There are millions of angry white folks in America. They all just had to endure eight years of a black man in the White House. I imagine this was possibly as surprising as seeing black regiments invading Dixie back then. This is the crowd FOX panders to, and relentlessly at that.
Now, they might be seeing a woman in the White House for maybe another eight years?
These are people who used to (maybe still do) run blacks, hispanics, any people "not like them", out of town. What do you expect other than white backlash against a "rigged" system that has meant, for them, eating shit sammys for too long?
It is more than that. Consider the dark vision of America offered by Trump. The entire Republican platform is built on a false narrative that has been cooked and served by Fox and talk radio. It is classic misdirection and misinformation. It reminds me of telling scary stories by the campfire. Earlier, CNN was running a clip of Nixon in the 68 campaign. He sounded like a freaking liberal compared to Trump. He had a positive, inclusive message by comparison. [Recall that in 68, we weren't worried about a few guys killing a few hundred with AK47s. We were worried about total nuclear annihilation at any moment. But the message was so much more positive!]
But this is ultimately a culture war. Ironically, it is a war that was started by Nixon. Fox News has made a fortune on it by telling scary stories. Trump has engaged in a hostile takeover by leveraging that fear.
As an outsider (I'm not an American citizen), it seems fairly obvious what's happening here. Although what doesn't seem obvious is why all the Trump or Clinton detractors don't see what I think I can see, and what I think lots of other people can see too.
There are millions of angry white folks in America. They all just had to endure eight years of a black man in the White House. I imagine this was possibly as surprising as seeing black regiments invading Dixie back then. This is the crowd FOX panders to, and relentlessly at that.
Now, they might be seeing a woman in the White House for maybe another eight years?
These are people who used to (maybe still do) run blacks, hispanics, any people "not like them", out of town. What do you expect other than white backlash against a "rigged" system that has meant, for them, eating shit sammys for too long
It's not so much that people don't see it, but, rather, that only so much acknowledgment is allowed in the general discourse. It's one of the things about our discourse that occasionally moves me to fits↱.
(Wait a minute, I have a Sciforums post about that blog post. Okay, there it is↗. And here's a fun bit of trivia: I have, in fact, altered my position↗ in recent days regarding the pro wrestling metaphor. Trivia, minutiae, something like that.)
The underlying theme is that when I was young and we fretted about the scale of bigotry we witnessed the advice was, essentially, to cheer up, you can't identify America that way, it's just a few bad seeds, and besides, look at all the good things America does. It's astounding how cruelly history has riddled that principle, but it was also the thing many of my generation can recall our parents leaning on. It wasn't quite properly drilled into us, but the message was unmistakable.
Compared to the doctrine of then, what we witness today absolutely isn't supposed to be happening.
To the other, it is, in fact, happening. And the reason everybody is supposed to be surprised is an old custom of the discourse.
Think of it this way: The song buried under the banner image ... it took me years to figure it out, to run out of excuses just because I really, really, really liked the band, to finally admit what I was listening to. I could not possibly have held out so long, could not reasonably have wanted to, but for the fact that compared to the rest of my youth, "There's more dead crows than there are damn bullets", is only mildly offensive, exactly the kind of dumb shit the facial arrogance of youthful zeal would dare defend according to artistic prerogative. In any society where these attitudes weren't circulating at problematic scale, it should have been clear from the outset: Don't try! Yeah, it's embarrassing.
But that's the thing: Those attitudes were never supposed to be this widespread. That insistent belief is the difference you're noticing.
And it's also part of what's coming to an end. There are reasons this is all happening. To the one, I'm kind of surprised we're willing to take it this far. To the other, we're Americans, of course we're going to take it this far.
How about a happier sadness? Another part of my youth ....
Do you remember? Look at me, at all the things we said we'd be; we'd beat the house, we'd push the odds―we'd take it all, we had the cards. With years to burn, and years to trash, living life based on flash―but somehow reaching for the stars―I thnk we went a bit too far. Got to get back; I never meant to take it this far. When everything you touch turns gold can weigh you down, can make you old; when metal doesn't ring the same reaction from inside your brain. And all the years we offered up to gods who couldn't get enough―though we still stay up all night the mornings aren't quite as bright. Got to get back, I never meant to take it this far. And all those things we thought we learned as we watch our bridges burn while standing in the afterglow; I guess we gave them quite a show. And who's to say what it's about when John Wayne caught the last train out? And Spock and Kirk have had enough, and no one's left to beam me up? Got to get back; I never meant to take this far.
If things are changing, if America and the West are really facing some new threat, then I hope America does what it has always done in the face of adversity.
But what is the real threat? I think it would be pretty sad if, after defeating Germany in 1944 they elect a man in 2016 who thinks and is acting more and more like Hitler, to power, and for the same kinds of reasons Germans elected a man who turned out to be a monster.
