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Dapper_Swindler posted:It’s actually worse. He basically gives some mealy mouthed didn’t hear about it and sad that it happened and then a big BUT and goes on that long bullshit to assuage himself and sorta use the base as an excuse and shield. And he gets cheers. Apparently, this guy's a first time state senator who was previously a owner-operator truck driver who ripped off a Native American mechanic and got punched out by him at a car show. He won his seat unopposed after winning the Republican primary. Also, he was still collecting campaign funds, despite no opposition candidate, up until election day to pay off liens and debts. Dude is absolute filth. https://nondoc.com/2022/08/31/senator-elect-tom-woods-punched-in-face/
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Feb 24, 2024 20:04
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Tiny Timbs posted:Never apologize or feel bad for looking down on these folks but the NYT trump safari article #79234797237 says these people have ideas and stuff.
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Feb 24, 2024 21:26
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I mean I'm reading Nixonland right now and it's hilarious how prescient it is despite being about poo poo that happened 60 years ago. A bunch of really educated newspaper and book writers went all the way up their own asses trying to find the hidden truth of the conservative, and when it came down to it, it was much more simple than that. White, middle class people in this country are primed to be racist loving reactionaries the second they are inconvenienced or think that other people might catch up to them in prosperity. And they will vote for whoever tells them that they're right and that they shouldn't have to accept people of color, the poor, the oppressed, etc because it interferes with the narrative that they are the protagonist and are doing better than those people because they are hardworking and moral American citizens, and the others are degenerate filth. And for those reactionaries on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, it's even easier, because they can just blame those others for why their lives are unsuccessful and unsatisfying. "It's those moochers taking" they say, as they happily collect their monthly food stamps. This country is deeply hosed because of its racist reactionary roots and America's failure to reckon with it post-civil war.
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Feb 24, 2024 21:54
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Young Freud posted:Apparently, this guy's a first time state senator who was previously a owner-operator truck driver who ripped off a Native American mechanic and got punched out by him at a car show. He won his seat unopposed after winning the Republican primary. Also, he was still collecting campaign funds, despite no opposition candidate, up until election day to pay off liens and debts. Dude is absolute filth. Wow it's like a bingo card of worst conservative bullshit ever. Sarcastro posted:I've enjoyed, from time to time, looking up the "lives in" location of someone on FB who tells me or someone similarly situated that we "live in a bubble." Invariably it's someone living in a town of 2,000 in a county of 20,000 (98% white, obviously), speaking to those of us who live in a metro area with eight million. I have an acquaintance, who, in the depths of the Trump insanity, once asked me what "flyover country" was. I explained in basic terms what it meant (essentially the sparsely-populated middle areas of the country) and they, aghast, called it such a horrifying elitist term. Said acquaintance grew up in the wealthiest mid-size city in the country (Pleasanton, CA). He didn't even live in anywhere that would be close to "flyover country" until a year or two ago (which funny enough was when they stopped being so goddamn chuddy). It's like Ben Shapiro calling people who go to college elitists when he's a graduate from loving UCLA and Harvard. Angry_Ed fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Feb 24, 2024 |
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Feb 24, 2024 23:05
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Mooseontheloose posted:This also reminds me that in 2016 we were all told we were living in a bubble and they we don't understand these people, we have to make the attempt. Never the other way around mind you, that's not how this works. If we're in a bubble, it's because we understand them all too loving well. They're not complex enigmas, they're just assholes.
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Feb 24, 2024 23:48
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Professor Beetus posted:I mean I'm reading Nixonland right now and it's hilarious how prescient it is despite being about poo poo that happened 60 years ago. A bunch of really educated newspaper and book writers went all the way up their own asses trying to find the hidden truth of the conservative, and when it came down to it, it was much more simple than that. White, middle class people in this country are primed to be racist loving reactionaries the second they are inconvenienced or think that other people might catch up to them in prosperity. And they will vote for whoever tells them that they're right and that they shouldn't have to accept people of color, the poor, the oppressed, etc because it interferes with the narrative that they are the protagonist and are doing better than those people because they are hardworking and moral American citizens, and the others are degenerate filth. And for those reactionaries on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, it's even easier, because they can just blame those others for why their lives are unsuccessful and unsatisfying. "It's those moochers taking" they say, as they happily collect their monthly food stamps. I would argue this is true and it's worse: as people in general become poorer, the white reactionaries are easier and easier to rile, because they expect minorities to be even worse off than them. As our material conditions degrade, the more people get sucked into the racist whirlpool and the more racist they become. I'm not excusing this as economic anxiety, mind. I think that white middle class racists could choose to put that energy toward you know, capitalism, and they actively decide to blame others rather than hold the system to account.
