Just before the consequential US election (I am optimistic we can prevail over Putinism), my previous posting offered a compiled packet of jpegs and quick bullets to use if you still have a marginally approachable, residually sane neighbor or relative who is 'sanity curious.' A truly comprehensive compendium! From the under-appreciated superb economy to proved dangers of pollution. From Ukraine to proof of Trump's religion-fakery. From saving science to ...
... the biggest single sentence of them all... "Almost every single honest adult who served under Trump now denounces him." Now numbering hundreds.
And Harrison Ford emphasizing that point with eloquence.
Anyone able to ignore that central fact... that grownups who get to know Trump all despise him... truly is already a Kremlin boy.
== More sober reflections ==
Fareed Zakaria is by far the best pundit of our time - sharp, incisive, with well-balanced big-perspective. And yet, even he is myopic about what's going on.
Booming manufacturing and wages, record-low unemployment, the lowest inflation among industrial nations (now down to 2%), with democratic policies finally transferring money to the middle class, after 40 years of Supply Side ripoffs for the rich.
The Wall Street Journal - of all capitalist and traditionally Republican outfits - calls the present economy 'superb at all levels' and 'remarkable,' with real growth in middle class wages and prosperity.
And yet, many in the working classes now despise the Rooseveltean coalition that gave them everything, and even many black & hispanic males flock to Trump's macho ravings.
Zakaria is spot-on saying it's no longer about economics - not when good times can be taken for granted. Rather, it's social and cultural, propelled by visceral loathing of urban, college educated 'elites' by those who remain blue-collar, rural and macho.
One result - amplified in media-masturbatory echo chambers and online Nuremberg Rallies - has been all-out war vs all fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. Where Fareed gets it all wrong is in claiming this is something new!
While sympathy is called-for, we need to recall that the recurring confederate fever is always puppetted by aristocrats - by King George, by slaver plantation lords, by gilded-age moguls, by inheritance brats and today's murder sheiks & Kremlin "ex"-commissars... and whenever the confederacy wins (as in 1830s, 1870s and 1920s in the United States and 1933 Germany) the results are stagnation and horror. And every "Union" victory (as in the 1770s, 1860s, 1940s, 1960s) is followed by both moral and palpable progress.
Trump has learned a lesson from his time in office. Never trust any adults or women and men of accomplishment and stature. He has said clearly he will never have another Kelly, Mattis, Mullen, Milley... or even partisan hacks with some pride, like Barr, Pence, etc... allowed anywhere near the Oval Office. ---
1. Harris and dems win big. They must, for the “steal” yammer-lies to fade to nothing, except for maybe a few McVeigh eruptions. (God bless the FBI undercover guys!) In this scenario, everyone but Putin soon realizes things are already pretty good in the US and West and getting better... and the many of our Republican neighbors – waking up from this insane trance – shake off confederatism and get back to loyally standing up for both America and enterprise.
And perhaps the GOP will also shake away the heavily blackmail compromised portion of their upper castes and return to the pre-Hastert mission of negotiating sane conservative needs into a growing consensus.
2. Harris squeaks in. We face 6 months of frantic Trumpian shrieks and Project 2025 ploys and desperate Kremlin plots and a tsunami of McVeighs.
In this case there will be confederate cries of "Secession!" over nothing real, as they had no real cause in 1861. We must answer "Okay fine this time. Off you go! Only we keep all military bases and especially we keep all of your blue cities (linking them with high speed rail), cities who get to secede from YOU! Sell us beef and oil, till we make both obsolete! And you beg to be let back in. Meanwhile, your brighter sons and daughters will still come over - with scholarships. So go in peace and God bless."
3. Trump squeaks in and begins his reign of terror. We brace ourselves for the purge of all fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. And within 6 months you will hear two words that I am speaking here for the 1st time:
GENERAL STRIKE.
A legal and mammoth job action by those who actually know stuff and how to do stuff. At which point then watch how redders realize how much they daily rely on our competence. And how quickly the oligarchs act to remove Trump, either through accelerating senility, or bribed retirement or... the Howard Beale scenario. At which point then Peter Thiel (briefly) owns America. It's Putin's dream outcome as the USA betrays Ukraine and Europe and the future... and tears itself apart. But no matter how painful, remember, we've recovered before. And we'll remember that you did this, Vlad and Peter. And those who empowered them.
Oh, yes and this. Idiot believers in THE FOURTH TURNING will get their transformative 'crisis' that never had to happen and that they artificially caused (and we'll remember.) Above all, the Gen-Z 'hero generation' will know this. And you cultists will not like them, when they're mad.
Again... here's your compiled ompendium of final ammo. To help us veer this back to victory for America, the planet, and the Union side in our recurring civil war...
302 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 302 of 302The US election results have shown me that I was living in an echo chamber - I was quite certain that Trump would lose big time
I felt the BBC (the bloody BBC!) was being far too right wing biased in its reporting - and I was wrong - they were accurate
I still don't understand how anybody could watch or read one of Trump's speeches and still vote for him
It's a little early for Christmas, I know, but here's a little something I cooked up last night:
Adolf the Mustached Maniac
You know Joseph, Benito, the Chairman and Putin
Fransisco, Augusto, the Donald and Chiang
But do you recall
The most famous fascist of all?
Adolf the Mustached maniac,
Was a total lying sack
And if you ever heard him
You would think he’s smoking crack
All of the other fascists
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Adolf
Join in any genocides
Then one fJanuary night
Von Hindenburg came to say
"Adolph, with your hate so bright
Won't you be Chancellor tonight?”
Then all the Republicans copied him
As they shouted out with glee
"Adolph the Mustached Maniac
You'll go down in history"
Paul SB
Clearly, many groups are hoping that feeding the tiger will defer their own demise. Santayana was right about failing to learn from history.
While on anthropology, there's an answer to those who laugh at the minority that counters the lemming masses (and gets ridiculed for it):
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
That's perhaps elitist, but also undeniably true.
It is foreign relations/lack thereof that is most worrisome.
You’ve supplied the usual globaloney at CB: a partial list of errors (omission, commission) made by the US—with little or nothing on what America’s enemies have done & are doing.
Loc,
why can’t you write more about foreign relations?, while leaving out the usual banalities
Roger Whittaker redux:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKjhtN6iUX0&list=PLhXctOTXTtvKOcx0SVhk2BYDb9f9o6Ltm&index=33
And will the grass be gone from underneath the sky?
Will the golden flower wither soon and die?
Will the fire burn out the land, and the sea fill up with sand?
Will the last word ever spoken be "Why?"
Slim sorry but in what universe did/does Mit Romney influence squat?
Yeah, yeah matthew. A campaign by-of-for liberal upper middle class white women... endlessly repeating ONLY the concerns of liberal upper middle class white women... with identical outcomes to when Hillary did exactly that... obviously would have won, if only we all doubled down HARDER on only the concerns of liberal upper middle class white women. And matthew.
It was HISPANICS and Black men who stayed home, Hispanics who are Catholic and might've ignored the cognitive dissonance of the word "abortion" - if it dod did not make up 50% of the sheer verbiage pouring from those liberal upper middle class white women..
"abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion""abortion" ad infinitum, when the pro Choice vote was already Kamala's from day one.
Hispanics who made clear they want tighter immigration, ignored by lefty flakes, who screeched at Biden when he tried.
Native or 2nd language Spanish speakers who were screamed-at over prounouns. "Rid your language of all gender distinctions!!!" in... Spanish. Pronoun policing ... Spanish. That takes a truly special... even MAGA-level - kind of idiocy.
Imbeciles like Matthew who made this mess happen will double down the sanctimony riffs and never allow crit of bad tactics. Because masturbating to sanctimony is vastly more important to an addict than coalition building for victory.
Margaret Mead wasn’t talking about politics in that quote. She was talking about how norms, customs, ideals, and expectations change. The superstructure of culture. Change usually begins with a single person choosing to do something different, and it catches on.
PaulSB
No idea what happened but Joe Biden looks like he got twenty years younger and the senility reduced in half. That was the jolliest "We Lost" speech I ever saw. It doesn't look like he has any love lost for Kamala Harris.
