"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

i don't think the mental health aspects of trump are trivial at all

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, October 15, 2020 11:42 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not only non-trivial, I think the Biden administration needs to do a serious push to provide mental health services to a nation filled to the brim with people traumatized by all of this upheaval and chaos.

I mean, they won't, but they should.

It's insufficient because, barring any meaningful change, you're just right back here in a few years for the next Republican President.

Unless your anxiety is purely wrapped up in the person of Donald Trump, rather than the politics he represents - then you're probably good forever.

"on balance"

I’m sure kaiser permanente will come up w a dope app for that

It's insufficient

i think everyone here agrees with this.

Unless your anxiety is purely wrapped up in the person of Donald Trump, rather than the politics he represents - then you're probably good forever.

i don't think anyone here thinks this.

we used to keep this stuff in the biden thread. what happened to that plan?

An interesting Politico article from Phoenix, where the writer set out to visit Latin early voters, many of whom were first-timers. There are some good quotes, but the conclusion is the point:

When I called the Maricopa County elections office, a spokesperson told me that 180 people cast ballots at McDowell Square that day. I spoke with about 15 of them. There was a great deal of diversity—age, background, socioeconomic status—but they all had two things in common.

First, they were Hispanic, which was intentional for the reporting of this piece.

The second thing was not intentional: Nobody had voted for Trump. I stayed until the polls closed, speaking to every person I could, hoping to find a single supporter of the president. For the first time in this series, every citizen I encountered was voting for the same candidate.

I know, I know—it’s a microscopic sample size. Still, if I were working to reelect the president, it would scare the hell out of me. Trump might be able to weather a bludgeoning from upscale white suburbanites or a groundswell of Hispanic voter intensity. In Phoenix, there is mounting evidence of both.

Insufficient is the word specifically used by Roth in the piece people are complaining about, caek.

i saw this yesterday & it aligned with my general feeling atm

VOTE. The car crashed and we’re trapped in the car and the car is on fire. VOTE to get out of the car so we can put the fire out, vomit up the smoke and go into the years of traction it’ll take to heal. You can’t vote to be fine yet. First you have to VOTE TO GET OUT OF THE CAR.

— Taliesin Jaffe (@executivegoth) October 14, 2020

we used to keep this stuff in the biden thread. what happened to that plan?

There's a button under posts for that.

It's insufficient because, barring any meaningful change, you're just right back here in a few years for the next Republican President.

Unless your anxiety is purely wrapped up in the person of Donald Trump, rather than the politics he represents - then you're probably good forever.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Thursday, October 15, 2020 11:48 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ok i'm already sorry i posted but i have never once claimed that it was sufficient or that my anxiety was entirely wrapped up in donald trump!!

No one said you did?

Unless your anxiety is purely wrapped up in the person of Donald Trump, rather than the politics he represents - then you're probably good forever.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Thursday, October 15, 2020 11:48 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

milo, the smug shit you toss around in these threads honestly comes as close to pissing me off as anything anyone has posted in 15+ years on ILX. So congrats on that.

The thing that is wearying about this ongoing discussion is that the vast majority of people are saying "there is a ton of work ahead of us as a country and we can't even begin to do it until we get rid of the more ghoulish party" and a dedicated minority keeps saying "oh but there other people who I hate who aren't in that party, it is extremely important to me that you know this and that, as a result, nothing you do means anything"

DJP otm

These threads have become the Blair Witch Project

DJP very very much otm, it's maddening

it isn't as if Obama didn't get heavily criticized all over this board and we had entire threads devoted to fearing a Romney presidency, or that we didn't all worry about the downstream impacts of Bush's election (there is a search feature), so quit acting as if some of us only gaf about getting rid of a guy we don't like and then we're back to not caring again.

Milo

Unless your anxiety is purely wrapped up in the person of Donald Trump, rather than the politics he represents - then you're probably good forever.

Well, first, no. The person is uniquely annoying (see the crassness and chaos) above, but I assure you that "the politics he represents" is absolutely part of the equation for me and most of the people I know. It is the third element mentioned by Roth: cruelty.

