by Ugh
Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition.
I just….wow. Are we relying on Ivanka to be the adult in the room? Did they give him his twitter keys back yet?
Since signing every bill Ryan/McConnell put in front of him and Alito-esque Justices are high probabilities right now…. Jeepers.
And as bad as I feel, I can't imagine what Latinos, African Americans and Muslim Americans are experiencing. Fnck.
Regroup and fight back, the 2018 midterms begin today.
I’m expecting ethnic cleansing. It is what his base wants. If he can get rid of enough brown and black people he will increase the ability of the Republicans to win elections going forward.
now we get to see a President dealing with a RICO trial.
also, polling is now thoroughly discredited.
Or a significant re-calibration of who constitutes a “likely voter” and what to do with people who won’t speak to you.
Separately, do we now have the GWB problem, only much worse, of POTUS going with the recommendation of whatever person spoke with him last?
Separately, do we now have the GWB problem, only much worse, of POTUS going with the recommendation of whatever person spoke with him last?
We can say goodbye to the judiciary.
Separately, do we now have the GWB problem, only much worse, of POTUS going with the recommendation of whatever person spoke with him last?
Sorry, my brain is in random distress mode. I don’t know that Trump will be taking anyone’s recommendation. In some ways, that may be good, but in most it will be disastrous.
It may be too soon to look within and query whether HRC was all the committed Dems thought she was. “Why aren’t we fifty points ahead” may be HRC’s “Mission Impossible “.
One more rando comment, and then I’ll leave everyone alone. The time to internalize how horrible things will be was before the election. Now that it’s here, we have to figure out what we will do next. The blue states have all of the economic and intellectual power. I would suggest, as russell has, a new appeal to states rights.
Are we relying on Ivanka to be the adult in the room?
Um, no. That would be Vlad — the guy who has demonstrated that he knows how to manipulate Trump. And, however deliriously happy (and amazed) he is at the result, really doesn’t want Trump tossing nukes around and screwing up his new hegemonic opportunities.
Now that it’s here, we have to figure out what we will do next.
A) figure out how to survive for the next few years. Economically for most of us here.
B) figure out how to ride the usual anti-incumbant party wave in the Congressional elections in 2 years. Fortunately, there will be no question as to who gets the credit/blame for the economy at that point.
C) try to take some solace at the spectacle of a group which has never been interested in governing, just in shouting “No!” early and often, suddenly finding themselves stuck with actually doing their jobs — and bearing the consequences of their actions.
Me, I’m calling my broker and selling anything that depends on “the full faith and credit of the United States.” We’ve got a party in charge which already ran close to defaulting on the national debt. Led by a guy who mused during the campaign about the merits of defaulting; and who has experienced declaring bankruptcy.
And yet US markets are now up…
Meanwhile, it appears HRC will win the popular vote, leaving the GOP having won it only once since 1988.
But it’s still a mandate!
Although nativism is a big part of Trump’s support there are some other factors.
Republican party leaders years ago–among them DeLay and Rove–decided to end representative democracy and make the US into a one-party state in service of the oligarchy. Their means: gerrymander Congressional districts, voter suppression laws, pack the courts with rightwing extremist judges, get the Citizens United decision, and create an alternative “news” media that functions in the US the way Goebbels
functioned for Germans.
They have succeeded. They will get to make Supreme Court appointments and they will appoint judges in the Scalia model, so there will be no recourse for people who are blocked from voting.
We will continue ot have elections and they may even make a difference at the local level. Some states will continue to have decent responsible government uniil the koch brothers do to them what they did to Wisconsin. But basically our experiment in representative government is over.
That’s what we lost in this election. On Balloon Juice there ‘s a lot of talk about hwo is to blame, but to me that is obvious: the voters who voted for Trump. There’s also a lot of talk about how racist or nativist or mysoguynisit those voters are and many of them are those things but Ithin the biggest common denominator is taht they are poor citizens. They failed in teh prmary responsibility of citizenship. They failed to know what they were voting for.
I have a two hundred and fifty thousand in savings. I have no idea how to invest it to protect it. I would appreciate advice if anyone seriously thinks the R’s are going to tank our economy. I don;t see why they would drive the US into default. They will gut the infrastructure, “reform” the New Deal out of existance, through millions of peopel off health insurance, sell our public land and resources to the highest bidder, ignore global warming, continue to defund and undermine all pubic instittions, probably deregualte Wall Street and generally fuck ua all over, but why default? They can now remove taxes from the wealthy and subsidize corporations with impunity while balacing geh budget just by defunding everything else.
Any more it doesn’t matter
Who’s right or wrong
We’ve been injuring each other
For much too long
And it’s too late to try to save
What might have been
It’s over
Nobody wins
Make believin’ in forever
Is just a lie
And it seems a little sadder
Each time we try
‘Cause it’s a shame to make
The same mistakes again
And again
It’s over.
Nobody wins
We’ve gone too far too long
Too far apart
The lovin’ was easy
It’s the livin’ that’s hard
And there’s no need to stay and see
The way it ends
It’s over.
Nobody wins
Read more: Kris Kristofferson – Nobody Wins Lyrics | MetroLyrics
You’re right wonkie, they won’t default, absent some kind of personal snit from Trump (which I guess is a real possibility).
More broadly, I just have no idea how Trump is going to go about governing. Not that that’s a big strength of the GOP generally, but at least with a, say, Rubio victory there would be a sense of how things would go – I wouldn’t like it but they would be somewhat predictable.
But with Trump….? Is he going to turn everything over to Pence and sit back, give speeches, fly around on Air Force One gabbing with world leaders, and generally be content to be the showman figurehead President? Or will he take an interest in certain things and try to run them “his way” and reject all advice (his remarks about Generals and ISIS come to mind here)?
Or does he just not give a sh1t about anything – he won the Presidency and can now leave all the details to those less worthy – which I guess is the same as turning things over to Pence.
Hey, y’all should be watching Hillary – she’s going to speak. They’re playing fight music.
The next two years are going to be brutal. Any attempt by Senate Dems to filibuster the impending flood of terrible legislation will be brutally put down. A raft of wingnut judges will infest our judiciary since the GOP has successfully blocked Obama’s appointments (the SC is just the tip of that disaster).
This is going to be ugly.
And the alienated white working class? They will get bupkis.
And the alienated white working class? They will get bupkis.
Well, if they’re smart they’ll create some infrastructure projects and employ a few of them. They’ll throw them some bones that Obama was obstructed from doing. I’m sure they’ll make cultivating their racist base quite an art form.
I’m sure they’ll make cultivating their racist base quite an art form.
And there’s Gestapo work, don’t forget.
My first constructive thought is to contribute heavily to the ACLU. I think they may need the assistance given a likely flood of new clients. Maybe contribute heavily to environmental groups. We needed to work fast on global warming and that’s not going to happen here, not on the governmental level.
It certainly seems there’s going to be a test of how the Executive Branch Bureaucracy, outside the national security apparatus,* reacts when ordered by POTUS to do plainly illegal things.
*said apparatus having been tested during GWB’s administration and failing miserably.
My first constructive thought is to contribute heavily to the ACLU. I think they may need the assistance given a likely flood of new clients. Maybe contribute heavily to environmental groups. We needed to work fast on global warming and that’s not going to happen here, not on the governmental level.
What a joke. The ACLU doesn’t win when the judges are Nazis. Environmental “groups”? What, the legislative process? Too late.
It won’t matter to the people who voted R that they get nothing in return for their vote. People in Alabama vote to screw themselves over and over. This election shows the power of the rightwing hate media and there are lots of people who will vote R no matter what because they are in thrall to that crap. I tiwll not be necessary to create some infrastructure jobs. All they have to do is keep pumping out the message that everything is the fault of whoever–immigrants, probably. Rove understood Orwell.
You know, Gestapo kind of put me off, however...
An unhinged Rudy Giuliani as AG would really just take the cake. And the choices for Interior Secretary include Palin and Trump Jr.
I do wonder, if Trump will actually try to be the representative of the common man against the Republican Ayn Rand ideologues. Will he go along with turning Medicare into a voucher system, for example? Privatize Social Security? Does he have any core beliefs other than self-aggrandizement? He does not have a conscience and has shown himself to be willing to screw people such as his creditors over for his own benefit, so….I think he will go along with whatever Congressional Republicans tell him to do unless there is a particular issue that gives him a chance to get on tv and play the hero by publicly opposing some Republican policy. I can imagine him going rouge every now and then while basically doing what McConnel or someone like that tells him to do. His proposed Cabinet appointments are awful in a standard Republican support-the-oligarvhy way
Well, if they’re smart they’ll create some infrastructure projects and employ a few of them
Maybe. Trump said he will build a beautiful infrastructure, but a GOP Congress will exact a big toll in return:
shred the safety net
cut spending except defense
tax cuts for the rich
gut regulations…after all, who needs a safe workplace when there are no jobs?
The effort to terminate the New Deal will be a serious one.
But yes, it will soon be legal to tell gay people that you refuse to cut their hair or bake their wedding cakes.
Oh what a relief that will be.
Fortunately, there will be no question as to who gets the credit/blame for the economy at that point.
Obstructionist Dems in Congress. Duh.
I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the end of the filibuster so we can start appointing radical activist judges in their forties. The American people had their say, after all, and they couldn’t possibly have been any clearer, amirite?
—
Hey sapient, remember how you kept telling us DFHs that the ballot box was sufficient protection to keep the levers of an overreaching national security state out of the hands of malicious actors, even though it hadn’t been in the past? Welcome to reality.
Interesting how you suddenly have nothing constructive to contribute, just shallow attacks on other people’s suggestions. Not surprising. But interesting.
just shallow attacks
he attacked, shallowly.
Interesting how you suddenly have nothing constructive to contribute, just shallow attacks on other people’s suggestions.
The depth of your constructive plans are mind blowing, NV. You wanted to Bern it down, and now you have your flames. Sadly for some of your age cohort, you’ll be burning a lot longer than I will.
I do wonder, if Trump will actually try to be the representative of the common man against the Republican Ayn Rand ideologues.
Will he even know he’s doing it? I’m not sure he will.
Pence: Here sign this bill.
Trump: Don’t you pay bills, not sign them?
Pence: Not when you’re President.
Trump: Oh, I guess I am truly great. What is it?
Pence: It fixes medicare and social security.
Trump: All at once? Good deal!
This is beyond horrific. Palin?!
Surely only Trump would be worse. Oh wait….
I hoped it was a bad dream. NV, I think you’re being a little harsh on sapient, who worked his socks off in a good cause, and if he and his kind of people had won you and your people would be much better off in almost every way. But if anyone’s aim (I don’t necessarily say yours) is the destruction of the Republic in order to build a better and more utopian replacement, good luck. Chances are any replacement will be a darker and much more terrible place. God help us all.
So does Trump get to pass a bunch of stuff with a Republican congress? Of course.
Will passing that stuff make him look effective, particularly relative to Obama, or will he pass stuff that pisses more people off than it pleases? Who knows?
How bad can things get in the next 2 years, and who will recognize it as being bad soon enough for it to matter? What about the next 4 years?
How many SCOTUS justices does he get to nominate? At least one. What about judges in lower courts? Lots, maybe?
I certainly don’t want the wheels to fall off under Trump, but I don’t know how “successful” he can be in a way that accords with my values. Can he please his base without an opposite uprising taking place 2 or 4 years from now?
Will Trump be bellicose or isolationist? Can he somehow be both?
What do the 2 parties look like ideologically in whatever amount of time? Do they move further apart – Dems to the left and Reps to the right? Is there any commonality of populist economic thought that comes into play? Do they compete to work for the interests of the middle class? Will working-class whites really fail to blame Trump and the Republicans if they continue furthering the oligarchy?
My head is spinning over this stuff right now.
Atrios strikes.
Things could get ugly in our house, too.
No sign of Count. Hmmm.
count is on vacation.
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs/?p=25042#comments
I was up late, first watching the returns, then trying to talk my wife down off the ledge (metaphorically), then holding her while she cried for about an hour until she could go to sleep, then sitting by myself in the living room, reading and generally trying to get my head around it all.
Finally went to bed around 4:00. I’m tired.
Here’s what I got.
First, it is what it is. Trump won. He got the votes he needed to get, won the states he needed to win, and he is going to be President. He didn’t cheat, he worked the system as it is, and he straight-up won.
I appreciated the conciliatory tone of his victory speech. I wasn’t necessarily surprised by it, but to be honest I thought it could go either way.
I was glad to hear him talk about improving infrastructure. We need it, and it will put some people to work. If it takes somebody with an (R) after their name proposing it to make it happen, so be it.
I’m not sure what to expect from Trump as far as policy. I’m not sure what to expect from him as far as tone, on an ongoing basis. I don’t know if the more moderate tone of the victory speech is the new Trump, or if he just thought he could be magnanimous give the occasion.
We’ll find out.
I don’t know what to expect from Trump as far as the overall policies and agendas of the (R) party as a whole. I don’t know if he’s on board with all of it, or not, or if he has any opinion about it at all. I don’t think he’s a particularly ideological guy, I don’t see him motivated by any Grand Plan or Big Ideas in the philosophical sense. I don’t know if he’s really thought about it all that much. In general, I think he got into this thing without thinking the consequences through, because he just seems like that kind of guy.
So, we’ll see what happens.
I’m not extremely worried about the future for myself, personally. My wife is retired and our household income stream includes investment income, that’s probably going to be a little shaky for a while. But I think it will settle out.
I have some concern that SS may simply go away, or be greatly reduced, by the time I retire in about 6 years. That will suck, but I guess we’ll figure it out.
But I’m a 60 year old, white, native born American, with a pretty solid and reasonably well-paying job, reasonably good health, and no huge debt load other than mortgage.
Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky me.
A lot of what I’ve been doing over the last 12 hours or so, and what I will probably continue to do for some time, is try to help people I know who are, frankly, freaked out, to come to terms with it.
There is a sizable Hispanic community in my area, and due to the nature of what my employer does, a lot of Hispanic people where I work. Those folks are extremely anxious about what a Trump administration is going to mean.
There is a significant Muslim community in my area. Those people are extremely anxious about what a Trump administration is going to mean.
There is a sizable Jewish community in my area. Those folks watched Trump supporters chanting “Jew-S-A” at news people during a Trump rally, and are anxious about what a Trump administration is going to mean.
There is a sizable foreign student population in my area. Those people are all anxious about what a Trump administration is going to mean.
We have a lot of friends with young kids, who have frankly been frightened and disturbed by the hostile, xenophobic rhetoric of much of the Trump campaign. They are all anxious about what to tell their kids.
And go ahead Marty, or whoever, tell me your opinion of their parenting skills. Wait and see what I have to tell you in return.
My wife and I are committed members of a liberal church community in our area. We have a sizable gay membership, because they are welcome and not judged in our community. They are extremely anxious about what a Trump administration is going to mean for them.
Ask any black person what they think a Giuliani DOJ is going to mean for them.
Pretty much every woman I know, including my wife, is horrified at the prospect of a Trump administration.
There has been a lot of disturbing, unsettling, frightening rhetoric displayed during this election. And I’m not talking about “baskets of deplorables”. A lot of people are frightened, and many of their fears are not irrational or without cause.
What I expect, or demand really, from Trump is that he will drop the race-baiting, misogynistic, abusive language and insist that his followers do the same.
What I expect and demand from all of his followers who have spent the last 18 months telling us all that they are not racists, not homophobes, not misogynists, is that they walk the walk.
Walk the f***ing walk, because there is no place in this country for that kind of shit. It is, in fact, deplorable, and I and a hell of a lot of people like me won’t put up with it.
The “let’s all get together” rhetoric is nice, and frankly, given the hostility that we’ve all been treated to for the last year and half, welcome.
But this is not just a white blue-collar nation. Nobody is going to be “taking their country back” from anybody, because those of us who don’t fit the Trump demographic also live here.
More people voted against Trump than voted for him. And we’re not going anywhere.
OMG. I hope anybody with any influence on him can persuade him not to withdraw and go underground.
NV, I think you’re being a little harsh on sapient
As do I.
I’m probably not as upset as others are over this because I have been expecting the worst for years.
Trump and the Rethugs will accellerate the processes, but the processes are there and I don’t know that the Dems could have done anything to stop them or even mitigate them
I’m thinking of global climate change. Much of what I cherish will be gone soon: the Great Barrier Reef is dead, the mega fuana of Africa is being slaughtered, the orangutangs are losing her homes to palm oil, the migratgion routes of birds are screwed up, the boreal forests are dying of bug infestations.. . we are facing a depleted, debased ugly future.
And global change will cause huge economic dislocations. Millions of people displaced, millions of people losing their livlihoods. Humans do not adpt readily to change, especxailly fast change. Change leads to fear, fear leads to hate, hate leads to war. I have known all my life that global war was coming. Not necessarily nuclear war. That would be bad for business. But lots and lots of war
I don’t think Terump will himself involve us in a war. I would not be surprised if he truns out to be an isolationist. And all he has to do to convice R base voters that he is strong an dpowerful is to say bellcose things on TV since one of the characteristics of R base voters is the inability to tell style from substance,
So what I am sayind is we are fucked anyway, Trump and the Repubicans take away any fope for the future because their contribution will be to accellerate the negative processes, but the processes were there anyway.
I was being constructive, sapient. I could say a few things too in a harsher spirit. In fact, all sorts of things and all of them valid, without ranting.
