Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[UXLZ]

Civil war? Really? Guys, fellow Americans, for shame. Seriously, that's a fucking massive overreaction. Calm your fucking tits people. It's not the end of the world. That's the real fucking problem with the aftermath of this election, people fucking going off their rockers. Yes, the retarded bigots, "fundamentalists", uneducated racists, and homophobes thinking they have new license is fucking insane, but so are people literally crying, rioting, shutting down highways with protests and what have you. It's all fucking embarrassing, as a self-proclaimed moderate I fucking shake my head in disgust at how most people have reacted to this in one way or another.

Open your fucking eyes, give yourselves a hard slap. It's really fuck all. I want to fucking grab people by the collar tell them to get back to their meaningless existences. Donald Trump is hardly the first controversial president, and as of right now, he's not even the most extreme. Do I have to remind you oh-look-how-sweet-and-progressive-america-is idealists of the relocations and gradual genocide of the Native American peoples? How about American Imperialism? How about the Robber-Barons and the Gilded Age? How about large scale invasions, interventions, and meddling in the Middle East that have effectively radicalized an entire region and destroyed the only powers keeping those radical elements in check, all stemming from once wanting to get one over on the USSR?

AND ON THE OTHER END: Let's remind ourselves that Trump was not only the most liberal potential Republican candidate this year, but also that POTUS ain't shit. You have a Congress full of Far-left Socialists and Far-right Religious Extremists, one group that want's to turn the US into a welfare state and the other that wants to turn us into a christian nation of uneducated retards. Groups whose only redeeming qualities are not being hateful and being kinda okay with money, but not even really, respectfully. The President is the LEAST of the US's problems.

[SalmonGod]

Goddamn this fucking thread.  Finally got caught up.  Fuck these last couple weeks.  I'm tired.  But I can't resist throwing mine in on what the last 20 pages of discussion has mostly been about that I haven't had the time to participate in properly.

Frumple, I'll join you on FTFE.  The media is fucking horrible.  The profitable incentive to sensationalize is at the root of many of our problems, and I agree it was a huge factor in this election.

But I don't see it as the deciding one.  What I see as the real deciding factor is the way the Democratic Party apparatus functioned and selected Hillary as a candidate at the worst possible time for it.  You can argue that there was no rigging of the primary process.  That she was a strong candidate.  That she's not corrupt and is actually everything everyone wanted and we just don't realize it.  This could all be true, but it's not even worth arguing as relates to the results of this election.

Because at the end of the day the fact remains that she is an icon of dynastic establishment politics refined to 100% purity, and this was an election where dissatisfaction with that side of politics is at an all-time high.  Nearly half the left's voting base very strongly expressed this sentiment in the primary, and the other half's response to them was "Grow up and get real, or get Trump."  You can even argue that the DNC themselves didn't behave this way, but faithful Democrat voters absolutely did.  The attitude that those who were apprehensive on the left got from them was atrociously alienating.  I saw it everywhere.  I pointed it out in these exact words probably a dozen times on this very thread in the months leading up to the election, and it never got through to people who I know are very intelligent.  A couple times it was when I was actively pursuing information to be better informed, because I'm self-aware enough to know that I have problem-levels of cynicism, try to challenge myself on it, but don't have proper time in my life right now to do my own digging.  But just posing a neutral question was enough to get a grumpy "OMFG Bernie Bros" type response.  Yeah, on this thread, I'm mainly talking about mainiac, but that type of attitude is something I saw frequently all over the place over the past year.  He was/is not an isolated case.

I don't think this was about not appealing to the center, working class, rust belt, etc.  It think it's about actively chasing away alliances that should have naturally been there, by failing to acknowledge the current political climate among the (potential) voting population and rejecting their sense of marginalization as petty and childish in the face of a literal Hitler that must be stopped, which is the same ultimatum we've been fed every election my whole life.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Turnouts don't indicate to me that a hidden pool of working class voters turned out in droves to vote for Trump.  He didn't ride some massive wave of enthusiastic resonance with the rust belt. The GOP turnout didn't drastically change.  The Democrat turnout did.  It dropped by millions.

I'm among those who are shocked that she lost, because I thought all early indicators were that people were motivated to stop Trump at any cost.  But for all that I'm shocked about that, I see the reason it happened as a no-brainer.  The left has a problem with thinking they can use shame, fear, and condescension to get their way, and it's failed them.