I was about to return to ignoring them both, when locum and matthew both made actual assertions that were aimed at least in the general direction of something that could be argue4d. In both cases I believe deeply wrong. But I'll take "At least that's aimed in our general direction rather than masturbatory-whiny shit-spews."
But poor matt's 'THIS IS IT! A?B PROVED!" rave is BS. What's fundamental is that Hispanics sat this out. Because of immigration. Because of volcanically excessive "abortion!!" jeremiads. And because no Spanish speaker wants to be woke-policed about pronouns. Might Hispanics also be sexist? Well... MEXICO NOW HAS A WOMAN PRESIDENT.
Vinyl Taco, I nod in your nasty direction and accept your inborn right to crow in jubilation. Enjoy. Even though you ignored the rest of #4... that, freed of all accountability, even to blackmail, DT may soon be zipping in some directions you won't expect. Or like.
LH aims in a correct direction with "As far as I can ascertain, the Democratic Party now consists of:
White liberal professionals
Black women
Trans people*"...
...an oversimplification though matthew would have us triple down on that narrow non-coalition.
Fun facts: in 1932, 20% of the German population voted for Hitler. In 2024, 22% of the American population voted for Trump. 26% of Americans think the Sun revolves around the earth.
Dr. B
The outside the box thinkers on Earth Prime (who privately share Mathew’s Beelzebubian sanctimony) know that Romney doesn’t influence squat. He’s a knob. But give it a little oil, turn the knob, and the door opens to where you want to go.
Mitt earned 206 electoral votes in 2012 on THIS earth. 65,915,79560,933,504 was 47.2% of the popular vote. Harris received 47.9% of the popular vote.
Politico said last year that 28% of Republican primary voters are so devoted to Trump that they’d support him as an independent.
On Earth Prime the Democrats sign Romney as a free agent and negotiate a deal. AOC is his running mate. They pander a father/teenage daughter gambit in the political campaign, where she keeps asking for woke progressive things and he won’t give her the keys. The Chardonnay tennis moms in Orange County, Westover Hills, and Hartford call Romney a safe dick but they will still vote for him. Romney quietly pledges to support a woman’s right to choose as long as he can build a giant navel armanda, give money to Egypt and get lots of truck driving dicks wet drilling in keystone and Virginia.
On Earth Prime 2024 Trump only gets 21 million votes. The Democratic party scuttles the screeching wing to Sanders or whoever wants to lose as an independent and take 21 million votes. Democracy and rule of law are preserved while the party can groom their next successor like Aaron Rodgers sat behind Favre for three years.
Typed out a longer reply... in part congratulating locum & matthew for at least making assertions that aimed in directions that could be addressed, instead of their previous masturbations toward imaginary walls. Wrong, but addressed.
Alas, that reply got ett by blogger, so...
One thing tho. We lost because HISPANICS STAYED HOME. Period.
1. They demand tighter - not looser - immigration/borders.
2. Catholic, they were willing til overlook the dissonance, till upper middle class white liberal women chose to yel "Abortion!" at the top of their lungs, ad infinitum, forcing them to choose between dems and their faith.
3. The new president of Mexico is a woman, so I call bullshit, matt.
LH exaggerates, but at least he dials in: "As far as I can ascertain, the Democratic Party now consists of:
White liberal professionals
Black women
Trans people*
And the Republican Party now has the big tent of everyone else."
Way exaggerated. But clearly if Bil Maher had run KH's campaign she'd be picking drape colors for the oval office, right now.
Oh, have a look at the female boycott in Korea. I am not being boycotted.
"https://www.npr.org/2024/11/08/nx-s1-5182888/4b-movement-trump-south-korea
Vinyl,
In re your rejoinder to
"Trump landslide. Ain’t gonna happen"
"HAHAHAHAHA! This aged well. You know nothing about people, you're an elitist snob who can't or won't see the truth."
I've seen video of rumpT before it was called, and it's tolerably obvious he didn't expect a landslide either.
Leaving aside that 'landslide' has been devalued compared to the shellackings that have occurred in the prior century - look at the Eisenhower/Stevenson numbers and compare - given your logic, I should call rumpT an elitist snob. Actually that's right: he 'loves' his 'poorly educated' not because he respects them but because he can use them as stepping stones, and any hatred he has of the New York elite snobs is obviously sour grapes, because he yearned and strived to be accepted by them.
Pappenheimer
Fun facts: 20% of Germans voted for Hitler in 1932. 22% of Americans voted for Trump in 2024. 26% of Americans think the Sun revolves around the earth.
Well, of course it revolves around us.
I can see you've not caught up with latest Copernican pamphlets re: epi-epi-epi-epi-epi-eki-f'tang-szwoop-spam-cycles. Here, I'll give you a link...
Pappenheimer
(narrator's voice: "He did not give a link."
P.S. More seriously, the German naval commander of the WWII commerce raider Atlantis, Kapitan* Rogge, was interviewed in iirc the 60's for a book on his ship. Although not a Nazi and regarded as a humane man as well as an intelligent, effective commander, he unhesitatingly blamed Poland for initiating the war with a sneak attack. I think we all underestimate the effectiveness of propaganda we are predisposed to believe.
*later, rear admiral
So, the big question is... who farted?
Who stayed home?
From what I can tell, voter turnout was similar to 2020. And the trend to Trump was across the board.
What happened? I don't know. I don't think anyone really knows. We only have hypotheses.
The one I currently favour is that, in the end, it just came down to economics. Not the stuff Biden was promoting, but the home grocery stuff. Inflation is up (thank you, Vlad!) and the wage doesn't cover as much as it did.
Also, hurricanes, and don't forget the pandemic only raged for one year of Trump, but has been with us for all four years of Biden. Security is a strong motivator, and autocrats love to project the image of the 'strong' leader. It seems they thrive on 'interesting times'.
It's attractive when things aren't looking too good, people react. They're prone try something new, possibly more secure, or something they might not remember too clearly... I don't think they were actually listening to Trump (at least, I *hope* they weren't!!)
Enough of my navel gazing...
It IS pointless. The only useful analysis would be a scientific one, and there is still much data to be collected. Yet, airing grievances is also important. People need a way to make sense to it all and blow of steam.
No. I still think: WE ALL lost because America is a culture susceptible to fascism. It had to happen.
The roots of it go deeper. And you need more than four years to change a culture. In a democracy at least.
(One could argue that Hitler needed only four years. Yet, I don't believe that the majority of the population was authoritarian and remained so until the cultural changes of the sixties. Therein lies a glimmer of hope, that the rest of America that is still decent won't roll over. Or that the outcry will be bigger than 2020.)
I get that unhappy voters want change. I don't get so much that "the thing we wanted change from four years ago" counts as change, but I suppose that's a problem with a de facto two-party system.
On this very site during the George W Bush years, we used to joke that the parties should change their names to the Bush Party and the Clinton Party. It seemed at the time that we'd be switching back and forth between those two families every 8 years.
Dr Brin:
And the Republican Party now has the big tent of everyone else."
Way exaggerated....
Well yeah, exaggerated for emphasis, because I'm not exactly in a mood for nuance right now. I'll get better by Thanksgiving, but you can't rush the process. And like my theory that Trump has Mule powers, the hypothesis that most identity groups have abandoned Democrats and embraced Republicans explains more than anything else.
Now, despite being a liberal, I'm not into all that identity politics stuff myself. Unlike my grandmother, I don't ask of every policy question, "Is it good or bad for the Jews?" My political goal is "First, do no harm.", and what I'm buying from whoever will sell it is equality and justice before the law. Protection of individual identity groups only comes into it to the extent that those groups are subject to inequality and injustice at the time.
My disappointment in 2016 and even more today, is how many of my fellow Americans didn't seem interested in those things. My worse disappointment today is how many seem actively opposed. There will be no general strike against Trump immediately, because he's actually popular now.
What might happen after a year or two of unopposed Republican rule--as it did in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina and the Terry Schiavo mess--is that "even the Republicans had to sit up and take notice." That gave us Speaker Pelosi in 2006 and President Obama in 2008. The pendulum does swing both ways.
On "wanting change"...
Our system doesn't seem to allow for long-term solutions. Voters are outraged every four years that the current president didn't fix everything. JFK committed us in 1961 to land a man on the moon* in a decade, that that indeed came about two presidents later. Can such a thing happen now?
