Red Mosquito

Mine wrote:

b_i_revisited wrote:

<snip>

I realize it's part of the progressive playbook to call people you disagree with racist so you never have to confront their ideas, but come on. Opposing illegal immigration does not make you white supremacist, it means that you prefer poor people in your nation have the first shot at jobs created in their homeland vice people brought in via the new, non-Atlantic slave trade from Mexico. Spying on non-US citizens in the US does not make a you white supremacist, visa holders and tourists are not protected by the fourth amendment. Just because white supremacists groups tend to support these things does not make them inherently bad, nor does it make one of them. He is an spoiled, ignorant bully and he is unafraid of being judge by the people that got the world into it's present shitty state and that appeals to wide group of Americans.

It's really not that simple.
Someone in my country made the point how the poor people's well being here only became an issue for the right wingers here once the immigrants and refugees tuned up and it's true.

I think the fact that white supremacy groups support certain things should at least raise the question whether the other side has a point.

I'm not qualified to speak to what's going on in your country, so I agree it sounds very opportunist. Let me give you a slightly different perspective on why Trump might be popular and why otherwise reasonable people might buy into his act. And IMO, this is an act. It's the opening salvo in a negotiation, not what a Trump presidency would look like (still, lets never find out).

Since maybe the 70s, maybe earlier, something has been wrong with WASPy democratic capitalism. Globalization, automation, and computerization have transformed and then broken the old 'contract' between employee and employer and for a lot of the US, they will never recover what they had in "the good ol days" when a person could work for a company for their life, get a pension, and be generally happy about how things went for them. They've seen those jobs go overseas to make a few people up on the hill richer. Now we see technology moving so fast that people cannot keep up and becoming so detail orientated that most people cannot learn it, and they few that dedicate the best years of their life to do it, now compete with indentured servants from Asia who will work for a third of their salary and thus the business can hire twice as many and still increase profits by laying them off (or in Disney's case, forcing them to train their replacements). They see dozens of healthy young men who don't look like them hanging around storefronts taking what work remains at illegal wage levels and kids having huge brawls in shopping malls that used to be safe places to take their families. They see situations where schools in the middle of cornfield, Indiana now need teachers in languages that they cannot identify the country of origin for. It's not what they were brought up with, worked and studied for, and it's psychologically devastating for them. But none of this is the real kicker. What drives them to people like Trump is that the left blames them for their situation. Reno writing in the NYT last month put it quite well:

The intelligentsia on the left rarely lets a moment pass without reminding us of the demographic eclipse of white middle-class voters. Sometimes, those voters are described as racists, or derided as dull suburbanites who lack the élan of the new urban “creative class.” The message: White middle-class Americans aren’t just irrelevant to America’s future, they’re in the way.

And this, again solely IMO, is why you see support for Trump. He capitalizing on the fear and nostalgia for a past version of America (that might not have ever truly existed) and saying, "it's not your fault. Let me set things back as they should be." And honestly, if I put myself into their shoes, I can kinda see the appeal, and when you think about... it's not that far from Bernie's message either.

Big night for Hillary.

Put a fork in Bernie.

welp

cutuphalfdead wrote:Put a fork in Bernie.

But he might pull it out in Missouri...damn. Does he drop out if he goes 0 for 5 tonight? 1 for 5? I think no either way.

The Argonaut wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:Put a fork in Bernie.

But he might pull it out in Missouri...damn. Does he drop out if he goes 0 for 5 tonight? 1 for 5? I think no either way.

He's got enough cash on hand to stay in until the end, which I think he does. For nothing else it's to help push the narrative further to the left.

Disappointing night either way

son of a bitch I'm sick of these dolphins

it's almost as if the comments section of the internet got together and ran for president. Good lord. Help us. My worst nightmare

What do you think the odds are at this point that Trump actually becomes president?

Like 1 in 10, 1 in 100, one in a million ?

He has to get through the convention with the nomination, and then somehow beat Hillary.

Here's my take-
Chance he wins the nomination on the first ballot - 30%
Chance he wins the nomination on the 2nd/3rd, etc... ballot - 5%

If he wins the nomination, chance there's not a 3rd candidate who runs - 20%

Chance he wins the general if it's him against Hillary only - 20%
Chance he wins the general in a 3 candidate field - 0%

So, that makes it 35% x 20% x 20% = 1.4%, or 1 in 71 chance he actually becomes President. Sounds about right to me.



If it's a 3 candidate general election, then Hillary could be hard pressed to get to 270 electoral college votes. All Trump needs to do is win a few states, and have the combination of him and the other Republican candidate take more than Hillary. In that case, Congress elects president, which would almost assuredly be the other Republican candidate.

hlniv wrote:In that case, Congress elects president, which would almost assuredly be the other Republican candidate.

There would be major civil unrest if that happens.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... book_nymag

Donald Trump hopes to complete his hostile takeover of the GOP peacefully. But if that's not possible, he'd like to remind you that he has a following of millions of tremendous, loving, patriotic, potentially violent people.

"I think there is a natural healing process. I've gotten along with people all my life," Trump told CNN Wednesday morning, when asked how he planned to unify his party. "I think it'll happen again. Now, if it doesn't, it doesn't. I'll go along the same path. Which has obviously been an effective path. I think we'll win before the convention, but if we didn't? If we're 20 votes short? Or if we're 100 short?"

Trump then made clear that the "effective path" to which he'd alluded was, in fact, the war path.

"I don't think you can say that we don't get it automatically. I think you'd have riots. I think you'd have riots. I'm representing many, many millions of people. In many cases first-time voters ... If you disenfranchise those people? And you say, well, I'm sorry, you're 100 votes short, even though the next one is 500 votes short? I think you'd have problems like you've never seen before. I wouldn't lead it, but I think bad things will happen."

