The nation may survive, but the wound to hope and order will never fully heal - US elections 2016: the october surprises

feel like the only just punishment for Arpaio and Trump would be a special elixir that makes them invisible to other humans only when they're peeing in a public restroom, so that people come up to the urinal thinking it's unoccupied and pissing all over them.

The right wing conflation of "sex in the media" and predation -- which is on display in that katrina pierson video -- pisses me off so much. Do they really not see the difference between kim kardashian making a sex tape -- which pierson mentioned -- and trump assaulting people? What?

Are all references to sex "bad" in their opinion?

rape culture = inability to see the line between consensual promiscuity and non-consensual assault because of the assumption that all women that dress "provocatively" are inviting you to sample their wares so really, what's the difference, maaaaaaan.

Are all references to sex "bad" in their opinion?

― Treeship, Tuesday, October 11, 2016 11:21 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

all except the non-consensual, controlling ones apparently

that and this weird idea that a woman not loudly protesting at the time of the assault = permissiveness and not, idk, an understandable byproduct of fear brought on by the unwanted act.

"if Trump didn't want them to kiss him, they would have stopped him" etc etc

Are all references to sex "bad" in their opinion?

this all goes back to basic, deeply sublimated and never rarely fully explicated puritan belief that all sex outside of marriage-sanctioned child-bearing is wrong. Everything else (opposition to homosexuality, abortion, checking out sex tapes etc.) stems from that.

Yeah definitely. The infuriating thing is that Pierson used the term "rape culture" to issue a blanket condemnation of, it seemed, sex in general. It's like Nineteen Eighty-four.

never

from that

xxpost err I mean "if they didn't want to be kissed by Trump"....

I assume those are all relatively safe too, I haven't heard of any of those being particularly hotly contested except for North Carolina (right?)

― Οὖτις

indiana's a toss-up.

An old roommate (disappointingly) linked this on Facebook. Even if one were to take everything in that 'article' at face value, I find it hard to even imagine the mindset for which any quote in that article is far worse than Trump's comments.

xps I mean, Οὖτις explained the mindset and I can imagine it but yeah.

this all goes back to basic, deeply sublimated and never rarely fully explicated puritan belief that all sex outside of marriage-sanctioned child-bearing is wrong. Everything else (opposition to homosexuality, abortion, checking out sex tapes etc.) stems from that.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, October 11, 2016 11:26 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes but that's a slightly more dated form of what it really stems from, one category of person needing control over another. it really is as simple as male supremacy.

I think a bigger issue I'd how you talk millions of people off the apocalyptic conspiracy cult ledge. I don't think the mainstream Republican party's dog whistle is going to work as well as it did since Reagan, not without actually acting on the crazy, which is largely legislatively impossible.

the thing is this, four years ago paul ryan was a hard-right ideologue. now he's too moderate for most of the voters. the voices become more and more extreme, more and more strident, and there's no check on it because of the gerrymandering and becomes a lot of states are functionally one-party states on an organizational level. by 2020 i would not be surprised if the republican party was not an explicitly white nationalist institution. because there's no check on it, no reason it shouldn't be.

xxxpost It's really just about targeting the figure in which Democrats are perceived to lionize the most, whom a lot of folks believe is Clinton. Probably not aware of places like this board, for example, filled with liberals who vote Democrat but nonetheless think Clinton's a shitbag.

other than that, it's just your run of the mill "Tu quoque" fallacy - once you come back at them with "yeah I agree, Clinton's comments are reprehensible", it kind of takes the wind out of their sails, because the fallacy's effectiveness relies on your unwillingness to criticize someone who shares your political beliefs for "similar behavior".

I mean I've long suspected most of Trump's handlers of playing political theater, but IMO situations like Trump's current predicament are when you need to have the "Vince McMahon 4th wall" moment and admit no, this isn't cool. Otherwise, you're basically saying a guy who believes using his stature to help himself to sexually assault women is "ok", behavior then subsequently legitimized by winning the election.

Obv we're not electing a Sunday school teacher but the false equivalency of "this is no worse than saying Mayim Bialik is hot" is scary to me. either people are that fucking dumb to believe that, or they don't believe it but are pretending to for political sake, and I don't know which is worse tbh.

the thing is this, four years ago paul ryan was a hard-right ideologue. now he's too moderate for most of the voters. the voices become more and more extreme, more and more strident, and there's no check on it because of the gerrymandering and becomes a lot of states are functionally one-party states on an organizational level. by 2020 i would not be surprised if the republican party was not an explicitly white nationalist institution. because there's no check on it, no reason it shouldn't be.

― fat fingered algorithm (rushomancy), Tuesday, October 11, 2016 6:33 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and yet the amazing thing, is despite conservatism moving closer to 'extreme' right views (ie Ted Cruz), they've managed to win the narrative that most Democratic candidates, who usually run on barely left of center platforms, are "pushing an extreme socialist agenda".

I knew it wasn't an argument that could be won when someone I knew, in the midst of a political discussion in 2004, that John Kerry was "dangerous dictator material"

It seems their focus has changed too. The small government fanatacism of the tea party at least concealed the white resentment behind a facade of ideas like small government and constitutional literalism. Never thought they would go for full authoritarianism in the numbers they have tbh

leftists, who have claimed that Bill Clinton is the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln

Like, has literally any leftist claimed this?