And for fucks sake... it makes me physically ill when people point out that the party structures are not themselves government organizations, and thus have no obligation to behave democratically in how they choose their candidates.  Because all that's pointing out to me is that our government is overwhelmingly controlled by two private organizations, and this makes it very, very hard NOT to cling to the cynical notion that the average person only has their fair share of input when those private organizations want them to.

But FTFE, because it's their fault that there's so much doubt in politics, which is where in-fighting begins.  If they didn't sensationalize the fuck out of everything they could and ignore everything they couldn't, then there wouldn't be this space for ideological allies to fight and alienate each other over whether a candidate deserves to be trusted or not.  It's still the people's fault that they get as shitty with each other as they do, instead of keeping it present in their minds that the goal is to work together.

[IronyOwl]

IO, which devil were you speaking of? Because I swear to the gods if what you quoted actually referred to that half the population thing like that, the voodoo curse and grumbling about hallucinations are about to be a hell of a lot less of a joke, because that would mean there's something in your post I literally cannot goddamn see.

This was a billion years ago political thread time, but yes, I meant origami's devil of "they think only racists voted Trump" followed by hector's "ignored what he's saying because Republican, plus racists" and MSH's "only two options, bigot or bigot votes."

I guess he lost the popular vote so it's actually slightly less than half the population (asterisk tm terms and conditions apply), but the point stands that sitting there with your hands on your hips going "Well shoot... guess it was the racists?" is saying rather unflattering things about an impressively large number of people. Or selectively pointing out bizarrely small minorities to label the final straw for some reason, I guess.

Yeah, the polarization seems to be worsening, at least in the current state of the two parties: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-were-no-purple-states-on-tuesday/

Still though, this is a chance for the Democrats to shake up their coalition, they HAVE to moving forward.

Wonder when they'll do that autopsy of theirs.

Well shit. Uh... how does one stop polarization, anyway? I know "make them work together" works on a smaller scale and "make things better" makes people mellower in general, but I'm kind of drawing a blank otherwise. It's... not a problem we seem to have a lot of success dealing with globally.

But FTFE, because it's their fault that there's so much doubt in politics, which is where in-fighting begins.  If they didn't sensationalize the fuck out of everything they could and ignore everything they couldn't, then there wouldn't be this space for ideological allies to fight and alienate each other over whether a candidate deserves to be trusted or not.  It's still the people's fault that they get as shitty with each other as they do, instead of keeping it present in their minds that the goal is to work together.

Oh yeah, that'd probably help. Dunno how exactly one would go about it, but having news that wasn't tabloid-tier would be nice. Or... having people who didn't preferentially consume tabloid-tier news would be nice? Some chicken-egg issues here.

Civil war? Really? Guys, fellow Americans, for shame. Seriously, that's a fucking massive overreaction. Calm your fucking tits people. It's not the end of the world. That's the real fucking problem with the aftermath of this election, people fucking going off their rockers. Yes, the retarded bigots, "fundamentalists", uneducated racists, and homophobes thinking they have new license is fucking insane, but so are people literally crying, rioting, shutting down highways with protests and what have you. It's all fucking embarrassing, as a self-proclaimed moderate I fucking shake my head in disgust at how most people have reacted to this in one way or another.

Open your fucking eyes, give yourselves a hard slap. It's really fuck all. I want to fucking grab people by the collar tell them to get back to their meaningless existences. Donald Trump is hardly the first controversial president, and as of right now, he's not even the most extreme. Do I have to remind you oh-look-how-sweet-and-progressive-america-is idealists of the relocations and gradual genocide of the Native American peoples? How about American Imperialism? How about the Robber-Barons and the Gilded Age? How about large scale invasions, interventions, and meddling in the Middle East that have effectively radicalized an entire region and destroyed the only powers keeping those radical elements in check, all stemming from once wanting to get one over on the USSR?

AND ON THE OTHER END: Let's remind ourselves that Trump was not only the most liberal potential Republican candidate this year, but also that POTUS ain't shit. You have a Congress full of Far-left Socialists and Far-right Religious Extremists, one group that want's to turn the US into a welfare state and the other that wants to turn us into a christian nation of uneducated retards. Groups whose only redeeming qualities are not being hateful and being kinda okay with money, but not even really, respectfully. The President is the LEAST of the US's problems.

I like you.