For instance, this is why it’s not such a good idea to stigmatize voters. You can criticize policies and even politicians, but once you start blasting away at voters for their bad judgment (and yes, supporting Trump was extraordinarily bad judgment) and insisting that all of them are making this choice because they are bad people, you had better be damn sure you don’t need some of their votes. One of the things about living in a democracy or really, anywhere, is that you notice that people all around you see things differently, sometimes very differently, on issues you consider of fundamental moral importance. You can assume that these other people are just evil, or you can try to understand their pov, wonder if there is any validity to it or at least to their reasons for thinking or voting the way they do. Or you can call them “deplorables” and mock the notion of empathy. You can just assume that because some are racists all are racists. You can assume that none of them are making lesser of two evil calculations of their own, but are just choosing the greater evil because they’re evil. You can, in short, be utterly blind to the reality of living with people who think differently and call yourself a pragmatist all at the same time.
This is or should be pragmatic politics 101. I heard one commentator say that Trump won areas in the Rust Belt that Obama won in 2008 and 2012. Maybe by 2016 it was impossible to reach these people. I doubt it.
I am not sure it is helpful to go into all this now, so I tried for something constructive. I did see the LawyersGunsandMoney people this morning looking for scapegoats, so if we want to do that, maybe looking at people who doubled down on the “deplorable” angle would be a start. Clinton herself realized what a blunder that was. Not all her supporters did.
hairshirt: Do they compete to work for the interests of the middle class?
How would they do that? What is “the middle class” any more, and what does it want?
Let’s stipulate that He, Trump could not have won had “the middle class” rejected him. By any traditional definition, “the middle class” includes a damn sight more than 50% of the population.
–TP
maybe looking at people who doubled down on the “deplorable” angle would be a start
bigotry is deplorable.
That said, I have wondered if Trump will privot, make friends with Dems in Congess and form a coalition with them against the the Ayn Rand Republicans. He used to be a democrat and he did run as the savior of the working class.
he attacked, shallowly.
I don’t make “You have nothing constructive to add! Come back when you have concrete, constructive alternatives, or shut up already!” into a mantra. So it’s not particularly damning for me to act contrary to that line of reasoning.
bigotry is deplorable.
It is, yes. Whether it’s based on sex, race, religion, class, regionalism, or education, it’s deplorable.
I think that Hillary may have lost because of the deplorables remark. That is the kind of thing that one can think and believe but while running fro office it should not be said.
I also thought throughout the campaign that it was not wise and possibly was not accurate to label Trup voters as racist. That’s not good politics if yiu want their votes. Also they do not recognize themselves as racist so it doesn’t communicate anything to say that to them.
I have hundreds of FB friends due to being involved in dog rescue and the majority of them are Trump supporters. Are they racist/ Not in the sense of dislking an black person they are acquainted with. Not in the since of wanting a return to Jim Corw. But yes in the sense that they voted for Trump in hopes that he would build his base up economically by putting others down. They also are hooked into the Goebbells network and have fallen hook line and sinker for Republican hate mongering. So how to communicate with them? Well calling them racists didn’t work. NOt an effective political tactic.
I am still FB friends with all of them. I never shared any posts that called Trump a racist oer his supporters racist. I did share links to articles about him stiffin creditors, RICO trial and that sort of thing and I also debunked rightwing lies with links to legitimate news sources.
I thiknk the commonality of my rightwing FB friends is a failure of citizen ship at least as I understand it. But I never said that to anyone of them.
Bigotry is deplorable, but people resenting what has happened to their community because of trade policy is not, and Trump won some votes that way. He might have won enough to win the election that way.
NV,
Stop. If you keep trying to equate Hillary Clinton with He, Trump on the “bigotry” scale you will make yourself look like an ass.
–TP
but people resenting what has happened to their community because of trade policy is not,
Clinton wasn’t talking about trade policy. she was talking about bigotry:
Saw on tweet that the campaign to paint Romney as the outsourcer in chief in 2012 must have been pretty effective.
Markets seem ok. Assuming appt of responsible conservatives to the bench and no more tax increases and no non-essential wars, my minimal expectations from a nominal righty are met. I anticipate peripheral tweaks on the regulatory side. The main thing will be an end to pourous borders. That has majority support.
How would they do that? What is “the middle class” any more, and what does it want?
Let’s stipulate that He, Trump could not have won had “the middle class” rejected him. By any traditional definition, “the middle class” includes a damn sight more than 50% of the population.
I should have used “working class,” though you might well ask the same questions either way. Generally, they want to prosper economically, possibly while believing no one, particularly the government, did anything to help them.
I hope so much that the count doesn’t leave for good. I myself will try to take a break. I appreciate people’s patience with my bad mood today, and generally when I’ve thought of the prospect of today.
I didn’t say it nicely, Donald, but private groups like the ACLU and [pick your environmental group] depend on government to function: the courts to enforce laws fairly, the legislature to create those laws, regulatory agencies who use experts to implement and enforce policies. You know, a functioning and stable “establishment”. Best wishes trying to get things done without that. I’m all for your trying, because I want a better world too.
The main thing will be an end to pourous borders.
Not if the Peso and the Mexican economy tank.
an end to pourous borders.
get used to expensive produce!
so much win.
I hope so much that the count doesn’t leave for good
Ditto, ditto, ditto.
Mckinney: Assuming appt of responsible conservatives to the bench and no more tax increases and no non-essential wars, my minimal expectations from a nominal righty are met. I anticipate peripheral tweaks on the regulatory side.
Of Thomas, Alito, Kennedy and Roberts, which are “responsible conservatives”? And if you don’t mind can you rank your preference among them from most favorite to least? I’m genuinely curious.
On the tax front – what I know most about – the chances of “tax reform” passing just went way way up. I scare quote it because I’m not sure it’s going to so much be “reform” as it’s going to be a massive tax cut for the wealthy and business disguised as such. You may see some groups get a tax increase (like those benefiting from the carried interest loophole, although I wouldn’t bet on it). This will massively balloon the deficit.
I think you’ll be disappointed on the nonessential war front, but I hope not.
I don’t know enough about the Administrative Procedures Act to guess how much regulatory roll back there will be, but if there’s room to do it legally (and maybe if not) I’m sure there will be lots of it. And lots of plain just not enforcing the current rules/laws.
Stop. If you keep trying to equate Hillary Clinton with He, Trump on the “bigotry” scale you will make yourself look like an ass.
You miss the point. By a wide mark. I should probably just leave this subject to Donald Johnson, as he’s (surprise, surprise!) doing a better job of articulating it than me. But I’ll take a last stab. The point isn’t equivalence. The point is that wide-brush, lazy-but-satisfying attacks on the moral character of vaguely defined swathes of your political opponents are not a good idea unless you can really, truly do without them forever, because you’re always going to insult more people than the most narrow construable understanding of your insults. And this is a feature, not a bug, because a lot of Nice Respectable Liberals are elitist a$$es who view politics as a team sport and get off on demeaning and condescending to the “other team”. Do lots of conservatives mirror this outlook? Ofc. Does that in any way, shape, or form make the NRLs doing it anything but pompous, bigoted a$$holes? It really doesn’t. They e.g. may not be racists, but they’re still divisive (typically classist) a$$holes, and they’re still doing their political opponents a favor by embodying culture-war caricatures. Sneering and spitting on ill-defined “deplorables” is stupid because you’re not decrying bigotry, you’re decrying a poorly-defined and conveniently-fungible collection of people who will necessarily include more people than just the bigots (unless we just assume they’re all bigots, which is easy and satisfying, but really quite dumb). So sure, bigotry is deplorable. That’s a lazy observation. If you want to decry it, decry it… don’t decry loosely-defined groups of people who may or may not be bigots depending on how you define group membership (especially if you pointedly don’t define group membership). It may feel good to tell ourselves that this is an existential struggle between us the morally upright and them the fundamentally corrupt, but it’s stupid, lazy, simplistic, and more than a little self-sabotaging.
Kennedy for sure. I’m generally fine w Roberts. The others generally are more doctrinaire than I prefer, but that is true in spades for the liberal wing. And I default conservative if the option is doctrinaire liberal.
PS–I did not vote for Trump.
the main thing will be an end to porous borders
McKinney, all your minimal expectations apply only to the US, understandably, and leaving out any lefty considerations of the effects on different races, poorer people etc in the US, also understandably, since as you say you are a righty. But what about the effect on the wider world? What about the emboldening of Putin (who I now read has footage of Trump at an orgy with which to blackmail him, although I’m guessing it wouldn’t do him any harm if revealed), the possible/probable weakening of NATO, the emboldening of Marine Le Pen and other fascist parties in Europe? I know you weren’t for Trump, but do you, personally, think all this is worth risking in return for a (proposed, but difficult to achieve) closing of US borders and a right wing SCOTUS?
Thanks McKinney, and I know you didn’t.
Separately, I’m not going to be surprised at all if Trump’s approach to court orders/injunctions is of the “let him enforce it” variety.
Bravo NV. I may plagiarize this and use it on the smug assholes denouncing those of us who opposed Trump. BTW, and for context, the assholes I’m referring to make the back and forth here look like patty cake.
GFTNC–I will reply when I get to a laptop. I’m using an iPhone right now. Very awkward. Good question. I want to answer.
But I’ll take a last stab.
Your stab was clear enough to me, FWIW. And I think you (and Donald and wonkie) have a point.
I have tons of friends who are Trump supporters and who are not overtly, consciously, or self-identified racists. They may not be particularly enlightened about or open to concepts like white privilege and may not recognize the scope of the racism that continues to exist in this country, but they sure as hell don’t go around actively hating on minorities or generally endorsing racism.
It’s not the highest bar, but, like you and others have said, pointing out whatever shortcomings you might think they have on that front by calling them racists isn’t going to help.
don’t decry loosely-defined groups of people who may or may not be bigots depending on how you define group membership
group membership is clearly defined:
Thanks McKinney. By the way, when you do reply, I did not mean to imply that as a righty you have no concern for the plight of the American poor and other vulnerable ethnic groups, just that your concern will naturally be of a completely different type, with completely different desired solutions, from the concern of most of the liberals (myself included) on this site.
GFTNC, understood. No issues.
group membership is clearly defined:
It may be to you. But that doesn’t make it politically wise, because it may be far less clear to people who assume you’re including them in those categories, even if you’re not.
people who assume you’re including them in those categories, even if you’re not
how does that work?
if you’re not in one of the groups she mentioned, you’re not in the overall group. by what magic does a person include herself in a group without being a member of one the subgroups?
She doesn’t include herself. She assumes you’re including her.
is she a racist?
Not necessarily. Or not especially so, if you think almost everyone is racist to some degree or other.
Is it really that difficult to accept that people take things personally that may not have been directed at them?
I don’t think Clinton was even trying to say what many people have criticized her for, but it was still unnecessary and self-defeating politically.
End of representative government? An unhinged judiciary? Bigotry run rampant? The end of the world as we know it? Fascists in Europe and now America? Nah. I don’t remember a similar reaction from the right on this blog when the roles were reversed eight years ago. I remember saying I was proud of the country for electing a black president. I just didn’t like THIS particular man for his political persuasions. And I still don’t. But I’m still proud.
What russell said. And NV at 2:01.
How much of this result was due to appeal to bigotry? IMHO, not much. Rejection of HRC and DC? Huge. There were many that voted “not HRC.” Would a mainstream R candidate of won? That is an interesting question. On the one hand, I want to say the HRC was undoubtedly a horrible candidate to lose to the Donald, but maybe the rejection of all things Washington was really the biggest factor here.
I hate polls. I’d actually be in favor of outlawing them. Polls get us away from policy discussions and into group think. All those stories about her data wizards look silly now.
One burning question I have: How much do you think HRC will get per speech now?
Love ya, russell.
And what Donald & wonkie said.
Bigotry run rampant? The end of the world as we know it? Fascists in Europe and now America? Nah. I don’t remember a similar reaction from the right on this blog when the roles were reversed eight years ago.
Comparing Trump to Obama is ridiculous, whatever your political persuasion. Trump has openly made many bigoted statements, has been ecstatically endorsed by the KKK and fascist, anti-semitic white supremacist movements in the US, and was enthusiastically endorsed by the Front National in France, to name but a few of his appalling well-wishers. Not to mention the whole Russian connection. Why do you suppose all these people are so keen on him? Is it his pretty golden hair?
You may not have liked Obama, or what he stood for, but what FFS about Obama compared to all of this? As far as HRC’s speaking fees are concerned, I imagine she’ll get tons, as do many ex-pols, ex-officials and celebrities. So what?
Not necessarily. Or not especially so, if you think almost everyone is racist to some degree or other.
this is strange…
when people talk about someone being a racist, they are talking about someone who is a racist. and Clinton was talking about racists. she wasn’t trying to split hairs, she was talking about “white supremacists” (her words). she was talking about Trump actual supporters – the actual white supremacists who championed him! and she was talking about people who harass LGBT people, and people who want to overturn gay marriage laws, and Pence’s no-gay-cakes bill, and people who support the NC bathroom bill. and she was talking about Trump’s ‘wall’.
context.
and here’s the very next paragraph, follow the one i quoted above:
here’s the full speech.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-transcript-clinton-s-full-remarks-as-1473549076-htmlstory.html
there she goes, doing that thing everybody wishes she’d done.
Is it really that difficult to accept that people take things personally that may not have been directed at them?
no it’s not. but don’t you then have to assume that those people were probably misinformed? because if you take offense at being called something you weren’t actually called, then you have missed a step somewhere.
but it was still unnecessary and self-defeating politically.
no, it wasn’t the best way to phrase the sentiment. but i don’t know how much it hurt her (literally – i’d like to see some polling).
The long knives are coming out in the liberal press. About freaking time, after all the BS.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/the_democratic_party_establishment_is_finished_after_trump.html
Well, I’m going to breath deeply and stay calm while nursing a monstrous hangover today….and fully intend to patiently watch as the Trump transition unfolds.
Will he build a wall? Will he start a war? Will he round up and deport all those ‘illegals’?
I don’t think so…but if you are a liberal there are some very disturbing things to consider:
this and this, for example.
Anybody have some aspirin?
but don’t you then have to assume that those people were probably misinformed? because if you take offense at being called something you weren’t actually called, then you have missed a step somewhere.
Yes!
That aside, you don’t have to explain the context to me. That’s why I wrote that I don’t even think she was saying what people were accusing her of saying. I’m sure you can find an exchange between me and Marty just after she said it where I go into detail about it. I still think her point was very nearly the opposite of what many taking it as.
but i don’t know how much it hurt her
I don’t, either. But I’m pretty damned sure that, at best, it didn’t help.
Don’t worry about it sapient. We’re always going to be at each other’s throats.
BTW, I felt horrible last night and this morning, probably almost as bad as you did. I actually had to take a couple of Tums for my stomach. I have literally never in my life been so upset my stomach hurt. Probably age too, but still, it was a first time.
Right now, though, I am starting to get a little frustrated. It’s the reaction after the shock.
As for positive actions, I really don’t know short term what to do–private charities and organizations can do something, I think. Change minds, defend people’s rights in courts. Not all judges are jerks and even some conservative judges will, presumably, be outraged if Trump goes too far. Not that I would count on that. On environmental issues, we need to get the public on our side and that would presumably mean giving money to environmental organizations. But sure, it won’t help much if sensible people aren’t in office.
And, really, it’s not all about that one statement by HRC. It’s about how people generally approach people they disagree with, especially as it applies to furthering an inclusive agenda without shooting yourself in the foot.
yeah, yeah.
Newell is an idiot. doesn’t even know how primaries work.
this conspiratorial nonsense really has to stop. no field was cleared for her. running is voluntary, and people volunteered. did Sanders not make her work for it? how could he have done that if the field was “cleared”? the fact that she won, that she was more was popular with the Democratic Party’s base than all the others doesn’t mean it was a set-up. it means her party likes her.
Newell is gloating on the backs of those who are about to get asphyxiated by Trump EPA. and he’s a fool.
But sure, it won’t help much if sensible people aren’t in office.
Isn’t part of the point of what you’re suggesting getting those people into office, though?
that seems hard, if you can’t call out racists for being racists without running the risk of offending racists who take offense at being called racist!
racists.
Yes, it is. The idea is that the environmental groups might be able to persuade people. It’s depressing this still has to be done, but obviously it does.
Cleek–I don’t know much about Newell (nothing, actually) and I saw that link somewhere else. And I agree that Clinton won the primaries. Though with the entire party lined up behind her and a constant barrage of media people saying that Bernie didn’t know what he was talking about, didn’t have her experience, wasn’t vetted, etc…. One doesn’t have to sign up with Bernie again. I don’t think he was the ideal candidate either and getting too fixated on a particular candidate is probably a mistake. But the Party failed miserably and if Democrats aren’t willing to look at their own failings we might not win things back in 2020. Or in the midterms.
that seems hard, if you can’t call out racists for being racists without running the risk of offending racists who take offense at being called racist!
That’s not the problem. It’s making non-racists think you’re calling them racists. If you said, “Those KKK members who are endorsing Trump are racists and he should denounce them immediately,” I don’t think many non-racist Trump supporters would think you were talking about them.
Or in the midterms.
Let’s assume Trump’s first 2 years are bad enough that the Democrats take back both chambers of congress. What would Trump, the chameleon that he is, do? Would he go along with an agenda that Democrats could support just so he could continue to “win”?
But the Party failed miserably
the Dems actually picked up House and Senate seats. not enough, but a gain is an impressive feat while also losing the Presidency.
it’s looking like NC’s ridiculous GOP gov is out, too.
losing the WH to Trump is an embarrassing and truly horrendous failure. and Clinton turned out to be far weaker than anyone had predicted (though, this time yesterday nobody knew just how wrong those predictions were). but there will be more elections, and the Clintons won’t be involved in any of them.
It’s making non-racists think you’re calling them racists.
but again, she didn’t do that. if non-racists believe that, then they believe something that isn’t true. her phrasing certainly helped the misunderstanding. but the real cause is that the GOP twisted what she actually said. no?
but the real cause is that the GOP twisted what she actually said. no?
Maybe. Don’t give them the ammo.
always a good plan.
Don’t give them the ammo.