* "...and return him safely to earth." The mars enthusiasts don't seem all that interested in the second part.
Stonekettle said, "Americans don't mind the things Democrats do, they just want Republicans to do them," and I think there is no better example than President Biden. Yes, they first blamed him for inflation, but they are generally happy with the soft landing and recovery that he managed. They blamed him for $6 gas, but they're pretty happy with the $2.99 gas I just bought a week ago.
They just aren't happy that Biden is the one doing it.
In retrospect, nothing could have been done to win an election when 65% of the country thinks it is going in the wrong direction. Harris never had a chance.
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of “loyalty” and “duty.” Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute--get out of there fast. You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.
- Robert Heinlein "Notebook of Lazarus Long"
“The idiots take over the final days of crumbling civilizations. Idiot generals wage endless, unwinnable wars that bankrupt the nation. Idiot economists call for reducing taxes for corporation and the rich and cutting social service programs for the poor. They project economic growth on the basis of myth. Idiot industrialists poison the water, the soil, and the air, slash jobs and depress wages. Idiot bankers gamble on self-created financial bubbles. Idiot journalists and public intellectuals pretend despotism is democracy. Idiot intelligence operatives orchestrate the overthrow of foreign governments to create lawless enclaves that give rise to enraged fanatics. Idiot professors, "experts", and "specialists" busy themselves with unintelligible jargon and arcane theory that buttresses the policies of rulers. Idiot entertainers and producers create lurid spectacles of sex, gore and fantasy. There is a familiar checklist for extinction. We are ticking off every item on it.”
― Chris Hedges, America: The Farewell Tour
Both quotes above sum up the current state of America nicely.
Concerning the "self-created financial bubbles" described by Chris Hedges above, what you are now seeing in the stock market and your 401K isn't strong growth.
Strong growth is what Biden gave us.
What you are seeing now is the early formation of a bubble, which will pop when the uber rich decide it time to fleece the suckers (and get bailed out by the taxpayers) like they did in 2008.
The trick is to ride this as far as you can until the warning signs appear and then get into bonds.
Nobody (not even those manipulating the markets) can time a market perfectly, but if you pay attention you can minimize your losses when it occurs.
In the meantime, I intend to make hay while the sun is shining and use this extra cash to obtain assets to ensure survival for me and my family when SHTF.
MREs, ammo, a remote off grid cabin - that sort of thing.
Meanwhile....
The earth continues to burn
Mega Storms get bigger and more frequent
Major alterations in rainfall patterns cause drought and flooding in equal measure
The oceans are dying
Biodiversity is collapsing
Microplastics permeate water soil and human flesh
Groundwater aquifers are depleted and poisoned
Forever chemicals decrease sperm counts and fertility
Most nations now have stopped having children due to economic costs or those forever chemicals
Populations are collapsing and aging
Wilderness areas are being strip mined, slashed and burnt
Natural habitats are shrinking
Insects and pollinators continue to die off.
But not to worry.
We can count on Trump to solve these problems, right?
Wrong.
He plans to gut the EPA and push climate denial while we drill baby drill
Dr. Brin.
America knowingly reelected a corrupt fascist racist rapist felon.
That is all you need to know about the character and decency of the American people.
Sorry Dr. Brin, but it is the height of naivete to ignore the part play ed by racism and sexism in the election.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/09/us-voters-kamala-harris-donald-trump-republican
I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost
But gender did play a role. Time and again, voters, very often women themselves, told me that they just didn’t think that “America is ready for a female president”. People said they couldn’t “see her in the chair” and asked if I “really thought a woman could run the country”. One person memorably told me that she couldn’t vote for Harris because “you don’t see women building skyscrapers”. Sometimes, these people would be persuaded, but more often than not it was a red line. Many conversations would start with positive discussions on policy and then end on Harris and her gender. That is an extraordinary and uncomfortable truth.
In the strange interregnum between The Debate and Biden dropping out I did swing by with a few thoughts on the race. They were not well received. Fair enough, it was not the right time. I of course have additional thoughts. But this is even less the right time. Hang in there. It's not The End. I'll check back in a bit.
Uhhhhh Matt....sound like cutting in splicing the data to get it to tell u what you want.
If your so called A/B test worked out in favor of racism, how is it that the GOP took the Senate?
Tacitus you are always welcome here. Though alas the "Oh poor me! I am always attacked by you guys!!" whining is the only aspect we find irksome. You're welcome if you come with a thicker skin... and you are welcome if you don't.
This one belongs in the prediction registry, bigly.
Trump gets nearly the same number of votes he got in 2024. However, the magical vote spike for Biden did not happen again. This year, Democracy happened.
----
"Never trust any adults or women and men of accomplishment and stature" Sir, you need to look up Elon Musk. He has accomplished a few things.
Have a peek at his transition team. It includes TWO former Democratic presidential hopefuls. All this fits with my theory that Trump has pushed the Republican party into the populist quadrant. This makes him politically closer to many civil liberties Democrats than authoritarian Republicans like George W. Bush.
Instead, of going for personal loyalty as he did in 2016, he is gathering people who independently are compatible with his agenda.
David, your tactics have failed over and over and over. You refuse to see the problem because that would mean admitting your personal fault in supporting MAGA-lite fools at DoJ/FBI/CIA etc. Idiot.
Elon wants to crash the bond market. Your advice is remarkably bad.
David I don't actually take personal offense when people come across as hostile. There are baked in limits to electronic communication and things such as body language, vocal inflection, etc are lost. And, you may regard my sense of courtesy - which I almost always maintain - to be ill suited to what many here consider to be existential issues.
As others have noted, there is an echo chamber effect. This also is a byproduct of our times. I don't know how much all of you interact with people who see the world differently. But telling them that their perspectives are wrong is one thing. When you descend to calling them names and suggesting they are mindless stooges of the Goldstein de jour, well, you are no longer communicating with them. In part because such discourse becomes repetitive and uninteresting quickly.
As you know, or should know, I have considerable respect for the principles of progressive thought. A healthy society needs its interplay with its conservative counterpart.
It was not really a "landslide." The margin of victory in each of the battleground states is under 5% (and some by less than 200,000 votes). The overall national vote count margin is about 5 million votes.
I am in a middle level job in the "deep state" and I will see what happens as we transition into the new administration.
Tacitus:
But telling them that their perspectives are wrong is one thing. When you descend to calling them names and suggesting they are mindless stooges of the Goldstein de jour, well, you are no longer communicating with them.
Tacitus, I think you know I agree with all that. What I always disagree with is that this blog's commenters are an example of that. Even discounting locumranch and his ilk, we've got jim and matthew and Alfred Differ and Ilithi Dragon and me all arguing with each other over minutae, even among the ones who agree that modern-day Republicans are a cult.
At the very least, we're not as extreme about groupthink as the right-wingers who want to cancel everyone from Colin Kaepernick to Taylor Swift, who talk about free speech while they threaten to revoke ABC's broadcast license and to lock up Adam Schiff.
It must have been the election year of 1968--there was a cartoon Batman episode on a Saturday morning show in which the Joker had messed with voting machines so that he was the winner in an election for mayor of Gotham City. It was the first time I ever heard the term "landslide" in the political context, but it was obvious from the story what the term meant.
You're right that "landslide" is being used this time to mean something more like "unexpected result". Ronald Reagan in 1984 had close to if not over 500 electoral votes. That was a landslide. This was just a win by margins much more than the loss that was expected.
Hyperbole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI7jsDrKR9s
Hal Sparks speaks wisdom. "I know enough to understand that just because someone uses the right words doesn't mean they're on my side. And just because they use the wrong words doesn't mean they're against me."
At the beginning of the linked show, Hal talks about an abused woman acquaintance debating whether to go back to the abusers. Even though he was on her side, she is so upset that he won't use the same jargon that she does that she treats him as worse than the abuser.
That hits home for me because I had a similar experience with a friend back in 1992. She is the older sister of an old girlfriend, and I visited the family back then and drove this woman and her husband back up to Chicago afterwards. During the drive, she was trying to get me to voice disrespect toward her sister's (my old girlfriend's) new romantic partner.
I actually agreed with that, but not only was it not my place to weigh in on that, I felt it would minimize the message by me--the old boyfriend--to be the messenger. I agreed with her on the point, but I was purposely not voicing that agreement in front of the whole family. And she wrote me off as a friend because of that "disagreement" and such has it been forevermore.
