Ytlaya posted:

I want to quickly address this, because it's the sort of idea that is wrong in a "1+1=3" way rather than an ideological one.

Consider a situation where literally everyone in the world is intelligent and hard-working and makes good decisions. Everyone in this world has been following all the most pragmatic advice available. Roughly the same number of people would need to do low-paying jobs and the number of available high-paying jobs wouldn't magically significantly increase. We'd still need roughly the same number of janitors, lawyers, etc.

Basically, while it might make sense to say that a specific individual could benefit from working harder and making better decisions (though even that is subject to a ton of luck), this sort of viewpoint makes zero sense when applied to large populations and society as a whole and is a good example of a political opinion that is actually objectively wrong independent of ideology.

No amount of personal responsibility or good decision making will have a significant impact on things like unemployment or underemployment. Period.

TomViolence posted:

A low rumble is heard in the vicinity of Highgate cemetery as Karl Marx's spinning intensifies.

MaxxBot posted:

I think that older black voters likely had more reasons than just racial issues to choose Hillary over Benie, or perhaps just didn't see anything compelling enough from Bernie to switch over from a candidate that they were very familiar with.

rudatron posted:

Hey Koala March, you didn't answer my question before: do you still think Paven Stan 'knows what's up'? You seemed pretty happy to loudspeaker him before.

quote:

I don't like The Saurus, but if your reaction to him is that 'idpol is here to stay', then the left is doomed. Idpol won't win, it's incapable of winning, because it's fundamentally about dividing people. The 'fear' that Sanders was going to shove minority voters out in the cold was 100% fiction that the clinton campaign used to try and win the primary. The fact that it worked, that apparently nothing Sanders said or did was ever considered "good enough" to allay these constantly voiced concerns (usually made by people in the media), is proof of that. Clinton had weaknesses, but she had a history of working with minority groups that meant they trusted her - turns out, that trust was completely misplaced, because she just loving lost the easiest election of all time.

Like it's funny that dems are happy to say that white voters can be stupid or whatever, vote against their own interests, yet that standard is never applied to non-white voters, who are assumed to be perfectly politically informed and able to deduce people's intentions with 100% accuracy. It's loving nuts.

White Rock posted:

I don't see how you can draw the conclusion that identity politics have a major role to play after Hillary Clinton, who built much of her campaign on identity politics, who's victory was predicted to be a give due to the nature of demographics, lost the election. Hell, she lost white women while brandishing the slogan "I'm With Her". 29% of Latinos voted Trump, which is a big number considering.

I have no problem with integrating Race, Sex etc etc into an existing functioning ideology, but putting another neoliberal with the right opinion" seems to be the democratic ticket for 2020, so hope they can win on identity politics alone. Otherwise, enjoy 8 years of Trump!

Call Me Charlie posted:

Clinton stomped him in the south and states with closed primaries but he was actually able to pull out Trump like upsets in states that ended up giving Trump the election.

Trying to frame Clinton as the black choice when Bernie was actually the choice of under 30 african americans and she lost the general due to her failure to get Obama level numbers with African-American, Latino and younger voters shows you that the 'lean exclusively on identity politics' strategy is a failure. It didn't work in 2016. It won't work in 2018. And it really won't work in 2020 if you want to make Trump a one term president.

The fact that Bernie Sanders (a guy with nearly no national presence) was able to give her a run for her money and Donald Trump (a loudmouth blowhard with zero political experience) was able to beat her shows just how powerful populism is. It's transcends all barriers.

And that doesn't mean that minority issues have to get scuttled in the future so the Democrats can win an election. They just have to cast a big tent again and represent everybody.

