaddin]

On 13/3/2016 at 0:51 PM, Stan the Man Baratheon said:

This is pretty great. I can imagine manhattan liberals right now are probably crafting their 10000 worded op-ed to explain to Tyson why he's wrong

Not responding for the benefit of Stan, but it's really both and trying to make this out to be profound is absurd.  I oppose free citizens voting for Trump, Trump supporters oppose free citizens voting for Clinton or Sanders.  It goes without saying.  Opposing is not the same thing as trying to deny rights, I oppose people doing all sorts of things I don't like but it doesn't necessarily follow that I don't want that thing to be possible.  I oppose you posting your tripe in this thread, but I haven't reported your posts or complained to a mod.

17 hours ago, Gears of the Beast said:

Sausage sizzles are probably the worst thing about Australia. For some reason those putrid sausages on a piece of bread with some chunky fried onion and ketchup haphazardly squirted on top is considered actual food that is acceptable to feed to adults. It's fucking disgusting. 

You'll learn to value the democracy sausage when you get older *nod*

10 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Back to Sanders = Stalin for the moment. Did I miss a call to collectivize farms in the wheat belt or something?  

If Sanders becomes president, I'll reserve judgement until he starves 10 million people to death.

You don't think 5 million would be enough to form a solid opinion?

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

You know, I've never objected really to people from other countries commenting on our electoral system. However, it is a bit much when someone from halfway around the world is fine with the instigation of violence in my country. This isn't an abstraction for most of us.

 

Yeah, I find it pretty off putting and I'm another Australian.  I try to avoid posting unless I feel I'm actually adding something, but even without that...taking glee in violence in another country? That's pretty fucking gross.  And it's not like the US Presidential election is an abstraction for anyone, we aren't as directly influenced by it (and we're clearly and reasonably disenfranchised in the process) but the 'Leader of the free world' still has a *lot* of influence on international events.  Chances are if you get in a way, we're going to follow you in...especially if its a Liberal party government, who have been chomping at the bit to ramp up operations in Syria to distract from their domestic woes.

31 minutes ago, Ormond said:

 They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul. If you want to live, get out of Garbutt [a blue-collar town in New York].”

And yup, the above is every bit as bad as most of what Trump himself has said about the Muslims and Mexicans. It is completely classist and utterly appalling...This is absolutely disgusting victim-blaming. 

 

Have seen exactly this sentiment expressed here around the job situation in parts of Tasmania when the Government wanted to enforce 'apply to 40 positions a month to qualify for welfare' (might not have been 40, but was absurdly high).  There was one town that was used as an example where unemployment was so high that would have meant each month there were several multiples more job applications than total residents of the area (just a little more than the vacancies) and the response was "they should leave Tasmania".

Like it's easy to pick up and move interstate and get a residence in some of the least affordable cities in the world, then get a job when you are unemployed, have no money and (in that case) quite likely undereducated.

[The Marquis de Leech]

8 hours ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Well, considering a lot of the foreign policy desaster that is the Middle East can be laid at Bush the Lesser's feet (I wouldn't claim Obama and Clinton were flawless over there, but they got dealt a terrible hand and managed at least one success in getting the Iran deal done), I'd say that yes, he was that bad. 

Leaving aside the thousands of dead Americans, the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, the trillions of dollars wasted, and the unquantifiable loss of international goodwill, George W. Bush was still an appalling President.

(Hurricane Katrina? The worst job record for a US President since Herbert Hoover? The gigantic unaffordable tax cuts for the rich? Blocking stem-cell research?).

[The Anti-Targ]

36 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Not responding for the benefit of Stan, but it's really both and trying to make this out to be profound is absurd.  I oppose free citizens voting for Trump, Trump supporters oppose free citizens voting for Clinton or Sanders.  It goes without saying.  Opposing is not the same thing as trying to deny rights, I oppose people doing all sorts of things I don't like but it doesn't necessarily follow that I don't want that thing to be possible.  I oppose you posting your tripe in this thread, but I haven't reported your posts or complained to a mod.

 

I don't think Neil deGrasse Tyson is saying what Stan thinks he's saying.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, Triskan said:

21 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I don't think Neil deGrasse Tyson is saying what Stan thinks he's saying.

 Eh, I think he is. Not sure how else to interpret that other than you are wrong to give people crap for supporting the candidate of their choice. In other words, attack the candidate, not the voter. 