Maybe what she said lost her the election, and if so, a real shame. People also complain that Hillary was too calculating, and too staged. Do you see that the only people that we have to tiptoe around are [those who see themselves being called out as] haters?
But it’s interesting that none of the litany of “politically incorrect” things that Donald Trump said lost him the election with those very same people. His people voted for him in droves notwithstanding his comments. None of the women seemed to include themselves in his categories of ugly pigs, and I didn’t hear a lot of his supporters thinking of themselves as 400 pound people sitting on a bed. Nor did I hear anyone suggesting that the people who were the subjects of those insults needed “empathy”.
Maybe there’s something about those supporters that is just difficult to appeal to if you’re a decent human being.
The racist thing is an analytic dead end so far as this election goes. In the key rust belt states that Clinton lost, Obama won.
The actual black man won there when running for President.
These people may or may not meet some textbook definition of ‘racism’ based on their inability to understand or their unwillingness to prioritize systemic racism, but they aren’t so racist as to be beyond the reach of the Democratic Party as is directly evidenced by their votes for the Black Democratic Party Representative as recently as four years ago.
I’m not sure I can adequately explain why the Democratic Party did in fact lose those people. But ‘racism’ is not likely to be a good explanation. It feels like a comfortably non-self reflective explanation.
I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with NV at 2:01. And with hairshirt’s argument that Clinton’s “deplorables” comment was an act of political folly. And, with cleek throughout the thread.
Yes, there are a lot of entitled liberal assholes who look down their noses at people who don’t meet their standards for general cultural sophistication.
Yes, it was stupid for Clinton to use the language she used to make the point she made.
And yes, there is no shortage of racists, xenophobes, Islamophobes, homophobes, misogynists, and “alt-right” white supremacists among Trump’s supporters.
All of those things are true.
For the record, I’ll also note that it was folly for Trump to disparage the family of Humayun Khan, and to accuse a federal judge of being incapable of treating him fairly because of his Mexican heritage, and to speculate about whether Megyn Kelly’s menstrual cycle was the reason for her asking him sharp questions.
Who on this thread is standing up for the offended dignity of Muslims, Hispanics, and women? Anyone?
If we’re going to be candid about this stuff, let’s be candid about all of it, please.
Trump won, Clinton lost. Could be that her comments about “deplorables” helped her lose.
Nonetheless, it’s worth pointing out that all of those attitudes exist in this country, that they are not hard to find among Trump’s supporters, and that they are all unacceptable.
For those folks who think that a Trump administration gives them license to exercise their bigotry – and those people exist – they will find that they are mistaken.
More people voted against Trump than voted for him. Neither I nor anyone I know is going to put up with that bullshit.
If that gets up anybody’s nose, I’m offering no apologies.
As far as bobbyp’s links about the EPA and the SCOTUS, yes, any hope of advancing a progressive agenda in any of those areas is dead in the water for the forseeable future.
The consequences will be whatever they are. Mostly, they will suck. I doubt that folks on the conservative spectrum will be open to the idea that they bear any responsibility for any of that.
So it goes.
sapient beat me to it.
Maybe what she said lost her the election, and if so, a real shame.
Again, it’s not simply about that one comment. It’s also not that I think it was some horrible (or horribly stupid, politically) thing to say. It’s just a very high-profile example that serves as a cautionary tale.
Sometimes politics is about tip-toeing. I wouldn’t say it lost her the election. It wasn’t that big of a deal, IMO. It just shows how being imprecise about this stuff can go wrong.
Who on this thread is standing up for the offended dignity of Muslims, Hispanics, and women? Anyone?
Almost everyone, as far as I can make out. It just seems to be easier to pile in on Hillary and the Dems, to apportion blame about what went wrong and who did it.
But what about the effect on the wider world?
The world is pretty buggered up already and Obama/Clinton can take their share of credit. They are the ones who hit the reset button with Russia, for example. The PRC and Russia are pushing the envelope at every opportunity, without meaningful response.
That said, I didn’t stick the “non-essential” war thing in there for nothing. If he acts out his hotheadedness and the shooting starts, he should be impeached.
What about the emboldening of Putin (who I now read has footage of Trump at an orgy with which to blackmail him, although I’m guessing it wouldn’t do him any harm if revealed), the possible/probable weakening of NATO, the emboldening of Marine Le Pen and other fascist parties in Europe?
Emboldening of Putin begins with Obama who, as you may recall, assured Putin that, after the election, he’d accommodate on anti-missiles in Poland. Very brave and very foresightful.
Further, if Trump halts Obama’s unilateral reductions in conventional weapons, he will make NATO stronger, not weaker. He may be an idiot, but not all of his instincts are wrong.
As for the anti-immigrant, nationalists in Europe, that isn’t the result of Trump, it’s the result of tone deaf, ‘we know better than you’ EU elitists telling the hoi poloi to shut up, we’ll bring in all the Syrian refugees we want and quit whining about the crime.
All cultures are not the same and Syrian muslims are anything but enlightened. To say the least. EU and US left’ish leaders and thinkers see value in any form of multiculturalism and cannot distinguish a compatible from a non-compatible culture. We don’t blend well with head hunters, cannibals and religious/cultural products of the 9th Century. We don’t and saying so isn’t racist. Islam is not a race. It is a religion and it is one that tends to produce a fairly illiberal society/culture as what appears to be a natural byproduct.
I know you weren’t for Trump, but do you, personally, think all this is worth risking in return for a (proposed, but difficult to achieve) closing of US borders and a right wing SCOTUS?
The primary Trump risk for me is a war, or a series of stupid military encounters that are non-essential or otherwise unjustified, e.g. attritting ISIS isn’t essential, but it is fully justified. If he avoids that, roles back Obama’s stupid meddling in how college kids screw and who gets to use what bathroom, let’s pipeline construction go forward and other no-brainer economic moves, I’m mainly put off by the damage he is likely to do to conservatism. Plus, he’s an unmitigated POS, but that’s history now that he’s won.
And since y’all were too shy to ask, here’s my take on some of the stuff the left does wrong:
1. Do not, if your candidate is married to Bill Clinton, carry on like hysterics over the fact that someone else is a misogynistic, assaultive, sexual preditor. Everyone notices the hypocrisy. BC was DT’s get out of jail card.
2. HRC’s tears for DT’s victiims sounded so totally hypocritical and insincere, it is only those who’ve already internalized and disregarded BC’s BS who don’t see this.
3. Even if HRC didn’t expressly state that all conservatives and Republicans and Trump supporters are racist, gun loving, sexist, homophobic rubes who hold women down, her surrogates do. All day, every day. And, you see a lot of that right here at ObWi. It’s ubiquitous on the left. Not only is it insulting as hell, it comes across as the worst kind of moral preening. The vocal left is anything but modest. It wears its moral certitude like Paul Ryan wears his flag lapel. Hint: it’s wearing a little thin.
4. Quit whining about voter suppression and taking HRC out of context. Voter ID laws aren’t that big of a deal and it isn’t etched in stone that states must allow X days of early voting.
5. Wanting border control is not racist. Uplifting people who’ve been here a long time (my bright line is 5 years) and sending them home is not going to happen, but cutting off any more illegal immigration is not racist, nor is sending home those who’ve recently arrived illegally. Even if the price of lettuce goes up. Lefties decry the lack of jobs and then bring in a couple million people who will do what jobs there are for less. Feel free to quote some academic who did a study that shows this isn’t right. Only those already on board buy into that.
6. Do not whine about nullification and embrace sanctuary cities. The hypocrisy is palpable.
7. Do not presume bad faith in your opposition, even if Trump is an asshole.
I said not too long ago, only DT makes it possible for HRC to win and vice versa. Conventional wisdom validates the moderate left’s worldview and the moderate left has adopted, or at least, tolerates/enables the SJ left. The SJ left is the single largest obstacle to liberal progress.
Back to work.
I don’t know if the more moderate tone of the victory speech is the new Trump
It sounded to me like someone on his staff Googled “campaign victory speech” and then added in some Oscars-type thank yous, given how disconnected it seemed from anything he said while campaigning.
group membership is clearly defined:
Is it? Is it really?
For every potential deplorable, there are three definitions in play for each one of those “clearly defined” groups.
There’s what YOU mean by the term. The possibly-deplorable does not and cannot know this unless you specify it. Clinton absolutely did not do so.
There’s what THEY mean by the term. You don’t know this, and it may or may not be the same as your definition. If it’s not the same, though, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It means that you’re using different political jargon than them.
Finally, and most importantly, there’s what THEY think YOU mean by the term. You don’t know what this is, but it’s a safe bet that in many, many cases it’s going to be wrong. Unless you refuse to assume everyone else is using language exactly like you do, this is pretty much inevitable given how much subcultures’ political language is diverging.
…we’re not to the point of mutually unintelligible political dialects, but we’re moving in that direction. And we’re far enough along that different groups mean different things by those “clearly defined” terms in question. Which makes them not-particularly-clearly-defined if you don’t go to the trouble of being specific. Throwing out the terms by themselves might be fine for intragroup communication, but it’s a pretty damned sure way to miscommunicate outside of your tribe.
to apportion blame about what went wrong and who did it.
Why is it anybody’s “fault” that Trump won? I don’t see the point of scab-picking contrafactual Monday morning quarterbacking.
Both candidates ran the campaigns they ran, and most likely made the decisions they made because they seemed like the best thing to do at the time.
About half the country voted for Clinton, about half for Trump. Clinton is ahead in the popular vote, but by a pretty thin margin.
Our way of electing people is such that the spread of electoral votes favored Trump.
So he won.
Enough already with arguing about whose fault it was. Learn from whatever mistakes were made and move on. Finger-pointing accomplishes nothing.
Islam is not a race. It is a religion and it is one that tends to produce a fairly illiberal society/culture as what appears to be a natural byproduct.
Actually, it doesn’t. Islam, like many religions, includes some fundamentalist sects. Those certainly tend to produce very illiberal societies. And, thanks to a combination of local politics a century ago and geography (where a lot of oil happened to be located), a huge amount of money for proselytizing one of those fundamentalist sects has been able to exert a substantial influence around the world.
But it isn’t a characteristic of the religion. Just of a particular strain of it. Any hope of dealing with that toxic strain requires recognizing that, to allow working with those from other sects to deal with the crazies.
it’s a pretty damned sure way to miscommunicate outside of your tribe.
Noted. It alienates people if you use pejorative language when you talk about them. It makes it harder to hear whatever constructive point you might be trying to make.
I’ve learned this my very own self, from spending the last 15 years trying to claw my way through the prejudices of people who assume I’m a “pompous, bigoted, classist asshole” because I live in MA, drink wine not beer, like artisanal cheeses and bitter greens, don’t listen to country music, and don’t hunt.
My apertif of choice is Campari and soda, lime twist. I have a man bag. I wear a long scarf that I tie in a hacking knot when the weather is chilly. I bought it in Provence.
I KNOW WHAT A FUCKING HACKING KNOT IS.
How far up my ass must my head be? Am I sure I’m really American? Maybe I should be asked to produce a birth certificate.
All so I could try to have a conversation with them.
Are you feeling me bro?
A clue: pompous, bigoted, classist asshole will win about as many hearts and minds as racist misogynist homophobe.
Can we cut this shit out now?
Thanks.
Thank you wj.
Back to a positive note. There are a couple of throwaway lines criticizing Clinton and Obama here. Ignore them if that bugs you. What do you think about the rest of it?
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/donald-trump-will-be-president-this-is-what-we-do-next/
And it’s by Jon Schwarz, not GG, and Schwarz is generally a nice guy. That very last bit of advice he gives is something I need translated into Internet English– I have been on blogs too long to understand what this phrase ” be kind to each other” could possibly mean.
How far up my ass must my head be? Am I sure I’m really American? Maybe I should be asked to produce a birth certificate.
I totally understand every word you wrote. I’ve been on the receiving end of this crap my whole life. Both sides would do well to cut it out, and right now there’s a gleeful push on one side to dispense with cutting it out in favor of telling it like it is. And that’s a problem. There’s a lot of people who love to tell it like it is about others, but who don’t have much in the way of tolerance for hearing it like it is about them. And that’s a problem. And yeah, taking the high road isn’t going to fix it. However, taking the low road won’t either…
McKinney, thanks for the response. I was particularly interested in your advice about what the left does/did wrong, and even agreed with some of it (I thought Point 1 had some merit, even if WJC was not the candidate, and clearly some here agree with your point 3. I think we can all agree with point 7, even as it relates to both sides.)
Your point about Putin and Obama I think is rather irrelevant here; there may have been mistakes in the US/Russia relationship under Obama which have helped Putin, but his clear and obvious desperation for a Trump presidency should be ringing many more alarm bells than it seems to be in Republican circles; he is a machiavellian ex-KGB hood who does not have the sincere desire for a good relationship between the US and Russia that Trump and too many of his supporters seem to suppose. Their naivete is frightening.
Multiculturism, and particularly this: Islam is not a race. It is a religion and it is one that tends to produce a fairly illiberal society/culture as what appears to be a natural byproduct. I think we have all discussed this in depth over the last few years. Islam is a religion with many schools, and millions of adherents, the vast majority of whom find their religion perfectly compatible with mainstream western democratic attitudes and practices. Focusing one’s policy on the most extreme iteration of “Muslims” plays right into the extremists’ hands, and does their work for them. ISIS is probably overjoyed at the Trump presidency. I have over the years had occasion to observe fundamentalist Christians and their attitudes, and fundamentalist Jews ditto. These all have much more in common with each other and with fundamentalist Muslims than with “normal” “mainstream” religios or secularists. I haven’t heard fundamentalist Jews, for example, say apostates should be beheaded or burnt alive, but I have heard them say that adulterous women or non-observing jews should be stoned to death, and I heard the then chief sephardic rabbi of Israel make the following comment: “A man must not walk between two women or between two asses or between two camels. Why? Because women aren’t concerned with the Torah and whoever walks near them will be like them.” See more of the late sage’s delightful pronouncements here. You all will probably have heard many such pronouncements from fundamentalist Christians over the years, at the moment I can only think of Pat Robertson, and of course Michele Bachman, but I am sure there are better examples. In any case, I agree that the immdediate “religious” danger to most of the west is probably ISIS and their cousins, and we should all be horrified at anything which helps their case in e.g. recruiting more naive, idiotic European and American-born adherents, which the Trump victory certainly does.
I, like many of us now I guess, am feeling too depressed and heartsick to keep going on about it. I wanted to know how you, a reasonable non-loony anti-Trump conservative saw the ongoing situation, not just domestically but with regard to the rest of the world, and you have been kind enough to oblige. Thank you. I just hope that we can all come back into ourselves soon, and resume business as normal. Right now, unfortunately, that feels far distant.
Posted by: Ugh
“Separately, do we now have the GWB problem, only much worse, of POTUS going with the recommendation of whatever person spoke with him last?”
I will bet that by 2020, Dubya will be down one notch on the list of Bad Presidents.
I think those analysing Clinton’s speech for context and intent surrounding the ‘basket of deplorables’ remark miss the point. It’s a memorable phrase, and no one who wrote (or listened to) the speech could miss that, so it has to stand on its own. Which it does, but not in a good way.
One of the things most notable to me was the (what appeared genuinely felt) insistence on the part of so many ordinary Trump supporters that “she lies”, while he “tells the truth”. The latter can be rebutted with dozens of documented examples, but that again is to miss the point.
“He tells the truth” because the stuff he says clearly isn’t written for him; it’s stream of consciousness; conversation. To analyse the veracity of his statements is beside the point. Why they appeal to those who are fed up with politicians, is precisely because they are so obviously not focus grouped; carefully parsed; constrained by the script.
And if his prejudices accord with yours, he’s telling it like it is.
In sharp contrast, Clinton speaking in public, sometimes sounds as though she doesn’t really believe what she’s saying (even when analytically it’s quite clear that she does, and you agree with her). And while you might think Trump would tell you exactly what he thinks of you without reservation, you could believe that Clinton would calculate whether or not to do so.
In that context a memorable phrase in a Clinton speech takes on an emotional weight which the rest of what she says lacks. Does that make sense ?
(It’s late, & I’m tired and rambling a bit….)
And since y’all were too shy to ask, here’s my take on some of the stuff the left does wrong
GFTNC is a very kind and gracious person.
For myself, I’ll simply say I’m not interested in the lecture. My idea of constructive dialog does not begin with “tell me all of the things that you think I am doing wrong”.
The things that I value and that are important to me, and how I live those things out, are really not anything that are on offer for your, or anyone’s, approval. They are important to me for my own reasons. Your opinion of, or reaction to, them are not something that really enters into my personal calculus.
What HRC did or did not do in her campaign is not anything I have any control over or anything to do with at all. Perhaps address your comments to her.
There really is no organized left. There are just people, of all kinds, at all different points on the left-of-center spectrum. And, relative to the rest of the world, they’re barely left at all. So, whatever audience you think you are addressing this to, most likely does not exist.
If you are interested in talking about what is important to you, and why, that would be of interest to me. If you are interested in knowing what is important to me, and why, that would be of interest to me.
If you just want to get some crap off your chest, fine. We all need to go there now and then.
But I’m not interested in the lecture.
Leaving all of the stupid “who’s a bad person” bullshit to the side, the Trump presidency is very likely to do serious damage to a lot of things that I value very highly. I’m willing to swallow that because it’s more important to me to preserve our peaceable, orderly way of going about things than it is to win them all.
It’s a bitter fucking pill, and to be perfectly honest I fucking hate it, all of it. Quite frankly, I’m stunned to find us – not “us, the left”, but “us, the nation” – in this position.
But I’ll swallow it. Because I’m an American, that this is how we do things.
But I am not by god interested in your opinion about what “the left” does or does not do correctly.
Thanks.
I’ve been on the receiving end of this crap my whole life.
