How are you suppose to make sense if I can't probe you with conclusions? So you want me to hunt through all your posts to find dirt and then you will argue that is not dirt and reinterpret and repeat ad nauseam, yeah no thanks, thankfully I don't need to do that because just a paragraph before your saying vast numbers of whites are almost universally deeply racist. That is precisely the kind of talk that offends them, that mobilized them and now we have President Trump. I think you have a problem with cause and effect here: poverty and desperation is the cause, racism is the product. Some blame their problems on other races, if they did not have those problems they would not be blaming anyone. Yes some are racist, but few have racism as a core facet of their being. I have talked to these people IN REAL LIFE and actually listened to them IN REAL LIFE, not simply on the internet but as an open democrat that has gone door to to door campaigning for candidates in suburbia and rural areas. You would be surprised how many warm up to the idea of wage hikes, universal healthcare and BIG. Their interest in BIG perks up when I point out is would radically simplify wealthfare for they hate the bureaucracy and unfairness of wealthfare far more than that is support "them people": basically "so the government will cut a check to everyone, even me? and them wealthfare queens won't be able to game the system? Oh I like that". When they specify wealthfare queens they are not simply speaking of blacks, single mothers generally come up, white ones they have had sex with and dodging child support usually. They also mean people with illnesses that they feel should not inhibit hard work, one that was cite personally was "my aunt gets off on welfare for eczema, eczema! why do I have to work my ass off to pay taxes so she can lay around all day?". The fundamental complaint is perceived unfairness in that they don't get any help and others do. Considering the poll advantage of sanders over trump, there were enough of them that would have switch votes from trump or gary Johnson to sanders to have won if only we had a candidate that they felt was not part of the "establishment" for which they believe is the source of why "nothing gets done". Now in considering you're probably going to keep arguing that they are just racists, fine, so what? They vote, that is what matters, and calling them racists, accurate or not, only aggravates them more and encourages them more to vote against us, as they did, thanks alot.
We've come too far to fall backward. I just don't believe it will happen, iceaura. Possibly I have more faith in America than do you. Again, I disagree. I don't believe this is a racist, misogynist, homophobic movement. I don't believe we have become MORE racist, sexist, homophobic over the past 50 years. If I'm wrong, tell me how that happened.
I can only post sense. I can't make sense of it for you. You have to do your own thinking. This is getting a bit comical. Are we not supposed to talk about them behind their backs, or something? Do we have to talk in code, or maybe can we get by with spelling the big words? Are we not allowed to say anything about them they don't like, or is it only their racism they don't want discussed? And why am I responsible for the way my ideas and observations are represented to them by their chosen founts of knowledge? I know for a fact they aren't actually listening to me, after all. I work with them, live among them, hang out with them. Nobody's got a gun to their head making them listen to Limbaugh all day long and Fox News every evening. No, I wouldn't. Paul Wellstone's single payer setup, for example, is an easy sell if you don't call it socialism. But if you try to get it enacted, their radio hate jockey and Fox and the local Trump wannabe will call it socialism and leftism and talk about "inner city" people getting a free ride while their taxes go up, and they will vote against it. And you have seen that happen - right? Y'know, the more you post error and garbage insult and false presumptions about me, the less credible anything you say about anyone else becomes. It also works the other way: racism is a cause, poverty and desperation are among the effects. That's an important point - and it's one they have to face if they hope to be less poor and less desperate, ever. And nobody is claiming racism is the "core of their being", merely one of the two or three most significant characteristics of their politics. Their racism has been a major obstacle for so many good things and better ways, it's made so much trouble and done so much visible harm, it may seem like it's the core of them, but we know that's not true. Meanwhile, at no time in their entire history, going back many generations, have they not been racist and engaged in blaming things on black and red and brown and yellow people. It's true that if they had no problems they would not blame other races for them, but very few people have no problems in their lives. Take a look at what happened within weeks of the Supreme Court decision lifting the strictures of the Voting Rights act. A dozen States immediately began rigging their voting systems to exclude black and brown people - pulling machines and reducing hours and curtailing modes of casting votes favored by black people, enacting targeted voter ID laws, manipulating voter registration lists, harassing and intimidating potential voters, and so forth. Regardless of the net effects over 50 years, the Republican Party surge and Trump phenomenon is quite obviously and proudly a racist, misogynist, political movement. It is perhaps less homophobic - but then its constituent demographic, white males 25 - 65, has skin in that game.
