USA politics following Trump's election

[WVBRY]

It's surprising to me that Trump's election has made lying, meanness, racism and naked avarice publicly acceptable. It's like pulling back the sheets on a bed in a five star hotel and finding spiders and bugs crawling everywhere.

I think there is a reservoir of this stuff in the population which is normally held in check when people feel that their situations are improving. They might be authoritarian racists, but they won't come out and say it unless their status is threatened.

At this point in the world economy, the future status of quite a few people is threatened.

There are really two economies. There is the one in which you can make productivity increases, like farming, manufacturing, and delivering entertainment. There is another economy in which it is much, much harder to increase productivity, like string quartets (try doing that with fewer than four people), caring for people one-on-one, teaching, and cleaning and maintenance services.

As capitalism drives the economy to greater profits through greater efficiencies, one of these economies benefits by having fewer workers who are able to produce more stuff, and the other economy doesn't benefit at all. The first tends to be private industry in the US, and the second tends fall under the responsibility of governments, which deal with providing essential services to their citizens that private companies won't provide because there is no profit in them, or because the services are essential and government can provide them cheaper or better (such as police forces) than private industry, which has to make a profit.

This means that, as time goes on and productivity in the private economy grows, fewer and fewer people will be needed in these highly productive jobs, and more and more people will find themselves looking for work in the part of the economy which is not very productive and hence doesn't pay very well. For these people, wages will be frozen or will fall, and their future prospects will be bleak unless they can somehow get into the productive economy.

Colleges, which are really profit centers, see that they are gatekeepers to the productive economy and have been raising tuition as fast as they can. College tuition, which was free to millions of returning veterans after WWII (which resulted in a highly productive, debt-free work force which made the economy boom for twenty years), now costs as much as a new house, and houses cost more than they ever have before.

Because the enormous gains in productivity no longer have to be distributed to a huge number of workers, they are now free to be turned over to the company shareholders who use them to bid up the price of assets, like stocks and housing, instead of being returned to the general population to make a large number of people wealthier.

Unless this wealth is taxed much more heavily (remember that these profits are only able to be made because the corporations operate within an area made safe for them by specific laws which are enforced by the governments of the people), then the distribution of wealth is simply going to become more and more unequal.

Soon, there will only be royalty and peasants, and I don't see this trend reversing, unless there are much, much higher taxes placed on the wealthy.

Furthermore, since political power is a function of wealth, this trend of increasing inequality in wealth bodes very ill for democracy.

The two economies you speak of are usually referred to as prodution vs services. You say that most services are provided by government, and while many are, many others such as grocery stores, are privately owned.

It's a technicality, but it needs to be pointed out.

As far as the rich being taxed more, an argument people often throw around is that we need to increase taxes on the wealthy so the government will have more money. But tax revenue and tax rate are two different things*. You can lower taxes and have the government earn more in revenue, or less in revenue, depending on how the economy responds to the tax cuts. This was the basis of Reagan's massive tax cuts.

I do think Reagan's tax cuts, while not harmful to the federal government's income (since tax revenue didn't actually go down despite said cuts) did create extreme gaps in wealth. You are right, the only way to have less wealth gaps is to tax the wealthy more, but how do sell that without an "eat the rich" mentality going along with it? Since the tax revenue of the US federal governement hasn't gone down or up much since the 1950s, despite radical changes in the tax rate (for income and capital gains taxes), you can't really sell it on (during elections) the basis of the government having more money (well you could sell it on that, but it would be a lie, though most people are quick to believe and slow to research so it could work, just that at the end of the day you'd still have to account for the revenue not going up).

So the only way to argue in an honest fashion that you want more tax cuts is that the rich have too much money, mainly because it shouldn't be allowed to have that much money not because the government needs more money. I am not one fo the rich at all but something about that logic seems off to me.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

[falsehope]

Why would this happen? I don't understand the connection you are making between wages going down and Trump's trade policy. Furthermore, if wages go down unemployment does too, since it becomes cheaper to hire people, theoretically at least, though it clear to me what you're talking about exactly so I'll let you explain.