I don't think the GOP sticks with an idea for long enough, and that's their main problem. which isn't to say the Democrats are this unified group that has had an unmoving platform, but the GOP hitches themselves to weird posts for short periods of time and then move onto something else before it has time to develop.

xpost lol. I mean there was a popular bumper sticker that said "I miss Bill" but that's just typical strawman shit.

people also conflated Dems not thinking Clinton should be impeached with "not being utterly and completely embarrassed/angry about the situation"

i don't remember anyone loving bill clinton. i dont' remember any democrats ever loving any figureheads with the exception of Obama (and Carter, retroactively, because of his post-presidential life)

The only way I could see a leftist holding the view that he was the best President since Lincoln would be something like "FDR did great things but he interned the Japanese, and you have to count Vietnam against LBJ, so by default, I guess Bill C presided over prosperous times and didn't screw anything up badly".

there are def Dems that view the Clinton era as an era of prosperity (which it was but not cos of him) and have conveniently forgotten DOMA/etc...

but it's definitely not "omg Bill Guevara, para todos todo"

and there are also those of us who were born in the 80s and he was the first Democratic President of our lifetime so our only real frame of reference from life experience, too (I was born in the waning hours of Carter).

*prior to Obama, that is

The handful of Trump supporters on my FB feed, all of whom have at least one university degree, all seem to be treating this like a sport. They never link any thinkpieces (even on the level of Matt Walsh, say, who hates Trump) or issues-based commentary, always just memes, clickbait like that Federalist Papers thing, and virtual high-fives whenever someone insults HRC, e.g. ""... Because ud b in jail..." #savage #murder101". I kind of wonder if there are any serious, intellectual Trump supporters.

xps Yeah, I can totally see how people could like Bill Clinton and I know plenty who do, including my Dad; I just haven't come across anyone who identifies as leftist thinking of him as 'the greatest since Lincoln', unless maybe it was in a very qualified way.

Does anyone actually call themself "a leftist"?

Even the regular GOP goals have been fan fiction for decades as you cant cut taxes, raise military spending hand over fist, wage continual war and yet not cut popular social programs then expect a balanced budget.

There is nothing that infuriates me more is conservatives who seem to live in some illusion that deficit spending started in January 2009 and there is no blame to the GOP for the debt.

anybody who links to anything with "Federalist" or "Examiner" or "Thinker" appearing in the publisher's name is worth unfriending IMO

Otm about "fan fiction." They're so deeply unserious it's hard to even fathom.

Valid question, CaAL

tbh in my experience at least some leftists are not down w/ the idea that lincoln was "great"

(Fwiw, even most of the hardcore Canadian conservatives I come across on political message boards regard Republicans as more or less insane, even pre-Trump.)

It also can't go on like this. Something has to break. I get that there will always be a fiscally and socially conservative party in America given the popularity of that worldview, but this one has just become a sick joke.

xpost you'd think short-term memory of the Great Recession and its byproducts would be vivid, and yet ask people when average gas prices were at their highest in the aughts, and many Republicans will insist it happened sometime other than when it actually happened (2008). a bunch of us protested on a local blogger's "thinkpiece" about Romney as he insisted that gas prices spiked in 2006 and began to shrink gradually so that they were fairly low in 2008, only to go up under Obama (despite the actual info being readily available in under five minutes on Gasbuddy.com)

same thing with the unemployment rate (there was a humorous meme that was flaunted by a Repub blog in 08 that stated unemployment increased under Obama because it alleged Bush left office a year before he actually did, in 2007, to make the numbers work).

i'm disappointed that today hasn't been more entertaining on the Trump Front. midnight twitter nastiness aside; was really hoping for footage of him raping a dog or something.

Does anyone actually call themself "a leftist"?

http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/flanders-leftorium.jpg

you know, there are a lot of states that don't have an effective two-party system, where the primary is more important than the general election because one party doesn't have the organization or structure to run candidates who aren't patently inferior. we could see this on a national level. very few of us actually like clinton, but (with one very specific exception) our fear of trump and his white nationalist ideology is so far beyond our problems with clinton they're not even comparable. i could certainly see a sort of one-party "coalition rule", which would continue until people stop being afraid of the white nationalist threat, at which point a two party system would once more emerge.

Ryan wanted the Speaker job because it's a job for a grownup where people ask you what you think a lot, and if you think that all people need is to hear True Conservative Views and a steely gaze for conservatism to prosper, then I can see the attraction. He has probably despaired of it since his second day and he has no good options :) :) :)

ryan didn't want the speaker job! he was browbeat into it by boehner using a heaping helping of catholic guilt.

I've already forgotten who the first choice for Boehner's successor was. Wonder how he'd have been faring right now.

The Right will have to fix the right, as everyone else in the world are lying socialist baby killers. They are so f'ing gone, I don't see how they get brought back into fold.

At some point, some adults among the billionaires are going to have to convince their right wing cronies to defund the lunacy and push to get rid of Citizens United. Trust in government to some extent has to be restored and I don't see any real political will by the money in this country to make those type of comprmise deals. Their greed fucked it up and they have to fix it.

The service economy is leaving too many behind and in there is a big chunk of Trump's followers and the people caught in the inner city shoot outs in same boat and racial tensions basically are keeping many from seeing they are different sides of same coin. If your life is not having crap and working dead end jobs to go nowhere why not just become a pill head or smack addict. To me all those are tied really to the failures if the service economy.

it was kevin mccarthy, i think
xpost

That's right. He wasn't so good at words.

Fine fine - Ryan took the Speaker job because etc etc - no-one held a gun to his head.

lol? http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-benghazi-sputnik-508635🔗

I don't think the GOP sticks with an idea for long enough, and that's their main problem. which isn't to say the Democrats are this unified group that has had an unmoving platform, but the GOP hitches themselves to weird posts for short periods of time and then move onto something else before it has time to develop.

I just want to be clear; you're talking about the party that is still trying to implement trickle-down economics, right?

Goddammit zing buffer

Does anyone actually call themself "a leftist"?

a surprising amount of people on twitter trying to distinguish themselves from "liberals"