Second, there are a few other dynamics involved.

1. Trump is personally vile, sure, but he's functioned as an exponent and exemplar of an especially toxic politics. That politics predates him (by centuries) and is absolutely part of the objection to his ascendancy and (relative success).

2. The strain of politics that he inherited and amplified is explicity racist. It is the politics of massive resistance to civil rights, it is the politics of massive resistance to desegregation, it is the politics of Southern Lost Cause mythologizing. Maybe you are somehow unaware of this but people who don't like Trump ALSO oppose that strain of politics.

3. The anti-government strain of politics that Trump capitalized on (which also predates him) is a thread from Goldwater to Reagan to Gingrich and the militia yahoos and beyond. Nobody here thinks government is perfect, but in many spheres it is the ONLY force trying to counteract conservatives' war on the downtrodden. So the nihilistic anti-government politics of the Freedom Caucus et al. is, by design, a war on the poor, people of color, those in LGBTQ+ communities, and of marginalized people generally.

4. If "melt" democrats and Bidenesque centrist Democrats can keep the seat warm for a while, there is a chance - a chance! - that demographics and social changes could make the "next Republican President" quite a long ways a way, if it even happens at all. Who knows?

Roth, like so many political writers atm, makes his point by overstating it. But by overstating it, he distorts it and by distorting it, the point he makes is no longer in consonance with reality.

Joe Biden's administration will change a wide variety of things "beyond stripping the Trumpian crassness and cruelty and chaos from [the nation's] day to day". His point is that a Biden administration won't rid us of the fundamental dynamic that is strangling the life out of the nation and the planet, and expecting it to do that in the course of four years, when that dynamic is so entrenched would be asking the impossible anyway. It will, instead, clear a space for the rest of us to continue the work of changing that dynamic without having to stop and cope with a series of manufactured crises that sap and divide our efforts. It is just a preliminary step on a long road.

Ye Mad Puffin, I have no idea why you think I disagree that the 'toxic politics' predates and exists outside of Trump. That was what I said.

Again, what I responded to was the idea that Roth's sentence was "a HARSH BURN on Biden and an indictment of centrist Dems generally," because it wasn't. That's why I quoted the following sentences - and expanded on the insufficiency he refers to.

milo, would you describe yourself as an accelerationist?

Another fire analogy:
Person: Omg our house is on fire we need to put it out pronto before we can focus on anything else!
Person who is not annoying at all: I don't like the fire either but I think we need to talk about getting a new water heater.

milo, the smug shit you toss around in these threads honestly comes as close to pissing me off as anything anyone has posted in 15+ years on ILX. So congrats on that.

― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Thursday, October 15, 2020 12:58 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol, I was so pissed off at Biden and disappointed by Bernie immediately after Super Tuesday and at this rate milo is going to turn me into a centrist melt by Friday.

*whispers quietly* I've never understood what "melt" means

That they are bad is literally the only thing I could decipher from the UK politics threads.

Person who is not annoying at all: I don't like the fire either but I think we need to talk about getting a new water heater.

More like: 'I don't like the fire either but if we let it burn down we'll be able to build a new and improved house!'

I think a melt is just a centrist.

I assume it's someone without conviction that wilts under the heat?

This is what you guys need, be sure to watch the video.

milo, would you describe yourself as an accelerationist?

I voted for Biden, just like I voted for Clinton... so what do you think?

expecting it to do that in the course of four years, when that dynamic is so entrenched would be asking the impossible anyway

yes, this

I voted for Biden

Carry on then.

“Melt” is actually not well explained there, but basically someone who’s a both-sides-have-a- point, zero principles wet. If they’re a British politician, they won’t vote against cunt laws and they’re more worried about how they look in a suit than protecting workers rights/campaigning for housing/pushing for society to improve in some way. If they’re a rando, well, they’re someone who’s all like “now isn’t the time.../ordinary voters of Little Incestington won’t care about this/you’re just playing politics”.

Ah yes

Giuliani is now changing the Hunter Biden laptop story. The shop owner told the NY Post he couldn't identify who dropped off the laptop. Giuliani, who wasn't there, said on Sirius XM today "was left by Hunter Biden, in an inebriated, heavily inebriated state with the merchant."