I feel Hal's pain.
I would say a healthy society has progressives and conservatives who play with, and not against, each other.
When I've argued that Team Progressive is 'uncompromising', 'idealistic', 'compulsive' and 'immoderate' previously, I've simply been shouted down & dismissed, but now that an intellectual detente seems to be in effect, I'd like to discuss what these terms mean and offer you a possible solution.
Uncompromising, Idealistic, Compulsive & Immoderate are all synonyms for the term 'Unreasonable' in the sense that the most current incarnation of Team Progressive simply cannot be reasoned with.
Instead, it has become the 'zero tolerance' Pie-in-the-Sky party that has failed in its attempts to FORCE every issue to its desired resolution by BANNING all of the behaviours & actions of which it disapproves, the solution being a return to the politics of moderation.
Recently, I coined a triggering phrase that immediately received pushback by some progressives here -- and that phrase was "fully functional conservative culture" -- which (imo) expressed my belief that that the cultural quality of 'functionality' is well worth conserving.
Now, ask yourself what it is (in terms of cultural qualities) that you'd like to CONSERVE?
It is that answer which will tell you how you reform & revitalize Team Progressive.
Best
RE “echo chamber” as a parameter in processing the current zeitgeist and election results.
This 2023 piece “The Dominion Voting Systems court filing illustrates how the "propaganda feedback loop" operates in real time” from Asha Rangappa’s substance is worth revisiting (or visiting for the first time.)
https://asharangappa.substack.com/p/inside-the-fox-news-sausage-factory
Team progressive needs to reexamine the 1996 Telecommunications act.
Anecdotally, living in a county that Harris won about 60/40, if I took a sample of the 100 people whom I most frequently interact in my day to day, I’d guess roughly less than 10% voted R and if wasn’t religion it was college educated males who resented border policy, bemoaned inflation, were triggered by transgender politics in sports and generally viewed Democrats the way a belligerent, spoiled teenager views their mother who is nagging them to clean their room.
Unser Oger,
“ don't believe that the majority of the population was authoritarian …”
When I was getting my teaching license, one of my professors noted that in any classroom, about 10% of students will always do the right thing, 10% will always do the wrong thing, and the rest will go whatever way the wind is blowing. That’s pretty applicable to any large group of humans, though I would estimate closer to 12.5% for both of the extremes.
In the case of the current election, there are some clues here worth pointing out. The polls all said that the candidates were neck-and-neck, and turned out to be dead wrong again. I heard an interview with a pollster who pointed out that many people lie on polls because they are embarrassed to admit what they really think. Trump has always done well with ignorant white men, but less well with women, minorities, and people who are less ignorant. Now look who turned out for him this time? Young black and Hispanic men, both groups well known for their machismo cults.
With the media constantly harping on inflation, and very few pointing out that the president doesn’t control inflation, that gave the most flaming misogynistic bigots moral cover. They can claim that “it’s the economy, stupid!” Out of one side of their mouths while being bigoted in private with their homies. That narrative-that it’s the economy not bigotry- convinced huge numbers of people who know little about the economy, that the non-bigots were exaggerating and it’s really about who does a better job running the economy. Pure mystification, but the Dems have not been smart enough to take on Republican lies. They just say the same old things that worked in the ‘60s and wonder why it isn’t working.
Paul SB
Oh, and I guess I should wish everyone a Happy Krystalnacht.
(Yes, I'm in a mood)
and very few pointing out that the president doesn’t control inflation
Or that every developed country in the freakin' world had COVID-related inflation, and that under President Biden, we weathered the storm better than most.
Or that grocery prices don't usually fall back down after inflation, but gas prices do, and they're back to about where they were before the pandemic.
Or that Trump's promised tariffs and deportations will increase inflation.
One hard lesson I've learned this time around is not to be swept up by someone else's firm conviction that he knows what will happen.
I mean, Republicans give pie-in-the-sky predictions all the time, so I don't even pay attention to their promises that giving money to billionaires will trickle down to all of us, or that we'll have cheaper, beautiful health care. But Hal Sparks was so sure that Trump would lose that I felt certain he must know his stuff before putting it out there like that.
I should have learned my lesson when John Fuglsang used to insist that Republicans would never overturn Roe v Wade because they needed the campaign issue to remain alive. Fool me twice...I won't be fooled again.
As for Trump's Tariffs, forget about consumer inflation (which will hit lower income working class Trump voters the hardest) think of what it will do to all those farmer out in red state rural America.
Look at what happened to the US soybean farmers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_farmer_bailouts
Trump administration farmer bailouts are a series of United States bailout programs introduced during the presidency of Donald Trump as a consequence of his "America First" economic policy to help US farmers suffering due to the US-China trade war and trade disputes with European Union, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and others. China and respectively European reconcilable tariffs imposed on peanut butter, soybeans, orange juice, and other agriculture products had hit hard, especially swing states, such as Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
US farmers lost access to import markets in China, which represented the second largest market for US agriculture export in 2017.
The United States Department of Agriculture has distributed up to $12 billion in financial aid to agricultural producers most affected by China's retaliatory tariffs. The USDA's aid came in the form of direct cash payments to producers of corn, cotton, soybeans, sorghum, wheat, dairy, and certain meat products. Soybean producers received more payments than any other agricultural producers because of the devastating impact on U.S. soybean exports. Soybean producers received $7.3 billion in payments from the USDA. Since farmers' exports comprise 20% of income, the USDA found it necessary to compensate agricultural producers in response to the decrease in exports. A total of over $28 billion has been spent on Trump's farmer bailouts [above and beyond their normal generous subsidies].
Those very lucrative Chinese soybean contracts are never coming back. Other countries snapped them up and they have the supply chain to China now. So what are they going to be doing 10 years from now? Not farming, for sure.
Thanks trump.
And this is a GREAT example of how tariffs COST money, not make it.
I will enjoy laughing at their hardship.
As for those who claim they hate government deficits and debt, Trump's extending his tax cuts for the wealthy beyond 2025 will blow a bigger hole in the Federal budget;
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/permanently-extending-the-trump-tax-cuts-would-increase-upward-pressure-on-the-debt-ratio-by-more-than-50-percent/
Permanently Extending the Trump Tax Cuts Would Increase Upward Pressure on the Debt Ratio by More Than 50 Percent
If Congress renews the Trump tax package, the fiscal gap will grow from 2.1 percent of GDP to 3.3 percent of GDP, making debt ratio stabilization 54 percent harder.
The fiscal gap measures the average amount of primary deficit reduction required to ensure the debt ratio at the end of any specified budget window is no larger than it was at the beginning of that budget window. Using the CBO’s most recent projection, from March 2024, the fiscal gap is 2.1 percent of GDP.* In other words, primary deficits would have to be reduced by an average of 2.1 percentage points of GDP each year over the next 30 years for net debt in 2054 to equal its current level as a percentage of GDP.**
The fiscal gap can be thought of as the upward pressure on the ratio of debt to GDP. This amount of upward pressure will lead debt net of financial assets to rise 80 percentage points of GDP over the next 30 years.
Permanently extending the Trump tax cuts would increase the fiscal gap to 3.3 percent of GDP—a 54 percent increase in the fiscal gap—leading to an additional increase of 36 percentage points of GDP in the debt ratio and pushing debt above 200 percent of GDP.*** In other words, permanently extending the Trump tax cuts would make stabilizing debt as a percentage of GDP 54 percent harder.
And will no one think of the poor gamers (aka Trump Bros)?
https://www.levelup.com/en/news/810189/Console-prices-could-skyrocket-by-40-due-to-Donald-Trumps-victory-tariffs-could-make-a-PS5-Pro-cost-up-to-1000-USD-experts-say
Console prices could skyrocket by 40% due to Donald Trump’s victory; tariffs could make a PS5 Pro cost up to $1000 USD, experts say
And the effects on consumer goods, white good, electronics, etc.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20myx1erl6o
Would Donald Trump’s tariffs hurt US consumers?
Let’s use a concrete example.
Trump imposed a 50% tariff on imports of washing machines in 2018.
