Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

I kinda feel that senate 2018 thread would be more constructive than rehashing this debate again...

I think Trump voters make a difference between being a successful rich person and an elite. Elite's are overeducated and useless in their view, "they couldn't hang drywall." Someone who is rich has made the system work for them to arrive at the place many working class trump voters aspire to. Yes there are numerous holes in this logic.

― JacobSanders, Wednesday, November 16, 2016 4:30 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark

hillary didn't do enough to emphasize that trump got his start with a million dollar "loan" from his father

we just need to find something for those contemptible motherfuckers to do. maybe we really do need to mine more coal. throw them in the pit!

okay, just venting...

OK. If you accept that each and every vote for trump came from a deeply contemptible motherfucker, then I guess the only way to win future elections will be to mobilize more voters who agree with you, so they'll outnumber the mfs in swing states. That's fine. You realize Clinton just tried that. We might want to win back a few of the contemptible mfs who voted Obama in 2008 and 2012, just to be on the safe side.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless)

fyi, i'm not responding to this atrocity by seeing if we can re-run the numbers and maybe win one more election before the next openly racist demagogue comes along. however, if you think we can build a stable anti-racist coalition on the backs of people who have clearly demonstrated themselves to have no principles, go for it.

Also, given the roughly 59,000,000 deeply contemptible mfs out there who voted for trump, I guess we are all going to live in a deeply contemptible society for the foreseeable. Seems to me changing that is going to take something other than twiddling thumbs until they all die. Or we could try that. Hasn't really worked well I the past.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Wednesday, November 16, 2016 4:37 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the discussion has to be about the best strategies to fight the implementation of Trump's stated agenda. That's where real lives are at stake.

I keep seeing this on my FB wall http://www.popsugar.com/news/Donald-Trump-Supporters-Racist-42705977 and wondering what the point is, trying to imagine a single Trump supporter who read it and was like, 'damn. That changes everything.' Also safety pins, I see a lot of people arguing about safety pins.

We have a while to go, but if Trump keeps dumping the press pool or shutting out the press entirely, I can easily imagine all those idle hands needing something to do diving in and doing the job that few of them seemed to do during the campaign. I just wonder how long they'll be content being evaded or lied to.

http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/11/15/13595508/racism-trump-research-study

This is so very Vox-y and my gut reaction is not so kind to people like the woman who had a panic attack for being told she said racist shit... but it does line up with the things we know about urban populations and bigotry (harder to be one when you see people different from you on a regular basis).

Not sure about the path forward, though - are we supposed to send out teams of facilitators across the hinterlands? Pods of diverse people to colonize the red states? Just accept that it's going to happen eventually as people urbanize, with young people already our least racist cohort in history?

re: the media, kind of hard to say there wasn't enough information out there about his business practices, personal life, etc that they can start hitting now. - giving him so much attention was a problem but that will always be a problem with a capitalist media. They'll pay the most attention to whomever gets the declining number of daily paper readers and cable news watchers to tune in.

Not sure about the path forward, though - are we supposed to send out teams of facilitators across the hinterlands? Pods of diverse people to colonize the red states? Just accept that it's going to happen eventually as people urbanize, with young people already our least racist cohort in history?

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Wednesday, November 16, 2016 4:53 PM (forty-nine seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Obama and Holder's proposed legal challenges to gerrymandering are a start. In fact, a lot of legal challenges will be important: keeping federal funding for sanctuary cities, for example. Sending another Washington Post reporter to interview unhinged people in West Virginia probably won't do anyone any good.

disappointed but not surprised by mainstream Dems calls to put "country ahead of party" and not just use the Senate to block everything the GOP proposes. as if the GOP ever put country ahead of party. when your opponent has a machine gun, it's kind of stupid to stick with your pocketknife.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/306433-house-conservatives-press-mcconnell-to-get-rid-of-filibuster

no shit

like the Senate gives a fuck what the House tells it to do. I don't think McConnell will do it tbh.

