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

Ben Carson, one week ago:

Business manager and close friend Armstrong Williams said Carson won't join the incoming Trump administration and would only serve as an unofficial adviser...."Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency."

Ben Carson today, asked about his qualifications after being offered a position as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development:

"I know that I grew up in the inner city," Carson said. "And have spent a lot of time there. And have dealt with a lot of patients from that area. And recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. And we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something."

In other words, he has no qualifications at all. I suppose Trump finally found the one thing Carson wouldn't mind crippling.

mindboggling

Apparently there's a full-on Satanic Panic going on about Comet Ping Pong Pizza

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/307404-jill-stein-to-file-for-recount-in-three-states

https://jillstein.nationbuilder.com/recount

so if jill stein asks for a recount is it just of the green party votes?

aren't economic and legal justice also essential to greater racial and social justice?

That's a terrific question. Why don't you go back in time to the 50s through the 70s and ask all the black and Latino men who were pushed aside by the labor unions that made a successful middle class possible? Or ask every minority ethnic group who was left out of the gains that occurred doing the boom of the 90s while still suffering all the shit of racism?

ben carson is a total joke obv, but is in all likelihood not appreciably more incopentent than alphonso jackson, the sec'y gwb appointed to hud

Apparently there's a full-on Satanic Panic going on about Comet Ping Pong Pizza

― (rocketcat) (kingfish), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 4:15 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's a pretty good article that makes it pretty clear it's *not* a legit satanic panic, just a full-blown harassment campaign. That jibes with my impressions - I've seen the stuff on the internet and it's pretty clear 99% of these people are trolls. Potentially both politically and homophobically motivated though -- the owner has some sort of connection to the Clintons and was once in a relationship with David Brock.

IDK, it seems like the law and law enforcement hasn't evolved to address this. I almost feel like you need a RICO-like deterrent but it's really difficult to figure out how to craft one that wouldn't rope in all kinds of relatively innocuous activity.

aren't economic and legal justice also essential to greater racial and social justice?

That's a terrific question. Why don't you go back in time to the 50s through the 70s and ask all the black and Latino men who were pushed aside by the labor unions that made a successful middle class possible? Or ask every minority ethnic group who was left out of the gains that occurred doing the boom of the 90s while still suffering all the shit of racism?

― and this section is called boner (Phil D.), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 4:40 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So...your answer is yes?

this is an amnesiac's answer

"I know that I grew up in the inner city," Carson said. "And have spent a lot of time there. And have dealt with a lot of patients from that area. And recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. And we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something."

Let's ensure people of all races remain poor and desperate and without adequate access to basic resources like health care in order to punish dead white union leaders who practiced discrimination half a century ago.

hoo boy

It will disproportionately hurt minorities anyway. The most inportant thing is to grandstand on their behalf.

who are you arguing with

Phil

Actually you're being a moron who is inadvertently championing a "how can the Democratic party prioritize the needs of white people" argument

this is an amnesiac's answer

"I know that I grew up in the inner city," Carson said. "And have spent a lot of time there. And have dealt with a lot of patients from that area. And recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. And we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something."
― nomar, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 3:46 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"In closing, I know my name is Simon, and I like to do drawerings. God bless America"

If Sanders had said, "let's move our focus away from criminal justice reform, let's play down our support of affirmative action, let's winkingly pander to xenophobia like the right, or let's downplay racial and gender inequality," i'd vehemently denounce his statements. He wasn't saying that. He was saying that Clinton's virtue signalling wasn't enough. She should have ran a campaign that focused more on how her policies would help the voters she was trying to get to vote for her.

Treesh, buddy, you are misunderstanding my argument, which is that *prioritizing* the economic justice argument without also putting the social justice/minority rights arguments front and center tends to make all the gains accrue to white people.

IOW, reread my last post

So we're probably more in agreement than not. I think Sanders is being clumsy with his words, and I also thing Clinton did a lot more than virtue signalling, but nobody reported on it.

Trump will pardon a turkey over Snowden i'd say, so there's that

come around me with the phrase "virtue signalling" in your mouth and you're going to get pushed down some stairs

If we were in an alternate ALTERNATE universe, 2016 would be the timeframe where the human race would throw up its collective hands and yell, "you know, fuck this shit, let's build a Multivac and let it handle all the leadership appointment decisions we're too fractured, divided, and distractions to make now."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivac

so should I donate to a Jill Stein recount or not?