MaxxBot posted:

There's always an assumption that Sander's underperformance with black voters is exclusively due to deficiencies in talking about racial issues, but if that was the case then why did he perform well with black millenials? Do you think black millenials care less about racial issues than their older peers? I don't think so. I think that older black voters likely had more reasons than just racial issues to choose Hillary over Benie, or perhaps just didn't see anything compelling enough from Bernie to switch over from a candidate that they were very familiar with. Keep in mind that since the Republicans are so awful on racial issues you have a lot of conservative nonwhites voting Dem, this is a good thing since if they voted Republican the Dems would be even more hosed electorally but it's not exactly a mystery to see why these voters didn't vote for Sanders.

khwarezm posted:

Idpol is not going away, definitely not anytime soon while Trump and the kind of movement he represents are so prominent.To be honest I find raging against Idpol utterly futile because people having an allegiance to a group quite separate from class has been around for as long as humans have been and while its useful and straightforward to interpret history as that of class struggle no leftist movement in history has been able to stamp that out.

rudatron posted:

Hey Koala March, you didn't answer my question before: do you still think Paven Stan 'knows what's up'? You seemed pretty happy to loudspeaker him before.

OwlFancier posted:

I would suggest that the desire to boil everything down to economic class is no longer sufficient, there manifestly are other, valid classes to which people may belong.

khwarezm posted:

He didn't perform as well with Black millenials as you guys are suggesting, going off that article it was a difference of only 5%, Sanders won overall millennials much more thoroughly than just that. He also wasn't able to mobilize them to get out and vote very well either. Either way he still lost Black voters on the whole very hard, and those voters aren't going away anytime soon, they need to be wooed if leftists expect much of a future in the States.

khwarezm posted:

As it is right now Economic populism in America has a bit of problem in the sense that it doesn't appeal as much to non-white people.

khwarezm posted:

All that Clinton really ended up doing was being better at exploiting identity politics than Sanders, but she still wasn't very good at it, at all, and thus lost the election.

Peven Stan posted:

Why is it all of a sudden we're shedding tears for poors when for decades they would've been told bootstraps? Is it because whites are losing their ability to luck into well paying jobs and are lashing out???

khwarezm posted:

rudatron posted:

Also laffo, turns out the OP was a alt account from a permabanned user, according to lowtax.

Ytlaya posted:

Judging from their previous username, I wonder what made them switch from (presumably) being really racist, or at least "ironic" racist, to being almost like some sort of stereotype of a liberal.

Jenner posted:

This is not just a thread about the United States of America but because I live in the USA this post, and all my posts, are going to largely focus on issues within the USA. Without a doubt, these issues surely exist in countries outside of America and I welcome posters from foreign countries to contribute to this thread. I would like to know how these things are handled and how they manifest and effect other places.

Before we begin I must preface this by stating this post is not supported by data, but data is welcome. This post is based wholly on my observations and experiences. The goal of this thread is to discuss the merits of every "side," to understand what they want out of the world, and explore what A Better World truly is together.

That out of the way,
Thread Rules:
1. D&D leans liberal. I want more conservative voices to be welcome in this thread. If a poster does post a really lovely and objectionable thing please respond by explaining why what they advocate is poo poo. Don't extend that to also claim they are poo poo. (No Ad Hominem attacks.)

2. Speak for you. You don't speak for every person who aligns with you. Talk about what you want and what your goals and agendas are. Talk about what you hope the effects will be. Stuff like that. Statements like, "All feminists" or "All libertarians" or whatever are not welcome here. (Exception: Issues that truly do effect all individuals of a group.)

3. This thread is about learning what each side wants. Not telling them what they want. You can tell them the consequences, you can explain the effects, you can link to facts and data and you can point out the flaws but please try to refrain from telling somebody what they're doing or what they believe.

Identifying the Sides:
As far as I can see, while there are many groups or individuals on each side who want more specific or different things, they largely break up into two factions.

The Progressives aka the SJWs: Acknowledging a lack of uniformity, individuals in this group largely want a more inclusive, accepting, tolerant and sensitive society with equal rights, equal access, and privileges and protections for everyone. This group uses trigger warnings to safeguard victims and the sensitive. Creates safe spaces for minority or underprivileged groups to speak or helps them make their own space. (Often amplifying their voices and advocating for them.) This group is interested in having more diversity of voices and perceptions everywhere. They want people of color, the LGBTQ+, religious minorities, the disabled, women, and others represented in government and media and want their voices heard. This group wants us to be respectful and considerate of others and would very much like it if we could all start caring about each other (and everybody really) as soon as possible. This group can be easily offended, extreme members of this group collect and accumulate special statuses excessively and they can be very obnoxious. Progressives often struggle to speak with people, not for them.