Researchers estimate the value of washing machines jumped by around 12% as a direct consequence, equivalent to $86 per unit, and that US consumers paid around $1.5bn extra a year in total for these products.
There is no reason to believe the results of even higher import tariffs from a future Trump administration would be any different in terms of where the economic burden would fall.
The non-partisan Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated Trump’s new proposed tariffs would lower the incomes of Americans, with the impact ranging from around 4% for the poorest fifth to around 2% for the wealthiest fifth.
A typical household in the middle of the US income distribution, the think tank estimates, would lose around $1,700 each year.
The American people bitched about inflation.
Trump will give them something to bitch about.
The tariffs induce inflation will hit lower income working class (aka Trump voters) the hardest.
As I personally have no need for a major consumer purchase, I will take the opportunity to laugh derisively at their hardship.
I'm looking forward to it.
To paraphrase Rorschach in "Watchmen":
MAGA voters will look up and shout 'SAVE US!'...and we liberals will look down and whisper 'No.”
Except they don't want us to save them. They'll shout to their own politicians, who won't even bother to hear them, let alone whisper anything.
Meh. I don't think it was racism OR abortion. I think there are a whole lot of latino men out there hoping their mothers-in-law will be deported. Maybe latino women too. 8)
Seriously, though...
I suspect a large number of Trump voters were just sick of being condescended to. There is a lot of game theory evidence supporting the conclusion that people will vote to screw others when those others have screwed them. Doesn't matter if the vote does harm to their best interests.
And Trump's own economic policies will screw them. Ironic, no?
Here is the Cerebus #186 version of the Rorschach bit:
Merged Permanence, the Emotional Female Void, surveyed the board uneasily. The Universal Maternal visage brightened.
What about...?
The Brightness vanished.
Oh, right.
Victor Davis took another drag from his cigarette. There was a great serenity in his level gaze.
Maybe you could move your...
The two were silent for a time. Viktor Davis calmly smoked his cigarette. The Emotional Female Void looked up at him and flashed a friendly smile which Viktor Davis did not return. The Emotional Female Void returned to studying the situation on the board. The corners of Her mouth twisted downwards, frustration and misery etching long, hard lines in Her features. Tears started from Her eyes.
Without looking up, she asked:
What should I do?
Viktor Davis continued to smoke, drawing out the moment, increasing the tension in the air. At last he said:
'You won,' and then he added, 'You tell me.'
As was I. I'm no good at judo or polemics (not well read enough). Citizen Science is my wheelhouse, where culture shift is the entire point. America isn't a set of laws and institutions, it's an idea. That's why it won't be felled by hokery-pokery.
DP,
Ironic? More like serendipitous.
My dad emails me a 'rant' that he subscribes to online. This guy is predicting the Jubilee*; the swing to the left is over in the US, and 'common sense' laws put in place; Israel will be free to take out Iran's nukes and oil and force regime change; China will pull back from confrontation; Ukraine will get a cease-fire; the US-Mexican border will be closed and the drug cartels shut down for fear of US strikes over the border; Musk will force through massive cuts in the budget; on and on and on. I quote, "The US will be back in charge."
(Everything is looking rosy, except that any breakthroughs in solar or battery technology aren't scalable and won't affect the market; we must reply on oil and gas alone.)
Did he not notice how rumpT's first term went? Even in 2016, the man had the attention span of my dog, and whatever advisor manages to get through the press will divert him to something shinier. About the only thing you can expect for certain are A) tax cuts for rich people and B) attempts to persecute his enemies.
Anyway, 'massive cuts in the budget' would not be 'cuts in military spending'. So, what gets tossed to the wolves? Medicare, ACA subsidies, Social Security, federal debt servicing? I don't think Musk gets to do this unilaterally, and most career politicians would commit seppuku with a spork before touching some of these...
Pappenheimer
Alfred Differ:
I suspect a large number of Trump voters were just sick of being condescended to. There is a lot of game theory evidence supporting the conclusion that people will vote to screw others when those others have screwed them.
Yes, I understand the dynamic. But I also wonder how those others have "screwed them". Looked at them funny? Disagreed with their assessment of a situation?
It's not fair to pick on locumranch when I have stopped reading his comments, but back when, he was sick of being condescended to by reality. "Who are you to tell me how gravity works, you elitist?" I suspect he's not the only one.
Not sure how true this is, but on today's Hal Sparks show, he was claiming that the biggest Google searches lately have been, "What are tariffs?" and "Can I change my vote after the election?" Like any good story, that explains a lot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/opinion/trump-harris-joy-anger.html
This is a bad time for ruling parties and a boom time for the likes of Trump, as Nate Cohn observed in his Times newsletter, The Tilt. Harris’s defeat “occurred against the backdrop of political upheaval across the industrial world,” he wrote. “In the wake of the pandemic and surging prices, voters in country after country in election after election have voted against the party in power. More broadly, the past two decades have featured the rise of right-wing populist parties and a corresponding decline in the strength of the center-left among working-class voters.”
Yes, but how much "in power" were the Democrats when Mike Johnson had a veto over anything, Mitch McConnell could filibuster anything that was not covered under budget reconciliation, and the corrupt supreme court could declare anything they wanted as the letter of the law?
Americans don't seem to understand that "power" isn't just the presidency. Republicans have been remarkably good at obstructing Democrats and then blaming Democrats for inaction. Their bad faith is rewarded in the next election cycle.
Take the border bill (please). After a bi-partisan bill was hashed out in both houses of congress--one which Biden would have signed--Trump got them to nix the deal so that he could run on the broken border. Next year, he'll be in position to sign the same bill, and then claim that he got something done that Biden couldn't. And his supporters will say the same thing. Because Stonekettle was right--they don't mind securing the border; they just want a Republican to be the one who does it.
As for those who claim they hate government deficits and debt,
No one actually hates deficits and debt. That's an excuse to limit spending by Democrats. Spending by Republicans is exempt from such considerations.
Duncan,
rumpT's speeches are not for reading. So far as I can tell, they aren't for understanding, either. The man has tailored specific phrases to his audience after trying them out. The followers cheer the phrases they like. The phrases they don't like, as when he recommended in 2020 that people should get vaccinated, get dropped. The rest is stream-of-consciousness drivel. I don't even know if HE knows he's lying, except for a few very precise answers to questions about Epstein.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Gays for rumpT is a lot like Jews for Hitler or Chickens for Col. Sanders; it staggers the mind, but there it is. The concentration camps that will be set up for illegal immigrants (and legal immigrants/US citizens who fail the paper bag test) will, I am sure, have room for them given time. For all I know, I'm going to be the one scratching 'Frodo Lives' on the latrine doors. If there are any.
Alfred,
“I suspect a large number of Trump voters were just sick of being condescended to. There is a lot of game theory evidence supporting the conclusion that people will vote to screw others when those others have screwed them. Doesn't matter if the vote does harm to their best interests.”
This comment reminded me of a pair of terms that I think have some explanatory value here, though they haven’t come to mind for a long time. They’ve been around since around 1965, created by a historian from the American South who was trying to explain what makes his culture different from the rest of the country. Honor Culture v. Dignity Culture.
Honor Culture (sometimes called Shame Culture) is a system of norms and values that places an individual’s reputation as paramount. People who are raised in this way of thinking are constantly afraid of being disrespected, and are constantly insulting one another and getting into fights. Shame cultures are violent, competitive, and very hierarchical. They presume that some people are more valuable than others, to the point that some people are virtually worshipped while others are so contemptible they don’t “deserve” to live. The correlation between Honor Culture and all manner of bigotries should be obvious enough.
Dignity Culture values all people, emphasizes equality and the interconnectedness of all people, and all life. Dignity Culture may only be a recent phenomenon, but given how much it sounds like the difference between egalitarian v. socially stratified cultures, it’s hard to doubt that most of human existence was characterized by Dignity Culture, up to the rise of the first chiefdoms, and has characterized most of human life since the invention of kings.
Think about how commonly people were killed in duels in the early years of America. Likely the growth of democracy after the Enlightenment began a move back to prehistoric egalitarian values. No culture is ever monolithic. What we have today are streams of Shame Culture and streams of Dignity Culture churning around in the same memepool.
