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

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

Seen what suggested? I'm trying to reframe the debate from iatee's binary because I don't think what he's suggesting is a very viable position

The abandonment of discussing police shootings etc

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?'

― iatee, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 6:30 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel like 'deemphasize discussion of racial issues" isn't a thing on the plate for anyone but a few people pining for blue dog Democrats - you can ramp up an economic message without backing off for a second from the need to talk about race and gender and gay rights and etc..

Exactly

I grew up in Toronto, live in New York. I went the Toronto Stars homepage today and the headline was 'Peel police board chair accused of ‘uncomfortable’ hug'' There's currently Canadian politicians aping Trumps rhetoric. I don't think journalism like that helps. I also think the discussion about courts and sexual assault trials that arose around Jian Ghomeshi was extremely important

you can ramp up an economic message without backing off for a second from the need to talk about race and gender and gay rights and etc..

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 7:28 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes i mean i basically agree 100% this is what needs to be done, maybe a little more emphasis on creating smart ways to talk about race & gender & gay rights instead of whether or not we should

Someone in Ohio did that recently -- she was as member of the Cuyahoga County Republican Committee and ran for the Ohio House as a Republican. She lost to the incumbent Democrat, then resigned and revealed that she herself is actually a Democrat. Not that incumbents generally have any trouble getting re-elected, but see if you can locate a reason why Republicans may not have been running to vote for her in droves:

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2016/11/cuyahoga_county_gop_central_co.html

― and this section is called boner (Phil D.), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 12:54 PM (seven hours ago)

this story is freaking crazy btw!

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.

I'm not suggesting abandoning anything. I am saying we may live in a world where there are trade-offs and certain issues that we choose to focus on could ultimately cost us votes/elections. that doesn't necessarily mean it's the wrong thing to do. maybe there aren't trade-offs and we can have it all with some perfect messaging. I don't think that's obviously true.

I think Obama's election was a perfect example of how that could work. I mean, the argument in '08 was that only Hillary could get that disenfranchised rust belt vote that was Obama's "weak spot." If he'd lost, we'd be telling ourselves a different story about it right now

I dunno if any of Obama's campaigns had clear messages, like if someone had to describe 'what he ran on' in retrospect it's kinda fuzzy / not much different from Clinton's campaign messages. but he was a magnetic figure in a lot of ways she wasn't.

so maybe we should stop caring about the message and just find more charismatic leaders. like I said upthread...Bruce Springsteen.

Care about the message inasumuch as id like the candidate to broadly stand for what is important to me but yes I agree that focusing on the performance of campaigning is essential

(I meant people said no one would elect a black president bc of the same dynamic you're concerned with now, but as was proven by both Obama and trump campaigns it's very easy to over determine what ppl will or won't vote for )

Psyched on this skynews doc "TRUMP: Making America Great Again?" In depth doc on the last two weeks. Illuminating interviews w Trump voters.

On police shootings, I'm not sure it's a coincidence that so many of the worst police shootings has happened in the Midwest, that's where the focus and the battles have been most intense, and that's also where Trump did surprisingly well. There's a very real chance that BLM is costing the democrats important votes. But what to do about it, less focus on BLM, and the party base won't turn out to vote. It's a conundrum. However, everyone should remember the changing demographics, the US is becoming more and more diverse each day, so hopefully it will be less and less of a dilemma. Already Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with 2,5 million votes, and everyone seems to agree she was the worst candidate ever who ran the worst campaign with the worst messaging and she did absolutely nothing right. So hey, there's hope for 2020!

Good points (ymmv):

-electing him was achievement enough, like Michael Moore said, it was the biggest Fuck You in recorded history.
-mother: "I wouldn't want him to be my kids' Sunday School teacher...but I trust him to be President.
-treating millions of people as a monolith, whether it's trump voters or women or minorities, is wrong and misguided
-people focus on the white working class rust belt voters bc they're the ones that decided the election
-father of cop (voted Obama 08) crying talking about BLM "putting targets on officers' heads", and Obama and HRC "being OK with that"

Good insight, I should say. Bits I don't agree with in there obv...

https://newrepublic.com/article/138955/happens-trumps-populism-collides-ryans-austerity

What Happens When Trump’s Populism Collides with Ryan’s Austerity?
A battle over infrastructure could be the start of a big, bloody, intraparty war.

is there going to be "a big, bloody, intraparty war" y/n

Republicans never give a damn about deficits under Republican Presidents and what passes for infrastructure will be for-profit deals that benefit Republican suburbanites and rich donors, so no.

this is impressively shameless

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/307462-trump-adviser-tells-house-republicans-youre-no-longer-reagans-party#.WDZK2iSZXRh.twitter

Moore has spent much of his career advocating for huge tax and spending cuts and free trade. He’s been as close to a purist ideological conservative as they come, but he says the experience of traveling around Rust Belt states to support Trump has altered his politics.

After such a transformative experience — and after witnessing Trump’s stunning victory — Moore now believes Republican House members should be less ideologically pure and instead help Trump give the voters what he promised them.

“He wants to spend all this money on infrastructure,” Moore said, referring to Trump’s potentially trillion-dollar infrastructure package.

It’s a massive spending bill that naturally appeals far more to Democrats than Republicans. Moore, who has worked for the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, is not a fan of the stimulus package, but he is prepared to support it.

“I don’t want to spend all that money on infrastructure,” Moore said. “I think it’s mostly a waste of money. But if the voters want it, they should get it.”

I dunno. The entire GOP at this point is a game where wingnut grifters try to outdo each other in performative displays of outrage; never forget that.

I was genuinely surprised when there was right wing backlash against the comments that he wouldn't pursue criminal charges against Hillary, because I had got my "dumbasses who don't really care about anything" Trump voters mixed up with the actual political right.

this seems impressively shameless

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/307462-trump-adviser-tells-house-republicans-youre-no-longer-reagans-party#.WDZK2iSZXRh.twitter

Moore has spent much of his career advocating for huge tax and spending cuts and free trade. He’s been as close to a purist ideological conservative as they come, but he says the experience of traveling around Rust Belt states to support Trump has altered his politics.

After such a transformative experience — and after witnessing Trump’s stunning victory — Moore now believes Republican House members should be less ideologically pure and instead help Trump give the voters what he promised them.

“He wants to spend all this money on infrastructure,” Moore said, referring to Trump’s potentially trillion-dollar infrastructure package.

It’s a massive spending bill that naturally appeals far more to Democrats than Republicans. Moore, who has worked for the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, is not a fan of the stimulus package, but he is prepared to support it.

“I don’t want to spend all that money on infrastructure,” Moore said. “I think it’s mostly a waste of money. But if the voters want it, they should get it.”

The only way a trillion dollars of federal infrastructure spending would be a waste of money is if it were all siphoned off by graft and profiteering…oh wait