Politically they're largely interested in: Anti-discrimination laws, a living wage, equal pay for equal work, paid family leave, women's health, accessible abortion services, wealth inequality, rising costs of education, universal health care, same sex marriage, and social services. (I'm on this side.)

The Deplorables: a name I refer to them by, not out of any judgment on them, but because it is the moniker they appear to have widely embraced. If there is a better way to refer to or identify this group let me know and I'll change this. Again, acknowledging a lack of uniformity, (*builds strawman*) this group largely thinks we're all becoming a bunch of super sensitive babies and we need to toughen up and stop loving crying. They are contemptuous and condemning of political correctness, safe spaces, racial/social justice, etc. They equate reactions and criticism to their opinions and beliefs as censorship and an infringement on their right to free speech and view any inclusion or representation of others with hostility. (Often dismissing it as marketing or pandering.) They feel they are entitled to be edgy and insensitive and seem to revel in upsetting people and hurting their feelings. They speak their minds and tell it how it is and if you don't like it go gently caress yourself. This is Trump's America now, sugar! Grab 'em by the pussy! MAGA!!

Politically this group is interested in: Jobs, helping the struggling (white) working class, guns, states rights, freedom of religion (not yours, Muslim ), getting those icky illegal immigrants out of 'merica, law and order (), and ending free handouts because it creates dependency. Hard work, giftedness or talent are the keys to success. (Bootstraps, etc!)

This group is not to be lumped in with the Alt Right/White Nationalists. Because, while there is significant overlap, I believe the Deplorables animosity towards the other is largely due to misinformation, a lack of familiarity and contact with the other, and ignorance. I feel that, with proper outreach and education, we can help these people realize that the folks they don't like, fear, and blame everything on are actually people same as them and in the same loving poo poo pile they are. Whereas the Alt Right/White Nationalists are consummate racists who truly hate all kinds of people and there is no reasoning with them. They're just awful people and literal Nazis.

(*stands back and admires her strawman.*)

In general I think this "toughen up, pussy" movement from the Deplorables is ostensibly a conservative backlash to the sweeping progressive gains we have made as a society and our continued push towards a safer, more accepting and tolerant country.

The progressive gains we have made (examples: woman's suffrage, birth control, working women, civil rights, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and same sex marriage, just to name a few) are largely stable and secure. To strip these gains back would be a hard fought battle and, while I don't doubt that is an aspiration for some, the general sentiment seems to be to stem the tide if not stop it entirely. It is all very, "Enough is enough." (My perspective.)

In pushing for change people like me are trying to build the world and future we want (in comparison to the world and future they want.) We don't want to live in their world because it is oppressive and restrictive and really only benefits them and people like them (but, ha ha, not really. We'll get to that.) But they don't want to live in our world because our desire for a world where everyone can thrive and be respected is somehow oppressive and restrictive on them.

It is this belief and opinion, that a demand for consideration and sensitivity, that respect of another person, is oppressive. And that this population of individuals feel they are losing something by the addition of more diverse voices and more tolerance that troubles me the most. That a more tolerant, accepting, and loving society is more oppressive and restrictive when it is anything but.

It is my opinion that the Deplorables aren't really suffering with things the way they are now. (Not to the extent the others are at any rate.) And they feel that things like Affirmative Action and Non-Discrimination policies actually shut the door on them and limit their opportunities. They are more concerned with safeguarding their own quality of life than making a better place for everyone. This sucks and is really lovely.

Without a doubt there really are only so many lucrative and cushy positions in thriving companies or space in colleges or in highly desirable fields and yes, every person that is not you is technically a loss for you. There is nothing wrong with wanting a place for you. But what the Deplorables seem to fail to realize is what society gains as a whole by having these diverse voices and perspectives involved. (Also even if they shut the door on all the other people there still wouldn't be enough room for all of them.)