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Feb 25, 2024 00:54
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CNN called South Carolina for Trump the second polls closed.
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Feb 25, 2024 01:07
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Mendrian posted:I would argue this is true and it's worse: as people in general become poorer, the white reactionaries are easier and easier to rile, because they expect minorities to be even worse off than them. As our material conditions degrade, the more people get sucked into the racist whirlpool and the more racist they become. There's not a lot of motivation to go after capitalism or reform the system or hold it accountable. They're not upset the system exists and is screwing them, they're upset the system exists and isn't screwing those minorities harder than them.
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Feb 25, 2024 01:20
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Mendrian posted:I would argue this is true and it's worse: as people in general become poorer, the white reactionaries are easier and easier to rile, because they expect minorities to be even worse off than them. As our material conditions degrade, the more people get sucked into the racist whirlpool and the more racist they become. "Economic anxiety" as expressed in Trump supporters is not a function of actual economic security; it's a function of status. The support base for MAGA continues to be correlated with income.
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Feb 25, 2024 01:22
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Exactly right. "Economic anxiety" is just another word for what they perceive as a misalignment of the inevitable hierarchy of things. One of the core tenets of the fascist mindset is that the world consists of natural hierarchies that we should embrace rather than resist. This definitely includes racial, religious, and gender pecking orders and poor white fascists see themselves as victims of a system actively favoring minorities via unfairly granting them advantages. This is why they hate "welfare queens" while collecting welfare themselves. They deserve the welfare. Those filthy [insert minority here] don't.
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Feb 25, 2024 02:02
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To be clear the post-trump polling correlation was very slight- being a bit wealthier was only slightly more likely to make you an R. Also to be clear, there are entirely valid measures of economic anxiety, but even in those cases it's a perceptual construct that's linked to actual economic insecurity, not the same as actual economic status. The underlying point remains- "material conditions" were never the driver here, nor capitalism, except in the broadest and most unfalsifiably useless sense whereby it contains literally all expressions of material and social status and power.
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Feb 25, 2024 02:23
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Mendrian posted:I would argue this is true and it's worse: as people in general become poorer, the white reactionaries are easier and easier to rile, because they expect minorities to be even worse off than them. As our material conditions degrade, the more people get sucked into the racist whirlpool and the more racist they become. The issue is that they think capitalism itself is fair, and that their problems are the result of things like affirmative action twisting capitalism and making it unfair. They see no reason why they should be mad at capitalism, and in fact believe that the problem is with minorities corrupting capitalism. They need to be convinced that capitalism is the root of their problems - and it's not easy to do that.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:33
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Depends on what breed of dog. The concept of dog years isn't really sound because different breeds have vastly different life spans. Second this. So many great dogs just aching for a stable home life and having their breed needs met to blossom. Senior dogs are great, especially if you want a breed that tends to be high energy but can’t meet the needs of a younger dog. You are doing gods work man.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:49
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Main Paineframe posted:The issue is that they think capitalism itself is fair, and that their problems are the result of things like affirmative action twisting capitalism and making it unfair. They see no reason why they should be mad at capitalism, and in fact believe that the problem is with minorities corrupting capitalism. They need to be convinced that capitalism is the root of their problems - and it's not easy to do that.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:54
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The shelter I volunteer with (assisting God's one true animal, cats, but I appreciate the dog volunteers too) doesn't euthanize for health reasons unless the animal's quality of life is horrific and unfixable... but every doggo that gets adopted or fostered is another space for another dog.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:55
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:Exactly right. "Economic anxiety" is just another word for what they perceive as a misalignment of the inevitable hierarchy of things. One of the core tenets of the fascist mindset is that the world consists of natural hierarchies that we should embrace rather than resist. This definitely includes racial, religious, and gender pecking orders and poor white fascists see themselves as victims of a system actively favoring minorities via unfairly granting them advantages. This special brand of elitism is exactly why Trump won in 2016 and why the door’s open for him to win again. Sneering at a middle class that has consistently shrunk over the past 50 years, that finds cornerstones like home ownership and higher education increasingly out of reach, and telling them that what they’re feeling isn’t economic anxiety but is, in fact, racism is myopic at best. These people voted for mainstream candidates on both sides of the aisle during that timeframe, and things did not improve. They are victims, and trying to argue otherwise is absurd.