[WealthyRadish]

As the plane crashes into the ground, we are arguing about a plot hole in the in-flight movie.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

IO, which devil were you speaking of? Because I swear to the gods if what you quoted actually referred to that half the population thing like that, the voodoo curse and grumbling about hallucinations are about to be a hell of a lot less of a joke, because that would mean there's something in your post I literally cannot goddamn see.

This was a billion years ago political thread time, but yes, I meant origami's devil of "they think only racists voted Trump" followed by hector's "ignored what he's saying because Republican, plus racists" and MSH's "only two options, bigot or bigot votes."

I guess he lost the popular vote so it's actually slightly less than half the population (asterisk tm terms and conditions apply), but the point stands that sitting there with your hands on your hips going "Well shoot... guess it was the racists?" is saying rather unflattering things about an impressively large number of people. Or selectively pointing out bizarrely small minorities to label the final straw for some reason, I guess.

Oh gee, I'm so sorry you don't like to hear clearly demonstrable fact. Unless you need to hear Donald Trump drop the n-bomb during the Inaugural Address, there's no question that he's either personally a bigot or intentionally courting bigots. It's been days since the election ended and I am sure is shit not letting anybody forget "they're sending rapists", "you have to go after their families", "grab her by the pussy" or any of the other shit he has spewed either publicly or privately.

To address the actual conceit you've ended up with here, I don't think Trump won because half of America are closet neo-nazis. He won for a number of factors, in the very 2016 way of a cascading disaster managing to overwhelm all reason and convention. However, one of those factors was definitely his abandonment of the standard coded language for harsh xenophobia in favor of being direct with it, which resonated with a shocking number of people and brought him disturbing popularity.

Up until now, we've as a country been politely ignoring that a great deal of people are still so incensed by the thought of illegal immigrants, or ghetto crime, or abortion rights, that someone could get up and break the paradigm of acceptable angles on the whole thing by being directly hostile. We'll put the illegals in trucks and dump them back in Mexico. We'll empower police to clean out the ghettos. We'll punish women who get abortions.

The fact that saying all that helped him is the truly fucked reality of it all. There's no more room for ignoring that shit. The people who believe it have stood up and gotten their man in the White House whether they were the Secret Key To Victory or not. We have to do better than that.

[Reelya]

Yeah, Trump did those things, but he also got less votes than either Mitt Romney or John McCain, yet still won.

So can you say Trump did something special to "win" this election? Nope, he lost support, overall.

But the Democrats hemorrhaged support at a much faster rate than he did. Focusing now on things Trump did is the exact opposite-day logic of what should be going on.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Not really the point of this conversation.

[Reelya]

But it's directly tied into where you said "he won for a number of factors".

You forgot "The Democrat's voter base crumbled". Which is the only thing that "won" the election for Trump, since he objectively did poorly compared to his predecessors. His rhetoric might have drawn some voters, but it drove away more voters than it brought. And this election should have been a shoe-in for the GOP. You had 8 years of their hated Obama, and their equally-hated Clinton coming up next: GOP voters should have been flocking to the polls to oust their hated Democrats, yet less turned up this time than the last two times.

Since he was actually less popular than Romney or McCain, it's wrong to highlight "bigoted language" as a "winning" strategy he used. He lost because of it, but Clinton lost harder because of whatever she did.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Stop trying to argue with me about something we aren't in disagreement about. That is not the point of the goddamn post. Not everything in this thread is about trying to retroactively win the election for Clinton.

My point is that Trump must either genuinely be a bigot or that he pretended to be one because he thought that would be a working electoral strategy. Which is fucked.

And stop editing your posts ten times.

[Reelya]

But wasn't the other person saying "not all Trump voters were bigots".

Pointing out that Trump himself was a bigot doesn't really address that, so it's kind of changing the topic.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy.
My original post was in response to origami criticizing the media acting like Trump has a lot of bigot support. My response was the far more topical and horrifying reality that Donald Trump, our next President, must either agree with these people or think they're worth cultivating as a voting base. The idea of them winning the election for him or being half of America is the real irrelevant thing.

They're a part of his base, and he got them direct without jeopardizing himself with everybody else in the country. That is nightmarish.
This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy.

