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Mr Giant Man posted:In terms of how liberalism will move forward, I'd bet the short term (2-4 years) future is bright. The idenity politics police is will probably just be split across both camps. The problem with the identity politics thing isn't really the identiy polics at all - it's more about those that are content to just support that and feel they've done their part to be "good liberals", without addressing the economic or class root-causes. There will be plenty that want to address both problems.
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Jan 21, 2017 01:13
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:How do we radicalize your mom? You don't. bag em and tag em posted:I think the key here is how do we radicalize someone who is comfortable? I know the point has been beaten to death elsewhere but I think it is, in fact, going to be easier to find common ground with a subset of Trump supporters than with older, comfortable, white liberals. The common ground is specifically economic distress. Many Trump supporters feel it and voted Trump out of a sort of hopeless despair. All you have to do is show that Trump has not actually helped their day-to-day situation (or made it worse), which shouldn't be the most difficult thing in the world. As an aisde, the really scary scenario to my mind is if the Trump government actually manages to caugh up enough social programs (primarily targeted to his base and disguised as tax cuts with job-creating conditions and PPPs and god knows what else) that it actually improves the day-to-day situation of a large part of his base. I don't know how the left comes back from that, I really don't.
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Jan 21, 2017 01:28
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rudatron posted:This won't work and you're a moron. Tribalism needs an enemy, and that enemy is always present both inside and outside. Tribalism can't stay, it can and has to go. Honest question: How is class consciousness meaningfully different from tribalism across class lines (rather than race, nationality etc.) ? Is it not perfectly fine to frame the issue as straight-forward "us", the 99%, (for lack of a better term, though maybe it's actually a perfectly fine term) vs "them" , the 1%? It need not be done with the same vulgarity as the right uses. I kinda like Zizek's idea of trying to reappropriate "the moral majority" for the left: Let's start treating issues of class and economic disparity the same way the left has been (actually quite successfully!) treating racism and sexism, bigotry etc. Expressing sympathy for such ideas just isn't an acceptable topic of discussion in polite company and certainly not in the public sphere - and even though Trump's victory has emboldened the alt-right to speak freely about such thing, they are still treated as appropriately outrageous, unacceptable things to say. Look at the (wonderful!) outburst of approval at that neo-nazi getting punched in his face. Yes there's a handful of truly hopeless cases lamenting the failure of disourse and free speach etc, but the vast majority of the public have exactly the right idea: There is no "let's hear them out" with neo-nazis, and to engage them in polite conversation is, above all, seen as "icky" and probably quite shameful. Such people are simply not seen as part of "our" society - they are outsiders and intruders and not to be tolerated. Why not get to the point where defending the capitalist class is equally seen as icky and shameful and not to be engaged with? Not right away of couse - we do need to "hear them out" to start a dialogue, same as hearing out people's concerns at the beginning of the LGBQT movement, but the goal is to get to a point where that is no longer worth entertaining and supporters of the capitalist class are seen as potentially dangerous, somewhat derranged outsiders etc.
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Jan 23, 2017 23:40
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White Rock posted:Trumps ideology and stories are good, but his policies will do little to help the working class. The rust belt has no economic niche, and nobody is willing to bail them out, not even Trump. And when canceling TRIPPS and "standing up to china" doesn't do jack poo poo Trump he will shrug his shoulders and say "i tried". And he will get a lot of goodwill for doing ANYTHING of course, so that could carry him for another term. Why not Trump? He keeps benefitting from people underestimating him. This won't be some sort of explicit FDR-type work program. Picture a huge handout to his chronies (hardly stretching the imagination here) in the form of either a bail-out or a tax break, oh and it comes with a few strings attatched to open up a few factories in the rust belt. So 90% of taxpayer money goes straight to profits, but 10% is used to bail out a select few potemkin villages to show off (though unlike actual the Potemkin village, the livelyhood improvements of these few rustbelt towns will be real). Then he can can just point at them and say "look at what a huge difference we made here and here by turbocharging our local businesses and protecting them from foreign competitors and letting them manage the enviornment according to the rules of the free market. Ask anyone there how much their life is as a direct result of what we did!" (and it wouldn't even be a lie!). "Imagine how much more I can do in 4 more years!". Can you imagine how difficult it would be to fight back on that narative? It has just enough truth to it - you can't just deny the fact that his policies helped, it's a much more nuanced and difficult argument about how much more this benefited the 1% vs the actual people in those towns, but then the right just shoots back with "rising tide, lifts all boats" and worse of all they can follow it up with "the left not only failed to distribute any wealth back to you, but they also failed to actually rise the tide!". Pesonally, I am just straight-up terrified of this scenario. I just don't see any possibility of the left recovering from such a move beyond waiting things out until after whatever calamity follows it. I'm not saying it's the most likely thing in the world, but it's nowhere near as "out of the question" as I'd like it to be, considering the consequences. I'd actually go as far as calling it "somewhat likely"...
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Jan 23, 2017 23:52
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