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Feb 25, 2024 05:38
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on one hand the middle class has certainly been squeezed hard for the last few decades, but on the other hand, even when the middle class was king of poo poo mountain it was driven by massive amounts of racial animus and nationalism, so it feels like a stretch that people are being forced by desperation to vote for trump. you look back on the salad days and there are nixon and reagan staring back at you
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Feb 25, 2024 05:58
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TheDisreputableDog posted:This special brand of elitism is exactly why Trump won in 2016 and why the door’s open for him to win again. Sneering at a middle class that has consistently shrunk over the past 50 years, that finds cornerstones like home ownership and higher education increasingly out of reach, and telling them that what they’re feeling isn’t economic anxiety but is, in fact, racism is myopic at best. These people voted for mainstream candidates on both sides of the aisle during that timeframe, and things did not improve. They are victims, and trying to argue otherwise is absurd. PRRI(https://www.prri.org/research/white-working-class-attitudes-economy-trade-immigration-election-donald-trump/), Post 16 election posted:Notably, while only marginally significant at conventional levels (P<0.1), being in fair or poor financial shape actually predicted support for Hillary Clinton among white working-class Americans, rather than support for Donald Trump. Those who reported being in fair or poor financial shape were 1.7 times more likely to support Clinton, compared to those who were in better financial shape Still PRRI posted:However, survey results demonstrate no evidence for several leading theories.
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Feb 25, 2024 06:02
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I mean, I think the grain of truth in that theory is something that has been pointed out here many times, which is that Democrats have dropped the ball on really addressing the needs of the working class and also taken certain minority votes for granted. It's unserious to claim Republicans are doing better at that, but they are great at appealing to spite. I think that's what people are aiming for when they go off about "economic anxiety" and "coastal liberal elites" but they're missing the mark a bit. (The key error being that they seem to think it's largely about culture war stuff when it's way more about simply failing to really deliver what people need.) EDIT: Or perhaps more accurately, that's one side of the equation -- the side where Democrats have lost ground. It's not the whole story and ignores the fact that a lot of Republicans just hate whatever the perceived "left" is doing no matter what. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 14:03
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Sir Lemming posted:I mean, I think the grain of truth in that theory is something that has been pointed out here many times, which is that Democrats have dropped the ball on really addressing the needs of the working class and also taken certain minority votes for granted. It's unserious to claim Republicans are doing better at that, but they are great at appealing to spite. I think that's what people are aiming for when they go off about "economic anxiety" and "coastal liberal elites" but they're missing the mark a bit. (The key error being that they seem to think it's largely about culture war stuff when it's way more about simply failing to really deliver what people need.) Reread the previous posts; on both policy and demographics you are believing exactly the opposite of reality.
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Feb 25, 2024 15:09
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Yeah but "vibes"
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Feb 25, 2024 15:10
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TheDisreputableDog posted:This special brand of elitism is exactly why Trump won in 2016 and why the door’s open for him to win again. Sneering at a middle class that has consistently shrunk over the past 50 years, that finds cornerstones like home ownership and higher education increasingly out of reach, and telling them that what they’re feeling isn’t economic anxiety but is, in fact, racism is myopic at best. These people voted for mainstream candidates on both sides of the aisle during that timeframe, and things did not improve. They are victims, and trying to argue otherwise is absurd. Almost everyone under capitalism feels economic anxiety. I'm not denying that such a feeling exists. I'm denying that it causes people to embrace fascism. Your post is basically that comic strip about the guy gradually donning Nazi regalia and claiming that he was forced to do it. An avalanche of data shows that Trump voters are motivated by racist ideology or hatred for their perceived enemies. At one point into his term, Trump was the most popular Republican among Republicans ever recorded in pollong. Can you explain why that is, given the fact he did almost nothing to address the economic anxiety you're touting as being the main reason he was elected? If these "victims" voted for him primarily because of material conditions, and then their material conditions did not really improve that much or at all, why didn't they turn on him in huge numbers? Why would they then return to him 4 years later when his only legislative accomplishment was to gently caress the working class via tax cuts for the rich? He doesn't even have a platform. He has no plans to improve the material conditions of working people and they know that. FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 16:10
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Sir Lemming posted:I mean, I think the grain of truth in that theory is something that has been pointed out here many times, which is that Democrats have dropped the ball on really addressing the needs of the working class and also taken certain minority votes for granted. It's unserious to claim Republicans are doing better at that, but they are great at appealing to spite. I think that's what people are aiming for when they go off about "economic anxiety" and "coastal liberal elites" but they're missing the mark a bit. (The key error being that they seem to think it's largely about culture war stuff when it's way more about simply failing to really deliver what people need.) The Democrats have actually attempted to do quite a bit to address the needs of the working class, and the only reason it's all stopped at attempts is that Republicans consistently line up to unanimously oppose and block those attempts. People make snide cracks about tax cuts and means-testing, but the Dems include that stuff in hopes that it'll budge the seemingly-unbreakable red wall that stands firmly in the way of any economic measure that helps the poor. The problem isn't that the Dems aren't helping the working class, the problem is that the working class seems to be convinced that instead of government investment and involvement in the economy, they'd rather have tax cuts, privatization, and the dismantling of affirmative action. The working class back culture war stuff because they think that culture war stuff is what people need!