Well the connection is that, at the moment, since 2008 wages in USA are constant. And the trade war is going to shrink GDP significantly which might result in projected 6% unemployment by 2019 which will also result in drop in wages, and also because of very possible recession. If the GDP will shrink below certain levels it will cause panic and withdrawal of investments, therefore causing less money in the markets. The point is that wages are kept constant but almost almost and if something will hamper current trends it will collapse and will affect all statistics - unemployment, inflation, investments, wages, it's recession. And this will definitely happen if the trade war will continue, I am not sure how does it calculate but I guess X billions of goods affected means minus 0.1% from GDP. So I guess there would be need to impose tariffs on $500 billion of goods yearly to cause recesion. Most of banks and financial analysts agree but not trump who thinks that "if they can impose tariffs, so can we".

[WVBRY]

Well the connection is that, at the moment, since 2008 wages in USA are constant. And the trade war is going to shrink GDP significantly which might result in projected 6% unemployment by 2019 which will also result in drop in wages, and also because of very possible recession. If the GDP will shrink below certain levels it will cause panic and withdrawal of investments, therefore causing less money in the markets. The point is that wages are kept constant but almost almost and if something will hamper current trends it will collapse and will affect all statistics - unemployment, inflation, investments, wages, it's recession. And this will definitely happen if the trade war will continue, I am not sure how does it calculate but I guess X billions of goods affected means minus 0.1% from GDP. So I guess there would be need to impose tariffs on $500 billion of goods yearly to cause recesion. Most of banks and financial analysts agree but not trump who thinks that "if they can impose tariffs, so can we".

I don't understand the connections you are making and it only seems to make sense if you go by the economically liberal argument that free trade is good for the economy, protectionism is bad for it. This would be true if every country played by the same rules, but they don't. China doesn't hesitate to resort to protectionism and it gives them an edge. The world isn't a level playing field where economic actors all play by the same rules for the greater benefit of all, even Henry Hazlitt, the author of Economics in one Lesson, argues protectionism is beneficial, but only to certain groups it is intended to help, mainly those who don't export. It hurts others, he argues, mainly those who do export. But free trade also has its winners and losers, and it is those losers of free trade who voted Trump, for the most part.

The US produces alot more of its GDP from people buying American product than from exporting and importing. Therefore tariffs won't hurt the US economy as much as some might think; they will cause some losses sure, but also will help smaller local producers who don't export or don't export much.

Look at it this way, if tariffs are so bad why does China do it? You may think Trump is an idiot and you may be right (I'm not a big fan of Trump) but I think he's onto something with his trade policies, I don't think it is nonsense.

But we will see.

[Spermatozoa]

The logic behind Trump's tariffs is short term pain, long term gain.

It is likely that the U.S. economy will undergo a minor recession as a result of them, but we need to look at the bigger picture. The Chinese economy is extremely dependent on exports to the U.S. and I have no doubt that the longer a trade war was to go on, the more leverage the U.S. would have over China. The grand assumption is that if Trump is able to win re-election, with enough time and willpower he may be able to force some political change within China simply by crippling their economy. A truly aggressive and cunning president would not stop there though, he would then invade China at this point, destroy its major cities, completely lay waste to the country so it can never challenge American dominance again. Sow salt in the soil, as the Romans did in Carthage.

[WVBRY]

The logic behind Trump's tariffs is short term pain, long term gain.

It is likely that the U.S. economy will undergo a minor recession as a result of them, but we need to look at the bigger picture. The Chinese economy is extremely dependent on exports to the U.S. and I have no doubt that the longer a trade war was to go on, the more leverage the U.S. would have over China. The grand assumption is that if Trump is able to win re-election, with enough time and willpower he may be able to force some political change within China simply by crippling their economy. A truly aggressive and cunning president would not stop there though, he would then invade China at this point, destroy its major cities, completely lay waste to the country so it can never challenge American dominance again. Sow salt in the soil, as the Romans did in Carthage.