Yeah, and they're full of shit. They get all kinds of help, that lots of other people worked hard to provide for them, and they abuse these people and call them names and blame them when their own bad politics screws them over, and screws everybody else over, and nobody can do anything about it. Nobody can do anything about it because they, themselves, got in the way. Often by throwing a tantrum. And that's what Trump is - a tantrum.
I honestly don't disagree with this interpretation. Problem is this tantrum is going to hurt us all, not just them, had we been better at getting out our vote and reducing theirs we would not have President Trump.
Yep, the tantrum looks pretty bad. A lot of people are watching it on television. What I find hopeful is the effort by many to keep it peaceful. If they can maintain that attitude, they might have an ear.
I'm not going to take any blame for the Republican Party disasters, and there isn't any "we" here - all the "we" that includes me got out and voted, and the people whose vote you want to reduce somehow are adult human beings. They are responsible for their own behavior. We - the actual we - saw this in 1980, and 1984, and 2000, and 2004. We've been watching it on TV for a year and a half now. And there hasn't been much of an attempt to keep it peaceful - it's in the face, wide open, dance of the monsters. If you are talking about the post-election crowds, they have no chance of gaining an ear whether they keep it peaceful or not. Trump voters think sanity and reason have to earn the privilege of their attention, by pandering to them. It's like having somebody tell you they won't wipe their ass unless you ask them politely and pretend their shit don't stink , and if you complain about the filth they spread well then they just won't wipe at all and how do you like them apples? That's what you get for disrespecting them. It's a complete waste of time to attempt to reason with the people who took over the Republican Party beginning in 1980 - they aren't into reason, and besides they have no way of engaging in a discussion, no way to even hear what you are saying. The Trump voter will not come their senses until they hit bottom. You have to keep them from taking power, or ride out the consequences. They came to briefly after Iraq and Katrina and the Crash of '08, and if you notice they flinch away from that whole time - they are careful to avoid remembering what went down in this country from 2001 until 2009, and never make clear and direct statements of fact about any of the events and consequences of that era - but they were partly bailed out by the liberals, as they had been after 1981-1989, and never actually took the full hit of their diseased behavior. Third time's the charm? Nobody will be able to protect them from Trump (the administration, I mean - he's going to be a figurehead) if they miss the chance to invalidate the probably fraudulent electoral vote, so this go-round may do it. The main goal of "us" - the actual "we" that includes me - is to try to bunker up some resources, natural and cultural and economic, for the rebuild. That's the risk you take with any democracy. Electing people like Reagan, W, Trump, has consequences.
Iceaura, This is not about making people responsible for their decisions, this is about winning elections! Swaying peoples votes could have change this Cthulhuian joke we now live in. Had we worked harder (I am an elected democrat committee member, I volunteered at rallies and knocked on doors and spent hundred of dollar of my own money on getting out the vote, what did you do?) had we had a better candidate (Sanders, Warren, anyone other the Clinton which opinion polls showed was our least likable candidate EVER!) had we had a better strategy (focus on economic policy to help the working class rather than screaming racist and sexist over and over again) we would have won. We need to take responsibly for our own decision, and lesson have to be learned less you want 8 years of Trump. Update: Watch Warren laying out exactly how we should have focused on the the working class and political corruption.
Perhaps, when the HRC campaign realized that the best they had was "Trump told a fat woman that she was fat", they should have conceded the race early and saved a lot of time and no small amount of trauma for their supporters.
