U.S. Politics: Would You Like A Warranty With Your Magic Beans?

[Rippounet]

50 minutes ago, DMBouazizi said:

I don't see how including the Soviet's failing economy - as well as Brezhnev, detente, glasnost, and perestroika - makes mine the cliff notes version.  Gorbachev was integral, sure, but so was all of that in the process, and it's important to mention.

Sure it is, if we're explaining the end of the Cold War to high school students. Which we fucking are not, since I was originally just pointing out that we don't know if Kim will turn out as well as Gorbachev did. It was a pretty simple point, and quite uncontroversial I'd say, but for some reason it flew right over your head and you thought it was a nice opportunity to underline... the economic failure of the Soviet Union. Which turns out to be i) irrelevant to my original point and ii) an even more simplistic explanation for the peaceful end of the Cold War than the Garthoff school's.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

43 minutes ago, DMBouazizi said:

Yes, that's a much easier to sum it up than I did.

The thing I can’t really figure out is how do you revert these peoples’ racial resentments? The two main strategies I’ve seen both fail. One is coddle these folks, and that doesn’t work  because the heart of the issue never gets addressed, and the other is to bludgeon them, and more often than not it drives them further away from your argument. It seems like the only truly effective way is to let people arrive to a more thoughtful place on their own, but as pointed out earlier, these people don’t tend to do much research on subject at hand.

13 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

This is getting ridiculous. I support environmentalism, I believe in climate change, I'm pro-choice, and the list of my disagreements with Trump goes on. I still would have voted for Trump. Doesn't mean I support him on any of those things. If the level of your argument is that you're going to tell me what I believe in, this discussion is pointless.

 

Repeating your strawman over and over again won't make it true.

You main support his racist, xenophobic, bigoted and sexist views and policy proposals, but you have enabled them. Denying this is laughable.  

 

21 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Thanks for that.  I think I'm missing the distinction being drawn between the two terms, though.   Where does "racial resentment" end and "racism" begin?   Using this more nuanced terminology, do you think there's an appreciable number of Trump voters/ supporters who do not harbor racial (or other) resentment?  I think the original poster was suggesting that some people voted for Trump without having any race (or bigotry)-related motivations.  I think it's hard to be a Trump supporter without some degree of "cultural anxiety"/ "racial resentment," or at minimum, a complete indifference to people who aren't just like you.

 

Split the two between fear and anxiety verses hate and superiority. That’s how they differ.

[SweetPea]

7 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

But this is not about what you may believe in personally, or at least not exclusively.  Voting is an act of support.  Voting was an action taken to put the racist and his racist policies into power.  This has been referring to literal support.   What you believe in your heart makes no difference when you take action that legitimizes and gives power to (i.e., "supporting" through the act of voting) something you may not personally agree with.  The parts of your vote are not disaggregated according to the beliefs in your heart.

I agree with this. I'm just pointing out that calling every person who voted for Trump racist is silly. It ignores the many other reasons one could have chosen him over Hillary. It's a huge oversimplification, and quite frankly counter-productive for the democrats. Unfortunately, that is what many people (even in this thread)

[Vin]

3 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I don't think the racism of the Republican Party is the ends, but its means. I think the Republican Party uses racism to get poor white people to support their goals of eliminating social services, lowering taxes on rich people, and deregulating corporations.

What of my broad brush statements do you disagree with?

And if there's a bunch of racism animating the Republican Party, why isn't it racist? Do they have to literally reinstate Jim Crow laws to convince you of its character?

I actually kinda agree completely on the first part .

The one right under it . My point is that just labeling a huge section like the republican party simply racist and ascribing only racial motivations removes the need to contend with it and it's ideas . I mean our side has a bunch of Marxists and the like and since we agreed previously that everyone has a degree of inherent racism , racists as well (miniscule in comparison tho ) and we refuse the label of communists . 

At the end of the day I think policies are more important and those can be worked on with republicans (if we wanna pass anything)and I feel my approach is more useful for that . But of course I respect your choice to have a different one. 

[DMC]

29 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

All you need is Lee Atwater’s famous quote about dog whistles, which I wish I could post, but I’m not touching that thing with a 10 foot pole from my work comp.

Edited for basic human decency:

Quote

 

You start out in 1954 by saying, "N_, n_, n_." By 1968 you can't say "n_" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N_, n_."