I don't believe terrorism, Islamic or otherwise, is that threat. I don't believe either, that the likes of Bernie Sanders' anti-establishment movement is the threat. The establishment has to change because it's becoming less relevant, is what I think.
If things are changing, if America and the West are really facing some new threat, then I hope America does what it has always done in the face of adversity.
But what is the real threat? I think it would be pretty sad if, after defeating Germany in 1944 they elect a man in 2016 who thinks and is acting more and more like Hitler, to power, and for the same kinds of reasons Germans elected a man who turned out to be a monster.
I don't believe terrorism, Islamic or otherwise, is that threat. I don't believe either, that the likes of Bernie Sanders' anti-establishment movement is the threat. The establishment has to change because it's becoming less relevant, is what I think.
How about we wait until the woman-hating rhetorical arsonist still clinging desperately to his Bern stops wasting our time with his typical deification of Republicans? Your manner of deseperate, ego-stroking invalidation is about on par with the Gohmerts and Bachmanns and Palins and Angles of the Republican experience.
You keep blathering on with your presumptions about people whose posts you can no longer read through the spittle, see where it gets you.
Tiassa said:
It seems worth pointing out, then, that Hillary Clinton is about to be elected president of the United States, and this weird chapter when people identifying as liberals decided to wallow in and celebrate conservative hatred in hopes of taking her down will only augment the legend of her political prowess
Yeah, a whole bunch of under-clocking "conservative" misogynists hate Hillary, and I think she's a mediocre, compromising, rightwing political hack with powerful backing and bad judgment, so I must be an underclocking conservative misogynist who hates Hillary.
Either that, or you're being viciously stupid for some reason. Can't be, right?
There's something about supporting Clinton - which I am going to do in this election, btw, as I have always posted, now that Sanders is out of the running (I'll even promise to vote for her, against all my political principles, if the election is even remotely close in my State) - that seems to render some people unable to think coherently. That Koolaid is powerful. And it's dangerous.
You don't have to turn idiot to support Clinton, you don't have to drown in the stuff.
It might even lo0k better if a few Clinton supporters seemed to be at least marginally connected to reality, starting with the nature of the politician they claim to support. Some aspect of her political nature other than her gender, that is.
Look: Clinton is a rightwing authoritarian conservative by nature, with a policy wonk's vulnerability to gratuitous "compromise" and "triangulation" when confronted. In addition, Clinton has always been an incompetent, tone-deaf, screwup-prone campaigner, with a mediocre at best (at very best) record of "accomplishment" in official positions, and a longstanding (her entire career) allegiance to the likes of Goldman Sachs executives and the Israeli lobby. And thanks to you guys, she's going to be the only thing between Trump and the White House. So you guys have to wake up. You're her friends, remember?
A fortunate person is underestimated by their friends, and overestimated by their enemies. You're failing badly at the first part of that.
You haven't got a hero here. You haven't even got reliable campaign performer. You've got a project, and it's one of the most important projects of American electoral history. Quit handicapping yourself with these helium balloon voiced delusion-based superlatives. Somebody might think you believe them in your best sobriety.
If you guys don't sober up and realize what kind of situation you've set up here, start to dig in and take care of business, you and your fellow mental cripples are going to be to blame for the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency. Because that 27 - 40% that has not and never will listen to reason is not going to go away.
For example: Do you recall me warning you about the visible danger that Clinton was going to run this campaign as a referendum on gun control? It's starting to happen. And only her friends can stop her.
You advocate for lethal stalkers. That pretty much settles it.
Yeah, a whole bunch of under-clocking "conservative" misogynists hate Hillary, and I think she's a mediocre, compromising, rightwing political hack with powerful backing and bad judgment, so I must be an underclocking conservative misogynist who hates Hillary.
After all your petulant screeching, Iceaura, maybe furious huffing about underclocking would have some better value had you actually put some effort into your tantrum. For all your pretentious passion you couldn't be bothered to think for yourself. Slothful adoption of Republican talking points doesn't make up for your utter inability to advocate a platform.
After all these months you're still too either lazy or plain incompetent to advocate a platform, so all you have is petulant, insistent, bratty invalidation.
And we get it. Like Amy Klobuchar and other nanny state foul authoritarian gits, Hillary Clinton is a woman, and that's the only genuine original sin.
You have before described yourself as left-libertarian. We're still waiting to see the "left" part of that.
Seriously, at some point you should have been capable of at least sounding like you had a clue, except that was apparently too much to ask.
For example: Do you recall me warning you about the visible danger that Clinton was going to run this campaign as a referendum on gun control? It's starting to happen. And only her friends can stop her.