You can't beat fascists on their own ground. A fascist campaign is a tar baby, one of those monsters that gets stronger when you try to engage it in any way. Who's the "we" there? So those of us who tried to persuade the Democratic Party to do all that, who have focused on on those things for twenty or thirty years now, and were beaten, are to blame for getting beaten, are to blame for having none of our recommendations accepted and none of our warnings heeded? You are complaining about the use of evidence and reason in political argument, essentially. So how was it that she was nominated - was that the fault of the people like me, also? If you can ever figure out what "like me" actually involves, anyway. Speaking of which: The people like me are the ones who have been trying - fairly desperately - to get the Dems to roll back some of their crazy on gun control, to corral all the crazy over on the Republican side, and talk only sense themselves. That failure cost the Dems a hell of a lot of votes in this recent election, especially in places like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, but we did what we could - do you remember my posts here on the topic? Are they part of the "screaming" you deplore? The people like me are the ones who are now, last ditch, trying to get the Obama administration to pay serious attention to the voting irregularities in the swing States. Remember how people like me have been bringing that up, over and over and over, for nearly twenty years now? That stuff you call "screaming"? We could use a little help. Meanwhile, you greatly overestimate my influence if you think I, or anyone acting like me, is responsible for the lies and deceptions and slanders put together by the propaganda arm of the American fascist movement. They are perfectly capable of making wingnut videos out of anything, anything at all, including matters of their own invention. They don't need specially supplied material, and they don't need a base in reality. You cannot arrange reality so as to prevent them from making those videos, or keep them from working by denying them material to work with. Look at you, accusing "people like me" of "screaming about racism and sexism": where'd you get that silly idea? Not from anything I've posted here. Where'd you get the idea that if the Left would behave differently, the Republican Party would quit lying and slandering and marketing to their base via wingnut videos? You got it from them. That's their take, and you have adopted it. Their goal is to get you to behave differently. That's exactly how and possibly why Clinton trashed single payer health care in 1993 - negotiating in advance with people who aren't negotiating at all.
Perhaps, when the Republican voter realized that the only thing they had was "our guy can tell fat women they are pigs right out loud on TV", they should have remembered that the actual Presidency was involved and stayed home.
They aren't fascists. You are delusional. We did that just 8 years ago and won gloriously. Don't know how you came to that conclusion. Maybe, certainly heard alot of claims that anyone supporting Bernie over Hillary was sexist. What cost us the most in those states were working class voters that did not see any hope of economic reforms from Hillary. Oh I get what you're doing now, you're claiming everything you do is what I am complaining about, no I'm complaining about calling people racist and sexist and fascist left and right, demonizing the voting populace that does not agree with you and ideological purity questioning those that do, that behavior helped us loss. Again with the fascist, even wingnuts like Alex Jones and Limbaugh are not fascists, just con men that have huffed to many of their own lies to be sane anymore. Not my argument, my argument is that screaming about racism and sexism, put simply demonizing them, like calling them fascists, has turned off a lot of voters and that is why we lost. There is nothing we can do about the propaganda of the republican party, but your behavior adds to them. Oh you mean like in 2008 when they were all primed and ready with decades of dirt on Hillary and we behaved differently and put up Obama instead, leaving the republicans twirling without a clue of how to attack? Oh yeah that certainly was what they planned for. But please give me a republican policy and lets see if they have swayed me to their side on it. Not demonizing people is not the same as negotiating on policy. We should have got single payer health care and not the ACA, that has nothing to do with demonizing people.
They are. You are ignorant. Again with this "we". And I don't recall any "twirling" - I recall immediate and effective attacks, then and in 2012, obviously well prepared. The mistake the Republicans seem to have made in '08 was not pounding on the racial stuff hard enough, and nominating Palin - plus, of course, W had right then, mere weeks before the vote, had the ceiling fall in on him for the third or fourth time in as many years. We got lucky, in a sense - if the consequences of incompetence coming in on time is luck. Great. Do I and the people like me get credit for that? Not from anyone like me - quite the opposite. White working class, you mean. Sure. But that was inevitable with Clinton, given her policy record and characteristic refusal to confront such issues directly. Meanwhile, without the gun vote, and maybe the abortion vote, she wins anyway. Hell, without the still unexplained difference between the exit polls and the machine vote totals in the swing States, she wins. Fascist wasn't in your original, you just added it so that you could cover up the fact that your original had no support in my posting here. You seem unable to differentiate terms of analysis from namecalling, and ideological analysis from demands for ideological "purity". How do you plan to talk about the current Republican Party voting base, leadership, and ideological structure, without mentioning racial bigotry or fascist political "ideology"?
And I point out to you that there hasn't actually been any of that from me or people like me. No screaming. No demonizing. Those voters got all of that from their sources, the people they listen to - the hate radio, Fox, CNN of late, much of MSNBC's programming, the "mainstream media" in general they claim to despise and reject. So why, in your opinion, did Clinton dismiss Wellstone's single payer plan from consideration, in 1993?
So all that creepy, fucked-up shit you post about the non-existence of rape culture, or rape and orgasm, or how men prefer women with larger breasts, or how there is something horribly wrong with homosexuality (but you won't tell us what that is) is about something else entirely--something to do with the economy, or the decline of the middle class, or making America great again? Explain.