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) October 15, 2020

lmao

To me "melt" is roughly equivalent to the American (conservative) term "squish." That is, someone insufficiently committed to the cause. Compare RINO, DINO.

So a melt is a centrist who is actively looking for excuses not to implement left-wing policies?

love that giuliani always rejoins the cast for the most ridiculous subplots

You'd think Giuliani would have gotten even slightly better at this by now, but he's still struggling in the Wohl waters even now.

Thanks gyac and YMP. That's about what I thought.

So a melt is a centrist who is actively looking for excuses not to implement left-wing policies?

jfc

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — DOJ charges Houston billionaire Robert Brockman with $2 billion tax fraud in largest such fraud case against an American.

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 15, 2020

Big “If I did it” energy here. https://t.co/ewFfJgqBF6

— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) October 15, 2020

related (?) to the prosecution of $2bn of tax fraud in plain sight, i think this would be a strong campaign pitch

https://newrepublic.com/article/159339/biden-democrats-2020-campaign-promise-good-governance

The left has a diagnosis of the larger problem—that the pandemic clarified the brokenness of the existing order—and a program to fundamentally reorder society into a vastly fairer and more just one. The center-left, or the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, has a narrower view of the problems ailing the country and a more circumscribed plan for the future, articulated well by the Covid-19-inspired slogan of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign: “Build Back Better.”

I tend to think the left, broadly defined, has a clearer sense of the problem and better ideas for solving it. But the center managed to persuade enough Democratic voters that moderation was a safer path to defeating President Trump. In the interest of equanimity and coalition-building, I would like to suggest something to Democrats who reject calls for revolution and total reordering of the system: Why not try promising to simply fix shit and govern well?

Many (perhaps most) nonrevolutionary Democrats may think they already do this, with their appeals to competence, invocations of “believing science,” and constant claims that they are realistic and “get things done.” But it’s actually a rarity to hear a politician explicitly promise to govern effectively and make things work as they are supposed to work. Nearly everyone in politics (on both sides) makes electoral arguments based on values (or simple negative partisanship), with surprisingly few promising just to run things well.

Perhaps the argument’s rarity comes from an unwillingness to acknowledge that almost nothing in American life is working as intended. Or perhaps, more charitably, it’s ignorance: Many in the political class don’t know how bad it’s gotten.

xpost Drunk Hunter leaves a laptop in every port...

The Republican message of the day is that Big Tech is censoring Conservatives https://t.co/kCv0z27vYr

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) October 15, 2020

granted, facebook is a cesspool, the world's biggest extreme right wing social network, and everyone who works there should be ashamed. but would the equivalent top 10 performing links on twitter each day be much better?

Jesus, that WaPo story they reference is harrowing.

xxp

I've said some variation before, but: there hasn't been a GOP president or presidential nominee in my lifetime whose appeal I couldn't understand in the abstract. Like, when divorced from their politics, they've mostly seemed like someone's lame + square dad or grandpa. As a dumb kid, I thought Reagan seemed downright avuncular. But Trump is just such a thoroughly repellent figure on every conceivable level that it continues to baffle me that he has any (uncynical) supporters whatsoever. I'd think by now he'd have become an avatar for that worst person everyone knows: the slimy neighbor, the shifty boss, the off putting coworker. His appeal seems limited to those overflowing with free-floating vitriol who view him as little more than a justification for bailing on their anger management classes.

― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Wednesday, October 14, 2020 11:11 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

From a NYT article yesterday on Trump's appeal among Latino men:

"'We saw him being a boss,' said Edwin Gonzales, 31, who held a large American flag outside the Trump campaign office. “And for him to go down the escalator is basically the same thing — it’s like, 'Dang, the boss has stepped down and he’s putting himself out there to be the president.' That’s what’s exciting.'

Mr. Gonzales added that for him, and many other Trump supporters, the president represented the best of capitalism, adding, 'He’s a boss and they wanted to be him, they idolize him.'"

everybody loves bosses, right?

This is why The Rock would win 47 states.