US Politics: Biden vs. Ron DeCardassian in the Delta quadrant

[Martell Spy]

White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/01/politics/far-right-groups-praise-taliban-takeover/index.html

Quote

 

CNN)As the United States-backed government in Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and US troops raced to leave the country, White supremacist and anti-government extremists have expressed admiration for what the Taliban accomplished, a worrying development for US officials who have been grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism.

That praise has also been coupled with a wave of anti-refugee sentiment from far-right groups, as the US and others rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan by the Biden administration's August 31 deadline.
Several concerning trends have emerged in recent weeks on online platforms commonly used by anti-government, White supremacist and other domestic violent extremist groups, including "framing the activities of the Taliban as a success," and a model for those who believe in the need for a civil war in the US, the head of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, John Cohen, said on a call Friday with local and state law enforcement, obtained by CNN.

 

 

[DMC]

So Roberts officially voted with the liberals on the Texas bounty law...

Quote

A divided Supreme Court late Wednesday declined to block a restrictive Texas law banning abortions after a fetal cardiac activity can be detected, or as early as six weeks into pregnancy, and allowing anyone in the U.S. to sue abortion providers or others who help women get the procedure after that time frame.

The vote was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts dissenting alongside the three liberal Justices Elaina Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Each wrote a separate opinion opposing the majority decision.

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

5 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/01/politics/far-right-groups-praise-taliban-takeover/index.html

 

They share the same values when it comes to most things...

I mean WTF Texas. I guess it is no surprise but still. My gut feeling still tells me that the best long term plan for people who can is to get the hell out of the US.

[DireWolfSpirit]

And now we brace for how many red state legislatures pass their own versions of the Texas ban.

“This is not a ‘What happens in Texas stays in Texas’ situation,” said NARAL’s Kristin Ford.

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_61300275e4b0aac9c01221c5

[Arakan]

American friends, a question: What is the endgame here? I follow some other forums as well, know some people from the US in person, and whenever it comes to the issues of politics / world view, the Americans (be it online or in-life) are clearly divided and very much entrenched in their positions. There basically is no dialogue possible with any consensus, how small it might be, as outcome. It seems that society is clearly polarized on socio-cultural, socio-economic and ethical terms. But this is not a way a society can function, at least not in the long-run. Conflict will always boil over from time to time and it’s only going to get worse.

I am a simple man, so when even I can understand this, what about the political and opinion leaders in the US, especially on the Republican side as they seem the least interested in compromise? What is their end goal? Are they actually aware what damage they are doing or do they want to terminate the Democratic Party? 

What is the endgame here?

[tzanth]

3 hours ago, Arakan said:

American friends, a question: What is the endgame here? I follow some other forums as well, know some people from the US in person, and whenever it comes to the issues of politics / world view, the Americans (be it online or in-life) are clearly divided and very much entrenched in their positions. There basically is no dialogue possible with any consensus, how small it might be, as outcome. It seems that society is clearly polarized on socio-cultural, socio-economic and ethical terms. But this is not a way a society can function, at least not in the long-run. Conflict will always boil over from time to time and it’s only going to get worse.

I am a simple man, so when even I can understand this, what about the political and opinion leaders in the US, especially on the Republican side as they seem the least interested in compromise? What is their end goal? Are they actually aware what damage they are doing or do they want to terminate the Democratic Party? 

What is the endgame here?

I think all the fetishization of the U.S. Civil War and open talk of some sort of new violent civil conflict makes it pretty clear that the Republican's endgame is the end of democracy in the United States.  The writing is pretty clearly on the wall and if you are willing to listen to them the Republican base is pretty open about what they want - a white supremacist theocratic state. Non-republicans in the US really aught to start planning accordingly instead of pretending that they still live in a functioning civil society. 

[Arakan]

46 minutes ago, tzanth said:

I think all the fetishization of the U.S. Civil War and open talk of some sort of new violent civil conflict makes it pretty clear that the Republican's endgame is the end of democracy in the United States.  The writing is pretty clearly on the wall and if you are willing to listen to them the Republican base is pretty open about what they want - a white supremacist theocratic state. Non-republicans in the US really aught to start planning accordingly instead of pretending that they still live in a functioning civil society. 

I feel you. We face similar problems in Europe (Orban in Hungary, Duda in Poland). Almost exactly the same playbook, it’s frightening. Fight independent journalism with all means necessary, get the judiciary on your site, build up your own populist media organs.  And it drives me crazy, almost berserk, how these non-democrats are still treated as if we are dealing with rational politicians who base their political work on compromise. No. They may shout „freedom“ as much as they want, they are not democrats. They only like democracy when everyone agrees with their values and goals.