 

[lokisnow]

Today, I heard "killing in the name of" on kroq and immediately thought about how apt the song us for the times. Ready for trump to be done.

Also sanders has closed the gap in Ohio and illinois, Illinois is closer and an open primary, so he may win it, as he will probably win Missouri. Clinton will still get more delegates though, primarily from north Carolina and Florida

[Bonesy]

Is Ohio not an open primary?

[Ordos]

I found this article very interesting. Trump is not a fascist. There are better people to compare him to but just not Hitler or Mussolini.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/12/10/9886152/donald-trump-fascism

[The Marquis de Leech]

While Trump is hardly Hitler, the Mussolini comparison is largely based on him being an autocratic authoritarian buffoon with a penchant for making stuff up as he goes along. Italian Fascism (in contrast to German National Socialism) bordered on the ideologically incoherent at times.

[mormont]

9 hours ago, ummester said:

If Donald Trump does end globalization - that would be a good thing.

Whatever one's view on globalisation, Donald Trump no more has it in his power to end globalisation than he has it in his power to walk to the moon. The same is true of any US President, or any politician in the world.

5 hours ago, karaddin said:

 I oppose free citizens voting for Trump, Trump supporters oppose free citizens voting for Clinton or Sanders.  It goes without saying.  Opposing is not the same thing as trying to deny rights, I oppose people doing all sorts of things I don't like but it doesn't necessarily follow that I don't want that thing to be possible.

As I've said elsewhere: Trump is being an asshole. But his supporters are enabling and making excuses for his being an asshole. And in many ways, that's worse. So yes, Neil deGrasse Tyson and anyone else who wants to know, I'm anti-Trump supporters, and I fail to see the problem with that.

[Altherion]

6 hours ago, Ormond said:

And yup, the above is every bit as bad as most of what Trump himself has said about the Muslims and Mexicans. It is completely classist and utterly appalling -- the OxyContin and subsequent heroin problem (heroin being the replacement for OxyContin when it was reformulated by the manufacturer after complaints) is very largely the fault of the drug company that pushed the stuff. And just as the large majority of African-Americans in big cities were NOT crack users even at the height of that problem, the large majority of poor whites in rural areas are NOT users of OxyContin or heroin even though it is a huge problem. This is absolutely disgusting victim-blaming.

Yes. And it is in fact worse than that because he is missing two obvious facts. The first is that cities where streets are paved with gold waiting to receive them do not actually exist. The smartest and most industrious few percent of them might be able to find a job elsewhere, but there is no way the economy will accommodate all of them -- even if they acquire the training, there is only so much room in the professional class. The second is that there are a lot of them who own guns. The rise of Trump and the surprisingly viable (if ultimately losing) campaign of Sanders are merely warnings.

[Darzin]

I found that national review article fascinating. It's basically Williamson realizing that the base doesn't really care about conservative ideology and that large portions if them receive government support. There is an idea among conservatives that everyone on the dole is liberal that the battle of US politics is Liberals who want stuff vs fine upstanding workers. See Mitt Romney's infamous 47% comment he assumes everyone who gets more than they pay votes democrat. Now of course that isn't true and liberals pointed it out at the time and were predictably ignored, but with Trump it's becoming harder and harder to ignore. This article is Williamson's cognitive dissonance shattering as he realizes it's not just liberal minorities who want government benefits and are poor and so he's chastising small town white people with the same patronizing language conservatives usually reserve for the black inner city.  

Quote

 It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn’t. The white middle class may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about “globalists” and — odious, stupid term — “the Establishment,” but nobody did this to them. They failed themselves.

 If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy — which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog — you will come to an awful realization. It wasn’t Beijing. It wasn’t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn’t immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn’t any of that. 

Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence — and the incomprehensible malice — of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain’t what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down. 

The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. 

If he had written this about the black inner city the accusations of racism would be quick and merciless, but Williamson and much of the upscale Republicans like him aren't racist not really, they just hate poor people on the dole. Not sure if that's better, but it's the truth. This has so much anger because he sees his ideology slipping away if Trump remakes the Republican part as the part of white identity  then people like him have no where to go. Their slowly realizing what liberals have been saying for a long time that large portions of the Republican base are motivated by white resentment not conservative ideology. But Williamson isn't motivated  by white resentment he's a smart guy who lives in a big multicultural city and so it was easy enough for him to dismiss liberal claims, after all none of the conservative elite he knew cared about race and it was easy enough to project himself onto the faceless masses of small town America. But now he realizes the party he thought he represented might not exist and that his precious ideology might lose it's support. And so you get  a rant like this because  he's just so mad that the "takers" have ruined his party as well.