OMG, now NV has joined the hacking knot elitist resentment league.
gleeful
Consider giving this word back to Glenn. It’s become tired, completely because of him. I used it in a sentence recently and felt a weird feeling above my navel.
tolerance for hearing it like it is about them. And that’s a problem.
But that is what you do, NV. And do with that lovely word salad.
For myself, I’ll simply say I’m not interested in the lecture.
Thank you so much, russell. I’m not either.
In fact, I resent it. Yes, we all can play the resentment game, and maybe until inauguration, I’ll just show you how f’ing beautiful your brand looks
The last paragraph of my rant was directed at McKinney, not russell, just to be clear. And NV can probably appreciate the resentment orgy as well. This will be so much fun!
It’s a bitter fucking pill, and to be perfectly honest I fucking hate it, all of it. Quite frankly, I’m stunned to find us – not “us, the left”, but “us, the nation” – in this position.
But I’ll swallow it. Because I’m an American, that this is how we do things.
But I am not by god interested in your opinion about what “the left” does or does not do correctly.
Thanks.
Thank you, russell. Sorry – my rants may be incomprehensible, but they’re not directed at you. You speak rationality for me this evening. Hope it comes back to me.
OMG, now NV has joined the hacking knot elitist resentment league.
My first truly heartfelt laugh of the day.
Thank you.
Is it? Is it really?
FFS, yes. yes it is.
read what she said. wallow in the blessed context and let these ridiculous demons, which cause you to constantly misrepresent her, be free.
Throwing out the terms by themselves might be fine for intragroup communication, but it’s a pretty damned sure way to miscommunicate outside of your tribe.
SHE WAS GIVING A SPEECH, FOR HER SUPPORTERS, AT RALLY
where’s your self-righteous indignation when Trump said he feels entitled to grab women by their pussies? what the fuck is in it for you that you feel compelled to constantly shit on your ostensible allies?
A family member posted this on his Facebook page earlier today. I thought I would share:
right now there’s a gleeful push on one side to dispense with cutting it out in favor of telling it like it is.
the funny thing about this comment is that I don’t know which side you’re talking about.
Let’s come down to practicalities. President He, Trump and the GOP that coughed him up will have complete control of the federal government for at least two years. They will do things that will hurt the very people who voted for them. How do we elitist librul Democrats make them own those things?
I’m really asking; I don’t know. The best I can think of is to urge our minority Congresscritters to propose ENORMOUS tax cuts for the not-rich. I mean yuge, budget-busting tax cuts. Let the GOP and their faux-populist con man in the White House argue against that. Force them to make their case publicly, to the “economically-oppressed working-class whites” they claim to champion. Disingenuous? Sure. But if this election proved anything, it proved that half the US electorate will fall for anything.
–TP
I thought NV was agreeing with Russell– they both get attacked for being lefties or being different from conservatives. Sapient seemed to be reading that differently. Personally, as a man of the people I share the Heartland’s suspicion of anyone who knows what a hacking knot is. This is probably the basis of a coalition of the disgruntled. Small beginnings.
On McT, I have no objection at all to the lecture. I just don’t agree with much of it, but it’s good to know how one conservative sees the left.
Tonyp, they might agree with such cuts if they can give proportional ones to the rich. Republicans don’t care about deficits so long as rich people benefit from tax cuts. Or it has been that way in the past and they can probably pivot back to it once in power.
“This is probably the basis of a coalition of the disgruntled”
dude, you don’t know the half of it. even as we speak, coastal elitists are draining kegs through the heartland and refilling them with rose from the cote du ventoux.
all your bud are belong to us.
we’really taking this to the mat, my friend. you have been warned.
Donald,
My poor little suggestion won’t work? Okay: what else can Democrats do to make the He, Trump GOP own the misery they will inflict on their own half of the population?
Or do you think that Democrats should avoid rubbing the Trump voters’ noses in their own self-inflicted misery?
I’m taking it for granted, BTW, that the Trump voters really do care about their own economic circumstances, and not the kind of misery that comes from seeing America turn more brown, more cosmopolitan, and more educated than they are. That kind of misery will surely be relieved by the actions — or at least the rhetoric — of the He, Trump Administration.
–TP
I don’t know if it will work or not. I am guessing some Republicanscwould embrace tax cuts for lower income people if that could act as cover for massive tax cuts for their real constituency the rich. In the past they have shed their concern for deficits in a heartbeat if it enabled them to cut taxes for the wealthy. Are things different now? For some, probably not but in the age of Trump it’s hard to say how Republicans are going to act.
It would be great to expose o Trump as a fraud for those who voted for him because of their own miserable circumstances. I assume Trump will eventually do that himself, but if the process can be speeded along that’s fine.
Consider giving this word back to Glenn. It’s become tired
Oh, is it a bore? Is it as much of a bore as you conflating Glenn Greenwald with everyone you disagree with? Wait, no, silly me: that could never become tired!
—
FFS, yes. yes it is.
FFS, no. No it isn’t. At first it’s cute to see people argue language is simple and unambiguous and words will always mean precisely what they mean, but it gets old eventually, because language is complex and a collaborative process and words can only mean what they seem to mean.
I… can’t help but notice how you’re defending language that Clinton herself walked back. That’s… interesting.
what the fuck is in it for you that you feel compelled to constantly shit on your ostensible allies?
Oh, from you, that’s extremely rich. Thanks for a laugh.
This really shouldn’t be hard to understand. The centerist establishment of the Democrats made grievous and predictable – indeed, predicted – errors over the last four years that brought us to where we are. The same individuals and groups who were responsible for the fiasco you argue didn’t really happen are, predictably, trying to divert blame from the likes of them to the likes of me. Some allies. They wrecked the party. They need that pinned on their foreheads and they need driven out of power, never to return. You don’t want to apportion blame, which is your right. But your righteous condemnation of criticism of them is rather hard to take seriously. The faction you backed made horrible mistakes. Given the chance, they’ll make them again. The solution to that is not to rally around them and be as supportive of them as possible. They brought us here, and they did so while lecturing us on how only they could and would prevent exactly what came to pass. They’re self-serving, and they gambled with the nation in a bid to bolster their own power. They’re no allies of mine, and frankly they’re no allies of yours. They’re their own allies, and that’s it. They can’t be allowed to walk away from this. They need to own it. And that’s the last thing they’re going to do unless a whole lot of angry people make a concerted effort to “$hit on [them]”.
What’s in it for me? Pretty simple: I don’t want to see another 11/9. What’s in it for you that you feel compelled to attack anyone who wants to look at how we got where we are?
Tonyp, they might agree with such cuts if they can give proportional ones to the rich.
I very much doubt that. I remember GOPsters quite recently attacking the irresponsible tax cut plans of other GOPsters for the sole reason that there was anything tax-cutty in it for the non-rich. The message was crystal clear: the have-nots are not paying enough. It’s not sufficient anymore to just free the rich from taxes. There MUST be some extra hurt for the non-rich too.
The TP may talk populist but when it comes to the votes, they are with the optimates all the way.
Personally I think they despise the rubes at least as much as the smug liberal elitists do.
The GOP are not the Nazis, rather a more successful version of the Harzburg Front.
I don’t think there is anything you can do to make Trump and the Republicans own what happens when they do what they promised. Scapegoating is part of the formula. Their supporters already know who to blame when things go wrong. Do everything you can to protect those targets, but beyond that? Your guess is as good as mine.
Hartmut– you might be right. They care about deficits if they can blame them on a Democrat or as a reason to cut Social Security or welfare. They don’t care if they cut taxes for the rich. Tonyp’s proposal would be a dilemma– do they use it as cover for tax cuts for the rich or do they oppose it because the tax cuts are going to some extent to the great unwashed? My guess is that they will go for the tax cuts and try to cut spending on social programs and increase spending for the military.
Oh, is it a bore?
No, it’s disgust.
They brought us here, and they did so while lecturing us on how only they could and would prevent exactly what came to pass.
I assume you’re now working hard within the Democratic party or another one to bring in new candidates that can be supported by a larger coalition. Who’ve you got in mind? It will be helpful if the person is white, because Republicans now have free reign to enact whatever voter suppression measures seem to have worked for them, as well as new ones. Makes the arithmetic for your projected coalition easier.
And those disaffected coal miners will be getting their jobs back. They’ll soon be truly happy just like before!
More unwanted input:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-the-unbearable-smugness-of-the-press-presidential-election-2016/
I’m sure if the press stopped being smug (assuming arguendo) that they would stop fearing for their safety in Trump country.
Hi McKinney,
Here’s a lecture for the side that won.
Tell me what they did ‘right’.
BP–that’s preaching to the choir, the same lefty narrative we’ve been hearing since forever. I’m not wild about DT in the Oval Office, but if y’all expect to win national campaigns, dial back categorizing people who disagree as bigots.
I laughed at Doc”s misogyny post, imagining just how misogynistic it would have been to vote against Carly Fiorina, had she won the nomination. Or to oppose Ted Cruz, an Hispanic (which I do w glee).
Sorry, but this is self aggrandizing, self victimization.
McKinney,
The evidence is overwhelming. Trump won big in the white vote for just about every conceivable category you can come up with. He fucking said that 5 black guys wrongly convicted of a crime should be executed.
And they voted for him anyway. If that is not a collective act of racism, then the word has no meaning.
And they voted for him anyway. If that is not a collective act of racism, then the word has no meaning.
This is true. Not only (if we had wanted to win) should we have refrained from calling out bigots, we should have put a bigot in the running!
Thanks for the advice, McKinney. I’d prefer that we not have to do that.
Ok, you win. Pls continue calling everyone who doesn’t agree with you bigots of whatever kind. It’s a brilliant vote-getting strategy and I commend it you.
And they voted for him anyway. If that is not a collective act of racism, then the word has no meaning.
You might consider that some of those voting for Trump (which I did not) were doing so out of racism. BUT, others voted for him for other reasons — and some of those did so in spite of his racism, because they considered other issues more important.
Now I suppose you could argue that it is racism to regard any issue as more important than racism. But absent that (which is IMO a real stretch) you can’t say that racism was involved in every vote for him.
It’s a brilliant vote-getting strategy and I commend it you.
We should all get on board with people who want to execute innocent black men! It’s actually the winning vote-getting strategy! Those nice people!
BUT, others voted for him for other reasons — and some of those did so in spite of his racism, because they considered other issues more important.
Well bless their little hearts. They must have actually voted for him because of his sterling reputation as an honest businessman!
They must have actually voted for him because of his sterling reputation as an honest businessman!
Well, some of them probably (no certainly) did. You and I may consider that reputation garbage. But sufficiently low-information voters actually believed that.
And others may have done it because, to take the obvious example, the prospect of getting anti-abortion judges on the Supreme Court was more important to them than anything else. Again, no racism involved.
In short, there are a wide variety of motives. You may consider the other ones to ridiculous for words, given what Trump has actually done over the years. That doesn’t mean that a) most Trump voters know as much about his record as you do, and b) a lot of Trump voters have your priorities. Sad, perhaps, but still true.
McK are you making the argument that animus toward blacks, or Hispanics, or Muslims, is not part of Trump’s appeal?
Or just that, in the interest of effective political tactics, people shouldn’t call that out?
And yes, I’m aware of and happy to call out liberal elite classist bigotry toward rural America. So, consider that noted.
I’m just trying to understand the specific point you’re making.
Hartmut: “The GOP are not the Nazis, rather a more successful version of the Harzburg Front.”
Well I guess *someone* has some pretty high standards for “Nazis”! Okay! Good to know!
Tony P: Time to propose the “negative Death Tax”: Heirs of dead billionaires not only pay ZERO Death Tax, but also get a $1M tax-free ‘bounty’ from the US Government to assuage their grief.
And since all GOP billionaires have strong, loving, religiously observant families, they have nothing to fear, amirite?
(details of preventing fraud while claiming the “negative Death Tax”, by stapling the head to your 1040 form, to be worked out in committee)
GFTNC is a very kind and gracious person.
I’m not, particularly. But I care about courtesy, and I believe that if we all retreat into our own comfortable little bubbles, and never speak sincerely and in good faith with people of opposing opinions, we are permanently as opposed to temporarily lost. Trump is a bigot, but not everyone who voted for him is. Hillary was the wrong candidate, whatever her undoubted (to me and sapient at least) good qualities. Something has gone badly wrong for the Dems, and we must hope they figure out whatever the hell it is, and act in time to fight the coming various elections. Of course, something has gone badly wrong for the Republicans too, but only the thoughtful ones know it.
I think Hillary was the wrong candidate for the time; she had a lot of the ‘competent technocrat’ vibe that did in Al Gore.
But this was an election for raising hell about all the stuff that’s messed up, i.e., economic populism. Bernie had that, but other liabilities. Once Trump started with the economic populism, campaigning against him on those terms would have been exchanging accusations of dishonesty, which isn’t a winning formula.
I look forward to the Trump plan to heavily penalize companies that offshore US jobs, I do.
Hopefully, this will be the last presidential election of the twentieth century.
Now I suppose you could argue that it is racism to regard any issue as more important than racism.
It was a primal scream of collective white resentment. This does not mean that each and every individual that voted for him is a bigot. Take the battles over school bussing. Why, many of those nice decent white folks who took the streets would argue till they were blue in the face that they were not racist.
But taken collectively, they were. That people even deny this is a stain on our political system and a willful ignoring of actual reality.
Hopefully, this will be the last presidential election of the twentieth century.
But I hope it’s not the last presidential election. It might be.
It was a primal scream of collective white resentment.
And it looks like this.
It was a primal scream of collective white resentment.
If you can show that “white resentment” was the (or even just a) driving factor for a majority of Trump’s supporters, then sure. Not necessarily what they say motivated them, but (like your anti-bussing example) a plausible-to-attribute motivation.
But at the moment, all I’ve seen falls into the category of “well it must have been racism, because why else would anyone vote for him?” As noted above, some doubtless were motivated by racism. But how many?
Maybe this thought experiment will help clarify what I am trying to say. Picture an election where there is one (1) racist voter per state. And the winning candidate wins each state that he wins by one vote. Was racism the deciding factor? You could make that argument. I think it’s a real stretch, but it arguable. But can you say that the result is a primal scream of racism? No way that I can see — after all, in this thought experiment the total number of racists nationwide was under 50.
A lot of it undoubtedly was white racism at work. All over the place, aimed in various directions. But not all and that you can see in the places that were hurting and had supported Obama in previous elections.
It’s multicausal. And in individual people you could also have people who were both racist and hurting due to trade policy or whatever, or maybe they were Christian conservatives who voted because they think Trump will put in a SC justice who will overturn Roe. I read the threads of a couple of conservative blogs these days and I see various types of Trump supporters, including one or two that were alt right (nasty, nasty person) and everything imaginable. I am not real fond of most of them–there are even Trump supporters who voted that way for anti-imperialist reasons. No, not defending this line of reasoning and I won’t give their argument, but they exist.
And clearly poor whites voted for Trump for a mixture of reasons, one of which was the way they feel abandoned. That’s just not deniable. Were many of them also racist? No doubt. And resentment tends to magnify that.
BTW, if I posted anonymously I could tell you about people I know in real life, but there’s always a chance someone I know could stumble on this. But real people are often complicated.
Maybe this thought experiment will help clarify what I am trying to say.
No, it does not. Given Trump’s obvious blatant racism, his entire candidacy should have been a TOTAL non-starter.
You can try to reason your way out of that fact in any number of ways, but none of them pass the smell test IMHO.
“You’re a racist if you vote for Trump”
VS
“Trump is a racist. You are voting for a racist.”
Trump is a bigot, but not everyone who voted for him is.
I made a reply to this earlier, which seems to have gotten lost. I think it’s probably too long, so I’m going to do it in parts, because I need to get this off my chest and get on with my day. Apologies if it shows up multiple times.
Yes, I agree that not everyone who voted for Trump is a bigot. Further, it’s not clear to me that Trump himself is a bigot, personally.
All good.
That said, a lot of folks who voted for Trump are bigots. Specifically, they have an animus towards blacks and/or Hispanics especially Mexicans and/or Muslims. And, they are comfortable with the use of extremely negative language about women.
That is, frankly, not unusual for any random collection of humans, and it doesn’t really turn my head.
It’s also clear to me that Trump deliberately appealed to that aspect of his supporters throughout his campaign. Maybe that’s just optics, but that is surely how it looks to me.
That is unusual for a candidate for POTUS and is, frankly, not something that should be excused.
“You’re a racist if you vote for Trump”
VS
“Trump is a racist. You are voting for a racist.”
Sure, McKinney. Obviously that’s more polite. We should all be politically correct, now, huh? And, yet, none of us should ever be “scripted”, should we.
The winning [electoral college] candidate was not “politically correct.” Only Democrats [popular vote winners] must shut their mouths, for fear of offending, but then they’re accused of being “politically correct”.
Part 2:
Here are the choices that appear to be available to me regarding the “bigotry” question:
1. Ignore it in the hope of not offending people
2. Call it out as unacceptable
The claim is that, by not offending people, I might have a better chance of furthering goals that are important to me.
The thing is, this has been going on for, at least, 40 years. I don’t see that any particular gains have been made by trying not to offend people by calling out what is, to me, unacceptable behavior.
So, at this point I’ve landed on the “call it out” side of the fence.
“Trump is a racist. You are voting for a racist.”
Then he should have gotten few, if any votes.
But he didn’t.
Trump voter: “Gosh, I’m really sorry. I didn’t think he would go that far.
“Really, I am not a racist.”
Excuse me while I barf.
no more parts, sorry. apparently I broke the internet.
I, for one, would like to hear Hartmut’s analysis of the blame that should be apportioned to those who voted for Hitler in 1932.
Their economic pain was unbearable, I’m sure.
Their economic pain was unbearable, I’m sure.