It’s not hard to see that the “fuck your feelings” people are very much enculturated into the Honor/Shame way of thinking. And as equality has been eroding ever since Reagan and Thatcher started shoving Neoliberalism down everyone’s throats, the conditions that drive people to think in those terms increase. The ironic thing is that the very system that drives people to think that way is the thing that creates the inequality it claims to be the “natural way of things.”
Paul SB
Except that Trump didn't get more votes than he did in 2020. So how could upset Trump voters give Trump the election, when Joe Biden beat that number the last time?
Trump voters didn't elect Trump. The Latino and Black men didn't elect Trump. They just kept him at the same level he was before.
It was the 13 million or so voters who didn't vote Democrat like they did in 2020--who didn't vote at all--who elected Trump. Why is the question. Did they forget why they voted him out the last time? :(
DP... Irony? Not the word I'd choose. Maybe 'just deserts'.
They'll get what they chose to receive and probably blame us for it.
They voted for 'just desserts' but will get the other kind.
------
Paul SB,
Figures you'd know the terms for these. I was actually thinking of you when I wrote part of that trying to imagine what you'd call things. Between you and others I have run into the evidence derived from Ultimatum and Gift Exchange games and how culture has been shown to matter. Sometimes culture matters A LOT. I think about those games in political settings where we are inclined to piss off our opponents thinking there is little to lose. I suspect there is a lot more to be lost than we imagine.
Doesn't matter whether we understand how we 'screwed' them. What matters is their perception of it and whether their friends agree with them about our behavior.
I'm not suggesting we bow meekly and give our blessings to their plans, though. I'm suggesting we should be gaming this to get what we want next time.
For the record, I know quite a few people who DID intentionally condescend to them. Sanctimony junkies on our side were getting daily fixes. Sure... the other side did it too... but they won. We need to try something different next time.
It was the 13 million or so voters who didn't vote Democrat like they did in 2020--who didn't vote at all--who elected Trump.
I don't think this is the case. According to the Independent, national turnout was close to 2020: only about 2% down. That is nowhere near 13 million! More like 5.
The other thing I'd like to point out is that the swing was across the board. Pick a state, any state (although Ca is still counting), and you will see a significant swing to Trump in just about every county.
So, when looking for factors, look for ones that affect everybody, not just Latinos, and Blacks. I'd say home economics remains a contender.
Of course, I'm watching this from a ways off. If anyone has more pertinient information...
Richard Grenell, former US viceroy, I mean, ambassador to Germany, is said to become the next head of State Departement. He is openly gay & married.
Also, Peter Thiel.
But maybe the old Göring quote will be applied: "I will decide who is a Jew!" or Grenell and Thiel will end up in the camp, too.
I think the moral outrage of the moment is specifically directed at trans-sexuals rather then gay folk.
Instead of fleeing to Canada it may actually be easier to do an "Atlas Shrugged" for liberals. Ecovillages already exist, maybe they can be expanded into a system of liberal Galt's Gulches. Escape inward to our own isolated communities to safely watch the coming self destruction of rural Red State America.
Oh wait, these communities already exist. They're called "cities". Maybe we should just give up on the idea of winning any national elections that require voting with stupid rubes and focus on the development of urban centers where all the economic growth, art, technical innovation, creativity and intelligence exist.
Can rural Red States use their only weapon against us - food? Nope. If China can get soybeans from other areas besides American farms, our cities can too. Given how badly rural economies and working class whites will be hurt by Trump's policies they will remain desperate to sell the cities whatever food they can.
In fact, it would be a reverse peaceful version of Civil War 2.0, only instead of racist slave holding states ceding from the Union, the vibrant cultural innovative rich cities can simply ignore the rest of the Union.
And as rural poverty deepens and spreads as a result of Trump's own policies, and the stupid rubes remain loyal to him because of their fear of dark skinned people and their disgust of gay/trans people, we in the cities can still look down our noses at the rubes with utter disdain.
That's a day worth living for.
The most common primary reason that people gave for supporting Harris was democracy. Most of the rest of her supporters gave abortion as the most important single issue.
The most common primary reason that people gave for supporting Trump was the economy. Most of the rest of his supporters gave immigration as the single most important issue.
While many, probably most, Trump voters actually support fascism I think there is another large group that voted for him this time. They are the people who through cynicism or complacency or ignorance or apathy could not recognize the danger but who were fooled by the claim that Republicans were better for the economy.
And then there were the ones who would not turn up for the Democrats this time for some sanctimonious reason or the other.
You need to get through to the ones who still see Trump as a normal person. You need to get through to the apathetic and ignorant, the mentally lazy. And this will not be easy. If you don't succeed I fear your country will turn into something like Hungary and it will take decades to recover your freedoms.
We don't need to get through to anyone, Lloyd. We don't need them. We city folk can go our own way
There's a dirty little secret that light skinned blacks looked down upon dark skinned blacks, even before the white man arrived in Africa. I don't know, but I have no reason to doubt that there are "regular gays" who are just as disgusted by trans folks as the vocal Trumpists are. Possibly even relieved that the attention has shifted away from them and onto someone else.
While that doesn't sound like a good reason to vote for Trump, it might be a good enough reason not to vote on that particular issue.
Alfred Differ:
Doesn't matter whether we understand how we 'screwed' them. What matters is their perception of it and whether their friends agree with them about our behavior.
First of all, I moved this to a new reply, rather than a semi-private conversation, to make sure it is seen. I thank you for reminding me of my better angels, which I will need to reconnect with in time. I'm guessing it will begin happening around Thanksgiving. Right now, I'm feeling simpatico with DP's "screw 'em all", and while I know where I will probably end up, the process can't be rushed any more than getting over an old girlfriend can. Nevertheless, your voice is helpful in that process, as mine was when my daughter suffered her first romantic breakup*.
So what was the question again? :)
Doesn't matter whether we understand how we 'screwed' them. What matters is their perception of it and whether their friends agree with them about our behavior.
It matters that we understand what exactly we did wrong so that we can handle it differently next time around. I can understand that it's unproductive to insist that the economic numbers are great when arguing with someone who is feeling the pinch. Is it also unproductive to point out that tariffs would make inflation worse, not better?
I'm not suggesting we bow meekly and give our blessings to their plans, though. I'm suggesting we should be gaming this to get what we want next time.
Good, solid practical advice that I will need when I'm sane again. Really.
For the record, I know quite a few people who DID intentionally condescend to them. Sanctimony junkies on our side were getting daily fixes.
I'm becoming cognizant of the type of error made by a Reagan official (I forget which one) who doubted there were many poor Americans because when he looked around his own social circle, he didn't see any. I'm realizing I'm guilty of a very similar thing. I was not hearing liberals treating conservatives as if their own concerns didn't matter**, so I assumed that no liberals were doing so.
Sure... the other side did it too... but they won. We need to try something different next time.
Good, practical advice. "We don't win this way. What else can we try?"
It does vex me how well Republicans do game the system to win on our own issues. How many decades were liberals vilified for being anti-war? Now, we lose the public opinion argument because we're "war mongers" in Ukraine***. Apparently, being anti-war is only a good thing when Republicans do it. Or, "You just be against something. To win, you have to be for something." Which does seem to be true for Democrats, but Republicans make a winning strategy about being against something all the time.
Are we jus playing badly, or is the game rigged against us with rules that change all the time?
* When my daughter had her first romantic break-up in middle school--by text message, no less--I told her that there'd come a time when it would stop hurting, even though it was impossible to understand that in the moment. I also told her it would be nice to just skip to the end, but that life doesn't work that way, and one must go through the intervening process. Years later she told me how she remembered that advice and appreciated it. Small victories.
** I know we argued that they are wrong, but in the sense of "counter-productive". Like, "The things Trump says he'll do won't fix the problems that you want fixed--in fact in some cases they'll make it worse." If that's condescending, then I don't know how to handle it.
*** Not in Israel, of course. In that war, the peaceniks are still bad.
I don't know how I keep screwing up the italicizations as in the post above. It's too messy to try to fix it. Nothing after
"For the record, I know quite a few people who DID intentionally condescend to them. Sanctimony junkies on our side were getting daily fixes."
was mean to be italicized except for:
"Sure... the other side did it too... but they won. We need to try something different next time."