 

11 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

I think I'm missing the distinction being drawn between the two terms, though.   Where does "racial resentment" end and "racism" begin?

I don't know.  Someone upthread mentioned that racism is a continuum, not binary, and that's a good way to think of it - I think everyone's at least a little "racist."  I'm not trained to evaluate an individual's - let along millions of people's - subconscious.  You'll have to ask @Ormond for that.  What I can tell you empirically is that plenty of people rank highly on the racial resentment scale that would hardly be described by any objective terms as racist.  Probably the most prolific, or "biggest names" in political behavior I personally know told me an anecdote about a woman that spent her entire life fighting for liberal causes - even marched in Selma - but still scored high on the resentment scale.  I think it's a pretty cynical view of human nature to view everybody like that as racists (full disclosure: the person that shared this anecdote, the prolific scholar, actually does view them all as racists), but that's up to each person's determination.

19 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Using this more nuanced terminology, do you think there's an appreciable number of Trump voters/ supporters who do not harbor racial (or other) resentment?

Yes, there are Trump voters that do not score high on the racial resentment scale.  It's not a high number, granted, but run a survey and you're likely to get at least a fifth of Trump voters that wouldn't rank high on the battery.

21 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

I think it's hard to be a Trump supporter without some degree of "cultural anxiety"/ "racial resentment," or at minimum, a complete indifference to people who aren't just like you.

I disagree here.  I think it's easier to compartmentalize Trump's racism and still pull the lever than many people think, especially in a two-party system.  What many have to keep in mind is most voters are not as politically interested as us, and especially when it comes to voting for president, do not heavily consider all these aspects nearly to the extent as political observers do.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

He comes off like a mafia don because he appears to have numerous ties to the mob. There are several articles that detail his connections, including some of his mentors. Furthermore, there several more articles about how it’s next to impossible to avoid dealing with the mob while working in real estate in NYC. I still firmly believe that Trump never expected to win and that he initially ran as a lark cause he was bored. Once he realized his draw I think he hoped to finish second and parley that into other business opportunities, primarily some new form of media. And then once he won he recognized that there were so many more ways to profit off the presidency and that his base wouldn’t care about his corrupt behavior. Like honestly, does any sane person think he’s not talking to his kids about his business or with his wealthy friends about how they can all make a fortune together? You’d have to be naive to think they aren’t.

I agree with everything you said in this post.  That the US elected this man is incredibly embarrassing. 

[Rippounet]

27 minutes ago, Vin said:

Sorry mate but I don't wanna jump through hoops for ya . If you believe you have some moral duty to feel or do something then go ahead. just don't  try to compel me to do it too .

The problem with this "philosophy" is that you are still part of the same society as others. You vote, you pay taxes. Understanding the basics of your political system isn't really supposed to be an option, but the duty of any educated citizen ; that's the only way a democracy (be it representative) can function. The U.S. is probably the only country in the world where not only many people refuse the moral duties of citizenship but are even *proud* of it. And it probably is the primary reason why the entire institutional system is failing.

[Zorral]

Quote

 

Psychologist John Gartner on Trump’s behavior: “It’s a coup that’s not moving slowly anymore”
Former Johns Hopkins professor argues Trump is getting worse, may be “on the boundary of psychosis and reality”

This is what I have described as a "malignant reality." Trump, the Republican Party, and their supporters' sadism is a key part of it.

The sadism is very important. When I first started talking about Trump as a malignant narcissist, people could see the narcissism, the paranoia and the antisocial element. But the fourth component of malignant narcissism is sadism. You see it in everything he does, from the separating of the children at the border to how Trump tortures anyone who doesn't give him what he wants. There's a way in which he takes a kind of manic glee in causing harm and pain and humiliation to other people.

At this point in Trump's presidency, are things better or worse than you initially thought, regarding his behavior and public evidence of his mental health and well-being?

The theme of my chapter in "Rocket Man" is that Donald Trump is actually deteriorating psychologically. We've not seen the bottom. We're not in a static situation. We're actually in a dynamic situation. Now, some people look at it as, OK, he's not crazy, he's just an authoritarian and we're going through a period where American democracy is being degraded. That may be true, as horrible as it is. But from a mental health point of view, Trump is getting worse in several regards.