[wierd]

--clip--

*claps


MSL:

I warned about the reality of this kind of backlash way back in the primaries. (Ostracised old-world racists and bigots, being pushed to extremism.) They are not so few as the left believed. It is true that many, if not most of Trumps supporters are not such people, but there are enough of them that they can sway the national view on his flagrant rhetoric. When you try to push your progressivism to the moon and beyond in a single lifetime, faster than people can change politically and socially, you court this disaster. Every single time. Noone listened to me then. They likely wont listen to me now. It does not matter, because it is true.

[IronyOwl]

I am trying to work on a table and I keep getting this conversation whenever I preview to figure out just how hideous it is to read, so I might as well address this instead of in between that.

PPE: So of course it calms down before I'm done with the post. Thanks, Obama.

Oh gee, I'm so sorry you don't like to hear clearly demonstrable fact. Unless you need to hear Donald Trump drop the n-bomb during the Inaugural Address, there's no question that he's either personally a bigot or intentionally courting bigots. It's been days since the election ended and I am sure is shit not letting anybody forget "they're sending rapists", "you have to go after their families", "grab her by the pussy" or any of the other shit he has spewed either publicly or privately.

Sure there is. He's a shock jock. You don't have to be a bad person to spew filth for attention or social signalling. It helps, but it's not required.

To address the actual conceit you've ended up with here, I don't think Trump won because half of America are closet neo-nazis. He won for a number of factors, in the very 2016 way of a cascading disaster managing to overwhelm all reason and convention. However, one of those factors was definitely his abandonment of the standard coded language for harsh xenophobia in favor of being direct with it, which resonated with a shocking number of people and brought him disturbing popularity.

Up until now, we've as a country been politely ignoring that a great deal of people are still so incensed by the thought of illegal immigrants, or ghetto crime, or abortion rights, that someone could get up and break the paradigm of acceptable angles on the whole thing by being directly hostile. We'll put the illegals in trucks and dump them back in Mexico. We'll empower police to clean out the ghettos. We'll punish women who get abortions.

The fact that saying all that helped him is the truly fucked reality of it all. There's no more room for ignoring that shit. The people who believe it have stood up and gotten their man in the White House whether they were the Secret Key To Victory or not. We have to do better than that.

To the whole thing: Alright, gimme some numbers. Because this really just sounds like the same tribal shield-thumping you see with every political zealot, talking about The Other whose crimes and influence have grown so great that they Can No Longer Be Ignored.

The middle paragraph especially disturbs me, because it really just feels like a blanket condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you. What, if you disagree with illegal immigration, would you feel is within the "paradigm of acceptable angles" to do about it? Or is the problem simply that anyone who gets to the disagreeing part is already hideously wrong to begin with?


To the bolded and/or purple part: I will try very hard to take your bracketed disclaimers seriously, but I feel like this points to a rather serious break between what you're thinking, saying, and/or feeling somewhere.

This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy.
My original post was in response to origami criticizing the media acting like Trump has a lot of bigot support. My response was the far more topical and horrifying reality that Donald Trump, our next President, must either agree with these people or think they're worth cultivating as a voting base. The idea of them winning the election for him or being half of America is the real irrelevant thing.

They're a part of his base, and he got them direct without jeopardizing himself with everybody else in the country. That is nightmarish.
This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy. This is not about electoral strategy.

I don't think that flowed well, then, because it sounded like you were defending said media's assertion.

I could see the issue with Trump having unsavory views or a desire to appease those who do, but what exactly makes that "nightmarish?" Pet projects and personal vendettas are hardly uncommon in presidents.

[wierd]

my understanding, was that the fact that the majority did not call him down on his extremism and racism, is what is nightmarish.

That is what framed my response.  When you push for social change faster than a population can accomodate, they grow weary of that constant pushing. They grow numb to your cause. They even rebel against it, in spite, because you ignore their needs in the matter, in favor of your pushed agenda(s).

Not everyone in the country is gay. Not everyone in this country wants to pay for healthcare. Many people dont like being told "fuck you, we made it law, fucking obey!"

That is why people turned a blind eye to trump's failings, favoring his other messages. Many want relief from oppressively rapacious progressivism, and its policies. They may, and likely will, disagree on the specific things they find onerous, but they can all agree that they need a break from it.

Rather than pursue it at a rate that can be safely absorbed over time, because "Gotta keep up the momentum! Gay people suffers and stuff!! OMG!", the aggressive posturing has created a situation where decades of gains can be lost in 4 years.

LEARN FROM THAT.

[UXLZ]

In light of the insane partisanship, I think this video is good to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Up-k4Lho8&ab_channel=EricGarner