And when minority groups start to learn the tricks to succeed in the system they change the game and move the goal posts because every success for someone not them is a loss for them. (Example: Entry into good colleges being based on academic success and achievement. When Asians started competing they changed it to requiring extra curriculars as well. When Asians started going into music, debate, chess club, etc they started pushing for emphasis in sports and athletics.)

It is this that I really want to focus on. That the Deplorables feel they are losing something when others succeed. It's a huge problem. I believe they find our push for diversity and equality objectionable largely because of this. They aren't really seeing the big picture of what we gain when these other groups gain influence, rights, and privileges. That every LGBTQ+, person of color, woman, religious minority or other minority group that has a voice and representation is NOT one less person speaking for them, but one more person speaking WITH them.

What world do the Deplorables want? Apparently one that makes the ultra rich even richer and utterly shits on the poor while doing next to nothing for the Deplorables? But seriously, I have no idea and I would really like to know. Because the world we have now is one where prosperity and comfort is bought, not earned. Where a quality life is conditional and not acquired though merit or achievement but through luck.

(No really, the real key to success is either being born into it or have connections -- to know a guy who knows a guy to get the right eyes on you then be fortunate enough to be picked. A person can work hard and excel and do many things to improve their chances of standing out and being noticed but it ultimately requires being picked, that's luck.)

Where wealth and influence is hoarded and leveraged by a elite select few who are so removed from us that their wants and needs are diametrically opposed to our own. Where the wealthy people thrive and dominate while the gifted, talented and hard working people roll the loving dice. Where one chronic illness or terrible accident can pull the rug right out from under a person. And where the poorer and less fortunate people suffer.

And that can't really be what they want, right?

From what I see, this Class War is about different/opposing views on how the world should be. But is whatever the Deplorables want truly the way forward? I personally feel we've gotten much better as a people and as a society because of all these progressive gains and that the way forward is to become even more caring. But what do I know.

What is a better world to you? What should a better world be? What world do you want?

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Mark your calendar. It should be an interesting look back.

khwarezm posted:

Identity politics in this case sounded more like treating minority voters as captive voters simply by virtue of having D beside your name rather than something she would have to work to bring out. There's also the fact that identity politics did work, but for Trump.

OwlFancier posted:

I would suggest that the desire to boil everything down to economic class is no longer sufficient, there manifestly are other, valid classes to which people may belong.

rudatron posted:

Sanders already did literally everything you ask of him here, but it was never enough. He literally hired BLM people to help his outreach. Did he ever stop getting poo poo on for 'not getting it'? No. You know why? Because it was too valuable for Clinton to ever let up. He has not ever asked them to 'give up' their concerns, nor has anyone else in this thread. No one's asked BLM to stop protesting police brutality, far from it, they should keep it up. But they should do it in a way that's actually going to achieve some tangible goal, and not undermining potential allies. Eg- I'm still disgusted at the way they stole that mic from Bernie, that was like a critical loving moment that showed their true colors as far as I'm concerned.

But if you're convinced that 'economic populism' can't work, that it will never appeal to non-whites, then the left is doomed. Idpol is destroying it from the inside, the longer its there, the weaker it gets. It's not a choice between 'win with idpol' or 'win with economic populism', it's 'win with populism' or 'lose'.

Oh, and FYI, I don't remember seeing your face when other posters where taking a poo poo on me, when I entered this thread in good faith, so you can take your 'decorum' suggestions and shove it up your rear end.

quote:

It takes outreach. But several former members of Sanders’ black outreach team told me the campaign didn’t believe pulling black voters from Clinton was a real possibility; the white vote, the staffers said, was the campaign’s priority.

Tatem told me that his department was underfunded, making it almost impossible to do the necessary work in the Southern states that voted on Super Tuesday, March 1.

“We had to go through so many hoops to get resources, it felt like we had to fill out credit card applications every time we asked for something,” Tatem told me on the phone. “That’s how it felt.”

Tatem said that he and Marcus Ferrell, the former African-American outreach director for the campaign, had access to Weaver. But he said it felt as though neither Weaver nor other high-ranking figures in the campaign ever believed Sanders had a shot at winning black voters from Clinton...