[Guess who's back]

11 hours ago, briantw said:

I mean, it's not hard to understand why Trump gets Hitler comparisons when he actively tries to mimic the guy.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/05/trump_supporters_raise_right_hands_to_pledge_support_to_donald_trump.html

 

Not sure if you are trolling or think this is actually a valid criticism..

[ants]

On 13 March 2016 at 9:05 PM, Gears of the Beast said:

Sausage sizzles are probably the worst thing about Australia. For some reason those putrid sausages on a piece of bread with some chunky fried onion and ketchup haphazardly squirted on top is considered actual food that is acceptable to feed to adults. It's fucking disgusting. 

Sausage sizzles are brilliant. 

And just another Aussie here disassociating us from Stan the Man. 

[The Fallen]

3 hours ago, Darzin said:

I found that national review article fascinating. It's basically Williamson realizing that the base doesn't really care about conservative ideology and that large portions if them receive government support. There is an idea among conservatives that everyone on the dole is liberal that the battle of US politics is Liberals who want stuff vs fine upstanding workers. See Mitt Romney's infamous 47% comment he assumes everyone who gets more than they pay votes democrat. Now of course that isn't true and liberals pointed it out at the time and were predictably ignored, but with Trump it's becoming harder and harder to ignore. This article is Williamson's cognitive dissonance shattering as he realizes it's not just liberal minorities who want government benefits and are poor and so he's chastising small town white people with the same patronizing language conservatives usually reserve for the black inner city.  

If he had written this about the black inner city the accusations of racism would be quick and merciless, but Williamson and much of the upscale Republicans like him aren't racist not really, they just hate poor people on the dole. Not sure if that's better, but it's the truth. This has so much anger because he sees his ideology slipping away if Trump remakes the Republican part as the part of white identity  then people like him have no where to go. Their slowly realizing what liberals have been saying for a long time that large portions of the Republican base are motivated by white resentment not conservative ideology. But Williamson isn't motivated  by white resentment he's a smart guy who lives in a big multicultural city and so it was easy enough for him to dismiss liberal claims, after all none of the conservative elite he knew cared about race and it was easy enough to project himself onto the faceless masses of small town America. But now he realizes the party he thought he represented might not exist and that his precious ideology might lose it's support. And so you get  a rant like this because  he's just so mad that the "takers" have ruined his party as well.

I get some of the criticism. Usually when things don't go well in one place people will move elsewhere. It's part of the reason that most people live in urban areas. But if everyone is supposed to leave economically depressed areas we'd 32nd up with a few megatropolises and a majority of uninhabited land. Also, in the richest country in the world we should be able to take care of these people. 

The sad thing is that these same folk continue to blame Obama for all their problems and not those more responsible for the decline of their communities; the Republican party and their policies.

[IheartIheartTesla]

6 hours ago, Bonesy said:

Is Ohio not an open primary?

I thought all three states were (IL, MO and OH).

According to 538, Clinton is still odds-on favorite to win all those three states, but I'm a little skeptical of the way they display those numbers and calculate probabilities. However, at least those three states will absolutely not be blowouts.

[Summerfell]

Quote

Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence — and the incomprehensible malice — of poor white America. 

"Economic changes" is quite a euphemism. Does a huge recession not count as a disaster?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

7 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I thought all three states were (IL, MO and OH).

According to 538, Clinton is still odds-on favorite to win all those three states, but I'm a little skeptical of the way they display those numbers and calculate probabilities. However, at least those three states will absolutely not be blowouts.

Yeah, all of Tuesday's states are open (or nearly open) except for FL. There have been a bunch of polls out showing IL, MO, and OH getting closer, and when you dig into the numbers you see Sanders losing Democrats pretty badly, but cleaning up among independents. Which suggests he's going to lose FL badly. But if the polls are understating his support in the Midwestern states as with Michigan (and independents had a yuge role in that), he can withstand that loss.