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

let's not forget all the minorities purged from the voter rolls in the last 4 years, as per Greg Palast

so yeah, % is up but overall #s are way down, at least based on my half assed analysis

Can something as simple and corny as 'more paid holidays' work as a way to cater to workin' folks?

Americans don't want this because they prefer to work than take vacations, unlike lazy Europeans. Anyway, it's not the job of business to provide vacations for people. Why should they have to pay for free stuff for you?

Mordy, this piece makes the case that Trump made "gains" among minority voters, but minority turnout was much lower than 2012 as I understand it, so I'm not convinced there were gains in absolute numbers. He merely got a higher share of the minorities (than Romney) that did vote.

Not that % of minority voters or raw numbers would prove one way or another that he is or isn't racist (this is just the flipside of the 'how could racists vote for Obama' inquiry). But I felt that he made a strong case that Trump's racism was at the very least overstated even if I personally attribute a greater role to it in his campaign than maybe Alexander does.

to crank up the hyper cynical dishonesty, one of my takeaways from this election is that, at minimum, a decisive minority of the american electorate cannot be trusted to make wise or moral decisions regarding governance. if you're a politician accountable to that electorate, what the hell is your path forward?

In lighter news, The Onion is going to ride this out to the end: Biden Forges President’s Signature On Executive Order To Make December Dokken History Month

In other lighter news, check out the thread I started on the kittens we're fostering to help relieve the stress and anger.

here's a draft if you want to help blow up Chuck's inbox

Sir,

It will not do any good for the health of this country if you cooperate with Donald Trump and the GOP. It will tear apart the Democratic Party, it will embolden Mr. Trump and his deeply bigoted, deeply corrupt hangers-on, while doing nothing to help working Americans and their families.

If you cooperate with Donald Trump on any legislative activity other than fully funding the federal executive branch, or passing an amendment to reform or eliminate the Electoral College, you will be doing a great disservice to Americans who voted in the majority to see a Democrat in the office of President.

Do not cooperate with Donald Trump. Do not "work with" the GOP. If you do, it will set back the Democratic party by over a decade, and it will make 2018 even more difficult for our incumbents.

sure, I'll send that

brb!

So apparently neither Trump nor anyone from his transition team has had any contact with -- or briefings from -- the State Dept. prior to phone calls he's making to world leaders (presumably on unsecured phone lines) or his in-person meeting with Shinzo Abe.

The issue I have with that Scott Alexander piece is that it defines the idea of a "racist" the same way people on the right seem to - people who wear white hoods, who would never have a black friend or listen to rap music, who believe that whites are genetically superior, etc. etc. In reality I think a lot of white people consider racism as a thing of the past and generally feel like the media is beating the drum a little too hard when it comes to, say, black people getting shot by police. That they are, at worst, split-second decisions where someone felt threatened, and by the way, don't white people get shot all the time? We let BET slide, so why BLM? etc. etc.

If anything, the most important point in that article is that Trump is just a singularly weird dude, but more than that he has a middle schooler's understanding of racism. And I mean that literally. I remember being 12 and saying to a black guy at school, "Sup, my man?" and feeling really embarrassed about it. Truth is I just wanted to make him comfortable and had no idea how patronizing I was being. Ditto for Trump and the taco bowl tweet, or that incredibly bizarre ad he did courting Indian Americans - it's a deliberate attempt to say, "If I was a bigot, would I be doing this??" To say Trump is "openly white supremecist" seems a little extreme to me, more than that, he's just an idiot.

This of course is a problem when you're running for FUCKING PRESIDENT, because if your message is so ambigious and devoid of nuance, it invites people to read between the lines and see things you're not really intending. Alexander saying, "what's the difference between a wall and a fence really" misses the point. Neither of these things are going to be effective at combatting illegal immigration, but the wall carries so much more power, amounting to essentially a big "FUCK YOU!" to Mexico - it comes off as a racist idea to me because the costs associated with it would be so much better spent elsewhere, if indeed crime and the economy were your real concerns.