Also, be sure not to call them bigots. Hitler was the bigot. They were just good people who wanted Volkswagens.
no more parts, sorry. apparently I broke the internet.
it was probably that damned whatever-it-is knot.
“it was probably that damned whatever-it-is knot.”
LOL.
Basically, a lot of Trump’s supporters are bigots. Not all, but many.
I support, fully, the interests of people who have been screwed over by the last 35 years of neo-liberal fundamentalism.
I do not and will not support bigotry.
If that bugs people, that is their problem, not mine.
If people don’t want to feel badly about themselves, then they should try being better people.
Given Trump’s obvious blatant racism, his entire candidacy should have been a TOTAL non-starter.
You can try to reason your way out of that fact in any number of ways, but none of them pass the smell test IMHO.
And, later,
“Trump is a racist. You are voting for a racist.”
Then he should have gotten few, if any votes.
OK, for you racism is an absolutely overwhelming consideration. Understood.
But you might consider that there are others, a huge number of them actually, who have different priorities. Many of them may, probably do, agree with you that racism is terrible thing. But they think there are other things which are more critical when it comes to voting.
You clearly disagree with them strongly on that. But their different priorities don’t make them racists.
“You’re a racist if you vote for Trump”
VS
“Trump is a racist. You are voting for a racist.”
Sure, McKinney. Obviously that’s more polite. We should all be politically correct, now, huh?
You, apparently, see only political correctness (aka, in non-pathological cases, good manners). But others see it as a matter of accuracy.
Look at it this way. There is a difference between saying “this is colored green” and “this is colored, therefore it is green.”
I’m sure Clinton had some racists who voted for her, though racism wasn’t something she was trying to appeal to AFAICT. That and I would guess the proportions are what make his racist supporters and hers different. But it’s not that all the racists, to a person, were on Trump’s side.
Amateur psychological speculation by me: People are funny, though. They’re capable of filtering out or overlooking undesirable aspects of things when they’re desperate or simply want something badly. Some of Trump’s supporters did that. They didn’t see the racism or blocked it our when they did, whether willfully or subconsciously.
Others saw it and said, “Yes! That’s what I’m about. White power, baby!”
I’m not really sure what we’re arguing about at this point. I don’t think anyone denies that racism was part of Trump’s campaign and appeal. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that racism should never be called out, at least not when called out with precision.
Maybe a better way to put that last:
“All these are colored, therefore are of them are green. Even if others insist that they are colored purple.”
wj,
All I am saying is that collectively, a large number of white people made a conscious decision that largely breaks on racial grounds to support an openly racist candidate. It’s not like it was some big secret.
I am not calling each and every one of them an openly bigoted racist. But your argument is weak tea. Sure, maybe a whole lot of them had “other priorities”, but for Christ’s sake…”I voted for the racist asshole because he promised a 45% import tariff on Chinese goods”…..really????? Words fail.
I keep repeating that it was a collective race based action, but you keep trying to argue it’s all about me calling out each and every one of them openly bigoted racists.
Forest. Trees.
If I walk into my house and find a pile of shit on the carpet, I’m not going to be all that concerned if its green or any other color.
This election outcome is a gigantic and terrible stain on our polity. Cleaning it up is going to be a really big chore.
Cleaning it up is going to be a really big chore.
Rhymes with chore.
your argument is weak tea. Sure, maybe a whole lot of them had “other priorities”, but for Christ’s sake…”I voted for the racist asshole because he promised a 45% import tariff on Chinese goods”…..really????? Words fail.
Actually, the economic arguments (not to mention the anti-abortion arguments) seem far from “weak tea”. People care, and care deeply, about those things. And they impact their lives, which is what most people’s votes are about, far more than racism. It may well seem to you like the other stuff is trivial by comparison. But not to them.
You might want to consider also that there were apparently a non-trivial number of blacks and Latinos who voted for Trump. Whose rationale, from what I have been reading, was explicitly economic. For them, too, his racism was less important than his economic message, even though they, personally, were on the negative end of that racism. You may think that daft of them to prioritize things that way. *I* certainly do. But that is how they decided who to vote for.
P.S. When you keep saying things like “collectively, they were [racist]” you really DO sound like you are saying everyone who voted for Trump is a racist. That may not be what you mean, but that is definitely how it reads.
…a non-trivial number of blacks and Latinos who voted for Trump.
And, I suspect, there was also a non-trivial number of people of all stripes who walked into the voting booth and voted for Trump with a raised middle finger in the direction of Washington D.C.
Personally I’m less concerned about what people’s motives were for whoever they voted for, and more concerned about what appears to be a sense that, since Trump won, bigotry is now acceptable.
The tone of his campaign, and of his own words, encouraged that. If you don’t see that, I’m not sure what there is to talk about here.
And that is, in fact, a real phenomenon.
It’s not acceptable, and won’t be accepted.
There are a million other issues – tangible, substantive issues of public policy – that are going to be fought over over the next few years.
But I’m simply not engaging with people who talk about niggers, or beaners, or bad hombres, or cunts. Or who want to “string the bitch up”. Or who feel entitled to harrass Muslims. Or who feel entitled to engage in threatening behavior or language.
All of those things are happening, and will continue to happen.
They won’t be accepted.
More people voted against Trump than voted for him.
People care, and care deeply, about those things
Indeed. There are other big themes to consider. It would be rash to ignore them.
But to deny racism was a MAJOR factor in how this election came down, or worse, to work so hard to explain it away as somehow ‘effing excusable…well, that is where we part company.
You’re telling me it’s OK for people to go around saying, “Well, I didn’t really mean to be racist”. But I saw what they did, and it is blindingly at odds with what they say.
See the Sapient link above from LG&M. It is to be ashamed of our country.
I’ll take door #immoderate for the win on this one, alex.
You might want to consider also that there were apparently a non-trivial number of blacks and Latinos who voted for Trump.
A small minority. The white vote should have broken the same way.
But it didn’t.
That’s the difference.
I’m less concerned about what people’s motives were for whoever they voted for, and more concerned about what appears to be a sense that, since Trump won, bigotry is now acceptable.
I am concerned about that as well. It took us a long time to get to the point where overt bigotry was unacceptable (at least in public). And now we are going to have to go through that whole effort all over again.
The younger generation seems to have absorbed the public cultural norm that it was not acceptable to a significant degree. Which makes me hopeful that it won’t take as long this time. But yes, it’s going to take a lot of effort that we shouldn’t have needed to make. Sigh.
open racists support(ed) Trump because they think he agrees with them. they think he will champion their causes. they think he is on their side. and Trump didn’t work very hard to prove them wrong, did he?
his own words on the topic would have disqualified anyone else. and his campaign was staffed at the very top by people who traffic in racial strife.
the open racists like him because they think he’s going to do things that make them happy. i think they’re right. maybe he won’t enact apartheid or whatever, but he’s going to let the racist wing of the GOP start chipping away at things like the Voting Rights Act.
Bobby, 10%-15% is indeed a small minority of blacks and Latinos voting for Trump. But it’s also a LOT of people. Which tells me that non-racist motivations were likely several times that large among voters who were not, personally, targeted by the racism.
It’s fine to say that whites who were not targets “should” have voted in the same proportions. But that amounts to saying “people should believe what I do, with the same priorities.” Maybe, in an ideal world, they would. But here and now…?
And now we are going to have to go through that whole effort all over again.
Yes, that’s right.
So far, we’ve had the KKK marching around on some highway overpass in SC.
The Boston Public Schools have brought in counselors to work with the Dream Act kids who are freaking out because they think they are going to be sent back to some country they have no memory of whatsoever. And, they’re right, that is what is going to happen to them.
A friend shared a picture of a note left on a local priest’s windshield. Either the priest is gay, or somebody thinks he’s gay, and the note let him know that person would be coming after him soon.
A friend shared an email from a friend of hers, who was publicly harassed for wearing a hijab.
These are Trump’s people. I say this because they identify themselves as such.
This is day 2.
Among the things I’m doing to prepare for the Trump administration is looking for a good self-defense course for seniors. Too many people I know and care about are vulnerable to harassment and threats (or reality) of violence. I’m not putting up with it.
I’m not taking crap off of bullies, and I’m not letting my friends and loved ones take crap off of bullies.
They can crawl back down whatever hole they crawled out of.
Maybe, in an ideal world, they would. But here and now…?
Yes. Absolutely.
But yes, it’s going to take a lot of effort that we shouldn’t have needed to make.
Agree.
So far, we’ve had the KKK marching around on some highway overpass in SC.
and then some… http://whywereafraid.com/
and some more:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/muslim-women-wearing-hijabs-assaulted-just-hours-after-trump-win-n681936
and some more:
https://thinkprogress.org/children-are-already-being-harassed-in-the-name-of-our-president-elect-5b2d381cf588#.b4h2rljz8
We need to have a plan. An immediate plan.
what I expect of trump is that he settle these goons the hell down.
we’ll see what happens.
in any case, I’m not putting up with it.
wj,
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all about racism.* I pretty much agree with this analysis.
*The reason I get so worked up on it is the widespread belief that, “hey, aren’t we great! We don’t have to worry about that any more!” Which, IMHO, is pure BS.
McK,
I anticipate peripheral tweaks on the regulatory side.
I think that’s wildly optimistic. I think we are in for a massive rollback, and I think it will be disastrous.
Look, climate change non-policies are going to disastrous in themselves, leaving all else – and that’s a lot – aside.
BP, I think Loomis is right. But I think Democrats may also want to take a look at this
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-were-no-purple-states-on-tuesday/
Absent a return of ticket splitting, if Democrats want to do things, they are going to not only broaden their coalition to the point where they can capture a majority of electoral votes. They are going to have to figure out how to broaden it to the point that they can win in a majority of the states. Otherwise, the Senate will be out of reach no matter how the total popular vote goes.
wj,
Kevin Drum weighs in here. When it comes to moderate (there’s that word again) liberals, well, you can count on KD.
There is no way to broaden the electoral vote map beyond that which has traditionally been a Dem Party preserve. The electoral system was designed to enhance the power of rural male white southerners. The loss of the industrial midwest (MI, WI, OH, etc.) is what did Hillary in.
Nobody gives a crap about Idaho and Montana. And how are the Dems, a largely big city party, going to win over some Wyoming rancher who believes the Federal Reserve system is unconstitutional? That somehow, federal land holdings are “theft”?
If recent history is any guide, the dems need to do what the GOP did. Consolidate their base on deeply ideological messaging and unrelenting advocacy of lefty public policies….like a jobs guarantee, just to name one.
Don’t know if that is true, but hey, as a wild eyed lefty, it has a certain amount of appeal to me.
One suggestion I saw was for blue-leaning folks to move to red states, just to offset the tendency we’ve had over the last generation to segregate ourselves into political ghettos.
Which makes sense on paper.
Meanwhile, the neighbor of a good friend was called a faggot while he was crossing the street two blocks from his house. Two guys in a car with a Trump bumper sticker.
Same guy’s sister had her crotch grabbed in line at a drugstore today.
In the same neighborhood somebody spray painted ‘nigger’ on some guys car.
This is in Salem freaking MA. Today.
You’ll forgive me if my focus is not on policy and long-term strategy right now. Friends of mine, people I love, are afraid for their physical safety. Gay couples I know are afraid their right to have their marriages legally recognized are going to be reversed, along with their rights to custody of their kids.
This is day fucking two after the election. Trump is not even POTUS yet.
In another thread, Marty offered his opinion that some friends of mine sucked as parents because their kid was afraid of Trump.
Well, I’m fucking afraid of Trump, and most of the people I know are afraid of Trump. Why should a 12 year old kid be different?
I’m still waiting for Trump to call for this shit to stop. I’m hearing crickets.
I’m not taking this crap lightly. If folks want violence, I won’t run from it. I’m not looking for it, but neither am I going to live in fear or watch my friends and loved ones live in fear.
This is what people said was coming, and folks said they were being ridiculous.
Well, here it is. Welcome to Trump’s America. If nobody gets killed before Inauguration day, it will be a miracle.
You’ll forgive me if my focus is not on policy and long-term strategy right now.
No, it shouldn’t be. That would be for normal times. This is what we face.
Nobody gives a crap about Idaho and Montana.
And there, in a nutshell, is the heart of the problem for Democrats. Those two states have the same number of Senators as California and New York. So if you care about the Senate (and if you want bills passed, or even just appointments confirmed, you should), then you damn well better “give a crap” about them.
You could start by noting that Montana, last I looked, had a Democratic governor. So it should be possible to elect Democratic Senators there, too. IF you are willing to exert yourselves and devote some (national) party resources to doing so. Rather than just announcing that you don’t give a crap about them — which is exactly the attitude which got them mad at “the elites” in the first place.
And Leonard Cohen has left us. 51 more days until we can put 2016 in the rear view mirror.
So it should be possible to elect Democratic Senators there, too.
John Tester, (D) Montana.
And my money helped put him there. I do, in fact, give a crap about Idaho and Montana.
In my case, you’re preaching to the choir.
Now I’m gonna go try to talk some more of my friends down off the ledge. Then, I’m gonna read up on how to set up a neighborhood watch, and what best practices are for helping people be safe in dangerous places.
Because apparently I live in one now.
Just words when Trump says the kind of shit he says, right? He doesn’t really mean it.
Yes, Russell, I know you understand this already. But, apparently, Bobby does not.
wise up, bobby.
“I’m still waiting for Trump to call for this shit to stop. I’m hearing crickets.”
You mean while they are hanging him in effigy yelling curse words at him in front of his apartment building in New York, Burning flags in the street, calling for his assassination?
Where are those things on your list of pretty questionable sh!t?
Spray painting, that sucks, call the cops, just like you would have two days ago.
You are asking me to believe that someone grabbed some woman because, Trump? That’s crap. And if it happened(Trump or no Trump), I hope she decked him and everyone around helped.
Two guys in a car just happened to call some guy crossing the street a faggot? How did they know? What was their reason to even call him anything? Or even notice him?
Your list is getting hard to process.
“McK are you making the argument that animus toward blacks, or Hispanics, or Muslims, is not part of Trump’s appeal?
Or just that, in the interest of effective political tactics, people shouldn’t call that out?
And yes, I’m aware of and happy to call out liberal elite classist bigotry toward rural America. So, consider that noted.”
Again, there seems to be deep confusion about trying to attack what you think of as the ‘typical’ Republican and trying to dissect why Clinton lost.
They aren’t the same question.
Even if we grant that the ‘typical’ Republican is a mouth breathing neck bearded racist, those people have been voting for Republicans for decades.
Clinton lost because she lost all the regular Republican States AND additionally lost 4 of the rust belt states. Those states have regularly gone for Democrats. Those states voted for Obama by fairly large margins.
Think about that for a second. Clinton lost because in addition to the states that Obama (a black man) lost, she lost 4 other states. You want to use racism as the explanation you want to use to explain why she lost those four states that voted for a black man 4 years ago and 8 years ago.
If you really want to hang your analysis on racism, you are going to need to explain why these racists voted for a black man for president.
Why did they do that?
Not just in Salem, it seems.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing
“This is White America now”.
To paraphrase the line from a Woody Allen movie, a baseball bat is more effective than an Op-Ed in the Times.
apologize for this, Marty:
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/796713876788232196?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
why these racists voted for a black man for president.
you have the stats that show the exact number of people who voted for both Obama and Trump? share!
come on Marty, tell us how this is all Obama’s fault:
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/education/index.ssf/2016/11/students_yelling_cotton_picker_heiling_hitler_at_this_local_school.html#incart_most-read_warren-county_article
Your list is getting hard to process.
How many lines do you want to cross with me? What I am, fucking lying?
People in my neighborhood are being harassed by Trump supporters. For being black, gay, or women.
If you can’t process that, go piss up a rope.
Thanks.
Well, Trump got fewer total votes than either McCain or Romney got when running against Obama.
So perhaps the question ought to be not “Why did Trump get more votes than Clinton?” but rather “Why did Clinton get so many fewer votes than Obama?”
I am not going to apologize for that, but I was in Boston all day. I hung out with my buddy who panhandles on Atlantic outside the bus station, I talked to the guys who work security in my building, I was through south Station three times and I didn’t see a single incident all day.
The people Shaun King is describing should be arrested, will be if it happens enough, and things will move on. Threatening to assassinate the president isn’t really gonna help get over that hurdle.
I am not going to apologize for that,
no, you’re going to dismiss it as an aberration and try to change the subject.
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Vandals-Spray-Trump-2016-Over-Message-of-Unity-in-East-Haddam-400718971.html
your party. not mine.
If you want to create a log of everything that’s bad that happens and blame it on Trump getting elected you can piss up a rope. The Lehigh valley thing two comments up happened BEFORE the election.
The left, and you russell, are now completely unhinged from any sense of reality and flailing around.
Bad stuff happens, three days ago those same things would have been on some police blotter, or she would have kicked the guy in the nuts. Today they are “Trump people harassing the neighborhood”.
https://empireherald.com/two-mexican-teens-found-brutally-beaten-at-anti-trump-protest/
economic concerns, i’m sure.
Again, there seems to be deep confusion about trying to attack what you think of as the ‘typical’ Republican and trying to dissect why Clinton lost.
There seems to be deep confusion about what my concern is.
Yes, I completely understand that Clinton lost the rust belt. I completely understand that blue collar people, white black or plaid, in those places have basically been ignored, and they’re pissed off.
If I were them, I probably wouldn’t have voted for Clinton either. I don’t have a problem with them.
What I want is for some fucking conservative on this board to own and acknowledge that there is a significant number of people among Trump’s followers who are motivated by bigotry, and that in his campaign he deliberately exploited that.
I want that so I can know if I’m talking to people with an ounce of self-awareness, honesty, and good faith, or not.