Danny Glover echoed Tatem’s complaints. When he joined the campaign in the spring of 2015 as its director for outreach to historically black colleges and universities, he believed he could help pull millions of young black people to the senator’s cause.

As a black progressive, Glover was drawn to Sanders’ message of free public college, dismantling Wall Street, and rectifying economic inequality. Surely, Glover believed, he could get black students to feel the same enthusiasm for Sanders as the young white folks who screamed the senator’s name in packed arenas around the country.

But it didn’t take long for him to feel that the campaign had no real interest in converting young black progressives into a powerful voting bloc that could have made Sanders truly competitive against Clinton.

Glover said he was never given a staff to help him match those crowds of white 20-somethings.

“It was viewed as something that we just had to do,” Glover told me over the phone. “We threw some resources to it to say we did it, but they didn’t put as many people behind it as they should have.”

Glover said that stops were cut from Sanders’ tour of HBCUs after the South Carolina primary, in late February. He said he was told by superiors that there wasn’t enough money to continue them. The Sanders campaign raised $44 million in March, its best performance to date.

Glover also said that campaign money for the HBCU tour always came at the last minute, leaving him scrambling to pay vendors...


Moreover, Glover said, the campaign missed an opportunity to work with the black-owned business that was set to do the staging for the rally but, at the campaign’s last-minute request, was switched out.

Glover told me, “This was an opportunity at one of the most prestigious African-American colleges and universities in the country to really build a relationship with their black business community. Who knows what kinds of stories of Bernie Sanders they could have gone out and told, but we chopped it off before it had a chance to materialize. We left a bad taste in their mouths.”

One former Sanders staffer, who spoke to Fusion only on condition of anonymity, told me that the outreach team’s efforts to make inroads with black media were consistently blocked by the campaign. This included denying requests for interviews and access to the campaign, the staffer said.

The staffer said that the campaign feared that engaging black media might expose Sanders’ weakness in articulating how his economics-heavy platform would benefit black voters.

The staffer said that the campaign even tried to block me from covering a visit by Sanders to Atlanta for Fusion because I had reported critically on the senator in the past...


In Southern states that voted on Super Tuesday, even black voters ages 18 to 29—a slice of the electorate that Sanders’ team believed they had a shot at—voted for Clinton 61% to 36%.

And it wasn’t because black people didn’t know him, a lame and intellectually lazy excuse his staffers and surrogates have used for nearly a year. It was, the interviews suggest, because Sanders’ campaign didn’t work hard enough to win their votes.

White Rock posted:

Okay i'm gonna stop you right there: How did identity politics work for Trump? What does the words Identity politics mean to you?

I saw a piss idiot, willing to have actual economic policy that benefited his voters, win via said policy.

khwarezm posted:

Holy gently caress you are completely shameless aren't you? I didn't say economic populism can't work, or that it will never appeal to non-whites, I'm saying so far a platform that's 90% economic issues didn't make nearly as much of a splash among ethnic minorities as would be expected, so for the future its obvious that building a coalition for the far left is going to involve making more overtures to *shudder* identity politics. Have you read anything I posted? Will I link this article again? Here are some choice quotes to show how he could have done better but didn't:

So here we are, you're still stuck in this 'poor Bernie!' poo poo where he couldn't have changed anything about his campaign and did the absolute best he could but those intractable identity politic types ruined everything. Its pointless, and wrong, a lot of things could have and need to be improved to reach out to minority interests among economic leftists and resorting to the idea that, no, nothing went wrong, Bernie did EVERYTHING POSSIBLE, but the shadowy conspiracy of the DNC, Clinton and Black Lives Matter (???, you do know they did the same thing to Clinton don't you? But of course when they say boo to Bernie that's when they 'show their true colors') ruined him through no fault of his own. If that's the attitude you're going to take you might as well give up now, because you aren't going to make much headway by whinging about how the system is rigged if you want to make meaningful change.

khwarezm posted:

He appealed to white identity politics, worried about Terrorism, worried about unchecked Hispanic immigration and, yes, worried about the end of a way of life represented by the nine to five manufacturing job down at the plant. He pushed the right buttons on issues like guns, he cast doubt on the legitimacy of the first Black president and he had an aggressive, confrontational position on law enforcement and the police, he didn't even seem that bothered when the Klan fell for him. The alt right declared him their champion. What are we missing here? His first foray into politics was the loving birther controversy, if he didn't play to white identity politics in your eyes, what would he need to have done differently to do so?