After (implicitly) threatening to sic his minions on the party's convention, Trump further comforted the Republican Establishment by suggesting that he has no need for their egghead advisers. On MSNBC's Morning Joe, Trump was asked whom he'd been consulting with on foreign policy, to ensure he'd be prepared to lead on day one.

"I'm speaking with myself, No. 1, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things," Trump replied.

What a time to be alive.

Well, he is probably right, and its not like they wouldn't have reason to.

jesus christ

It would be funny if they kick Trump out, and not only does he run as an independent, but 4 years later, he does it again just for spite. He has them by the balls.

Plus, I doubt they would give the nomination to Cruz, since they don't like him much more than Trump, so they would be alienating all of his voters too. What are they gonna do? Give it to Kasich or Romney? lol.

THIS is what is frightening about a Trump Presidency

"I'm speaking with myself, No. 1, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things," Trump replied.

On GPS: The rise of American authoritarianism?

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/03/14 ... erview.cnn

I thought this was interesting.

b_i_revisited wrote:
I'm not qualified to speak to what's going on in your country, so I agree it sounds very opportunist. Let me give you a slightly different perspective on why Trump might be popular and why otherwise reasonable people might buy into his act. And IMO, this is an act. It's the opening salvo in a negotiation, not what a Trump presidency would look like (still, lets never find out).

Of course it's an act the question is to which point and whether it matters.

b_i_revisited wrote:Since maybe the 70s, maybe earlier, something has been wrong with WASPy democratic capitalism. Globalization, automation, and computerization have transformed and then broken the old 'contract' between employee and employer and for a lot of the US, they will never recover what they had in "the good ol days" when a person could work for a company for their life, get a pension, and be generally happy about how things went for them. They've seen those jobs go overseas to make a few people up on the hill richer.
Now we see technology moving so fast that people cannot keep up and becoming so detail orientated that most people cannot learn it, and they few that dedicate the best years of their life to do it, now compete with indentured servants from Asia who will work for a third of their salary and thus the business can hire twice as many and still increase profits by laying them off (or in Disney's case, forcing them to train their replacements).

Nothing WASPy about it. It's exactly the same even for us and we had socialism 25 years ago. It's interesting how our "good old days" were the exact same thing you described yet here the context was socialism. We basically went from one failing system to another and it's an ongoing mess.
I don't think there's a country in Europe that wouldn't find this paragraph rateable.

b_i_revisited wrote:They see dozens of healthy young men who don't look like them hanging around storefronts taking what work remains at illegal wage levels and kids having huge brawls in shopping malls that used to be safe places to take their families. They see situations where schools in the middle of cornfield, Indiana now need teachers in languages that they cannot identify the country of origin for. It's not what they were brought up with, worked and studied for, and it's psychologically devastating for them.

There's a variant of that behind any of the extreme right movements and ideologies mentioned in this thread before. As far as i remember even the antisemitism in Nazi Germany featured a variant of they're taking our jobs.

I think one has to put themselves into the shoes of the immigrants who take the illegal wage jobs. The vast majority of them come from terrible situations and are taking advantage of situations that they didn't create.

I completely understand how the change a community goes through because of a large influx of immigrants is uncomfortable for the native population. I also find this to be a reason why how the issue is handled by the governments to be very important.

b_i_revisited wrote:But none of this is the real kicker. What drives them to people like Trump is that the left blames them for their situation.


Reno writing in the NYT last month put it quite well:

The intelligentsia on the left rarely lets a moment pass without reminding us of the demographic eclipse of white middle-class voters. Sometimes, those voters are described as racists, or derided as dull suburbanites who lack the élan of the new urban “creative class.” The message: White middle-class Americans aren’t just irrelevant to America’s future, they’re in the way.

I'm sure Trump is doing all right with urban voters too.

I'm familiar with the attitude described in the quote by Reno but i'm not sure the left dismisses white middle-class Americans as a whole or that it's such a homogeneous group of people for the reasoning to even make sense.

I missing a step between your assessment of the left blaming the people you describe for their situation and what's in the quote. But i'll take your word for it.
What i do know is that the right is often accused of doing the same with the socially weak (who often happen to be minorities). This is usually part of the small vs. large government and government funding which is pure ideology.

b_i_revisited wrote:And this, again solely IMO, is why you see support for Trump. He capitalizing on the fear and nostalgia for a past version of America (that might not have ever truly existed) and saying, "it's not your fault. Let me set things back as they should be." And honestly, if I put myself into their shoes, I can kinda see the appeal, and when you think about... it's not that far from Bernie's message either.

There is another reason behind's Trump's support. He doesn't have the burden of a political career behind him. I think the reason the right's in various countries are relying on what Trump is and similar is because economic policy is an extremely difficult topic to run on as people feel screwed by either side's past actions so there's a general mistrust there. It creates a perfect environment for someone like Trump to jump in the race.
It's also why some politicians like to provide enemies to blame the state of the economy on. As long as they blame immigrants for people being out of jobs they get people who enjoy hearing that to not realize that their policies may have more to do with that.

I think when the right wing relies openly and heavily on forms of discrimination it's harming itself and i see a lot of that happening. Many modern day right wing parties are just that. It's populism but it's too extreme to be really effective and it tends to actually shrink and ideologically narrow the base. It also creates an us against them situation. The lefts tend to be happy with being on the other side of that and this becomes the core of its identity which makes for not so good candidates and Hillary is a good example of that - even she knows she's not the most beloved political figure but she has a really good shot in the current climate.