Alfred,
Half of knowing any subject is knowing the vocabulary, but we need to know it deeply, or we just label things but have no idea where it will lead. The really important thing with Shame culture in diachronic terms is that it is self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. The more unequal society gets, the more threatened people feel, the more they respond by doubling down on Shame Culture. They get more and more competitive in increasingly destructive ways as they pursue their individual egos and ignore the reality of their interdependence with growing myopia. Thus all the morons who call you a communist if you express the very natural, human impulse to help one another. The Repugnant Party has worked hard over the generations to distort the meanings of words, so few people know what they mean, and believe their lies. “Everybody knows…”
This reminded me of a verse from an old Gordon Sumner song that was popular when I was in high school:
There is no political solution to a troubled evolution
Have no faith in constitution, there is no bloody revolution
Yes, culture matters, especially where it tells people who to vote for. Have you ever read Octavia Butler’s Earthseed series. I think she was on to something.
Paul SN
We’re going to put kids in cages. It’s going to be glorious."
Trump's future AG
I find it deliciously amusing when blue urbanites like DP, who claim to be the defenders of equality, dignity, democracy & everything good, argue that 'city people' are much more intelligent, deserving and successful then those "stupid rubes" who reside in impoverished red rural areas.
Hypocrite much?
The existence of red rural poverty is a well-documented artifact, but an artifact nonetheless, as red rural areas produce the bulk of our nation's energy, food, water & raw materials which have a lower scarcity value in rural areas, only to become more & more valuable as they transition through resource poor cities.
Part of me wishes to educate such ill-informed doofuses -- to explain how supply & demand allows me to buy an entire side of beef for what it costs DP to buy about 3 dozen nice steaks -- but sometimes I feel much less charitable.
So, have at it: Go your own way, pretty please.
Buy all your food from somewhere else and start importing all of your water, energy, processed goods, raw materials & everything else that you take for granted, too.
You'd be dead & dying if it wasn't for those stupidly indispensable red rural rubes.
Best
Cartoon supervillainy is now a winning strategy.
Back to ignoring poor locum. Poor zones in America have been net recipients of taxes from cities since 1936, in torrents. Gratitude was never asked. Reduction in cultural hate would be nice. Utter dope.
In contrast, Tacitus is NOT a dope, but puh-lease: Tacitus, sorry, you keep confirming my diagnosis. The matnra you ALWAYS repeat: “You’re all clones chanting the same slogans and also mean to me!” does fit well with “I’m so strong and invulnerable! So your uniform meanness has no effect, even though I complain every… single… time.”
What actually happens here is that you do face a wide variety of folks - from Adam Smith libertarians like Alfred and me to deep liberals irked by Woke-Buillying like Larry to wide perspectives from other-hemisphere-ites like Tony and Der Oger, to cynical and conservative-rooted GMT, to current-serving front-line military guys like Ilithi, all of whom argue a lot...
...but who mostly are opposed to an evil empire Kremlin and its allies and stooges. A former Reaganite like you ought to feel comfortable here.
https://x.com/i/status/1855223956799664306
But the utter regimentation imposed upon the Republican political caste since Dennis “friend to boys” Hastert – combined with honey-pot blackmail that THREE GOP Congressmen have now openly avowed to be rampant in the party – makes for a uniformity that makes your accusations of an ‘echo chamber’ pretty rich.
Your insights are welcome. Heck, even the perpetual whining. I'm gonna try to stop even commenting on it.
So loc, you're a rural red stater? Congratulations, you get to be first in line to be screwed by Trump's economic policies (as described in detail above).
Which is only fitting as you all knowingly elected a corrupt fascist racist serial rapist.
So ef you guys.
Calling you stupid is being generous. The only other option is that you all love and approve what trump is going to do. All because you fear dark skinned people and think gays/trans are icky. And god forbid we ever have a woman president.
So pass the popcorn. I'm going to enjoy your misery at the hand of the man you worship.
And afterwards you morons would still vote for him if you could.
Sunk Cost Effect: The Trumpler regime could start building concentration camps, and those red state retards will cheer. Even if they start sending their own boys to the labor camps, they’ll still blame the Democrats. They can never even consider the possibility that they could be wrong about anything.
Paul SB
Now that Haley and the last of the GOP opposition has been crushed, what trump has done to the GOP he intends to do to the country as a whole.
Loc , you're a a little slow on the uptake so let me explain it to you.
The goal was never mass deportations.
Those will still happen, of course.
But the real goal is to use the deportation effort as an excuse to create the organizational apparatus of a police state. One supported by high tech surveillance systems.
So loc, you're a rural red stater?
I might be missing something, and I know that California has a lot of food-producing farmland, but I don't believe it to be a red state.
Alfred Differ redux:
There is a lot of game theory evidence supporting the conclusion that people will vote to screw others when those others have screwed them. Doesn't matter if the vote does harm to their best interests.
That seems self-evident at this point. I therefore ask you to understand why I can hate on Elon Musk, despite whatever good he's done for science and engineering.
How do we compromise or listen to or persuade voters who like what Democrats do but want it to be Republicans doing it?
Seriously asking.
Stonekettle on Threads...
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Basically my entire feed today.
Greetings! It is I, Confident Internet Man, here to explain how Democrats can win future elections with this one simple trick Billionaire Oligarchs don't want you to know!
Read to the end
1/194
* * *
Basically every one of these Confident Internet Man articles goes something like: Forget about trying to build a better world, shut up about defending the rights of women and LGBTQ people because no one wants to hear that woke liberal bullshit, stop worrying about some genocide no one cares about anyway in some place most Americans couldn't find on a map, concentrate on jobs, PROFITS, the border, and make friends with the nuts, racists, sexists, goons, loons, and poltroons of the far left.
The Rude Pundit parallels my thinking:
https://www.threads.net/@rudepundit
I'm stuck right now between "Fuck you. You can't have my country" and "Fuck it. You can have it." And the side I'm leaning towards changes minute by minute in my brain.
I believe compromising would be the wrong thing to do, allowing it one side of the aisle to constantly shifting the "center" to their camp. There are British studies that show people reward the "Original", not the side moving to their position. The elections during the last years in Europe and this year in the US seem to support that point.
Rather, I would try to anticipate what Trump/Vance will do, and build my platform around it and prepare traps for the other side to run into. I even would recommend a position a bit further left than the current democratic party is, and not move an inch during the whole campaign (so, that they might fall into the trap of letting you become the original.)
But first, I would stop talking about that there will no 2028 election.
ADD: Someone once told me: "You can't change people. The only thing you can do is to take a solid stance and force other people to react to you."
the utter regimentation imposed upon the Republican political caste since Dennis “friend to boys” Hastert
Is that true?
It took weeks for the GOP to select a speaker
In Trumps first term he had all three levers of power and only managed to pass a tax cut for the rich
The "Saving grace" may well be that the GOP can't actually do much as the members are all pulling in different directions
The flip side of that is that todays (Bidens's) successful economy will keep on going and the bloody GOP will get the credit
"You can't change people. The only thing you can do is to take a solid stance and force other people to react to you."
Ok, but the gist of my question is, "How do we persuade without coming off as condescending?" And maybe "What kind of stance wins people over when what they want is for their own party to be in charge while all of the good things I care about get done, but for nothing to get done when my party is doing it?"
Hal Sparks points out that he's a white male in his 50s without a college degree born in a red state (Kentucky). After getting agreement from a listener that he individually is not the enemy, Hal cautions against vilifying the group(s) he is part of, risking the driving away of allies.
I am many of those things myself, though in my 60s and never lived outside of Illinois. I understand my wife's anger on post-election morning when she blamed men, but then she knows I will not be driven to seek a home with Republicans just because liberals are momentarily angry with my identity. A whole bunch of others are not as forgiving as I am.
So good advice.
I agree with Belle that it's counterproductive to talk about no more elections. There will be future elections, with the GOP hoping that they will be more like Hungary's. We won't get there that fast, but the GOP is pulling every dirty trick possible to make it harder for opposition groups to vote their way out of GOP messes. I think one of the biggest tactical errors the Democrats made when the GOP started passing all those voter ID laws was to rail against the laws rather than saying "OK, let's make sure that all our voters have the right types of ID". Then do some aggressive outreach to make it happen. Even this late in the game I think that it would be productive.