For some reason I don't think you're joking.

But really, only a stupid president would do that. We're not living in antiquity anymore.

[Adam Strange]

For some reason I don't think you're joking.

I think Japan already tried this.

But really, only a stupid president would do that. We're not living in antiquity anymore.

Well, Trump and his crew are pretty stupid. Trump just took a prank call on Air Force One from a comedian (Stuttering John) who was impersonating disgraced senator Bob Menendez, and spent half the call congratulating "Menendez" on beating the jail time and the other half discussing policy.



Stuttering John should have impersonated the head of the Strategic Bomber Command, or Putin, except Trump would have recognized Putin's voice, since it is the last thing Trump hears at night before he goes to sleep. "Donald, we'll let you build a hotel in Moscow, but first you have to do something for us. Just between friends. It's good for business, you know."

[Spermatozoa]

For some reason I don't think you're joking.

But really, only a stupid president would do that. We're not living in antiquity anymore.

We should seriously consider the possibility that the Chinese are planning large-scale military expansion in second half of the century. They are just waiting for the centrifugal forces undermining Western democracies (primarily immigration, cultural nihilism and a diminishing tax base) to reach a tipping point. My theory is that there will be a civil war in Europe and possibly in America at some point in the near future due to the influx of non-white ethnic groups, national defense will break down, and at this point China (and perhaps Russia) will try to invade.

The U.S. is still in a position of strength and it should act now.

[WVBRY]

I have these thoughts on my mind, and I feel like putting them here.

While I am not happy about a Trump presidency, I am glad Hillary Clinton lost the election.

The Obama administation came up with one of the most frightening legal documents to almost be passed into law. It was called the TPP. Due to China's rising infleunce in the Pacific region, the Obama adminsitration felt it had to respond. It came up with a "trade deal" called Trans-Pacific Partnership, a NAFTA type deal between the US, several Latin American countries, Australia, NZ, I think SK and Japan too. They also came up with an analogous deal between the US and European countries called the TTIP, in order this time to counter the infleunce of Russia in the region.

In this video, Green Party candidate Jill Stein explains the dangers of TPP:



The video is propagandistic obviously, with the background music and camera angles trying to be instill fear in the viewer being obvious examples of why, but I think the things she says are accurate.

The TPP was basically a Declaration of Independance for multinationals, Jill Stein calls it "corporate nationhood" but it's really corporate supernationhood since it allows for corporations to sue governments, including for potential damages to their profits in the future! What? It overrides the constitution, local government, fragilizes bank account privacy and internet privacy since I remember right it allowed ISPs to block certain sites among other things (this has been done with end of net neutrality though, at least in the US, not in Europe since the TTIP didn't pass). If a corporation decides to sue a government, the trial will be judged by three judges appointed by the world bank and the hearing held in secret. Hell, the deals were kept secret because of what outrage they would cause if people knew their contents.

The TPP never got passed under Obama, the next president would decide. Hillary Clinton said she was against TPP, but she would have passed it. The Clintons are political chameleons like that. There were two candidates who were firmly against it, Trump and Stein. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson kept changing his mind based upon what people around him advised him, I think he would have signed it.

So yeah. Not to be a fearmongerer here. But actually there is no more reason to be afraid. These "trade deals" have been binned by Trump. And I think that this single action is really positive, and a reason to be glad we got Trump rather than Clinton given both choices to me were bad anyways.

Yeah, Trump's immigration policy sucks, and I don't support him but I think his winning was the lesser evil if it had to be a choice between him and Hillary (which it was).

So yeah, that is seeing things through a single issue. But regardless of what Democrats thought of Obama, I can assure you, if you are center Left you would not liked living in a world where there is TPP.

[Adam Strange]

I don't like living in the world as it is, but I agree that the TPP would have made things worse.