I think the biggest takeaway from that piece imo is that calling him an "open racist" or using language to that effect, while his campaign takes and took pains to at least make their explicit language + rhetoric inclusive (even hamfistedly, or even if not delivered correctly) is corrosive. if ppl were only making the case that his campaign was implicitly racist (much like we have made similar claims about other republican campaigns) or suggestive, that would be one thing. but he links to plenty of msm pieces to thoroughly demonstrate that "openly" is the word of the day.

one thing maybe he's missing is that the "open" in "open white supremacist" might be operating like the word "literally"

I wonder if there's any way to signal that you're going to work with Trump just to get in the door, then spin him up on shit on whatever you can come up with that puts him at odds with GOP leadership(to the extent he believes anything at all).

Is there utility to exacerbating his own dysfunctional personality against the dysfunctional personalities in the Congress? You have a clueless dyspeptic asshole who tends to listen to the last person who talks to him, what do you do with him to burn up time/energy/money for months?

I wonder if there's any way to signal that you're going to work with Trump just to get in the door, then spin him up on shit on whatever you can come up with that puts him at odds with GOP leadership(to the extent he believes anything at all).

given what credulous cretin Trump is (and that he seems to believe whoever spoke to him last at any given moment) this would be a good strategy. doubt this is what Schmuckie has in mind though.

Yeah, that's the thing. We're stuck with backed up sewage pipes filling the Oval Office at the present moment, so what can you do to make sure that outflow starts befouling Congressional chambers, if you will, and force them into dealing with it?

Also, I think the claim that "yeah, there are some hate crimes, but that's just a negligible percentage of the country" is ignoring the bigger point, that these are being done IN THE NAME OF Donald Trump. The claim that "Hillary supporters are committing acts of violence too" ignores the fact that Trump himself encouraged that sort of violence against protestors at his rallies.

Not that % of minority voters or raw numbers would prove one way or another that he is or isn't racist (this is just the flipside of the 'how could racists vote for Obama' inquiry). But I felt that he made a strong case that Trump's racism was at the very least overstated even if I personally attribute a greater role to it in his campaign than maybe Alexander does.

― Mordy, Thursday, 17 November 2016 19:22 (thirty-one minutes ago) Permalink

The racism didn't just come out of nowhere for this campaign
http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/donald-trump-and-the-central-park-five (piece from 2014, noting his highly visible commentary on the case in 1989).

Although I read another piece I'll try to find that made the very good point that his *appeal* wasn't as much dominated by racism as liberals thought, that if you really followed his speeches the wall and deportations and muslim registries were a lot smaller in his overall scheme than made out to be.

I think the biggest takeaway from that piece imo is that calling him an "open racist" or using language to that effect, while his campaign takes and took pains to at least make their explicit language + rhetoric inclusive (even hamfistedly, or even if not delivered correctly) is corrosive. if ppl were only making the case that his campaign was implicitly racist (much like we have made similar claims about other republican campaigns) or suggestive, that would be one thing. but he links to plenty of msm pieces to thoroughly demonstrate that "openly" is the word of the day.

― Mordy, Thursday, November 17, 2016 1:49 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Where does he make the case it's corrosive? Is this just "non racist whites voted for the implicit racist because they're tired of being called racist" in pseudo intellectual clothes?

Although I read another piece I'll try to find that made the very good point that his *appeal* wasn't as much dominated by racism as liberals thought, that if you really followed his speeches the wall and deportations and muslim registries were a lot smaller in his overall scheme than made out to be.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Thursday, November 17, 2016 1:58 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is absurd. People were fucking chanting "build the wall" at his rallies

You guys are contorting into fact-denying logic pretzels to argue race wasn't a central tension in the campaign

http://nonsite.org/editorial/listening-to-trump

xp D-40 - what are Thanksgiving conversations like with your family?