Look at some the differences between Clinton and Trump voters here. In addition to worries about free trade and the economy Trump voters were much more inclined to say that Muslims in the US needed to be under more scrutiny, that Terrorism was a serious issue, that multiculturalism didn't make the country any better and that racial discrimination was no longer really a thing. We can and should talk about economics but a lot of people were prompted to vote for Trump for reasons that weren't particularly economic.

Pinch Me Im Meming posted:

Then again, winning elections is not the end-all-be-all of activism.

rudatron posted:

Also laffo, turns out the OP was a alt account from a permabanned user, according to lowtax.

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

I've actually done off-forums poo poo with Jenner and I'm pretty certain she isn't actually that particular permabanned loon.

Call Me Charlie posted:

You seem to be conflating 'Bernie lost the primary' with 'Bernie lost the primary because he's bad at identity politics'. Which, even if that was true, Clinton lost the general despite leaning on that as hard as any candidate possibly could. There's no way she could have done identity politics 'better'

(Also, ironically, Bernie was hurt by giving BLM the mic and listening to them while Hillary had no backlash from talking down to them and having security escort them out)

(Also also, are you missing the fact that Fusion is owned by Univision which is co-owned by Haim Saban - who was one of Hillary Clinton's biggest supporters? http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/haim-saban-hillary-clinton-donor-230711)

White Rock posted:

Here, let me extend an olive branch of reasonableness:
Focusing soley economics and ignoring issue like race is a doomed strategy.
Focusing soley on race and ignoring economic issues is a doomed strategy.
Agreed?

the black husserl posted:

Using the puerile term "idpol" makes you a tool of alt-right idiots who are trying to rebrand the voices of literally all racial, sexual, and political minorities as somehow irrelevant to the national discourse. It's the same slur as "crybaby", "whiner", etc - an obvious "war is peace" ploy to make people think resistance and strength is actually weakness.

Politics of identity are used by literally all parties in America, right or left. Trump won this election with identity politics. Like all good brands, he created a new identity (the forgotten American! abandoned by the establishment!) and designed a compelling message to make people believe in it. "Idpol" is not the hated enemy of a successful leftist movement. It is the asinine and hypocritical creation of a bunch of right-wingers who spend way too much time on the internet.

Higsian posted:

We definitely want a pan identity and a singular goal if we can though. Being groups of people that are doing their own thing but help each other out from time to time cause we're roughly fighting the same group of people is kinda weak. The alliance between communism and anarchism brought about "no war but class war" because it unites them against their shared enemy. Now we need something like "no war but <identity type> war" where <identity type> basically covers the fight along all types of power differentials, rather than just the economic power differential. Which then covers like... the entire left vs the right. So then we have things like the race front, the class front, the gender front, the sexuality front, etc but only one war. That might actually drive out centrists though because a lot of them are not at all about helping all oppressed classes. Whether that's a good thing or not depends if the left can succeed without them I guess.

White Rock posted:

Classes are based on material interest. The people inside that class share real material goals, and thus cooperation is possible, while with other classes genuine cooperation is impossible since they are in a material conflict.

Having multiple sets of classes for each dimension of politics is a messy construct that's not helpful to analyzing society. Not all members of the same ethnicity or sex share a common goal, especially if the economics is involved (e.g. black republicans, 53% of white women voting for a sexist etc).

khwarezm posted:

He appealed to white identity politics, worried about unchecked Hispanic immigration and, yes, worried about the end of a way of life represented by the nine to five manufacturing job down at the plant.

The Kingfish posted:

Immigrants drive down wages.