The major problem is that neither the Republican nor the Demoratic legislators listen to anyone who is not rich. They all ignore their constituencies, and vote according to the wishes of the organized rich. Which are the corporations.

https://www.russellsage.org/sites/al...els%20EIPR.pdf

[WVBRY]

That is true.

[marooned]

We should seriously consider the possibility that the Chinese are planning large-scale military expansion in second half of the century. They are just waiting for the centrifugal forces undermining Western democracies (primarily immigration, cultural nihilism and a diminishing tax base) to reach a tipping point. My theory is that there will be a civil war in Europe and possibly in America at some point in the near future due to the influx of non-white ethnic groups, national defense will break down, and at this point China (and perhaps Russia) will try to invade.

The U.S. is still in a position of strength and it should act now.

For some reason I don't think you're joking.

But really, only a stupid president would do that. We're not living in antiquity anymore.

The world needs China to be prosperous. They will contribute to developing sustainable living in the future.

[WVBRY]

The world needs China to be prosperous. They will contribute to developing sustainable living in the future.

I don't understand why people hate China so much.

That's awesome btw. Eco cities are the future. And they will look so cool.

[marooned]

I don't understand why people hate China so much.

That's awesome btw. Eco cities are the future. And they will look so cool.

Yes. I'm very interested in China's course regarding the environment. Though they are a big polluter now, I think that they will move increasingly towards finding solutions.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-its-pollution

[Adam Strange]

When the Rich Cry Foul!

The US Chamber of Commerce is not the small town organization that it was in the early 1900's. It's present conservative leader, Tom Donohue, transformed it into one of the most rabidly anti-labor conservative organizations out there. Up to now, they've been pretty supportive of Trump, but since business got their big tax breaks and the stock market has flattened out with the expectation that there will be no new gifts to business in the near term and they see the orange-faced driver of the Republican Clown Car crash into things as he makes his way down the street, they're starting to sing a different tune.

Trump's economic idiocies now aren't just aimed at poor immigrants or the poor citizens at the bottom of the income ladder. Nope, now they are beginning to affect the rich. And here is a link to the result: it is the front page of the Chamber of Commerce's website. https://www.uschamber.com/tariffs

[marooned]

Here's an example of the kind of thing that scares me:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...ntroversy.html

It's like you can't examine ideas - this is like the thought police. There is only one dogma and anything outside of it is increasingly persecuted.

I mean, the criticisms of the article are fine--it should be open to criticism--and perhaps indeed some of the terms/ideas need to be re-worked. But the witch hunt that follows is the sort of free-floating "hate" basically that scares me. Things like this make me want to hide far, far away from human society. And the hate is a product of a binary between what is increasingly two sides only, with no other perspectives, no middle ground, no anything: you are either with us or against us and those against us can just die.

Another article: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2...ot-your-enemy/

And another one: https://panampost.com/ben-jackson/20...?cn-reloaded=1

The issue is that BOTH positions are right. There is increasing censorship of speech and ideas such that one can't examine ideas in discussion unless they can do so according to the One Dogma. But the issues the One Dogma addresses are real issues that need to be addressed that do indeed reflect real injustices.

[Spermatozoa]

I don't understand why people hate China so much.

That's awesome btw. Eco cities are the future. And they will look so cool.

I don't hate the Chinese, in fact it is quite the opposite, I have great respect for what they have achieved as a civilization and consider them to be worthy rivals. Nor do I hate the Chinese government or even communism, although equality does not exist anywhere in nature and is impossible to create without state coercion.

Try not to bring your personal feelings into this. We are merely envisioning the hypothetical arcs by which the future could develop. It is also possible that there may be a massive flu pandenic that overwhelms that part of the world, or a giant meteor may crash into Earth tomorrow rendering this discussion entirely moot. Or maybe something else - there could be an assassination attempt, or even just a series of unrelated, minor circumstances which combine in a way we can't so easily account for, like maybe some car accidents, an earthquake or two...either way, our job is to assess which outcome is most probable, out of all the possibilities that need to be considered.