Maybe that term has a right wing valence i forget. My point was that at the end her loudest campaign message was "trump is unacceptable." More than enough for me to happily vote for her and make sure all my family members got to the polls. Not enough to win this election. Maybe it was because that many voters truly were bigots -- i think this is possible -- but i think it was also because these swing state voters didn't understand what she was offering and how they could benefit. I don't think she focused "too much" on race or gender, i think she lacked focus overall and her message didn't break through. Tie policies to people's day to day lives imo, whenever possible.

I didn't realize this before, mind you, and hindsight's 20/20. I just think democrats need to be serious and critical when they look at why so many voters preferred a serial liar, con artist and misogynist to them

I thought that "virtue signaling" was a term that started off being used by left-wing activists and then migrated to the right, but apparently it was coined either by someone at the Spectator or LessWrong blog, so I guess not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling#cite_note-Religious-4

though I'm sure that the first few times I encountered the phrase it was being used by social justice types as a synonym for "thirsty allies" or whatever

Idk i apologize to secretary clinton for using it. Still think her campaign - which at the time i thought was slaying - needs to be ruthlessly analyzed. I feel sick that people like jeff sessions are going to the white house now

i feel sick in general

so carson is going to gut the ability to fight redlining?

Good response to the bullshit coverage of the protests here in Portland:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/11/scenes-from-the-portland-protests.html

so should I donate to a Jill Stein recount or not?

― 龜, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 4:15 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did.

That effort is accruing donations at an astonishing rate.

people seem to think nikki haley will be eaten alive at the UN

how so?

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/801470572614008832

lol

UN not exactly at peak relevance right now

yeah... i mean UN generally doesn't seem like the kind of place where anyone is eating anyone alive but especially not the representative from the US probably no matter who it is

Even more amusing than Bookchin's shots at Bernie is liberal Twitter pretending they know who Murray Bookchin was.

If anyone else thinks we might already have touched on how difficult it is to combine class and identity politics, perhaps it might be of interest to see how the democratic party did this year. The party platform is here: https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Democratic-Party-Platform-7.21.16-no-lines.pdf But be warned, they can't even find common ground on finding common ground:

As Democrats, we respect differences of perspective and belief, and pledge to work together to move this country forward, even when we disagree. With this platform, we do not merely seek common ground—we strive to reach higher ground.

That is to say, almost anything is more interesting to read than the same argument we've been having every night for the last two weeks...

Fave twitter response is "omg Bookchin expressed my problems with Bernie when I was still a child," since the actual article is basically 'he's not a REAL socialist" and too business friendly.

on this race vs class thing I think the real question is 'is it still better to put such a public emphasis on race/gender/etc. issues even if it proves to be a strategy that loses elections outside of ca/ny?'

and 'we could find a way to make poor rural white people care' is just skirting the question. it's ~conceivable~ that poor white people just don't care about policy that doesn't benefit them. and they're the voting bloc that gets to pick our government.

otm

that said I think there's a decent chance that trump's white nationalist populist government is such an obvious failure that in 2 years technocrat democrats who talk about diversity a lot might seem more attractive to voters than any candidate who runs a trump-esque populist campaign. maybe. xp

I don't see a need for a dichotomy there - the Democrats don't have to run a Trump-y populist (Bernie or otherwise) to speak to the disenfranchised or demotivated. The Chapo Trap House people had a good point about Clinton's "America Already Is Great" line - coming from an identity angle or a class angle, who actually believes that other than the minority of people who've benefitted economically from Clinton onward AND aren't prey to any of the standard bigotries of American life?

^

does ignoring racial stuff in the heartland not immediately make the heartland vulnerable to someone like Trump?

im not saying because i know, I'm just saying I think it's more complicated than simply choosing to ignore or embrace progressive language around race & gender, there's an obviously bad way (cf "america is already great") but I think it's a lot more complicated & simply *abandoning* discussions of these issues, ie police shootings, is not a tenable position period.

(& the GOP will continually try to bait these issues if the democrats try to skirt them, anyway)

how easy is it to deemphasize discussion of racial issues when innocent people are shot in ferguson, MO? It's not convenient for electoral politics but it's not like the choice is between "have no position" and "lecture small town americans about trigger warnings." you have to come up with something that addresses the issue

I have never seen that suggested