To ignore the factor of bigotry in Trump’s campaign, and among his followers, is to have your head in the sand. And, it enables @ssholes to harass and assault my neighbors.
If conservatives will not speak up against it, then the folks who think it’s a great idea to do this shit will think they have the license to continue. It’s not that complicated.
I need the folks here who identify as conservative to at least have the decency to acknowledge that there is a problem.
Otherwise I don’t want anything to do with you. I have other people to take care of, I don’t have time to worry about your feelings.
Quit whining about voter suppression and taking HRC out of context. Voter ID laws aren’t that big of a deal and it isn’t etched in stone that states must allow X days of early voting.
I think it is avery big deal when one political party designs laws intended to keep legitimate voters from being able to vote. I do not see how this can be taken as anything except a very big deal in a nation that is supposed to be a representative democracy. It is unAmerian. As for early voting, no it is not etched in stone, but it says a lot about a politcal party that they want to manipulate the voting processes to make it ahrder for legitimate voters to vote.
Sure, let’s take Pennsylvania.
Presidential Vote share Democratic Party:
2016 48% (candidate was white)
2012 52% (candidate was black)
2008 54.7% (candidate was black)
Michigan
Presidential Vote share Democratic Party:
2016 48% (candidate was white)
2012 54.2% (candidate was black)
2008 57.4% (candidate was black)
Wisconsin
Presidential Vote share Democratic Party:
2016 47% (candidate was white)
2012 52.8% (candidate was black)
2008 56.2% (candidate was black)
These were the key states that Clinton lost. These are states that went strongly for Obama (a black man).
How is it that ‘racism’ explains a swing in these states?
“What I want is for some fucking conservative on this board to own and acknowledge that there is a significant number of people among Trump’s followers who are motivated by bigotry, and that in his campaign he deliberately exploited that.”
Which part of this do you think that, at a minimum, me and McK haven’t acknowledged for months? Which is the point at which I said I would never vote for him.
A significant number isn’t nearly all, the reality is that those people probably vote for him anyway so it was unnecessary to pander to them anyway.
The left, and you russell, are now completely unhinged from any sense of reality and flailing around.
Glad you had a nice day in Boston.
If we ever continue this conversation, it’s going to have to be another time. I’m done with having you tell me this shit is all in my head.
I live here. I know the people who are having this shit happen to them. Don’t ever try to tell me what I know and don’t know.
Seriously, I’m glad this conversation is not in person, and you should be too. And I’ll leave it at that.
Enjoy your visit.
What I want is for some fucking conservative on this board to own and acknowledge that there is a significant number of people among Trump’s followers who are motivated by bigotry, and that in his campaign he deliberately exploited that.
OK, you got it. A significant number of them are.
What I object to (and have been objecting to) is taking the step from “a significant number” to “most” or “all.” Which some here (although I don’t think you) have been doing. It’s not helpful to any kind of discussion, especially of where do we go from here.
So because of our disagreement I’m glad it is not in person?
You know russell for ten years I have had the highest respect for you, and do maintain that today.
Because of that, I will not be having this discussion here again. Your sense of vulnerability is more important than any point or any discussion on this blog. I hope I am right and all this fades to normal over a few days, but mostly I hope you get to fell safe again soon.
I am going to take a break from here.
Thank you.
Speaking for myself, I believe I have stated a number of times on this board that I have friends and family members who I respect and love who voted for Trump. In case it’s not clear, I do not believe that all Trump supporters are racists or bigots.
What I want is for the Trump supporters, or even just conservatives in general, who are not racists and bigots, to speak up against the folks who are taking Trump’s victory as a license to harass and threaten other people.
I’d really like Trump himself to do it, but so far I haven’t seen that.
And what I’ve seen and heard from the Trump supporters I know about this stuff is silence. Nothing. Nobody who will step up and acknowledge that this shit is going on.
To say the least, that concerns me.
Also speaking for myself, I do not support people engaging in violent protest of Trump’s election. I believe I’ve made it clear that as far as I’m concerned, he won, and that’s done.
A lot of people are afraid, because they’ve worked extremely hard for a very long time to win the most basic place – the most basic rights and privileges – in their own nation and society, and they see that at risk.
If you can’t get your head around that, you’re no better than the elitist assholes who can’t understand the issues facing rural folks, or rust belt folks, or whoever.
And don’t fucking tell me not to worry, because nobody here knows how this is all going to play out.
So because of our disagreement I’m glad it is not in person?
Telling me that I’m unhinged from reality, and that the experiences of people that I know, personally, are either untrue or are of no consequence, is not a disagreement.
I agree, probably best to leave it for a while.
Peace out.
You know russell for ten years I have had the highest respect for you, and do maintain that today.
Thank you for your kind words here. Likewise.
I hope I am right and all this fades to normal over a few days, but mostly I hope you get to fell safe again soon.
Yes, me too, and I appreciate your thoughts.
I personally am fine. I feel in no danger, whatsoever, for myself.
A lot of people I know and care for are feeling themselves, their neighbors, and friends, to be at risk of losing things that are extremely important to them, and that they’ve worked very hard to achieve.
Their concerns are not idle, and deserve respect.
Please do not tell me that the things that are happening to people I know, are not happening.
Thank you.
Peace out.
wise up, bobby.
Haha. OK, Russell. I will.
It’s (I hope) not the end of the world. But I ask the Mckinneys and Martys of the world to consider this:
We OBSERVE (you know, fucking actual facts) wide racial disparities in housing, wealth, income, education…you name it, as between the races in this country. Then we hear all this whining about how ex white steelworkers in Ohio are really “not racists”.
It is hard to take this at face value. It is so obviously at odds with reality as to make me question the sanity of those who push this line of argument.
I don’t blame neglected white steelworkers. I blame whites…you know, US. For example: Rich white people voted overwhelmingly for Trump. I’m on their case as well, perhaps moreso. They had absolutely NOTHING to lose by having Hillary in office as opposed to Trump. It wouldn’t matter to them, materially, one damnned whit either way. But they voted for that racist asshole anyway.
As for Montana and Idaho, well, living in the Pacific NW, and many years in SE Washington (god, I miss the shadowy St. Joe), I kinda’ have a clue how rural farmers and workers think.
They are very nice folks, but when it comes to public policy, they are as closed minded, if not more so, than most. And really, the only thing that makes them “valuable” (in a political sense) is the ridiculous overweighting of their votes when it comes to the composition of the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College.
Thank you oh wise Founders! Jayzus.
If you read your history, these farmers, miners, and timber bucks used to take a strong stand against the financial elite….WJ Bryan, the Populists, the IWW.
But now? They are in the thrall of a GOP that has more disdain for them than any Barbs Streisand NY liberal could ever approach, and that is because the free market extremist ideologues in the GOP essentially see them as expendable, sacrifices on the alter of pure competitive free market theory. Capital uber alles.
It is a tragedy. It is a tragedy that otherwise intelligent people like Marty and Mckinney have fallen for this line of BS.
My wife teaches in a public high school in South King County. It has the most diverse student population of any high school in the state of Washington. Many are the children of immigrants taken in by this country due to wars, famine, and genocide. Most are non-white.
Good on us.
She told me how many of them were literally in tears after the election fearing imminent deportation of them, their family, or their friends.
Thank you wingnuts. Kiss my #ss.
Goodbye Medicare…
And that’s Paul Ryan, wonkiest wonk that ever wonked the wonk.
How is it that ‘racism’ explains a swing in these states?
As a see it, Sebastian, they had a choice as between an openly racist asshole and perhaps (as they might see it) a disengaged female Democrat.
And a significant number of them pulled the lever for the racist asshole, yes, even a good number of them who had previously voted for the black usurper.
Maybe you heard the story and interviews on NPR today with folks in NE Ohio. It was sad stuff. They know the factories are not coming back. They know this deep in their bones, some fantasies notwithstanding.
But they voted for the racist asshole anyway.
And they revelled in it.
But again, and I stress this, white people, on the whole, voted 2-1 for the racist asshole.
Just what the heck does this say about us?
And sure, they all have their ready at hand excuses. But I aver there is no excuse. None.
Maybe Hillary Clinton would not have done much for them, but she at least advocated policies to do a little (perhaps not enough, but whatever) to blunt economic inequality and decline.
What do standard issue Republicans offer? They offer nothing. But their champion, D. Trump offered anger and racial resentment.
And too many of them fell for it…hook, line, and sinker.
Goodbye Medicare…
I can only pray this turns out to be a classic case of overreach. I can smell the smoke already.
Let’s not forget that the ICE union endorsed Trump. Some bad hoodoo is going to go down.
“Goodbye Medicare…”
I can only pray this turns out to be a classic case of overreach. I can smell the smoke already.
Since turning Medicare into a voucher system is one of Ryan’s enthusiasms, I would be surprised if a bill to do that doesn’t get brought up. I’m not sure he can get it passed, but I fully expect him to try.
If he succeeds, we get to find out how sincere Trump was when he was saying that he wouldn’t touch Social Security and Medicare.
If the bill gets brought up, it hurts the GOP in the next election. If it passes, it hurts them worse.
And if it gets signed by Trump? As Bobby says, things get real ugly real fast.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I don’t know how numbers of who voted for who tells you about racism of the race. Given that about half of American eligible voters don’t vote, it could be that Trump’s unabashed appeals to racism had eligible voters turn out who didn’t turn out for Romney and various things had people stay home who did vote for Obama the last time.
A second thought is that this is the first time I’m happy my parents aren’t around. Aaron Sorkin started his letter that appeared in Vanity Fair with
Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from. That’s a terrible feeling for a father.
My folks, born in 1924 and 1936, felt (I am pretty sure) that the world was becoming, slowly but surely, a better place and I’m thankful that they were not around to feel as shattered as I did for my kids (their grandkids).
It’s been a pretty miserable few days, with all my Japanese colleagues asking me how this happened, and me trying to explain even though I really just wanted to crawl in a hole and not come out. Cause to try and explain how to foreigners without a complete background about US culture, election practices and politics, inevitably has any explanation come out as simplistic. Which makes me think that anyone, on either side, you makes the claim that this election ‘proves’ they were right about this or that really ought to look long and hard and consider whether it really does, or they just have a narrative they like so much that they can’t resist. Anyone who starts off with the claim they know why this happened has a long hill to climb before I’ll consider what they say.
Let’s not forget that the ICE union endorsed Trump.
and the FBI, too.
and the FBI, too.
I don’t know what Obama is up to at the moment. I hope he’s hiding the nuclear codes, for one thing, and I’m sure he’s trying to figure out what he can do, but I’d really love it if he forced the FBI to come clean on what happened with the election. Firing Comey would be counterproductive now, but an investigation into the Russian non-investigation comes to mind as a must-do.
just to show I’m willing to entertain contravening viewpoints….
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/there-was-no-apparent-whitelash-year
yes, yes…squishy liberal. But a smart guy.
http://www.mahablog.com/2016/11/09/primal-scream-time/
bit more eccentric left view. Check out the links.
I may be a lot different than most, because I would NEVER vote for an openly racist asshole just to get a couple hundred bucks tax cut, or a change to some other public policy that we fight over all the time, or to express some “FU, listen to me” message. NEVER.
Many white people did exactly that. I find it shameful.
Best wishes to all. See you at the Inauguration. After that, the fight resumes.
I intend to be in it.
Emotional stun passing: I was just reading about the lady who was out hiking and bumped into HRC and WJC walking their dogs a day or two after the election. She told HRC that taking her little daughter to the polling station when she voted for HRC was one of the proudest moments of her life, and as I read it I started crying, and I’m crying still. Shit shit shit shit shit.
p.s. sorry to be maudlin. Plus, from the sublime to the ridiculous: Snarki, TomCat traps have arrived, and they say they are one-use only. Is that true of the ones you have been using?
I can only pray this turns out to be a classic case of overreach. I can smell the smoke already.
Yes. Let’s encourage Ryan to talk often and loudly about this. Tell him it’s a brilliant plan to get himself elected President in 2020.
Who knows? Maybe he’ll fall for it.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
p.s. sorry to be maudlin.
You can be as maudlin as you like. I wasn’t a Hillary fan in 2008, but by the end of this campaign, I loved her. What really makes me mad is that people act like it’s perfectly normal and okay for the Russian government to hack the emails of one party so that they can be cherry picked for the worst possible sound bites to use against that campaign. WTF? Meanwhile racist scum Donald Trump’s everyday atrocities are so common and uneventful that nobody even bothers to mention most of them, and when they do it’s just another day at the beach.
I resent the hell out of the media for this.
Also, Donald Trump’s idea of “truth” threatens to become the new normal. Kellyanne Conway? Has she ever uttered a truthful word? And she’s supposedly the “respected” one, compared to Bannon, etc. I’d better take a break. My stomach ….
GfnTC,
There’s no reason at all not to re-use the TomCat traps. The manufacturers would obviously prefer that you daintily throw the trap away along with the dead mouse and buy another one, is all.
–TP
I use the TomCat traps over and over. With peanut butter bait, there’s often a enough bait left to just dump out the dead mouse and reset the trap…just add more bait as needed.
After a year or so (or ~ 8 mice), the plastic parts that “set” the trap get worn, and they stop working (in the sense that you can set the trap, but the trigger doesn’t work reliably)
Since the traps are plastic, if they get “messy”, just hose them off.
I wonder if Marmite would work as a bait, if peanut butter is hard to find?
have I ever told the story of how I ended up trying to paint little red dots on mouse butts?
Target practice?
Thanks Snarki and Tony P on TomKat question, answer is what I supposed, but v good to have confirmed. Snarki, we have plenty of peanut butter in these parts, so all good on that score, if on no other.
And now, for a radically different perspective, look at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/11/prediction-professor-who-called-trumps-big-win-also-made-another-forecast-trump-will-be-impeached/
The gist of it is, the Republicans will impeach Trump. He won’t be controllable by them, and Pence is one of their own. And it’s not like it would be hard to build a conflict of interest case, even if he doesn’t hand them a national security one.
The downside, obviously, is that it would massively reinforce the negative view of “the elites” the pervades Trump voters. But I’m not sure the ideologues in Congress are capable of seeing that. Let alone understanding the consequences.
“Target practice?”
lol
GftNC, darn, I was hoping that you’d be able to answer the question: “Marmite: mouse bait, repellent, or poison?”
Inquiring minds want to know.
I call ‘BS’ on the impeachment stuff. It’s about as serious and principled as the #NeverTrump effort.
More likely, the efforts will go into excusing and normalizing all new levels of corruption, conflict of interest, sexual assault, and foreign policy shenanigans. After all, it’s not like the congressional GOP has any actual *problems* with that stuff.
I have no faith that Republicans in Congress believe in the rule of law and no faith that they would impeach Trump even if he was causght red handed selling out NATO to Putin for personal financial gain.
I think that there is a reasonable possibiity that Trump will adopt Democratic policies on infrastructure and jobs and protecgting Medicare. If so the Repubs will gget the credit whic will piss me off no end since they ahve bee on the wrong side of those issues forever. However, ti will be better for us humans if they go Democratic on those issues.
meanwhile Turmp will be an environmental diaster and the media will not cover it and most peopel will not care.
He will probably do some high profile deprtgations as publicity stunts and thus pelease his base.
I have no idea what he will do on foriegn policy expcet please the Russians.
I donlt konw how he will respond to Republican effirts to pass national anti-union legislation, further shove tax repsonsibilities off he weathy and onto everyone else, or continue their attacks on government functions and the institutions of representative government,
I think that one of the most significant factors in our current politics is rightwing hate mongering. I donlt know waht to do about it, but I think we need to face it and realize the exgtent to which Repubican disinfromation and hate mongering is poinsoning our political sidcourse.
The point of an impeachment wouldn’t be that Trump had done something wrong. That would be the excuse/justification.
The reason would be to get Pence, a guy who is on board with their agenda, into the Presidency. Thus allowing them to enact things that Trump wouldn’t go for.
wonkie,
meanwhile Turmp will be an environmental diaster and the media will not cover it and most peopel will not care.
This is true, except that “disaster” may be too mild a term.
Indeed, environmental issues are one reason I’m not so ready to let neverTrumpers among the GOP off the hook for what’s coming. Like his tax and immigration policies, these are mainstream Republican policies, whatever someone thinks of Trump as an individual.
“Marmite: mouse bait, repellent, or poison?”
Hee hee. Actually, the point about Marmite is that for everyone except the diehard fan, the secret is to use it as a faint flavouring, much diluted with butter. Nigella Lawson, for examples beats a bit of marmite into the butter she spreads on bread for the quintessential English tea item, cucumber sandwiches, and she also makes a pasta sauce from a mixture of (a lot of) butter and (not much) marmite, which I am told is delicious. Something tells me not many Americans are going to be trying it, no matter how suicidal they are feeling after the election.
I am told is delicious.
Confirmed. It is delicious.
I went in to work for a couple hours this morning to check on something. I had a conversation with a technician who was a lesser-of-two-evils Trump supporter, to whom I mentioned that I thought Trump had little idea what he was getting himself into. He responded that Trump would have good advisors, specifically on the economic front. He said Larry Kudlow and Lou Dobbs were going to be his advisors, that they were really brilliant, and would know how to really get the economy going again. That’s when I had “Are you fncking kidding me!?!?!” going through my head, as I nodded and forced a half-smile.
Oy vey…
Actually, the point about Marmite is that for everyone except the diehard fan, the secret is to use it as a faint flavouring, much diluted with butter.
So, it’s like anchovies made of vegetables?
This is true, except that “disaster” may be too mild a term.
Yes.
Either you’re on board with the idea that human industrial culture is affecting the climate, or you’re not.
If you’re not, you’re not, so be it. At this point people think what they think. I sure as hell am done with trying to sway any minds on the topic.
If you are on board, I agree, that is the single greatest threat posed by a Trump administration. Hands down.