OK. If you accept that each and every vote for trump came from a deeply contemptible motherfucker, then I guess the only way to win future elections will be to mobilize more voters who agree with you, so they'll outnumber the mfs in swing states. That's fine. You realize Clinton just tried that. We might want to win back a few of the contemptible mfs who voted Obama in 2008 and 2012, just to be on the safe side.

Also, giving up on racists who might vote for you means giving up on swing states where minorities and queer citizens live, and, no, I'm not ready for that leap.

David Cole (old prof of mine!), on "The Way to Stop Trump"

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/14/way-to-stop-trump-lessons-of-war-on-terror/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Brain%20schools%20Trump&utm_content=NYR%20Brain%20schools%20Trump+CID_5a9edb3a4e7bd8d2015c58b250d54c5b&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=The%20Way%20to%20Stop%20Trump

Who in this thread said anything about "giving up" on anyone? Calling racism racism is not "giving up" or saying ppl are "irredeemable" or consigning them to being unreachable deplorable.

I'm responding to got no reason not to hold them in contempt. we are talking about some deeply contemptible motherfuckers here, whose meaning I may've misinterpreted.

"We have to lie about what happened or it might be mean to sensitive white people who voted for a racist and we'll never lure them into our trap"

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that a board w members arguing a Muslim shouldn't lead the party have about as little interest in being anti racist as the "deplorables" they oppose

I'm responding to got no reason not to hold them in contempt. we are talking about some deeply contemptible motherfuckers here, whose meaning I may've misinterpreted.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 16, 2016 4:15 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah that pov is dumb self righteousness I agree there

"We have to lie about what happened or it might be mean to sensitive white people who voted for a racist and we'll never lure them into our trap"

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that a board w members arguing a Muslim shouldn't lead the party have about as little interest in being anti racist as the "deplorables" they oppose

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Wednesday, November 16, 2016 5:16 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nobody has said that. I've said that referring to 50 million odd people as uniformly racist is both a back-patting strategy meant to absolve the speaker of their associations with Trump voters and a terrible idea politically if you actually want to build support in opposition to the blatantly racist aspects of Trump's platform.

Nor have I said that building support will necessarily work. But I'm hard-pressed to think up alternatives that go beyond dice-rolling in the courts.

I think whether or not we call them racist in messaging (fwiw I think there are effective ways to do this that will hemmorage support from the right, as well as ineffective ways) is a different question from whether or not they actually are racist, and it feels like the resistance to simply calling them racist has a lot to do w people's back patting ideology

Cf "I understand the working classes better than you"

I misused cf. I think I mean ie

They don't think of this as racist because they have no problem with people who work and are a productive member's of society,

yes. I forget which of the "real talk about rural whites" thinkpieces addressed this, but a lot of these Trump voters have this cognitive dissonance/split view of race and racism. The concept of "the good ones" is definitely present, but they make this distinction (I'm not defending it) between those we know, who live in places like we do, who have similar lifestyles as we do, and the ones who live in scary cities. The latter category is where the textbook racism really comes into play.

And also the idea of work and being productive is something that I feel tends to sway people towards Republicanism and conservatism. Like if you simplified the appeals of Bernie and Trump, on the Bernie side, a lot of people were stoked by the idea of getting things for free: education, health care, dismissal of student loan debt, whereas the Trump appeal was, I will give you something valuable to work for.