I'm not denying race was a central tension in the campaign. But look, white democrats are racist too. Plenty of racist white Clinton voters. I'm talking about ways the Democrats could have gotten more votes and can in the future.

Like you know "Trump voters" aren't just this racist blob that lives in a trailer park on top of a coal mine. They have a variety of respective motivations and interests. Some of them are reachable. Sort of feel like a broken record.

BTW, Bill Clinton also appealed to racism on the campaign trail. He dog-whistled too. I don't think that's a good approach, but it's certainly not something the Hillary campaign has EVER been above. cf 2008.

Yes we just disagree radically on how to reach them, and I think pandering to them for a slight edge in the years the GOP doesn't run an explicitly white supremacist campaign is herding cats as electoral strategy

Scott Alexander piece loses me by not so much as mentioning Trump's role in the birther movement and how that prepped his run at the White House. No amount of taco bowls and rainbow flag waving can blind ppl to that fundamentally racist act and speech, so central to his appeal. You can't accuse ppl of crying wolf when you ignore the fact that red riding hood's granny has in fact bared fangs.

Scott Alexander piece loses me by not so much as mentioning Trump's role in the birther movement and how that prepped his run at the White House. No amount of taco bowls and rainbow flag waving can blind ppl to that fundamentally racist act and speech, so central to his appeal. You can't accuse ppl of crying wolf when you ignore the fact that red riding hood's granny has in fact bared fangs.

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Thursday, November 17, 2016 3:11 PM (twenty-four seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea that's how i felt about the piece too.

the birther shit is how trump entered the political sphere and built up his base of followers

i know i (and others, esp deej) keep mentioning that but i really can't believe how often that fact is glossed over or ignored

http://nonsite.org/editorial/listening-to-trump

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:04 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haven't gotten through the whole thing but it's largely reasserting a thing that I'd been saying all along: Trump is like a horoscope. People who are so inclined are going to parse the vagaries for those bits that seem to apply to them favorably and ignore the rest.

Like why does the notion of not appealing to their worst instincts never seem like an option? Trump got away with breaking a lot of "electability" rules...just like Obama did. But we always go back to the well of condescendingly assuming these voters are unreachable unless we treat them like caricatures. (Rather ironically, I feel like I'm arguing for the humanity of the white racist swing voter more than those trying to pander to them.) they can be reached the same way white liberals are reached re: race, tbh. Like you said, lots of democrats are racist after all. Stop treating them like idiots and treat them like well meaning racists because that's what they are

"Should blind" rather (to myself)

Yes we just disagree radically on how to reach them, and I think pandering to them for a slight edge in the years the GOP doesn't run an explicitly white supremacist campaign is herding cats as electoral strategy

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, November 17, 2016 3:10 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the same economic issues that could "pander" to them might also improve turnout among the democrats' minority base

Like you know "Trump voters" aren't just this racist blob that lives in a trailer park on top of a coal mine.

iirc this is the logline for "Squidbillies"

scott alexander is one of those guys who seems be very smart and reasonable without knowing anything, anything at all, about the world. like every day is a blank slate, and the deep connotations that history attaches to this or that phrase or action is completely invisible to him.

trump posing with a shitty taco bowl from the cafe in his own building is seen as real outreach and not this hamfisted half-insult, what can you even do with that? at such immense length too, jesus.