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Feb 25, 2024 16:54
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:Almost everyone under capitalism feels economic anxiety. I'm not denying that such a feeling exists. I'm denying that it causes people to embrace fascism. Your post is basically that comic strip about the guy gradually donning Nazi regalia and claiming that he was forced to do it. It's quite possible for them to believe that A leads to B, in the standard bait-and-hook rhetoric used by awful monsters throughout history - if we get rid of [target undesirable group] who are the cause of all of society's ills, the prosperity of all the "right" kinds of people will improve because those parasites aren't around anymore. It's also quite possible for them to believe that the reason why Trump didn't do a single thing to help them is because he was being blocked from doing so by RINOs and the Deep State, in a standard example of the "dictator is simultaneously all powerful but also impotent and besieged on all sides by internal enemies that must be purged" paradox. I don't believe at all that too much of Trump's base vote for Trump purely for economic reasons, but I do believe that there are a significant amount of people who are bigoted enough that they believe if Trump could simply get rid of all the Mexicans/trans people/etc then their own life and conditions would materially improve(presumably through magic). Kanos fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 17:20
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Main Paineframe posted:
I think we want to distinguish that the white working class here. And even then, it's still skewed to the Democrats. The white small business owners however...
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Feb 25, 2024 17:22
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Kanos posted:It's quite possible for them to believe that A leads to B, in the standard bait-and-hook rhetoric used by awful monsters throughout history - if we get rid of [target undesirable group] who are the cause of all of society's ills, the prosperity of all the "right" kinds of people will improve because those parasites aren't around anymore. It's also quite possible for them to believe that the reason why Trump didn't do a single thing to help them is because he was being blocked from doing so by RINOs and the Deep State, in a standard example of the "dictator is simultaneously all powerful but also impotent and besieged on all sides by internal enemies that must be purged" paradox. Conservatives absolutely think a huge percentage of the nation's (and their own) money goes to foreign countries and "lazy" Americans/immigrants, and that affirmative action is the act of promoting less competent people out of "fairness." Often in delusional ways, but they've internalized it. It's part of the whole consequence of a lot of white working class people nostalgic for the glory days when the Democrats built them a social safety net that was explicitly racist and nativist, and enough time passing that people born benefiting from that saw others getting the help they already enjoyed as a wasteful handout.
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Feb 25, 2024 17:45
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That may be true ("conservatives" believing we spend a huge amount of money on foreign aid and welfare) but if a person bases their entire worldview on an assertion that can be factually debunked in less than 30 seconds, while simultaneously spending many hours a week gleefully gorging themselves on racist rhetoric and media, I'm going to make the assumption that that person is not reachable and that they are just looking for a way to confirm their racism. "But if we just take care of these people they'll reject fascism" is an insane assertion.
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Feb 25, 2024 18:12
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Can someone explain to me why the media reports that when Trump scores 60 percent of the primary votes its an amazing victory for him, but if Biden doesn't score 90 percent he's washed up and it's game over for the democrats?
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Feb 25, 2024 19:16
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FLIPADELPHIA posted:That may be true ("conservatives" believing we spend a huge amount of money on foreign aid and welfare) but if a person bases their entire worldview on an assertion that can be factually debunked in less than 30 seconds, while simultaneously spending many hours a week gleefully gorging themselves on racist rhetoric and media, I'm going to make the assumption that that person is not reachable and that they are just looking for a way to confirm their racism. Oh, trust me, I largely agree with you. I'm not trying to make the case that if we just suddenly instituted UBI or something it would instantly solve bigotry, because it won't - the issue will then shift to "well the UBI checks of REAL AMERICANS could be bigger if it weren't for all those illegals leeching off the system" or some poo poo. I do think that basic human economic concerns are a huge part of why fascist rhetoric works as well as it does, though. Claiming that you're poor and miserable because The Enemy is keeping you down and promising that if they support you you'll lead them against The Enemy is the classic approach for a reason. Cimber posted:Can someone explain to me why the media reports that when Trump scores 60 percent of the primary votes its an amazing victory for him, but if Biden doesn't score 90 percent he's washed up and it's game over for the democrats? Because the media is in love with Donald Trump and even "liberal" media sources absolutely love when he's in the limelight because he's an infinite content generator. Trumpists love watching Trump and anti-Trumpists love watching people trying to dunk on Trump.