[Spermatozoa]

Here's an example of the kind of thing that scares me:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...ntroversy.html

It's like you can't examine ideas - this is like the thought police. There is only one dogma and anything outside of it is increasingly persecuted.

I mean, the criticisms of the article are fine--it should be open to criticism--and perhaps indeed some of the terms/ideas need to be re-worked. But the witch hunt that follows is the sort of free-floating "hate" basically that scares me. Things like this make me want to hide far, far away from human society. And the hate is a product of a binary between what is increasingly two sides only, with no other perspectives, no middle ground, no anything: you are either with us or against us and those against us can just die.

Another article: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2...ot-your-enemy/

And another one: https://panampost.com/ben-jackson/20...?cn-reloaded=1

The issue is that BOTH positions are right. There is increasing censorship of speech and ideas such that one can't examine ideas in discussion unless they can do so according to the One Dogma. But the issues the One Dogma addresses are real issues that need to be addressed that do indeed reflect real injustices.

As I see it, the issue is that our political discourse has become dominated by zero-sum conflicts over who we find offensive and dangerous, as opposed to more abstract discussions around policy. This change has made the personal political and therefore removed the distance between someone's ideas and their character as a person. You should be able to dissect an ideology, examine its premises and determine whether it is logically sound. But people now make political choices based on identity rather than ideas. This is because we live in a multiracial society (which you support), and a majority voting bloc is now impossible to assemble without appeals to identity. So people have no incentive to open their minds. A totem pole of victimhood with common enemies, as well as immigration (which adds fuel to the fire) is now necessary for the left at least to win elections, and this means political opponents are not only are incorrect to them but oppressive and a moral evil.

[xerx]

actually the United States has always been a multiracial society (bleeding-heart Liberals didn't cause slavery)

[WVBRY]

Multi-racial is not a problem, multi-cultural does create some problems though.

The ancient Egyptians didn't stay a civilization for 3,000 years with multi-culuralism, it was in fact quit the opposite: a unified culture. Yes, different nomes (provinces) had their own gods and versions of the gods, but under the pharoah society was unified and so was culture. The Egyptians were xenophobic since not Egyptian meant less than human, but anyone could become Egyptian simply by adopting Egyptian customs and traditions regardless of race.

America has not always been multi-cultural but it has always been a melting pot. People of different countires come to America to become American, yes they retain an attachment to their culture of origin too, for example they can be Irish American or Chinese American or Mexican American, but there is a common thread - "American".

[Spermatozoa]

actually the United States has always been a multiracial society (bleeding-heart Liberals didn't cause slavery)

Almost every society around the world has had slaves at some point in time. If you want to use slavery as a moral yardstick to assess the comparative value of civilisations, the question you should be asking is which societies led the move to abolish slavery, and which societies still practice it today.

[Spermatozoa]

Multi-racial is not a problem, multi-cultural does create some problems though.

The ancient Egyptians didn't stay a civilization for 3,000 years with multi-culuralism, it was in fact quit the opposite: a unified culture. Yes, different nomes (provinces) had their own gods and versions of the gods, but under the pharoah society was unified and so was culture. The Egyptians were xenophobic since not Egyptian meant less than human, but anyone could become Egyptian simply by adopting Egyptian customs and traditions regardless of race.

America has not always been multi-cultural but it has always been a melting pot. People of different countires come to America to become American, yes they retain an attachment to their culture of origin too, for example they can be Irish American or Chinese American or Mexican American, but there is a common thread - "American".

You see, this is where I disagree. The culture we have today is very different to what it was even a generation ago. Cultural forces are incorporeal so highly malleable and evolve at a rapid rate. Dramatic changes won't necessarily undermine a society in an irreversible manner, as revolutions throughout history attest. Race being biological evolves much more slowly (100,000s of years, as opposed to mere minutes). For all intents and purposes we can consider it to be a fixed trait. Also, culture flows downstream from people, much as politics flows downstream from culture. This is why the demographic composition of a country needs to be tightly monitored if you want political stability. The Chinese nation, whom you mentioned earlier, understand this very well - it is why they have a very strict immigration policy.