What I mostly expect from a Trump administration is for really rich people to get a whole lot richer. Some folks may get some construction or oil field jobs out of it, but mostly it’s gonna be people with money making a lot more money.
OK, one more before my handlers come and take my computer away:
By far the biggest thing about voting is that it is very tribal.
The biggest thing about humans is that they are very tribal. It takes a huge effort of will for anybody, anywhere, to see beyond their parochial blinkers.
Voting is no different.
Everything about this campaign was tribal. Everything about American politics since I can remember has been tribal. Everything about international relations is tribal.
The only thing that seems to cut through the tribal BS on a reliable basis is money. If there’s money in it for them, people suddenly seem to be able to see the precious humanity of the other guy. That’s actually one of the benefits touted for liberal trade policies, and in general it’s true.
But short of that, the occasions when people see beyond their tribal affiliations are fairly few and far between.
I think we need to accept that, and then find ways to work with it that don’t amount to killing each other.
In the immortal words of MLK:
For every snotty liberal who looks down on a worthy middle American, I can introduce you to a worthy middle American who thinks people in snotty liberal land are idiots with their heads up their asses.
Let’s just assume that we annoy the hell out of each other and move on, please.
So, it’s like anchovies made of vegetables?
chemically speaking, exactly.
marmite has very high levels of glutamate (more than any other manufactured product) and glutamate is the substance that defines the taste sensation of umami (aka what makes things taste ‘savory’). and that’s exactly what anchovies are are used for: to increase the sensation of savory/meatiness/umami, because they contain a lot of glutamate.
glutamate + sodium = MSG, of course.
Actually, the point about Marmite is that for everyone except the diehard fan, the secret is to use it as a faint flavouring, much diluted with butter.
Or you could just switch to Vegimite, which is great as a simple spread on bread. No dilution required. 😉
cleek, can I eat at your house?
I prefer this stuff for toast, though marmite is good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman%27s_Relish
Marmite is excellent for vegetarian stews, gravy etc. The secret is not to use too much.
The Romans had something similar involving fish intestines…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum
Everything about this campaign was tribal. Everything about American politics since I can remember has been tribal. Everything about international relations is tribal.
While that might be true, the tribes are sufficiently balanced, and there are enough who do not identify with either, for elections to be won and lost on the basis of campaigns, which has to be the Democrats priority in any post mortem.
This election is a disaster, but it’s done. Winning the next one is a must.
All cultures are not the same and Syrian muslims are anything but enlightened. To say the least. EU and US left’ish leaders and thinkers see value in any form of multiculturalism and cannot distinguish a compatible from a non-compatible culture. We don’t blend well with head hunters, cannibals and religious/cultural products of the 9th Century.
This is the most hateful and ignorant comment I have read on this site in a long time. I actually know some Syrian refugees and they are infinitely more civilized and sophisticated than bigots like McTex, not speak of Trump who just was elected president of this beacon of civilization, the USA.
So Trump has found his own Lysenko to head the EPA ?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Ebell
The Romans had something similar involving fish intestines…
The Vietnamese version, Nuac Cham, is the Southeast Asian magic.
Novakant: of course you’re correct. I’m a bigot and so is Pew Research. You should share your thoughts on to the ignorant hoi poloi of Cologne.
We don’t blend well with head hunters, cannibals and religious/cultural products of the 9th Century.
say, when was the Bible written?
Clerk, it varies. See Counsel of Nicea.
top to bottom, the GOP is diseased.
https://www.facebook.com/AymanMohyeldin/photos/a.811293105612464.1073741828.705973159477793/1231775320230905/?type=3&theater
This is the most hateful and ignorant comment I have read on this site in a long time.
FWIW, I’m with Nigel, at least as regards the first sentence of his comment.
Also, not for nothing, but I don’t think the Biblical canon was formalized at Nicea.
Off topic, perhaps, but it’s good to keep our facts straight.
McKinney, I provided you with some evidence of the awfulness of fundamentalist Jews and e.g. their attitudes towards women, or proposals for stoning adulterous women and non-observant Jews, and I imagine you (or someone else) can provide equally appalling details of fundamentalist Christians. I told you that fundamentalists of all three faiths have more in common with each other than enlightened western types, which is to say children of the Enlightenment. Are you actually in a position to deny this? Why are you falling for the demonisation of whole peoples? That way madness and fascism lies, and you are not a madman or a fascist.
Multiculturalism is a belief system as is Islam. It’s a core belief in the equivalency of all cultures-which are, in turn, given the same status as race or ethnicity-and any deviation is deemed bigotry. The fundamental premise is flawed. Not all cultures are equal, not all belief systems yield just, liberal societies and the lefty penchant for name calling whenever someone makes this obvious point is one of the least attractive aspects of progressivism. Progressive principles are not open to question. Doing so is beyond the Pale. Rather than defend principles on their merits, end the argument with a summary dismissal of the opposition.
It’s a core belief in the equivalency of all cultures
nope.
also, American has always been multicultural – especially in large cities.
GFTNC, no, your point is correct. But, what distinguishes Islam from other fundamentalists in Western society is Sharia law and its widespread acceptance. I challenge Novakant or Russell or anyone else to demonstrate that Sharia law and western liberal society are compatible.
Anyone can find individual examples of fundamentalism wherever they care to look. Feel free to identify the various Muslim societies where women, in fact, have a full rights and where homosexuals can live openly and in peace.
Typos etc are due to working off of an iPhone. My apologies.
Cleek, I agree, but I would add one more word: tolerant.
Feel free to identify the various Muslim societies where women, in fact, have a full rights and where homosexuals can live openly and in peace.
Gay rights is new here. As to women, “grab ’em by …”.
Islam is a belief system, as is Christianity and Judaism. The most extreme adherents of all three (who believe that God is on their side, the most dangerous belief a person or group can hold, forget Progressivism) hold views abhorrent to all of us. Certainly, some countries are poorer, and maybe more rural and less educated or “sophisticated” than others, in the Muslim world as in the Christian one, but actually friends who travelled extensively in Syria tell me that anyway this was not necessarily the case there.
What we are doing is insisting on not demonising groups of “the other”. We are not saying that all cultures are equal (I myself totally oppose any cultural normalisation of female genital mutilation, for example), you are setting up straw men of doctrinaire “Progressivism” and “Multi-Culturalism” that I have not observed anybody on this site espousing.
But what is the end result of saying “Our culture is the most enlightened and superior, and many/most others are inferior”, but racism and Trumpism? Beware the slippery slope McKinney, as far as I am aware liberals never burned anybody alive, or hanged, drew and quartered them, or cut off their hands, or lynched them, which at least two of these great Monotheistic religions have done, some recently, some a mere couple of hundred years ago. And meanwhile, in America, demonisation of “the other” continues apace, and black students in Ivy League colleges find drawings of gallows trees on their lockers…
what distinguishes Islam from other fundamentalists in Western society is Sharia law and its widespread acceptance.
Religious Jewish law, particularly but not only as it pertains to family law, is the law which has to be observed by a large part of the population in Israel, whether they will it or not. It is illegal, or I should say impossible, for a Jew to marry a non-Jew in Israel, there is no mechanism for it. A woman cannot divorce a man, the man must divorce the woman, and many refuse or demand large payments to do so. If there has been no religious divorce, the woman cannot get married in Jewish law, so she is considered an adulteress and any of her children thereafter are considered “mamserim” or bastards to the seventh generation. This form of Jewish family law is also practised in other countries (the UK and the USA for example) in the fundamentalist Jewish communities. How do you like them apples McKinney?
GFTNC, when it comes to demonizing, I invite you to read the comments on this and other post election threads, and get back to me on this topic. I also invite you to look at the open and notorious rioting by the left post election. Plenty of right wing outlets are documenting acts of violence against Trump supporters.
I also invite you or anyone else to identify even one majority Muslim society that has Wester-compatible laws and values.
what distinguishes Islam from other fundamentalists in Western society is Sharia law and its widespread acceptance.
surely you don’t need us to list the multifarious ways Christianity has entwined itself into Western culture, and how most people happily go about their day without realizing it?
for one example: every Sunday, i do the grocery shopping our house. but i never bother leaving before noon because laws based in Christianity make it illegal to sell wine before noon on Sunday. somebody’s god will be mad if i buy a bottle of wine at 11AM, but will be OK if i wait until noon. when i go there, i might pay using money that has “IN GOD WE TRUST” written all over it (which i have to use despite being an atheist).
GFTNC, in Israel and elsewhere, does the civil law ratify religious law? I know it does not in the US. But tell me, given what we know of Sharia law, how is your point in aid of multiculturalism?
I also invite you or anyone else to identify even one majority Muslim society that has Wester-compatible laws and values
I don’t know if you posted this before or after my 10.36 screed on Jewish family law, but I invite you to say whether the elements I quote make Israel a society that has Western-compatible laws and values (leaving out foreign policy, wars etc, Donald and NV)?
In the UK and US, the jewish religious rulings have no force in civil law, just as is the case for sharia courts. In Israel, the situation evolves in response to pressure, but at a glacial pace. I see for example that since I was very informed on the subject there is now (since 2010) a mechanism for marrying 2 people who must prove that they have no religion.
My point is in aid of not demonising “the other”. I haven’t heard anybody with the exception of David Duke et al claim that religious Jews or Israeli Jews cannot integrate into American society because of a fundamental difference of values. These “anti-Progressivists” are mighty picky about which nationalities and religions they consider unacceptable.
Over and out til later…..
Plenty of right wing outlets are documenting acts of violence against Trump supporters.
Right wing outlets are notoriously fair and balanced.
A big part this election was a revolt against the concept of dynasty.
Trump has put an end to both the Bush and Clinton dynasties.
He may put to end the establishment wings of both major parties.
only time will tell, but in the meantime…President Trump?
He may put to end the establishment wings of both major parties.
Oh, he’ll do that alright. He’ll burn it all right down.
He’ll burn it all right down.
it’s spelled “Bern”, now.
. I also invite you to look at the open and notorious rioting by the left post election
I may have missed something, not having been obsessively following the news. But what I have seen looks like a lot of peaceful demonstrations. Plus the occasional vandalism that occurs whenever there is a demonstration to provide cover — the cause of the demonstration being irrelevant.
But riots? I’ve seen riots. (Even had the misfortune to have one blow thru where I was living once.) What I’ve seen this week barely qualifies. It definitely doesn’t reach the size (or level of violence) that I would be willing to consider “notorious.” Did you see reports of something I missed?
the important thing is that “conservatives” can now dismiss the hundreds of racial & religious & ethic & misogynist harassment and assault that Trump supporters have committed in the past five days.
they can point to the handful of Trump supporters who have been assaulted and claim equivalence.
schoolkids threatened the life of their Muslim teacher? totally irrelevant now that some assholes beat up a Trump supporter.
http://www.ajc.com/news/local/muslim-gwinnett-teacher-told-hang-yourself-with-her-headscarf/XVrOecQFQRbKc7SuggJMtI/
We are in Breitbart world now. Also, too, Alex Jones. It’s going to get scarier fast.
Mike Pence would love to put me and people like me back into the viciously destructive closet I grew up in, if not into worse places. All, apparently, because my very existence violates his religious beliefs. (Establishment clause, anyone?) That’s vastly more likely to happen than that sharia law is ever going to affect my life, or the lives of Americans in general, in any way whatsoever. But hey, I guess it’s okay if it’s “Christians” doing it.
Substitute Catholicism for Islam/sharia and you get all the horrible things that were going to happen to this country if a Catholic was elected president.
Oh, wait……
When my dad applied to be a city firefighter a few years after he had served in the Navy in World War II, his former boss wrote to his prospective boss: “X is a very hard worker, even though his people are Italian.” (My mother still has this letter.)
My dad and his siblings were the hardest working people you could ever find in this or any other country. One of my uncles was awarded a Silver Star and a Purple Heart for what he did during the war. But hey, be careful about hiring him, because “his people” are … “them.”
For decades, the country club in my home town blackballed “Italians” (linguistically speaking, we didn’t have hyphenated Americans in those days). When they finally admitted an Italian (an M.D.), he turned around and, as president of the club, kept right on blackballing … you know who.
This is an old, sad story.
X is a very hard worker, even though his people are Italian.
LOL.
When my wife was a teenager, her parents didn’t want her to date an Italian guy.
Because Italians all beat their wives.
McK, stating that Syrian Muslims are incapable of living in a society like ours because they are (a) Syrian and (b) Muslim is pretty much the textbook definition of ethnic and religious bigotry.
It’s great that gays, blacks, and women are treated as full citizens in this country. They had to fight for hundreds of years to make that happen, often at the cost of their lives.
Nobody has a monopoly on intolerance. American history, in particular, does not recommend us as a suitable judge for the virtues of anybody else’s culture.
Sharia law is incompatible with American civil and public law in exactly the same ways that Talmudic law, or canon law, or whatever equivalent Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Rastafarians, and Yazidis have.
They’re incompatible because *we do not accept establishment of religion*.
Fortunately, the number of people who are advocating for public adoption of sharia law in the US is vanishingly small, and in fact is significantly less than the number of people who believe the US should be run as a Christian theocratic state.
McTX: Multiculturalism is a belief system as is Islam.
“Conservatism” is a belief system. Islam is a religion, as is Christianity.
I have made it clear that I consider all religions to be amalgams of pointless ritual and mindless superstition, but I also want to make it clear that Christianists who try to enlist me as an ally against Islamists — or vice versa — can piss up a rope.
For one thing, I am NOT about to hold all Muslims responsible for the lunatics among them without holding all Christians responsible for the lunatics in their ranks, like the KKK. As Janie says, it’s “Christians” like Pence who are more likely to hurt people I care about than are “Muslims” of any sort.
Now, about the belief system known as “conservatism”. What, I ask McKinney, is incompatible between conservatism and multiculturalism?
–TP
When my wife was a teenager, her parents didn’t want her to date an Italian guy.
LOL back atcha. When my mother (300+ years of ancestry on this continent, yeoman farmers, itinerant peddlers, etc.) told *her* (Baptist) mother that she was going to marry an Italian — and worse, a Catholic — my grandma stormed up the stairs crying (she never cried) and saying, “You wouldn’t be doing this if your father was still alive.”
Oh, the stories I could tell. My grandma came to respect and maybe love my dad over time, and her prejudices got pretty well melted by grandchildren, except that she never could get over the idea that a suntan (Italian skin is good for that) was unladylike. This was also, of course, long before anyone worried about skin cancer.
But I digress. We got trouble coming, and it’s no comfort that we’ve seen it before.
I also invite you or anyone else to identify even one majority Muslim society that has Wester-compatible laws and values
Bosnia and Herzegovina, where incidentally, multiculturalism is not so much a belief system as a requirement for peaceful existence.
One might also mention Albania.
Lebanon is diverse too, and at least in some phases of its history has managed it well. I’m not up to date about the situation at the moment, but one of my colleagues, a gay man, quit his job a few years ago to go and do a master’s degree in Beirut. He had been all over the world, and Beirut was his favorite city.
But I’m sure this line of inquiry will quickly descend into nitpicking, so I’m going to leave it at that.
GFNTC,
It is illegal, or I should say impossible, for a Jew to marry a non-Jew in Israel, there is no mechanism for it.
As I understand it, all weddings in Israel are purely religious. There is no civil marriage. Jews marry in accordance with Jewish law, Muslims in accordance with Islamic law, etc.
Couples who want a strictly civil arrangement leave the country – often to Cyprus – for the ceremony. Their marriage is then fully recognized by Israeli law, just as that of a civilly married American couple who moved to Israel would be.
That’s my understanding, anyway.
McK,
Feel free to identify the various Muslim societies where women, in fact, have a full rights and where homosexuals can live openly and in peace.
It wasn’t so long ago that the US did not come close to meeting this standard. Lawrence v. Texas was decided in 2003, over vigorous dissent from conservatives.
When my wife was a teenager, her parents didn’t want her to date an Italian guy.
My favorite is still the one from my college days. The parents of the Chinese American kids routinely told their children, as they headed off to college: “We know that you are going to be meeting all different kinds of people.** And that’s OK. But don’t bring home any Japanese [Americans]; they’re inferior.” And the Japanese American kids got the inverse instruction.
Neither set of parents seemed worried about friends from the other group. But dates, let alone potential spouses? Right out.
** Actually they only meant whites, of whatever variety, there being few blacks there . . . and even fewer in the parents’ vision of college.
It wasn’t so long ago that the US did not come close to meeting this standard. Lawrence v. Texas was decided in 2003, over vigorous dissent from conservatives.
Nor is it like the US has shown leadership on this issue. Twenty-one countries, including formerly priest-ridden Ireland and several other Catholic countries, approved same-sex marriage before the US did. It’s nothing to brag about that we’re ahead of Saudia Arabia and Iran.
And, to repeat/reframe what I said earlier, I wouldn’t bet money against the coming regime unraveling all the progress we’ve made in my lifetime, while some people sit around obsessing about the phantom menace of sharia.
There’s lots of variations of Islam, from progressive to regressive, just as there is with Christianity. Christianity, as interpreted by people like Pence, is incompatible with our Constitution.
So far no Muslim American immigrant community has tried to impose strict Sharia on anyone. Most American Muslims aren’t even very conservative in their application of Islamic religious law on themselves.
I live in an area with a diverse Muslim community including Malaysians and Middle Easterners. They are not all alike.
Anyone arguing that a significant number of Muslims will necessarily result in an attempt to impose sharia law needs to explain Dearborn. The largest ethnic group, 41% of the population, consists of Muslims of Arab ancestry. No visible signs of sharia at all. Not even any arguments for doing anything like that.
i like that MckinneyTexas is complaining about multiculturalism.