But instead of pushing against and say stop no further, the mainstream democratic minded folks still try to reason. No chance. All it accomplishes is a further movement of the goal posts. 

[tzanth]

27 minutes ago, Arakan said:

I feel you. We face similar problems in Europe (Orban in Hungary, Duda in Poland). Almost exactly the same playbook, it’s frightening. Fight independent journalism with all means necessary, get the judiciary on your site, build up your own populist media organs.  And it drives me crazy, almost berserk, how these non-democrats are still treated as if we are dealing with rational politicians who base their political work on compromise. No. They may shout „freedom“ as much as they want, they are not democrats. They only like democracy when everyone agrees with their values and goals.

But instead of pushing against and say stop no further, the mainstream democratic minded folks still try to reason. No chance. All it accomplishes is a further movement of the goal posts. 

The really sad thing is that we have a great example from the history of almost exactly 100 years ago showing how well it worked to try and reason with these people. Yet here we are again trying almost the exact same playbook. 

[Arakan]

4 minutes ago, tzanth said:

The really sad thing is that we have a great example from the history of almost exactly 100 years ago showing how well it worked to try and reason with these people. Yet here we are again trying almost the exact same playbook. 

Those of us who finished school end of the 80s/90s we were always told: liberal democracy won, the time of ideologies and -isms is over. We are now living in a globalized world with common economic interests and things like fascism cannot come back. A thing of the past. The Third Reich was an „anomaly“ (though what about Italy, Spain, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania?) and now with communism also dead, the age of liberty has arrived. True Fukuyama style, the end of history. Welcome to the age of Star Trek. Yeah, didn’t really work out. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

In somewhat less depressing news, yet another poll out from California (PPI of California) showing Keep +19 (!). Hope it isnt a WI type of poll, which if you recall showed Biden up by +18 (I think that was Q-pac, not sure); but I am feeling a bit more confident of Newsom's chances. This of course means the daisy chain of cognitively declining Senators and recalcitrant SC judges may not need to be addressed, whatever will we argue about then?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Hmm, these once in a century storms seem to keep happening every year. I wonder if there's something causing that... 

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hmm, these once in a century storms seem to keep happening every year. I wonder if there's something causing that... 

God punishing homosexuals, apparently...

 

[Ivan Tsarevich]

8 hours ago, Arakan said:

American friends, a question: What is the endgame here? I follow some other forums as well, know some people from the US in person, and whenever it comes to the issues of politics / world view, the Americans (be it online or in-life) are clearly divided and very much entrenched in their positions. There basically is no dialogue possible with any consensus, how small it might be, as outcome. It seems that society is clearly polarized on socio-cultural, socio-economic and ethical terms. But this is not a way a society can function, at least not in the long-run. Conflict will always boil over from time to time and it’s only going to get worse.

I am a simple man, so when even I can understand this, what about the political and opinion leaders in the US, especially on the Republican side as they seem the least interested in compromise? What is their end goal? Are they actually aware what damage they are doing or do they want to terminate the Democratic Party? 

What is the endgame here?

I'll bite, though for the record, I'm not an American, and what I'm about to say may not be what you're actually asking.

Regarding the bolded, I think the dialogue actually is possible, it's just that it may be really really hard. Want an (anecdotal) example? See below.

I'm currently reading a book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, and it teaches that there are two kinds of identity politics: the common-enemy identity politics, where you rally support against the said enemy, and the common-humanity identity politics, where you humanize your opponents and then appeal to that humanity. People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Pauli Murray are mentioned as practitioners of the common-humanity kind. You can find the example I refer to on the pages 75-76 of the said book, where the authors write about an instance where a group of Trump supporters organized "the Mother of All Rallies Patriot Unification Gathering." Sep 16, 2017, the National Mall in Washington, DC. The Black Lives Matter counterprotesters showed up and the two sides shouted at each other. Then an organizer invited the leader of the counterprotesters to the stage to say his piece, citing the freedom of speech. According the book, the leader managed to get his message out, and even make progress. The BLM and the ralliers (some at least) actually managed to treat each other as humans. I'm not about to provide a quote: if you're interested, read the book yourself. It's about as good as they come, IMO, though I've yet to finish.