My rule of thumb is to keep visible minorities below 10% and have a single race dominate society (this prevents the identity-based politics we see now) but to also encourage multiple cultural movements (ideas, philosophies etc) to compete with each other so that people are challenged intellectually and innovate, which communists are always afraid to allow. Your melting-pot scenario was only possible because the above conditions were being met.

[xerx]

I wasn't discussing the morality of slavery. I only meant that the United States has always been multi-cultural / multi-ethnic, with Africans (and indigenous peoples to be sure) having played a prominent role from nearly its inception as an agricultural colony. If you're of German / Finnish / Swedish / etc. immigrant descent, then a descendant of African slavery is likely to be more indigenous than you are.

Almost every society around the world has had slaves at some point in time. If you want to use slavery as a moral yardstick to assess the comparative value of civilisations, the question you should be asking is which societies led the move to abolish slavery, and which societies still practice it today.

If you're going to be "brutally fair", then also consider the fact that the intensity and scale of Western European chattel slavery dwarfed pretty much anything else that came before. Preindustrial societies like Medieval Europe, the Roman Empire, and Dar al-Islam practiced slavery (or serfdom, which is only marginally better), but they never had (except in a few cases) the industrial-scale plantation economies to justify reducing sentient beings to pure capital goods in order extract every last ounce of value from them.

[timber]

Random facebook thread comment-->

The deep stupid comments of River Durmon & Chad Nouvet and others ignoring or defending this as "Old" are indicative of the complete denial of all Trump supporters to the long history of the Trump perfidy.

In NYC from the 1970 on, Trump was considered a cheap joke, a crass charlatan and little baby Wiseguy wannabe.


I grew up in NYC and I met Trump several times in 1988 while working on celebrity events as a manager for Glorious Foods (the premier catering company at the time)


Now this is a time (1985) when Trump’s primary mentor (and agent of organized crime collusion) had been, disbarred attorney Roy Cohen Jr. (mob lawyer and architect of Mccarthyism)


Trump used the Mob (thru Cohen) to control unions and force out long time (upper west side) residence, in the way of his eyesore development “Trump Place” which he had been trying to do since the 70s. In the end he failed and ended up selling out to foreign investors who finished the development (all in the public record)


During those years he was often in the press at hot NYC night clubs doing blow and groping eastern European teens girls who were trying to be Paulina Porizkova


He was and still is a prostitute banging criminal, who dodges taxes, creditors, and contractor's unpaid bills.


His continued failures are why he went to the mob and then to Russia for investors and buyers for his real estate projects. (all in the public record, look up the owners in all of his developments)


They got to launder money and he got to put his (changed) fake name onto the buildings which even back then had the same vulgar inelegance, straight out of a Russian oligarchs comic book fantasy… fucking gold toilets says it all.

[marooned]

An exciting article i found today: https://www.mrctv.org/blog/social-ps...-masculinities

My favorite part is imposing the notion of 'rape culture' on dogs. It's kind of ironic coming from someone who is against oppression--the continuing oppression of "man" over "beast" is evident everywhere, and the very way dogs have been bred is in a way in which they must be as docile and adaptable to humans as possible. Humans didn't like their nature, and so this became this. Anyway, there is endless fodder for SJWs in dog breeds and what has been done to them genetically--one could even go so far as to calling spaying and neutering oppression/violation. It's kind of hypocrisy to use dogs as examples of human rape culture in a paper like this. Male dogs aren't very analogous to male humans in a lot of ways. Although I'm not an expert, dogs/wolves don't seem to care about biological sex in terms of dominance. Where's the canine rapey patriarchy? I guess you can apply it along dominance lines (do dominant dogs hump non-dominant dogs as a show of their dominance, to keep those non-dominant dogs down?). But that analysis doesn't seem to be here.