Malignant narcissists deteriorate. When they gain power, they become more inflamed in their grandiosity and in their paranoia. They also become more unrestrained in their sadism and  in their paranoia. They also become more unrestrained in their sadism and in their will to power. Malignant narcissists like Trump are antisocial and have a willingness to do anything to get and keep power. The noted psychologist Erich Fromm actually argued that such personalities then begin to verge on psychosis at that point, becoming so grandiose and paranoid that they really live on the boundary of psychosis and reality. 

In addition to that, I think Donald Trump is deteriorating for a second completely independent reason, which is that we're seeing clear evidence of organically based cognitive decline. If you look at the interviews that he did in the 1980s, he was actually surprisingly articulate. He still expressed what I think we would considered by many to be loathsome views, but he spoke with a high level of vocabulary that included polished sentences and complete paragraphs. If you compare that to how Trump speaks now, he almost can't complete a thought or a sentence without meandering into something nonsensical.

Trump's defenders would point to the alleged fact that he passed a "mental health screening" and is in great shape.

First of all, I was part of a group that sent the letter to Dr. Ronny Jackson, asking him to give Trump the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test. What you need to understand about the test is it asks questions like, “Can you identify a camel? Can you repeat three words back, three numbers backwards?” These are things that, if you can't do them, it means you are grossly demented. It doesn't mean that if you can do them, you're free of all cognitive and psychological problems, as Dr. Jackson explicitly said. Especially for people who are at high levels of intelligence, because they can fall a pretty long way before they can’t identify a camel.

The simplest explanation is that Donald Trump is experiencing substantial organic cognitive decline, but he hasn't reached the bottom of the hill yet. He's fallen, let's say, 25 stories, but he's going to continue to deteriorate. Cognitive deterioration only goes in one direction. It doesn't stand still and it doesn't get better. No, Trump is not ready for the nursing home. But that doesn't mean he's capable of managing the White House. Once you factor in nuclear weapons the possibilities are truly horrific.

As we've learned from history, a person can be an authoritarian and also a sociopath.   

They actually help each other. Nobody with a conscience could really be a good dictator.

 

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/13/psychologist-john-gartner-on-trumps-behavior-its-a-coup-thats-not-moving-slowly-anymore/

[Martell Spy]

There seems to be a lot of speculation that Cohen will flip soon, mainly due to the change in his legal team.

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Sure it is, if we're explaining the end of the Cold War to high school students. Which we fucking are not, since I was originally just pointing out that we don't know if Kim will turn out as well as Gorbachev did. It was a pretty simple point, and quite uncontroversial I'd say, but for some reason it flew right over your head and you thought it was a nice opportunity to underline... the economic failure of the Soviet Union. Which turns out to be i) irrelevant to my original point and ii) an even more simplistic explanation for the peaceful end of the Cold War than the Garthoff school's.

Ok so you're really into how important Gorbachev is.  Chill the fuck out, it's a discussion board.

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The thing I can’t really figure out is how do you revert these peoples’ racial resentments? The two main strategies I’ve seen both fail. One is coddle these folks, and that doesn’t work  because the heart of the issue never gets addressed, and the other is to bludgeon them, and more often than not it drives them further away from your argument. It seems like the only truly effective way is to let people arrive to a more thoughtful place on their own, but as pointed out earlier, these people don’t tend to do much research on subject at hand.

I think one thing the Democratic party, or at least liberals/progressives in general, has to start doing is stop talking down to this group of voters.  I remember shortly after Obama's infamous "cling to their guns and religion" statement I was talking to one of my best friends at the time, and he was a guy that wasn't particularly interested in politics and grew up in Hollidaysburg, PA (incidentally, this is the same friend I mentioned a few months ago that wrote a draft of Duncan Jones' Mute).  He brought the statement up, and I was like "c'mon, it was stupid to say but he's right."  He agreed, but was still offended by it.

That's always stuck with me because it shows how liberals are perceived by the group of voters that's swing is partly responsible (along with the depressed turnout of certain solidly left demos) for electing Trump.  More and more, and especially as the Dems verge further to the left and appeal to the highly educated, the party is looked at as telling anyone who votes GOP must be racist, stupid, or both.  Basically, the party is viewed as a Bill Maher panel replete and dominated by condescending eggheads.  And that perception has been tactfully nurtured by the Drudges, Breitbarts, and Hannitys of the world over the past 30 years.  How do we fix that?  I don't know, I'm one of the eggheads.  But what I do know is if someone like that frequented these threads, that perception would only be reinforced.