So how that's relevant? As people may know, I've also read another book, The Righteous Mind, which presents the moral foundations theory, but also stuff like "the elephant and the rider", a metaphor where, paraphrasing, the rider is our conscious mind and reasoning, whereas the elephant is the automatic processes. For example, our schemas would be deep in the elephant. Or, perhaps wrongly paraphrased, the rider is the mind and the elephant is the heart. The rider serves the elephant: our opinions and stances are much more about what we feel than what we (might otherwise) think. Talk about irrational emotional reasoning. Which is why you won't necessarily convince anyone just by winning a debate. People may not care about what the alleged "truth" might be - but about how it should be, according to them. And they reason and justify their positions so well that they may even believe themselves. (Of course, our feelings are not always wrong, and I'm disinclined to go so far as to say that anyone arguing from emotional place is actually lying.)

So assuming the above is right, how can you influence people? Do not talk to the lawyer (the conscious rational mind), talk to the lawyer's client (the heart). I think one way is the appeal to emotion - yes, a logical fallacy. Thing is, it may actually work. Listen to the people. Understand them. And then talk about the stuff they care about, whether or not you care about it. You want to reach over and influence the conservatives (which, by the way, does not mean abandoning your own values, but may even lead to disseminating or emphasizing them)? Do not suggest things like defunding the police. That's to your own, to the left. They are the ones that may even want it.

And no, I'm not advocating that you should lie to people. You simply should frame the things in ways that are also palatable to the people outside your own bubble, who may not actually share all or any of your values - no matter how important you think they are - and may not be even interested in negotiation. You should make them understand that they actually want them - if they do, that is. You should sell and market your ideas in ways that might not be appealing to you personally.

Why? Because if you don't - if you only energize your own and demoralize the opponent - you're conducting common-enemy type identity politics. You may win elections with a slim margin, but you won't unite the country - you divide it. You'll get polarization and perhaps eventually a civil war. Is that something you wanted to avoid? Or are you completely fine with wiping all the unrepentant conservatives off the face of Earth? If you can? Even if there will be new conservatives, as the political landscape shifts to the left (one dead original conservative at time) and new people with conservative tendencies are born?

Oh, and because people do have so different values and preferences, they aren't going to buy everything you might want to sell them, even if manage to sell something with successful common-identity approach. But with common-identity politics, you could, perhaps, counteract the polarization a bit, unite just a little more people around the common values. What little the people may have, anyway. You might have few less enemies, even if it were to turn out that most of the right is not inclined to listen. Would that be worth, well, anything?

Also, I guess there are people who apply their critical thinking skills and are able to more or less ignore and rise above their feelings and instincts, perhaps even direct and wield them. Their elephants are better trained, even if they still are stronger than their riders. I wonder if (just going off the stereotype here without any statistics) the higher level of education on average among the liberals could affect their approach to the messaging. According to The Righteous Mind, the Republicans are better at messaging to the voter base - they speak to the elephant, not the rider. There's an entire chapter about the conservative advantage.

Regarding the Republican leaders: I don't know. But check out Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit Trump while critisizing him after Jan 6. Remember also Adam Kinzinger, serving the country while professing his conservative values.

"Today, I am announcing the appointment of Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran and Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard, to serve on the Select Committee," Pelosi said in a statement. "He brings great patriotism to the Committee's mission: to find the facts and protect our Democracy."

Kinzinger, a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for his second impeachment, is joining Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as the only Republicans on the new select committee, which is set to hold its first hearing on Tuesday.

"Let me be clear, I'm a Republican dedicated to conservative values, but I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution—and while this is not the position I expected to be in or sought out, when duty calls, I will always answer," the Illinois Republican said in a statement Sunday.

For what it's worth, around the auguration Biden was supposed to try (to work with opponents). From the inaugural address:

To all those who supported our campaign I am humbled by the faith you have placed in us.

To all those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart.

And if you still disagree, so be it.

That’s democracy. That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength.

Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion.

And I pledge this to you: I will be a President for all Americans.

I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.

3 hours ago, Arakan said:

They only like democracy when everyone agrees with their values and goals.

You know... I could say the exact same thing. As a conservative. About liberals (in the American sense).

3 hours ago, Arakan said:

But instead of pushing against and say stop no further, the mainstream democratic minded folks still try to reason. No chance. All it accomplishes is a further movement of the goal posts.

But are they reasoning in the right way?