[marooned]

Regarding the other conversation below, I don't know what I think about all this crap at this point.

I think the United States has always been multi-racial and multi-cultural. However, I am not sure it has ever been a melting pot. There is some melting and some disparity. And I do agree that you can see a "white culture" that anyone pale/Caucasian looking can phase in and out of, or be absorbed entirely by--that this has been the dominant culture and it hasn't really "melted" all that much with the other cultures, though there are various sub-cultures it tends to be more accepting of than not (which includes some religious orientations).

And I have no idea how we can all live together, or how anything can ever matter more than what "race" we are. That vision to me, seems more and more impossible, the more I learn. My ideal of transcending race seems like a pipe dream. Honestly, if that's all we can be before anything else--a race--I just don't want to be around people. I hate the generalizations. I hate the denial of the individual.

[xerx]

[Adam Strange]

Some people are deliberately stupid. Not born stupid. Not accidentally stupid. Deliberately stupid.

There is a good explanation for why some people parrot the bullshit they’ve heard from people whom they see as authorities, rather than investigating the truth of any matter based on objective evidence. For most of human evolution, identification with a group conferred greater survival benefits than knowledge of objective truths.

People can signal their identification with a group by wearing certain clothes or symbols or by repeating certain catch phrases. The truth or falsehood of their catch phrases is not the point. The point is to publicly identify with a group which they feel will protect them. The fact that they often know that what they are saying is untrue can be proven by tests where they are asked which belief is actually true, and are offered money for a correct answer. In such tests, people’s responses grow much closer to objectively provable facts. In these cases, the prospect of immediate rewards trumps the more tenuous benefits of group membership.

I swear to god, the discovery and application of the scientific method was the greatest advance humans have made in their long history.

[Bertrand]

deliberate obtuseness is usually rational according to the domain of human relationships, you just have to see who they have in mind when supporting one position or another

[marooned]

Another fun article: http://www.fayobserver.com/news/2018...ct-2-candidate

Are our races "political parties" now?

Why is identity politics about perpetuating the same injustices that have occurred in the past (but in reverse) rather than about ending ALL of these injustices.

Sigh. All we're doing is setting ourselves up for a repeat of history.

The other thing that kind of amuses me is that I think I'm tending towards not wanting to vote at all because no one represents my interests. No one represents the kind of world I wish we could create. They can all go fuck themselves.

[marooned]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...cism-made.html

This topic frustrates me as well. Though I vote democrats primarily because of class-based issues and issues about equality, I really don't believe the generic left cares at all about the working class (it is defined primarily by white upper middle class people and minorities). Identity politics, as taught, are about race, sex, sexual orientation and gender; they are not about class. And anyone white who is working class is considered having invalid concerns. Their economic status and issues are seen as irrelevant next to their white privilege. Thanks to identity politics, class IS race now. They are inseparable. If you are black working class, the thing keeping you down is that you are black (your class is irrelevant next to racism). If you are white working class, um, you're white. You have no problems. I think things are much more about class than a lot of people see. And just because race is more significant for a racial minority in terms of their problems in society, that doesn't mean that the same is true of those in the racial majority.

It's just mystifying how the very kinds of thinkers who authored this identity politics discourse in universities can't apparently see its implications.

Anyway, I used to feel unity with anyone in my social class. But now I feel utterly alone, politically.

And it's so annoying, because it's like all one has to do is mention class AND race. There is this idea of "intersectionality." If one is in a minority race + working class they are even MORE disadvantaged. It's standard addition. Ugh. It doesn't have to mean only class matters and race doesn't when that's obviously false. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

[Adam Strange]

I’m looking at the reports of Trump’s performance at Helsinki, and even the conservative news outlets are critical of him. Now that the rich have their tax cut, Trump’s erratic behavior is now (but not before the tax cut) grounds for him to be replaced by the more tractable Pence.