GOP, the party of officials who don't want to do their jobs

So Trump's going to continue to live in Trump Tower? That's fucking nuts, imagine the constant security detail

which is why things like a New WPA would probably be immensely popular if there was a non-nil chance of getting through Congress (or the financial interests behind parts of the Dems)

that was an xp to the appeal of work

re: staying in Manhattan - definitely stay in the media capital of the world where only 10% of the population voted for you who all live nearby and the mayor and governor hate you. Definitely won't be a 24/7 protest situation.

xp to D40. sure, but that argument is located way deeper in the left (i.e. white Marxist grad student gets on department listerv and excoriates his female, poc colleagues for downplaying class struggle in favor of identity politics) than the mainstream huffpo-esque articles i keep seeing bluntly equating racism with voting for trump (or those that make the opposite argument).

i would pay people 20 dollars an hour to pick up garbage if i were president. full health benefits. retirement package. the whole nine yards. The People's Beautification Army.

and i would make Wal-Mart pay for it.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-facebook

http://i.imgur.com/HhoW59G.png

If a persuadable can't handle the argument that a vote for trump was racist they probably aren't actually that persuadable

i would pay people 20 dollars an hour to pick up garbage if i were president. full health benefits. retirement package. the whole nine yards. The People's Beautification Army.

https://i.imgur.com/AnlTIDp.jpg

dollar an hour raise every year for full-time beauty workers.

I just think it's about decoupling the concept of racism from the concept of "a racist." The important thing isn't whether a person is a racist or not-a-racist. That focus on individual character and intent is a red herring. The focus should be on racist action (including inaction) and racist speech. It's about consequences, it's about complicity in maintenance of a regime. People can be held accountable for their speech and action without needing to determine whether these emanate from some essential attribute.

Somehow we need to convey this through messages that pack a punch. It would also help if high -profile figures (white) on "both sides of the aisle" would stand up and acknowledge their own racism.

But of course, yeah, that's not magically going to convert everyone.

http://i.imgur.com/2i7OlbR.png

heh

i think we have a philosophical problem right now re: the legitimacy of corporate/business rights over the public good, all that great stuff. so far this is the culmination of decades of this belief system. i think that's gotta change before a lot of this gets better... draining the poison Milton Friedman and his ilk gave us doesn't necessarily mean hard communism, either, just you know, being a little more sensible about the long-term consequences of these beliefs. not that the wealthy or the dead really give a damn, this is our issue here we have to fight for, "our" being the non-wealthy and still-living.

we've been in this exact spot before re: capitalists/corporations vs. the public good, roughly 100 years ago

xp - Jacob's post about isolationism and racism -- I think isolationism is a broad idea that has support from both the left and the right and different aspects have different appeals.

I just think it's about decoupling the concept of racism from the concept of "a racist." The important thing isn't whether a person is a racist or not-a-racist. That focus on individual character and intent is a red herring. The focus should be on racist action (including inaction) and racist speech. It's about consequences, it's about complicity in maintenance of a regime.

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Wednesday, November 16, 2016 5:50 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed. I'd much rather the people writing 'you're a racist, accept it' pieces wrote 'a muslim registry isn't just racist, it's a harbinger of actual fascism: ten historical facts you need to know now' instead.

Yeah, I think the majority of people who voted for Trump hate Hitler more than Hillary. Those that prefer Hitler are the lost causes that should be executed.

yeah but they share two letters

What do you do with those who call her Hitlery then? indefinite detention ?

maybe they get electroshock therapy like Pence.

People can be held accountable for their speech and action without needing to determine whether these emanate from some essential attribute.

they can, but people also appear to be remarkably resistant to letting themselves be held accountable in ways uncoupled from their conceptions of their essential attributes

trying to come to a calculation in millifucks how much effort it's worth decoupling racist speech from the people who enunciate it

what about the ones who mumble it?

i just heard of this talk of the new potential 'muslim registry' and that resulted in significant google'ing and now i know about the NSEERS list which sure seems like a decade long, pretty gross, and still existing until 2011 'muslim registry' so thanks, internet, for that

That Muslim registry thing has been sort of misreported. It said they were mulling a registry of people immigrating from "Muslim countries." But as immigrants, wouldn't they be registered already? I'm still not sure what more they're talking about at all, especially since I guess this has been a thing since Bush (whatever this thing is).