WTF would Texas be without the (now-) harmonious co-existence and intermingling of Anglo and Mexican and native cultures?
same for any other southwestern state.
and what would Louisiana be without its unique mixture of Arcadian + Caribbean + Anglo + African-American?
mono-cultures are for assholes who hate good food and music.
Seemingly, the biggest recent conflicts in Dearborn has been from Arab families turning their garages into living rooms and parking their cars on the streets.
Parking their cars on the streets??? Surely the end of Western civilization is upon us!
As I understand it, all weddings in Israel are purely religious. There is no civil marriage. Jews marry in accordance with Jewish law, Muslims in accordance with Islamic law, etc.
byomtov, this is pretty much how I remember it, but things may have moved on very very slowly, as in the example I gave about people of no religion (obviously anybody born to e.g. traceably jewish parents would not qualify). But in e.g. the UK, a jew and a Christian can get married in many synagogues, or in many churches, leaving aside civil marriage. In Israel, this is completely legally impossible, even in a reform synagogue, which is what I meant when I used the example to McKT: it is hardcore and discriminatory in ways unacceptable in other Western countries, and yet orthodox Jews and Israelis are not regarded in the same light as fundamentalist Muslims.
It is my own view that religious people of any stripe (but particularly belonging to the Monotheistic religions) in power are potentially the most dangerous: they tend to be sure they are right, and believe they have God on their side. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken. But they almost never do.
I also invite you or anyone else to identify even one majority Muslim society that has Wester-compatible laws and values
I guess Indonesia and Turkey don’t count either. Of course, the point is that _they_ have to meet _our_ standards. Arrogant much?
Incredible how Trump’s election lets McT fly his white privilege flag high. I imagine that most of the people on this board aren’t going to face any outright backlash, allowing McT to scoff at the notion that there is a problem.
Or what Greg Popovich said
I’m a rich, white guy. And I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it. I couldn’t imagine being a Muslim right now or a woman or an African-American, a Hispanic, a handicapped person, and how disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignored all that.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/article/Gregg-Popovich-uncensored-Discusses-the-10609311.php
I imagine that most of the people on this board aren’t going to face any outright backlash, allowing McT to scoff at the notion that there is a problem.
I’m not, personally, but I have relatives who are vulnerable because of color. And who among us isn’t vulnerable now when we stand up for liberal principles? Kelly Ann Conway says that we’ll face lawsuits if we speak out.
Bring it on.
I imagine that most of the people on this board aren’t going to face any outright backlash, allowing McT to scoff at the notion that there is a problem.
From some of the comments I have seen on other sites, where the writers go on rants about “the white race” dying out, I’m not sure those of us who are in mixed race marriages should get to secure about being immune (although I suspect we will be OK). But there are a couple of homosexual folks here who may be at risk, depending on exactly where they live and work.
One more thought on sharia.
I have a feeling — and no, I am not going to go looking for poll results on this — that the notion that we have to stop sharia (imaginary though the threat may be) is harbored overwhelmingly by the very same people who think we have to reinstall Christian(ist) control over the laws of the country. The fear of sharia is not a fear of losing our precious, secular, first-amendment-facilitated American culture to religious domination as such, it’s just that it’s the the wrong religion.
It’s not, “You’re not the boss of me.” It’s “You’re not the boss of me, but I *am* the boss of you.”
the notion that we have to stop sharia
First of all, thanks, JanieM for that comment. But second, really? We have to stop sharia? That’s a worry? Come on!
I have a lot of contact with other people, and I have never come across anyone who was freaking out that sharia was going to be an actual thing.
What?
And by that I mean that people (McKinney, you?) are worried about Sharia?
Not possible that this is true.
This is why racism, ethnic cleansing, etc. happens. Believing or buying into paranoid b.s.
Don’t know if anyone has posted this Chris Arnade article from the Atlantic, but it seems more than pertinent:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/donald-trump-voter-respect/507350/
I think it was during the week of the GOP Convention when I went down to Cleveland. I didn’t go to the convention at all—I spent half my time in a poor, working-class black neighborhood and half my time in a poor, working-class white neighborhood. There was a working-class, white bar I spent two days in and that’s where it really struck me: This man is really resonating. This message is really taking hold and really hitting people. What sociologists and others have long talked about when you go to a poor, working-class black neighborhood is that there is this code of honor, this demand for respect. That same thing was taking place in the white bar I was seeing. And Trump was fulfilling that respect. It was all about respect, regaining respect.
I think that was something I wasn’t seeing in the press at the time. I think the general story was, “Well, these are just racists.” And the people I was talking to, they didn’t strike me as racist. They might be supporting someone whose policies a lot of people find as racist, but on an individual level, that wasn’t what was motivating them….
Arnade is an interesting guy, having worked on Wall Street, and then thrown it in to document poor America. His analysis isn’t hindsight, either – he saw the Trump thing coming.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/14/donald-trump-working-class-americans-feel-screwed
On the day after the election in a panel discussion of the media’s role in the 2016 election, someone is quoted as saying that Trump supporters took what Trump said seriously, but not literally. But the media took what Trump said literally, but not seriously.
The Day After: Analyzing The Media’s Role In The 2016 Election (YouTube)
Me: Syrian Muslims are anything but enlightened . . . [they are] religious/cultural products of the 9th Century.
Russell: McK, stating that Syrian Muslims are incapable of living in a society like ours because they are (a) Syrian and (b) Muslim is pretty much the textbook definition of ethnic and religious bigotry.
Me (now): I was unaware that “Syrian” was an ethnic group. I thought–and continue to think–that it’s a country. I do think think that most majority-Islam countries are backward. 9th century may be hyperbole for Syria–up that to 17th century–but it’s on target elsewhere. This is entirely the product of Islam as a religion that, by definition, regulates government.
I asked which Islamic countries are western-compatible. I counted four answers: Bosnia/Herzegovina, Albania, Turkey and Indonesia. The little I read on Indonesia suggests that it is far less backward than, say, Egypt or Algeria or Iran, but still not on a par with any western democracy. Turkey was secular, but Erdogan seems headed toward changing that. Give Turkey a qualified “maybe”. Ablania and Bosnia/Herzegovina are very small, but let’s give them a check for western compatibility. Here’s the problem: the list and populations of countries no one came close to identifying dwarf all but Indonesia. No one identified Syria, for example, as western compatible.
Further, I didn’t say “incapable”. I said “incompatible”. I stand by that. If there were Scottish Muslims adhering to full Islamic orthodoxy, they would be incompatible with western values.
A belief system that encompasses government and public policy and that makes women second or third class citizens, that makes being gay a capital crime, that calls for stoning adulterers, etc, etc, is incompatible with western culture.
Islamic societies, by definition, i.e. because of what being “Islamic” means, are incompatible with western, secular democracy. Sure, individuals who are Muslim can and do accommodate to western secularism, but that is the exception, not the rule.
For further context: If the Anglican Communion suddenly switched to full on Old Testament stoning, etc, it too would be incompatible with western, secular society.
Even further context: unrepentant Soviet Communists or German Nazis are incompatible with western, secular democracy, not because of who they are, but because of what they believe.
It’s what they believe and the culture that flows from that belief that sets them apart.
It wasn’t so long ago that the US did not come close to meeting this standard. Lawrence v. Texas was decided in 2003, over vigorous dissent from conservatives.
This is hyperbole and if you don’t know that, you should. No one was being prosecuted; Houston had then and still has one of the largest gay populations in the country. Every state has dozens of outdated laws on their books. I agree it was stupid for Texas to stand and fight on this one, but that was for form’s sake.
I wouldn’t bet money against the coming regime unraveling all the progress we’ve made in my lifetime, while some people sit around obsessing about the phantom menace of sharia.
Truly, ethnic cleansing and mandatory Bible classes are next on the docket.
I live in an area with a diverse Muslim community including Malaysians and Middle Easterners. They are not all alike.
No one said otherwise.
i like that MckinneyTexas is complaining about multiculturalism.
WTF would Texas be without the (now-) harmonious co-existence and intermingling of Anglo and Mexican and native cultures?
My complaint about multiculturalism is that not all cultures are of like kind and quality. Some are not so nice. Many are incompatible with western, secular values. In Texas, most folks share a large set of common values. Texas is very diverse and, for the most part, everyone gets along well. For example, I do not believe most of the various subcultures in Mexico are incompatible with western, secular society, although many or most within some of those subcultures may be so limited in education and available information as to find life in, for example, the US very complicated if not totally mystifying.
I guess Indonesia and Turkey don’t count either. Of course, the point is that _they_ have to meet _our_ standards. Arrogant much?
When it comes to who moves into my country, it isn’t arrogance, it’s who I want moving to my country. The original point, if you’d taken the time to read and understand it, is that Obama screwed up by unilaterally importing a large group of Syrian refugees over widespread objection and essentially stating that it was nothing but bigotry motivating opponents–the classic progressive dismissal of dissenting views.
Incredible how Trump’s election lets McT fly his white privilege flag high. I imagine that most of the people on this board aren’t going to face any outright backlash, allowing McT to scoff at the notion that there is a problem.
Again, more progressive name calling in lieu of substantive engagement. The long list of Muslim countries *NOT* identified as western compatible speaks for itself. If a man with prevailing Muslim views on women, gays, etc, began commenting at ObWi without identifying as Muslim, he’d be shouted down and possibly exiled. You wouldn’t begin to tolerate anyone with those views–imagine a traditional Baptist trying to make a case here. That would garner a warm welcome.
And by that I mean that people (McKinney, you?) are worried about Sharia?
Straw man. No, not Sharia law here. I worry, as but one example, that Sharia/Islamic adherents transplanted from benighted ME countries will never get that if their boss is a woman or is gay, they have to get with the program and get along.
Last but not least, GFTNC: my reading on Israeli marriage law is that only a religious marriage can take place in Israel, but that Israel recognizes civil marriages from other countries. I agree, this is different from traditional western, secular mores.
That said, can you name one ME country, other than Israel, that accords the same legal and social status to women and gays as Israel?
And, I’m pretty sure that a Jew in Israel may switch from Orthodox to secular and not be under a death sentence, which is not the case under strict Sharia law.
Islamic societies, by definition, i.e. because of what being “Islamic” means, are incompatible with western, secular democracy.
I think you are making the common mistake of conflating Arab culture with Muslim culture (to the extent that such a thing exists, which is debatable). To some extent, this is a product of oil money allowing the Saudis to try to export their culture and ultra-fundamentalist version of Islam. They have had some success, but are still far from convincing a majority of Muslims to embrace either.
Arab culture is indeed stuck in the distant past. Muslims, other than fundamentalists, are quite capable of embracing western secular democracy.** Lots of them, today, are stuck living under autocratic governments (religious or secular). But then, lots of non-Muslims have that misfortune as well.
** Fundamentalists of a variety of other religions also have a problem with western secular democracy. It’s not limited to Islamic fundamentalists.
Every state has dozens of outdated laws on their books. I agree it was stupid for Texas to stand and fight on this one, but that was for form’s sake.
Yes, it was stupid. “For form’s sake?” What the hell does that mean?
I still do some freelancing in legislative publishing, and do you know what I find? There are outdated laws that are still on the books because they are convenient to randomly persecute people who are marginalized. Otherwise, laws are updated. Anti-fornication,and anti-adultery laws are a great threat for just about any circumstance when “the law” wants to make some kind of a point. Marijuana criminalization (where mostly white people use it, but mostly dark people are jailed), is another obvious example.
My complaint about multiculturalism is that not all cultures are of like kind and quality. Some are not so nice. Many are incompatible with western, secular values.
Not judging broadly “other cultures” but I certainly don’t have an affinity with some cultures in the world. Some fundamentalists (of several faiths) really don’t tolerate a comfortable everyday work-style gender interaction. This is a fact. So our laws provide for equality, and people have to work out their lives to fit in with that. I’m okay with not accommodating discrimination in our public life, when discrimination is mandated by religious values.
I don’t see that happen much, although there are some Orthodox Jewish issues raised in NY that seemed weird to me.
It’s hard being the right kind of America, but worth it. Toleration, accommodation, and respect. That is what we’re aiming for.
My complaint about multiculturalism is that not all cultures are of like kind and quality.
luckily, you are not the arbiter.
the history of the US is rife with people declaring this or that immigrant group to be “incompatible” with their own personal vision of America. and each of them, ultimately, lost their argument.
“Lawrence v. Texas was decided in 2003, over vigorous dissent from conservatives.”
This is hyperbole and if you don’t know that, you should. No one was being prosecuted; Houston had then and still has one of the largest gay populations in the country.
Forgive me if my lack of expertise in the law is leading me astray. But didn’t there have to be an actual prosecution of Lawrence by the state of Texas, and a conviction, in order to have a case to be appealed to the Supreme Court? There may not have been a lot of prosecutions, but it seems like they couldn’t have been nonexistent.
‘Syrian is not a race’. So not a racist, just an unreflective bigot. How many Syrian Muslims do you know? (If you complain about being called a bigot, I will channel your spirit and say ‘I didn’t say _you were_, there’s no subject there! How dare you!)
There are points to make about incorporating different cultural traditions into countries and dealing with immigration and there is an interesting discussion to be had there. When those people are refugees (not ‘transplants’) who are leaving their country because it’s gone to shit, most thinking reflective people might make a few allowances. On the other hand, if you are Trump or Farage, you use that to drive a wedge. But I know, you abhor them, so no one could accuse you.
If a man with prevailing Muslim views on women, gays, etc, began commenting at ObWi without identifying as Muslim, he’d be shouted down and possibly exiled.
What are the ‘prevailing’ Muslim views on women, gays ‘etc’? For someone who has foamed at the mouth about trans bathroom privileges and twisted himself up in whatever the kind of knots Russell ties his ascot in (check out this thread for one example), to invoke the treatment of gays in the Muslim countries in his head is, how do you say, risable?
If a person who inherited a large fortune, allowing him (or her) to devote their time to good deeds, were compared to a person who didn’t come from money and was just working to keep afloat, you wouldn’t say that it is obvious that the first person was more morally advanced or enlightened than the second. Yet you are happy to do that for entire cultures that you don’t know anything about. But do enlighten us on Muslim cultures, mu’allim.
From the Wiki on Lawrence v. Texas (my emphasis):
Apparently outraged that Lawrence had been flirting with Garner, he called police and reported “a black male going crazy with a gun” at Lawrence’s apartment.
Four Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded within minutes and Eubanks pointed them to the apartment. They entered the unlocked apartment toward 11 p.m. with their weapons drawn.
Four Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded within minutes and Eubanks pointed them to the apartment. They entered the unlocked apartment toward 11 p.m. with their weapons drawn
To quote myself, “There are outdated laws that are still on the books because they are convenient to randomly persecute people who are marginalized.”
The original point, if you’d taken the time to read and understand it, is that Obama screwed up by unilaterally importing a large group of Syrian refugees over widespread objection and essentially stating that it was nothing but bigotry motivating opponents–the classic progressive dismissal of dissenting views.
You’ll forgive me if what I take away from your comments here is that bringing Syrian Muslim refugees to the US is problematic *because they can’t assimilate, because they are (a) Syrian and (b) refugees*.
If I’m misunderstanding you, please enlighten me.
If I am understanding you, then I am sticking with my earlier statement.
Stating that people are unable to assimilate into US culture because they are either Syrian or Muslim is, on the face of it, bigotry.
Syrians have been in the US in large numbers since the late 19th C. Syrian Muslims, specifically, for the last 50 years.
They fit in just fine.
Refugees from a freaking horror show calamitous war zone will likely have difficulty assimilating because they will almost certainly be suffering from serious trauma, physical psychic and otherwise.
That is a different set of issues, and to my mind is not a reason not to admit them, but the opposite.
As far as majority Muslim countries that are run on a theocratic basis, I don’t really see why I’m obliged to have an opinion about how compatible they are with Western culture.
I have strong opinions about human rights issues in those countries, just as I do about any other place. Including here.
But I don’t really expect the whole world to run itself like we do.
whatever the kind of knots Russell ties his ascot
No man, just a long scarf. From Provence.
Ascots are too pretentious.
http://www.11alive.com/news/local/school-officials-looking-into-threatening-note-sent-to-muslim-teacher/351922064
good ol Ameicans, gettin along like they do.
McKinney, sorry for not responding earlier – things are moving so fast (including me, London to the North Country and currently on my 5th day voiceless with laryngitis) that I haven’t checked this thread for a few days, and even now don’t have the time to respond properly. Just quick thoughts: Egyptian society as I have encountered it is extremely worldly and sophisticated. Of course, this is urban intelligentsia. But on the other hand, US urban intelligentsia versus rural lower-educated working class (a confrontation which seems partly to have delivered a Trump presidency) also seems to be a huge difference, and the latter does not seem to be a prime example of what you call “western, secular values”. I am very sorry to sound like a filthy elitist, and as if I despise people for their misfortunes (which I do not) but in fact, some of the rural people I have seen interviewed in e.g. West Virginia in the years since Obama was elected, and who are still absolutely convinced he is a Muslim, seem as ignorant and superstitious as disadvantaged rural populations in many unequal societies in the world, including in the ME.
As I mentioned in respect of Jewish religious divorce law, (and I think there are other examples regarding e.g. validity of respective evidence in lawcases) women do not have the same rights as men. This is in the religious courts of course, but then, that is their version of sharia. I actually don’t know what the law is in Israel re gay rights, but I do know some gay Israelis who have moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, because the preponderance of fundamentalist jews in Jerusalem makes them feel threatened.
And as regards your last point, I have heard a religious Jewish teenager say to an old woman, a respected friend of his family “Aunty, I am so sorry you do not keep the sabbath. If we had the Sanhedrin again, you would be stoned to death”. I am no authority on the Sanhedrin, but I believe the religous indoctrination of children such that they believe the death sentence to be an appropriate response to secularism and perhaps apostasy is also not compatible with “western, secular values”.