[Vin]

5 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The problem with this "philosophy" is that you are still part of the same society as others. You vote, you pay taxes. Understanding the basics of your political system isn't really supposed to be an option, but the duty of any educated citizen ; that's the only way a democracy (be it representative) can function. The U.S. is probably the only country in the world where not only many people refuse the moral duties of citizenship but are even *proud* of it. And it probably is the primary reason why the entire institutional system is failing.

There might be some truth to this but I think the two party system we have plays a big role in the disillusion the average citizen has since it feels like he/she is being hustled by both sides (republicans call you stupid and fiscally irresponsible if you don't vote for them and democrats call you stupid and a bad person if you don't vote for them )and has no real choice (which I think ties into the issue of a candidate that you don't agree with 100% that was discussed earlier ) . I mean we have a shitty turn out on the regular and on the state level a lot of people run unopposed... I dunno 

So does anybody think we could ever have a real multiparty system ? And how would it look ? Just spit balling really. 

[Vin]

5 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

There seems to be a lot of speculation that Cohen will flip soon, mainly due to the change in his legal team.

Would love to hear this , should be fun and would guarantee a fresh batch of juicy tweets .

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Listening to NPR, there are a lot of major corporate mergers going on right now, and it makes me wonder how long will it take for there to be three to five companies that own everything, and furthermore, how long will it take for these companies to be bigger, wealthier and ultimately stronger than major nations?

[Rippounet]

3 minutes ago, DMBouazizi said:

Ok so you're really into how important Gorbachev is.  Chill the fuck out, it's a discussion board.

Uh... Not really.
It's just... you're the one who chose a random point of mine on North Korea to claim out of the blue that my understanding of the end of the Cold War was simplistic. From my point of view that wasn't an attempt at discussion on your part at all, that was an attempt to be pedantic, insulting, or a bit of both. I was wrong to reply in kind and I regret it (my usual impulsive self I'm afraid) but... If you're here to discuss, don't be so quick to claim other people's opinion "cliff notes version" maybe? Because the sad thing is, we actually agree 100% here...

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Rippounet said:

It's just... you're the one who chose a random point of mine on North Korea to claim out of the blue that my understanding of the end of the Cold War was simplistic. From my point of view that wasn't an attempt at discussion on your part at all, that was an attempt to be pedantic, insulting, or a bit of both. I was wrong to reply in kind and I regret it (my usual impulsive self I'm afraid) but... If you're here to discuss, don't be so quick to claim other people's opinion "cliff notes version" maybe? Because the sad thing is, we actually agree 100% here...

I did not think simply referring to your original depiction as a "cliff notes version" would be so offensive.  I wasn't trying to denigrate you in anyway, it was just my off the cuff way of responding to that aspect of your post.  I'm sorry you took it as so insulting.

[DanteGabriel]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Listening to NPR, there are a lot of major corporate mergers going on right now, and it makes me wonder how long will it take for there to be three to five companies that own everything, and furthermore, how long will it take for these companies to be bigger, wealthier and ultimately stronger than major nations?

Seeing the news that Domino's has been fixing potholes and putting their logo on them, it does make me wonder how long before we go full Snow Crash.

[Vin]

31 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Listening to NPR, there are a lot of major corporate mergers going on right now, and it makes me wonder how long will it take for there to be three to five companies that own everything, and furthermore, how long will it take for these companies to be bigger, wealthier and ultimately stronger than major nations?

You mean AT&T and time Warner right ? That's the big one anyway and yeah it just got green lit . There's a general move towards making bigger cable bundles which I I think is somewhat attempting to fight back against streaming services . 

 

BTW what do you people think about the vote to split California into 3 states ?

[Week]

2 minutes ago, Vin said:

You mean AT&T and time Warner right ? That's the big one anyway and yeah it just got green lit . There's a general move towards making bigger cable bundles which I I think is somewhat attempting to fight back against streaming services . 

 

BTW what do you people think about the vote to split California into 3 states ?

New states can only be created with the consent of Congress - that's a non-starter for the immediate future.