You're not "waiting", you're "forgetting", with your usual odd memory bias in this area: you've seen me - for example - castigate Clinton several times for her opposition to Federal ownership of the US central bank and reimposition of the New Deal banking regulations, as well as blocking Medicare expansion or any other single payer, socialized health insurance setup, to list two specifically leftwing criticisms of Clinton in particular. I made kind of a big deal out of that latter, once or twice, specifically dating my general disapproval of Clinton to the earliest occasions of that, when she stepped hard on Wellstone's increasingly popular proposal, and gave us Romneycare, only with the Democratic Party set up to take the blame for its inevitable failure.
I made a really big deal out of it, actually. Was that one of those Republican talking points I "adopted"? Or was it my complaints about her opposition to serious banking regulation? Or was it my objecting to her career of getting rolled by Republican hardline initiatives, compromising in advance with presumed positions and ending up further compromising in the "negotiations" themselves? Or was it my description of her counter-Party Iraq War vote in support of the blatantly warmongering Republican W&Cheney as an event of either cowardly and miscalculated cynicism or startlingly gullible incompetence?
See, my actual criticisms of Clinton's career and ideological stances don't seem to register in your awareness, being supplanted by various presumptions of misogyny and the like. I attribute that to the koolaid effect - the superlative competence and masterful tactics of Hillary Clinton seem to create a fundamental disability in their perceivers, making even the nadir of her Iraq War Powers vote appear to be some kind of politically well-considered act.
I considered it, at the time, a disqualification for responsible office, and a permanent loss of my vote - who knew she'd be running against Trump for the Presidency?
Tiassa said:
Seriously, at some point you should have been capable of at least sounding like you had a clue, except that was apparently too much to ask.
Sounding to you? Not possible, on this topic. You guys are listening to some kind of noise in your heads, and the outside world isn't getting through.
And when the same thing seems to be happening to the masterful taciticians that hired Wasserman-Schultz as campaign staff immediately upon her resignation as DNC chair, the threat of Trump ratchets another step forward. You aren't going to beat the misogynists by alienating everybody else.
Well the numbers are in and it doesn't look good for Republicans. The Democratic convention drew in far more viewers, so much so, it's embarrassing The Donald. After months of telling people he was going to make the Republican convention great, well, it wasn't so great. It was flat-out boring. So now suddenly, and contrary to both his statements and statement by his daughter, Trump had nothing to do with the Republican convention except showing up on the last day and giving a speech. If you believe that I've got a few bridges to sell you. Unfortunately for Trump he's on tape.
You gotta wonder when will Trump begin telling people, "I didn't say I will make America great again?"
Then again, the one part they won the ratings battle was nominee speeches; Trump's overlong ramble drew a bit more than Clinton's sober, least-exciting-of-either-convention appeal to the face and voice of genuine leadership.
Still, though, the Democrats put on a hell of a show.
You know, the thing that gets me is that for all the dissatisfaction we hear from across the spectrum, the common link is Republicans. The demographics don't support it, but what ought to be happening right now is the transformation to a Democratic majority with every expectation that the Party delivers.
In general, I'm not so worried about the ratings; it's just striking that the Democratic soirée actually drew the better numbers. Like car racing and unanswered prayers for a mass-casualty golf accident, people generally tune into the conventions as a rubbernecking diversion. Right now I can't get past a broad notion that the situation has gotten so bad that people are awake; fumbling, where's my damn coffee, awake, but everything else fits the pattern. Why would Hillary draw numbers to equal Donald? She's boring, we'll read about it tomorrow, and, you know ... yeah. Donald, on the other hand?
Then again, I'm actually glad I skipped his speech. Holy shit.
I say watch the congressional races and gubernatorial contests; we're going to see creepy polling on the presidential race, and then Hillary Clinton will wreck Donald Trump on Election Day, and the answer to where the people are will be tested, generally, by whether Democrats want to throw the bums out but vote for their own delegation, anyway, and just how much damage Republicans take in the House. This is the year for the Democrats to stand for their own; this is the year in which Republicans need to figure out what they're doing, and thus have a larger potential to break.
The real story is going to be the downticket outcomes. There are twelve governors' mansions up for grabs; eight Democratic and four Republican. Democrats will make progress in the U.S. Senate because they know how to win these statewide elections, but just how committed are voters to Democratic administrations in Missouri, Montana, or West Virginia? What disaster will elevate a Democrat in Indiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, or Utah? Major shifts in these states will be significant in assessing the will of the electorate.
The presidential show, though, will not be indicative of anything this year except itself.
Trump says Russia won't invade Ukraine. Huh...somebody needs to tell Trump Russia has already invaded Ukraine. I use to give credit to Trump for being smart and thought he was just playing to a dumb voter base. But now, given the amount bullshit, and the continual stream of stupid blunders, I really have to reassess that belief. I beginning to think Trump really is that dumb.