Well, that's my two cents. If all this is nothing new and already clear as day, well, sorry for wasting your time. Also, while I don't rule it out either, don't expect me to engage any further. I'm not particularly interested in debating a group of partisan liberals who might well argue in bad faith, engage in emotional reasoning and even have bad mental habits and cognitive distortions such as mind reading and catastrophizing. I'm not a punching bag for liberals virtue signalling to each other, nor some fascist boogeyman even if some of you may have read and remember that debate in the General section two months ago and then jumped to conclusions. If any of you for some reason wants to engage, then make it worth my time.

Otherwise, ciao.

[Arakan]

@TsarGrey

so basically what you are saying is: try to understand and reason with people who are against LGBT rights and against abortion rights? Who are racist and xenophobic? Should I also reason with anti-vaxxers and Qanon fans? 

Nope sorry. The rational conservative might be open to dialogue but this is not the type I am speaking of or are you calling someone like Orban „moderate“   . Your post is in essence a well written strawman. 

And please do not call me liberal, call me socialist   

[Varysblackfyre321]

4 hours ago, Arakan said:

I feel you. We face similar problems in Europe (Orban in Hungary, Duda in Poland).

White Nationalists of the world are uniting for a globalist push.

[Arakan]

3 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

White Nationalists of the world are uniting for a globalist push.

Fascists. 

[Fury Resurrected]

17 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

[mod] Enough of this derail. Either discuss a topic on U.S. politics or go get hit by lightning. [/mod]

I love the way you swing that hammer

[Larry of the Lawn]

57 minutes ago, TsarGrey said:

As people may know, I've also read another book, The Righteous Mind,  

Why would anyone possibly know this, lol?

 

I'm not sure how you appeal to people responsible for the anti-abortion legislation that the SC court decided to let stand in Texas. 

[HoodedCrow]

I read a book on happiness by Jonathan Haidt. He basically reimagines Plato in a corrective way., goes through some work on psychology, and then falls into his own schema.

Haidt starts to go on about purity in a way that is clearly from indoctrination, but uses semantic cover for a lot of stereotyped ideas. One drop of blood, purity balls, used women, all for good hygiene?

[Varysblackfyre321]

34 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Fascists. 

Those too.

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

Listen to the people. Understand them. And then talk about the stuff they care about, whether or not you care about it.

This sounds decent to a vacuum until you get a movement who believes overthrowing democracy is the only way to stop satanic pedophiles. I understand how this on an individual could be really effective. But on a macro-level deplatforming oustrisim, and has been pretty effective.

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

Why? Because if you don't - if you only energize your own and demoralize the opponent -

That’s kinda been the go-to much of the right in recent years and trying to compromise with them to give a semblance of bipartisanship with them has failed to deradiclize them.

It’d be to the benefit of democracy if all democrats in power United against Republicans who cannot rely on democracy to stay in power with the way they currently are and do something’s that will make simmer in rage.

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

And no, I'm not advocating that you should lie to people. You simply should frame the things in ways that are also palatable to the people outside your own bubble, who may not actually share all or any of your values - no matter how important you think they are - and may not be even interested in negotiation.

Though this is something I find the right to be better in—co-opting the more popular sounding jargon of their opposition to entice people with some liberal or progressive sensibilities.

Hey if you like the gay people you should hate the trans because trans people transitioning is conversion therapy.

Also if you respect the women rights better keep the Muslims(brown people) out.

It sadly works more than it should.

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

You want to reach over and influence the conservatives (which, by the way, does not mean abandoning your own values, but may even lead to disseminating or emphasizing them)? Do not suggest things like defunding the police. That's to your own, to the left. They are the ones that may even want it.

I also do not want to defund the police.

I do think it’s a bad talking point electorally as it can scare away the vast majority of Americans.

But there should be understanding progressive and leftists can’t overly fear looking like progressives or leftists to conservatives.

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

I'm not particularly interested in debating a group of partisan liberals who might well argue in bad faith, engage in emotional reasoning and even have bad mental habits and cognitive distortions such as mind reading and catastrophizing.

This seems to undercut the whole message of trying to empathize and treating the opposition respectfully to bring unity message you seemed to be going on about.

Again only the liberals need humble themselves and respond with courtesy to the proffesed sentiments of conservatives for the sake of unity.

1 hour ago, TsarGrey said:

You know... I could say the exact same thing. As a conservative. About liberals (in the American sense).

I know good advice can be good advice regardless of whose saying it. If If Stalin said smoking was bad it doesn’t mean smoking is good.

But this statement does give the impression you’re primary grievance in terms of how many liberals and leftists engage with conservatives isn’t it’s ineffectiveness to moving them on any particular issue. 

Its that you don’t like the tone of how the opposition speaks to your side.