[WVBRY]

While I liked my time in America and often wished to go back after coming back to Belgium, I'm kinda glad I'm not there now.

No offense or anything, but it just looks really tense, with identity politics, taboo debates(like the gun debate which gets really heated, I mean it always has been but now it's just pure degeneracy), immigrants not welcome (at least by alot of people), etc.

[Computer Loser]

Oh u guyz r silly

[Hitta]

The should make completing Dark Souls III a requirement for entering into politics.

[Dauphin]

The new mindset among the left is apparently that anything to the right of the Democratic Party (or its equivalent in other countries) is Nazism, and they seem to be perfectly fine with the fact that this does nothing but push people in the center further to the right.
It's pure psychosis and toxicity. Even the mildest disagreement with left-wing identity politics will lead to doxxing and public humiliation now.

[Bertrand]

honestly the left in america has been pushed so far to the center, at this point everything to the right of it is kind of fascist

[Adam Strange]

To me, Omarosa looks ESI and so does Katy Tur.

Given the fact that

"The main program of Dreiser is to reveal all the existing negative ethical qualities and tendencies and to fight for their removal, exclusion, and elimination to the point of their complete eradication. In light of this, what constitutes acceptable relations for Dreiser are relations in which he sees the smallest potential for trouble for his himself, his close ones, and his community.",

our reality show President may be in trouble.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi..._came_out.html

Katy Tur looks like she's got so many questions about what Trump did, and Omarosa has already made up her mind about the guy. Lol.

[WVBRY]

honestly the left in america has been pushed so far to the center, at this point everything to the right of it is kind of fascist

Wtf does this even mean.

People are not pushed far to the center they are pushed far from the center, the whole idea of having a center is that anything to the right or left of it is more radical. You're saying the left is in the center (which makes no sense because if they were, would they still be the left?), and anything to the right of the center, which is technically still the right, is not anymore fascist than it ever has been.

If your statement had been "the left in America has been pushed so far the right that anything to the right of it is fascist" that would have been logical - it's not true - but it is logical.

[WVBRY]

I think a truer statement would actually be "the right has been pushed so far to the right, and the left so far to the left, that American politics is becoming more polarized".

[Bertrand]

a good example is obama care, which was previously considered a republican plan, but once obama got behind it, politics dictated they had to oppose it, thus the set point moved right, and the left found themselves defending a historically more right wing position. what was once the conservative option became the librul one and the entire push/pull shifted to the right. it is to say little more than even our democrats are not very left compared to the left around the world and the left itself in america in time. i would agree that increased polarization is the mechanism that accomplished this, but on the whole america is drifting right. even leftist "victories" such as gay marriage are partial solutions and a little late, compared to the global perspective. if all you look at is local i.e.: national politics without a broader philosophical or global view, there is no objective left or right there is only opposition to the tribe, which is itself a slide into a right wing mindset. in other words, the entire perspective the US is being sucked into is a kind of right wing mindset, not just on the substantive issues but on how it frames the development of those issues. this is precisely what is powering polarization, it escalates division and hostility, by increasingly narrowing its point of view, without a shred of self awareness. republicans think this is their ticket to success, by encouraging things like the tea party, which are a clear example of this dynamic at work, but I think it will ultimately serve as a historical example of how not to run a country, because its fundamentally a kind of tantrum to bring people's attention to a class of people feeling ignored for too long, not really a wellspring of sound policy in of itself.. in this case it may be that the right wing ends up promoting the most progressive developments in american politics since the civil rights movement, but first we need a shift to the right to demonstrate why that path is something of a dead end, which is what we're seeing right now unfold. on the other hand I saw an article the other day about how China is suffering from the trade war with the US and thought maybe Trump does have something to teach the left going forward in terms of executive policy, which is its okay to sometimes play hardball with our "allies." I guess we'll see what becomes of the China situation too