Trump is now blaming Hillary for "rigging" the presidential debate schedules saying the debates conflict with the NFL schedule. But here is the thing, the presidential debate schedule was finalized last year well before the primaries and party nominations. The individual campaigns had nothing to do with the debate scheduling. The presidential debates are scheduled by the bi-partisan Presidential Debate Commission with the advice and consent of both the Republican and Democratic parties. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/us/politics/donald-trump-debate-nfl-conflict.html
So this is yet another case of either Trump's gross ignorance of things he should know or blatant dishonesty. Personally, I'm inclined to believe the latter. But then again, maybe I'm giving Trump too much credit in the "smarts department". Trump reminds me more and more with each passing day of Sarah Palin.
Ho Ho Ho, I see Trump's pndits on the defense and looking very stressed today. Apparently he has escalated his fight with the Kahn family and it isn't going over well. But the people slamming him are Republicans! LOL. As Mr. Kahn said, he has a black heart, and it shows.
His statement about Russia not invading the Ukraine is making him look like an idiot.
Trump may have finally hit the breaking point. I predict he takes a big drop in the polls.
And then there is the letter Trump claims to have received from the NFL complaining about the presidential debate schedule and asking him to change it. That's all well and good, except the NFL says it never wrote such a letter. Presumably, the NFL knows individual candidates have no power over the debate schedules. If the NFL wanted to complain about the presidential debate schedules, the NFL would have sent the letter to the bi-partisan Presidential Debate Commission who does have the power to change the debate schedules.
So now Trump is changing his story. Instead of a letter, it was a phone call from an unnamed person from the NFL. It's funny how that works.
Life-long, well-known Republican top advisor leaving R party.
Jeb Bush's top adviser, Sally Bradshaw, has left the Republican Party to become an independent, and says if the presidential race in Florida is close, she'll vote for Hillary Clinton.
Trump is preparing his exist strategy, kind of early given he just won the party's nomination a week ago. This morning Trump complained about how the vote this fall would be rigged. Well, at least Trump is consistent. But it's kind of funny that Trump is even at this early stage laying the groundwork for his failure. You just don't see that in presidential elections, especially this early.
Trump lost his post convention bump in the polling and now we are back to Clinton leading Trump by 7 points. One thing we do know is Trump pays attention to his polling numbers, and they really don't look good for him. Trump seems unable to or unwilling to control himself. He really does appear to be temperamentally unfit to become POTUS.
We can only speculate what will remain of the party after The Donald. What The Donald has done demands an apology. But The Donald isn't the apologizing kind.
And then there is the letter Trump claims to have received from the NFL complaining about the presidential debate schedule and asking him to change it. That's all well and good, except the NFL says it never wrote such a letter. Presumably, the NFL knows individual candidates have no power over the debate schedules. If the NFL wanted to complain about the presidential debate schedules, the NFL would have sent the letter to the bi-partisan Presidential Debate Commission who does have the power to change the debate schedules.
So now Trump is changing his story. Instead of a letter, it was a phone call from an unnamed person from the NFL. It's funny how that works.
The debate schedule has been known for over a year. Is the trump campaign only looking at it now? Sounds like they're worried about getting crushed in the debates and want an out.
Senior Republican strategists are leaving the Republican camp and are now supporting Hillary Clinton for POTUS. You just don't see this stuff. The rats are jumping ship.
Trump is preparing his exist strategy, kind of early given he just won the party's nomination a week ago. This morning Trump complained about how the vote this fall would be rigged. Well, at least Trump is consistent. But it's kind of funny that Trump is even at this early stage laying the groundwork for his failure. You just don't see that in presidential elections, especially this early.
It is interesting because that is the one thing we would expect from Trump if he thinks he's going to lose. It may be that they were looking to the post-conventions numbers as the indicator of which way this is going to go. This morning CNN had Hillary up by 9 points.
Notably, for the first time in decades Trump's Republicans are losing college-educated whites. That be me and I will NEVER vote for another Republican for any office. I don't care if a Republican is running for dog catcher. They won't get my vote.
I heard this morning that there simply aren't enough non-college whites to elect Trump given his numbers with women, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims... The suggestion was that he is approaching a point of a mathematical elimination before we even have the election. And now he has gone to war with the GOP leadership. LOL!!! Trump scares the hell out of me. I never imaged I would be worried a potential Hitler getting elected. But it is comedy as well. I still have to wonder just a little if Trump and the Clintons didn't cook this up to destroy the Republican Party by simply exposing how far they are willing to go. I am certainly shocked. I have seriously overestimated character and integrity of the GOP leadership. I can understand aberrations like Trump but I also expect the leadership to soundly denounce him out of principle. Clearly they have no principles.
I have also lost all respect for evangelicals. They are total hypocrites. I was raised with religion. There is no justification for a "Christian" supporting someone like Trump. It is a violation of the most basic principles of Christianity.
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