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Feb 25, 2024 19:21
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Cimber posted:Can someone explain to me why the media reports that when Trump scores 60 percent of the primary votes its an amazing victory for him, but if Biden doesn't score 90 percent he's washed up and it's game over for the democrats? The media desperately wants a horse race just in general, and specifically they did really well when Trump was president, so they have a strong incentive to spin whatever they can as positive for him, when it comes to winning the election
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Feb 25, 2024 19:22
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Trump definitely has a major advantage but he's not literally sitting in the Oval Office like Biden is. I don't think the race matters but one is actually a sitting president and one isn't.
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Feb 25, 2024 19:29
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In fairness 60% of the vote, against functionally one other person, in that person's home state... just isn't the same as 60% in any other circumstance.
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Feb 25, 2024 19:35
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Cimber posted:Can someone explain to me why the media reports that when Trump scores 60 percent of the primary votes its an amazing victory for him, but if Biden doesn't score 90 percent he's washed up and it's game over for the democrats? I feel like the first part of what you said is false (Trump scoring 60-70 percent as an “incumbent” is not great if you think about it) and the second part is true (Biden better be cleaning up in the primary at a 90 percent clip or so like he is doing, to score less would in fact indicate huge problems for him). It is just that the first part is rarely covered that way in media, Trump’s performance in the GOP primary is often covered as if it is a regular contested primary instead of what should be a coronation of a candidate that is essentially an incumbent within the GOP party structure. You occasionally see it mentioned that Trump even losing a quarter to third of the GOP primary vote is actually a big deal, in a bad way, for him, but not often enough.
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Feb 25, 2024 19:36
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The question is whether you judge Trump as am incumbent running in the primary and getting 60% or it's an open primary where he's dominating. We really don't have a precedent for the in-between he's in outside of hypothetical Al Gore 2004 polling.
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Feb 25, 2024 19:38
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Kanos posted:Oh, trust me, I largely agree with you. I'm not trying to make the case that if we just suddenly instituted UBI or something it would instantly solve bigotry, because it won't - the issue will then shift to "well the UBI checks of REAL AMERICANS could be bigger if it weren't for all those illegals leeching off the system" or some poo poo. No. This was addressed on this very page. Scroll up. Stop making us re-refute the claim.
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Feb 25, 2024 20:43
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Discendo Vox posted:No. This was addressed on this very page. Scroll up. Stop making us re-refute the claim. I'm not arguing that the economic anxiety excuse is valid or suggesting that addressing material conditions would change the minds of the vast majority of Trump voters.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:13
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Kanos posted:I'm not arguing that the economic anxiety excuse is valid or suggesting that addressing material conditions would change the minds of the vast majority of Trump voters. Yes, you are. Kanos posted:I do think that basic human economic concerns are a huge part of why fascist rhetoric works as well as it does, though. Claiming that you're poor and miserable because The Enemy is keeping you down and promising that if they support you you'll lead them against The Enemy is the classic approach for a reason. It has already been demonstrated, with citations, that this is not the case, on this page.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:21
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Why does the far right get voted in in Sweden or Switzerland? Aren't they happy with free healthcare and worker rights that Americans can only dream of? Norway saw one of the worst far right terror attacks ever and conservatives recently gained there. But there's practically no homeless people there (cold climate, I know), the schools are great and teachers are respected, etc.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:27
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Kanos posted:Oh, trust me, I largely agree with you. I'm not trying to make the case that if we just suddenly instituted UBI or something it would instantly solve bigotry, because it won't - the issue will then shift to "well the UBI checks of REAL AMERICANS could be bigger if it weren't for all those illegals leeching off the system" or some poo poo. There's always going to be people who are poorer and more miserable than they want to be. Fascism isn't people at the bottom rung of the class structure throwing fists out of resentment for being at the bottom rung, it's people in the middle and upper rungs throwing fists because they see the people below them climbing the rungs and resent losing their social and class superiority over people they consider their lessers. When talking about fascism at a basic level like this, Umberto Eco's fourteen properties of ur-fascism are a generally well-regarded way to look at what fascism even means, as well as what it seeks.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:29
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Discendo Vox posted:Yes, you are. The first half of the original post that you first quoted has me acknowledging that even if you addressed the material concerns of Trump voters, they would simply move the goalposts, which is functionally admitting that material concerns are not the primary motivation of the people in question. Material concerns are, however, a really good smokescreen cover for more publicly unpalatable or unacceptable beliefs. They're also a really good way to attract people who might not initially share your awful beliefs to give you a hearing. Kanos fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 21:33
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