Revisionist History's first ep this season is about splitting Texas into 5 states. I've been meaning to read more into it and this will be a good reminder to do so now -- http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/21-divide-and-conquer

[butterbumps!]

1 hour ago, SweetPea said:

I agree with this. I'm just pointing out that calling every person who voted for Trump racist is silly. It ignores the many other reasons one could have chosen him over Hillary. It's a huge oversimplification, and quite frankly counter-productive for the democrats. Unfortunately, that is what many people (even in this thread)

It seems you're really objecting to categorizing every Trump voter as a racist.  Ok, but I think we kind of need to reckon with the fact that everyone who voted for Trump did in fact commit a racist act, which you do seem to agree with (they supported racism through voting for racists and racist policies).   They are supporters of racism, which is what I said that you pushed back on.   Sure, one racist action does not necessarily make someone a racist, but I think people need to come to terms with the fact that their vote is racist (and bigoted more generally, actually).  It's specifically contributing to systemic injustices by empowering racists to enact racist policy.

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Split the two between fear and anxiety verses hate and superiority. That’s how they differ.

That's a good explanation, thanks.   

1 hour ago, DMBouazizi said:

I don't know.  Someone upthread mentioned that racism is a continuum, not binary, and that's a good way to think of it - I think everyone's at least a little "racist."  I'm not trained to evaluate an individual's - let along millions of people's - subconscious.  You'll have to ask @Ormond for that.  What I can tell you empirically is that plenty of people rank highly on the racial resentment scale that would hardly be described by any objective terms as racist.  Probably the most prolific, or "biggest names" in political behavior I personally know told me an anecdote about a woman that spent her entire life fighting for liberal causes - even marched in Selma - but still scored high on the resentment scale.  I think it's a pretty cynical view of human nature to view everybody like that as racists (full disclosure: the person that shared this anecdote, the prolific scholar, actually does view them all as racists), but that's up to each person's determination.

Yes, there are Trump voters that do not score high on the racial resentment scale.  It's not a high number, granted, but run a survey and you're likely to get at least a fifth of Trump voters that wouldn't rank high on the battery.

Well, I fully agree with the continuum concept of racism.  I may have been unclear, but that's what I meant by questioning if "cultural anxiety" (what I believe you're calling "racial resentment") was under the racism umbrella to you.   I think I agree with what you've said, except that I've been operating from the premise that "racism" is the term that encompasses all of these forms and degrees of resentment/ anxiety/ hate.

I get that a lot of people point to the extremes of hate to say that their resentment isn't racist because they aren't burning crosses or whatever.  But I think it's important that these people are made aware that their negative racial feelings and cultural anxiety is actually a form of racism.  Perhaps it's not as virulent as David Duke's, but they need to know that these things they believe are in fact racist.  These people know racism is bad, and that's why they are loathe to believe they could possibly be racist.  Having them confront the fact that their animus is on the racism spectrum is important to that end, I think.

It's basically the same story in all those stupid Trump country safaris, where Trumpkins start to bray about the evil liberals who unjustly call them racists or homophobes, for example.  Invariably in all these pieces, the Trumpkin making that complaint will say something like "they call us homophobes just because we don't believe gays should be allowed to marry," and it's like, well, shit, yes, in fact that is homophobic, someone should be pushing back on that.

I think a lot of people are getting away with poor excuses and justifications (i.e. "I have a different opinion [about that group's humanity] than you") that don't stand up to scrutiny when questioned further.  I'm in favor of making it clear that these are problematic positions, and that they're "racist" (or otherwise bigoted) specifically. 

Quote

I disagree here.  I think it's easier to compartmentalize Trump's racism and still pull the lever than many people think, especially in a two-party system.  What many have to keep in mind is most voters are not as politically interested as us, and especially when it comes to voting for president, do not heavily consider all these aspects nearly to the extent as political observers do.

yea you're right, it occurred to me after I posted that I should have mentioned compartmentalization as a mechanism.      

[Vin]

10 minutes ago, Vetrani Weekić said:

New states can only be created with the consent of Congress - that's a non-starter for the immediate future.

Revisionist History's first ep this season is about splitting Texas into 5 states. I've been meaning to read more into it and this will be a good reminder to do so now -- http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/21-divide-and-conquer

Obviously but it's gonna be on the ballot so who knows what could happen in the future . 

I think the last one to do it was west Virginia in 1860 something .