"if you take trump with complete wall-eyed literalism, he sounds fine" yeah ok, i'm not going to that.

i'm not sure who has argued for "pandering to" racist white voters. that seems like a pretty crucial strawman

The same logic we're currently applying to the white working class could just as easily have applied in the primary when it came to leaning Hillary vs Obama. "Working class whites will never elect a black man!" they said condescendingly. (I definitely remember hearing these arguments from well-meaning liberals). Now those same people (probably, it doesn't matter if this is true lol) are arguing these same working class whites need kid gloves when talking about race. Meanwhile the left avoids addressing it leaving conservatives with the only answers. D's are like "actually this will help all Americans" and this "colorblind" strategy fools no conservatives (who think undeserving people are getting those benefits) nor the liberal base (who feel that they're being ignored to pander to racists)

i'm not sure who has argued for "pandering to" racist white voters. that seems like a pretty crucial strawman

― k3vin k., Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:20 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What is "your vote for an explicitly racist candidate was not racist" if not pandering

Again you're quoting yourself, not anyone here. Lazy.

god this is tiresome

Again you're quoting yourself, not anyone here. Lazy.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:24 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, I'm paraphrasing the democratic platform as articulated by Bernie sanders.

merrygoround.gif

yeah i'm done. deej will wear himself out in a couple of days and we won't see him again until the next election, thankfully

What is "your vote for an explicitly racist candidate was not racist" if not pandering

i personally wouldn't suggest the dems push that message

at the same time pushing the message "your vote for an explicitly racist candidate is racist" seems like a dead end

that's all i was getting at upthread

god this is tiresome

― Οὖτις, Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:25 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a lazier music message board version of one of the most important arguments happening on the left atm sorry it bores you

Jon Schwarz from 2007: Democrats And The Iron Law Of Institutions

Read this if you're driven insane by the Democrats....

1. The voting booth is by no means "the only place that Democrats care about what you do." In fact, from their perspective, by the time you get to the general election much of the game is over. Withholding your November vote from candidates they like but you don't will, at most, make them a little sad. Often they'd prefer it, if that's the price of keeping you out of their hair the rest of the time. That's why they don't try to appeal to the ~50% of Americans who don't vote.

2. If you want to motivate powerful Democrats, attempt to threaten their power within the party, not the well-being of the party overall. Of course, this is easier said than done, particularly because much of the power within the party is (as Karp would put it) an unelected Democratic oligarchy. For instance, Pelosi's status as Speaker can be challenged straightforwardly. Getting at the source of the party oligarchy's power, which is money and institutions outside of electoral politics, is much more difficult.

3. Any serious attempt to transform the Democratic party would include a conscious attempt to change its culture, into one that celebrates different people: organizers rather than elected officials and donors. Culture only seems like a weak reed. It's in fact the most powerful motivation people have. If people are celebrated for acting for the good of the whole rather than just themselves, they'll act for the good of the whole. Likewise, a better culture would humble the "leaders," to discourage those with individualistic motivations from seeking the positions. A Democratic party that worked would require Charles Schumer and Steny Hoyer and anyone who donated over $5000 a year to clean the Capitol toilets.

4. If you don't believe the Democratic party is redeemable, don't get your hopes up that another party would end up being much better. Any other party would also be subject to the Iron Law of Institutions. It thus would be quickly just as dreadful as the Democrats...unless people put in the same amount of work as would be required to clean out the Democrats' Augean stables.

5. Generally speaking, don't expect too much from political parties, and certainly don't expect them to change much in less than a generation. And in any case, keep in mind much of the power in society lies elsewhere.

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001705.html

yeah i'm done. deej will wear himself out in a couple of days and we won't see him again until the next election, thankfully

― k3vin k., Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:27 PM (twenty-nine seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You act like I'm making some insane out there argument but this is actually an issue being debated all across the left right now & lots of people are more or less in my camp about this, you can dismissively handwave them but I'd recommend thinking harder about this stuff personally

no i understand that. we follow the same people on twitter

at the same time pushing the message "your vote for an explicitly racist candidate is racist" seems like a dead end

that's all i was getting at upthread

― the late great, Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:27 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It does have the benefit of being true & while I'm not saying that should be our primary message I think it would help if people who are on the left wouldn't deny it

no i understand that. we follow the same people on twitter

― k3vin k., Thursday, November 17, 2016 2:32 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I unfollowed most of chapotraphouse months ago

thankfully i have no idea who that is