The faster we come forward the more likely we are to fall backwards. And we've come forward relatively fast in the past 50 years. For every right that we have gained - the right to vote, the right to attend the same schools, the right to be gay, the right to marry etc there are people who think it's too much, that we should go back to the way things were before. And they work VERY hard to make that happen. I have seen it happen here personally in California. Google Prop 8. And yet it does happen. Does that mean that your faith is misplaced? Parts of it certainly are. When Trump calls Mexicans criminals and rapists he is appealing to the xenophobes - and his approval numbers went up, so we know they are out there. When a black church is burned and "VOTE TRUMP" is sprayed on the side, those are racists doing that.
He's appointed Steve Bannon, a known white nationalist and white supremacist to a top position in the White House. Then you have his fellow white supremacists and nationalists coming out with statements like this: As white supremacists and neo-Nazis celebrate the results of the presidential election, Michael Hill, president of the neo-Confederate League of the South, reacted to Donald Trump’s victory yesterday by vowing to show “no mercy” to “the enemies of our God, our Folk and our civilization” and to finally “drive a stake” through the heart of “the globalist-progressive coalition of Jews, minorities, and anti-white whites.” Once the globalist-progressive coalition of Jews, minorities, and anti-white whites stops reeling in confusion from the results of yesterday’s election, we can expect them to start striking back with trickery and violence. Thus, we as Southern nationalists face both danger and opportunity. Now, more than ever, we need tight organization and numbers to help drive a stake through Dracula’s heart and keep him from rising once again to menace our people and civilization. No mercy should be shown to the enemies of our God, our Folk, and our civilization. None would be afforded us. Today, Hill warned neo-Confederate activists that if “you don’t finish the job by routing your enemies and driving them into the sea while you have the chance, they will re-group and be back at your throats in no time! You have been given a reprieve by God (probably undeservedly so); do not give your enemies and His a reprieve.” He said that a Trump presidency may represent a God-given “short reprieve” from the “demise of old white America,” telling members that they must use this opportunity to fight for and build “White Man’s Land.” So here is my warning to the victors: do not go back to sleep and think all is well. If you don’t finish the job by routing your enemies and driving them into the sea while you have the chance, they will re-group and be back at your throats in no time! You have been given a reprieve by God (probably undeservedly so); do not give your enemies and His a reprieve. Their goal is to dispossess you of everything. If you have not heard that over the past year, then you have not been listening. Just what the hell do you think multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance are all about? Your enemies care nothing about those things. They are merely used as weapons against you for your dispossession and ultimate destruction. The sum of their effect is White Guilt. … These media elites (and others of their elite ilk) look forward to the demise of old white America and the rise of a new paradigm in which they will hold sway. You will be dispossessed, sequestered in the equivalent of ghettos, and will be a despised and hated minority in the country your ancestors built. You, by God’s grace, may have been given a short reprieve from this scenario. Redeem the time! As for me, I recommend that we get busy with Southern independence. We need our own country, and it must be run by us for our own interests. It must once again be White Man’s Land. This is who you stood with when you voted for Trump. This is who Trump is speaking for and to, when he appointed Steve Bannon to his senior position in the White House. So if you think the US has come too far to fall back, let me assure you, you aren't just falling back, but you are currently in a supersonic jet, flying nose down into it.
I think the guy is just vocal with his opinions, which simply don't align with those of the left. Yes, the next four years will be very interesting.
I think people are concerned about how much further things have devolved since gay marriage was legitimized by the Supreme Court. In general, people don't have an issue with gay marriage, but they are concerned with the direction we are now going. There does seem to be a culture war taking place, and Trump is a partial symptom of that war. Personally, I feel myself becoming a bit protective of the freaky people in our society. I don't see it happening, so no, my faith is not misplaced. So Trump recognizes a criminal element crossing the border, he is speaking of all immigrants. Also, when a few anarchists cause a million dollars of damage during an anti-Trump protest, should I point my finger at Hillary and her supporters in response?
My opinions regarding rape culture, rape, large breasts, and homosexuality having nothing to do with my vote. I'm tired of a system that is impudent towards its own people. Had the Democrats given me a better candidate (Bernie), I would have voted for them. Make no mistake, we are burning down the house. Maybe in four years time the Democratic party can get its sh** together and offer something better on which we can build.