The thing that frustrates us all, I think, it that for the immediate future, there's little to nothing that we can do to thwart the bad things that Trump has promised to do. I get the impression that most people here do some sort of problem solving for a living, and I know that I hate, hate, hate seeing the looming problems and for now I'm powerless. Now the big blue states (CA, NY, IL) may be able to engage in some aggressive Federalism, but I'm stuck in TX and the voters have spoken here in favor of the policies that will make things worse. I hope that none of my female friends and relatives of childbearing age have a crisis pregnancy. Some will get the hell out of this state, and I will miss them, but can't blame them.
For the near term, to do sometime productive, start planning for the bad economic effects of the tariffs and the deportations. If you need something that will be subject to tariffs, get it now. If you need a new roof, or major tree trimming, or any other services where it's a poorly kept secret that they hire under the table, also do it sooner rather than later. Get into a personal austerity mode. Just buy the essentials.
Also, although I can completely sympathize with Larry's sentiments about cheering on the face-eating leopards, that can be corrosive to one's soul. I'm cutting back on the news consumption. I'll still stick around a few Internet forums, like this one, but I'm planning to cut back on the internet time in the near future. I'm going to ignore and avoid the Trump voters as much as I can for now. You cannot force a "come to Jesus" moment on another; they have to go there themselves.
There is no question, barring outright civil war, that there will a 2028 election. The Hungarians and North Koreans have them regularly.
Pappenheimer
DP brings up an interesting point - the party that got crushed into nonexistence from 2016-2024 is not the Democratic Party; it's the Republican Party, devoured from within. A LOT of old school Republicans have had to leave it, or been pushed out after not knuckling under. I (and others) call what's left the GQP.
You can argue that this is just a new form, like Pokemon evolution*, and I won't argue, but it's definitely more dangerous to democracy.
*Driftglass does this here https://driftglass.blogspot.com/
Pappenheimer
Flypusher:
Also, although I can completely sympathize with Larry's sentiments about cheering on the face-eating leopards, that can be corrosive to one's soul.
I know that. My college-age daughter, bless her heart, is still young enough to be worried about the other people who will be hurt by a Republican government. At the moment, my thought is "Fuck them. My concern is considered patriarchal condescension, and (except for black women and transesexuals) they voted for this, so let them deal." I hate that I feel that way, but it is a bit liberating.
I'm sure my better self will re-emerge eventually, but there's no rushing the process.
I'm cutting back on the news consumption.
I've cut back on news opinion outlets like MSNBC, though I still watch local news. My wife is more in line with your view--she can't even stand to listen to Stephanie Miller or Hal Sparks for now. Me, I find those comforting.
I'll still stick around a few Internet forums, like this one, but I'm planning to cut back on the internet time in the near future.
This one is really my only online presence. I look in on some people's Threads posting (not Twitter), but I'm not signed up on any social media. And I certainly don't intend to interact with the victors on line.
https://www.threads.net/@rudepundit
Please tell me more about how I need to take the time to really understand the people who voted for this [deportation of Dreamers]. Please tell me how Democrats using "Latinx" is so much worse. I am so fucking interested in your opinion but I probably won't hear it over the sobs of a 20 year-old who has been in the US since he was 1 being sent back to El Salvador, a place he has no connection to.
* * *
All these "Democrats abandoned the working class" are just people buying into the Republicans' framing of every issue. Dems didn't sell how they helped the working class as well as Republicans sold their lies, but they sure as shit didn't abandon workers.
continuing...
Whenever someone tells me “You’re better than this” to something I write, I think, “I said what I said. I’m as good as I need to be in this moment. Maybe I’ll be better later. Maybe.”
And then he relinkied to this column from January 2017:
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2017/01/fuck-you-rural-elitists.html
Yesterday, an opinion piece in the New York Times started this way: "One recent morning, I sat near two young men at a coffee shop here whom I’ve known since they were little boys. Now about 18, they pushed away from the table, and one said: 'Let’s go to work. Let the liberals sleep in.' The other nodded." The writer, Robert Leonard, is a local news director at a radio station in Knoxville, Iowa, and he assured us that the young men are hard workers at tough jobs, like washing dishes and cleaning up at a restaurant, and, of course, farming. They are so goddamned salt of the earth because "They are conservative, believe in hard work, family, the military and cops, and they know that abortion and socialism are evil, that Jesus Christ is our savior, and that Donald J. Trump will be good for America."
And all I could think when I read it was "Fuck you, you elitist fucking assholes. Why is your judgmental ass more valid than mine?"
...
We're all supposed to nod our heads and respect these shitheels while they mock liberals and are ennobled by the rank nonsense of those who desperately want to justify the racism, etc. because otherwise they have to admit that they are surrounded by horrible, hateful fucks. But I won't do that precisely because I have more respect for these dumbass motherfuckers than any of the wannabe Jane Goodalls observing the ways of the chimps. How do I have more respect? Because I don't treat them like fucking children or a hidden Amazon tribe whose language is clicks and trills. We're talking about fucking grown-ups who make fucking grown-up decisions, and I'm gonna treat them like grown-ups. And their attitudes towards urban Americans are no less elitist than the dumbass motherfuckers on the coasts who lump everyone else into flyover country.
...
Channeling my inner vindictiveness.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Nov11-8.html
Jonathan Last over at the Bulwark argues: Let Trump be Trump. In other words, warn people that what Trump wants will have disastrous consequences, but then say: "The American people voted for this, so they are entitled to get it. That is how democracy works." For example, as soon as Trump imposes tariffs on China, China will impose the same tariff level on soybeans. American farmers sell $35 billion worth of agricultural products to China every year, half of that being soybeans. Once American soybeans are priced out the market, Brazil will pick up the slack. Then many American farmers (a.k.a. Trump's base) will discover that nobody wants to buy their product. Trump will try to blame China, and some farmers may believe it, but they will still be hurting. Trump could try to give them free money, but there are Republicans in the House who don't like giving anyone free money. It might not work out so well. If Trump puts a tariff on German cars he may be surprised when the Germans put the same tariff on Boeing airplanes, making them much more expensive than Airbus planes. And on and on.
Last also makes another case. The public clamor about immigration forced Joe Biden to ask Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to do something. So, McConnell assigned a very conservative Republican, Sen. James Lankford (R-OH) to write a border bill. Lankford put in everything on the Republicans' wish list. Democrats got nothing. Nevertheless, Democrats said they would vote for it. However, Senate Republicans refused to pass Lankford's bill on orders from Trump. Were the Democrats rewarded last week for trying to cooperate with Republicans to solve a serious problem? No way. The lesson here is: "Do not expend political capital trying to protect Trump's voters from Trump."
Consider yet another case: Ukraine. If Trump wants to stop helping Ukraine, Democrats should not try to block him. This will allow Putin to capture Ukraine and the little Baltic countries and then get into a serious war with Poland. NATO will fracture. Global markets will be spooked and people's 401(k) portfolios will crash. Democrats should then say: "You voted for him, now you get the consequences. Enjoy."
Similarly, if Trump tries to arrest and deport 12 million people, many of whom have jobs, Democrats should not block him. If this is what the people want, they have the right to get it. The logistical, legal, moral, and economic catastrophe will be monumental. In 2026, Democrats can say: "You wanted to know what electing Trump and giving him a trifecta meant. Now you know. You can't get rid of him but you can get rid of the trifecta. Vote carefully."
If a future HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to allow states to ban vaccines and thousands of little children die of measles in Alabama, well, that's Alabama's problem. Just wait until polio makes a comeback in Texas and 1950s iron lungs are back in fashion. The photo below is a man in an iron lung. He has probably been in there for 50 or 60 years because he can't breathe on his own. Now imagine vast rooms full of people in iron lungs in clinics all over the country.
Most people living now cannot believe that the announcement that Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine worked got roughly the same amount of attention as the Japanese surrender during World War II. Having a vaccine was that important.
In short, Last thinks that the brunt of Trump's program will fall on Trump supporters. California, Illinois, New York, and the other blue states will offer free vaccinations to anyone who wants one. Red states will ban them. They can use the money they save on vaccinations to buy iron lungs. Put in other words, until Trump's supporters are exposed to the full consequences of Trump's decisions, they are not going to budge, so expose them.
Sorry, did I miss an "onward"?
Looks like a new post is up.
Post a Comment