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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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This is a well known fact in a lot of evangelical circles.
- Radical Anti-Abortion
- Homophobia
- Transphobia
- Islamophobia
They beat a very heavy drum in order to get lots of angry religious voters to vote for the Republican party. You know, versus voting for aiding the poor or not going to war or any kind of actual Christian values.
It's not a dogwhistle because it's not talking about "we say X but mean Y." It's more "Enemy Politics."
Because it's meant to get you riled up at Group A in order to avoid thinking about Problems A and Z.
If you're a liberal Christian, it's Religious Political Science 101 and a major argument why the Separation of Church and State is needed to make a legitimate Christian reform movement.
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Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 20th 2019 at 10:37:24 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.![]()
As I said, the idea that all social problems are caused by Economics, and the way to fix them is to reduce income inequality and support the working class, is rooted in Marxist Theory, and something that a lot of earlier generations of reformers believed.
And on a surface level, there's actually logic to that. Reducing overall risk for the largest population possible is a sound goal, most disadvantaged people share a lot of the same issues and challenges, right? The problems start to come in when you look deeper. As many people have gone into the reasons why this isn't effective, I don't have to do that here, but it's just something important to note.
Edited by megaeliz on Jan 21st 2019 at 3:33:42 PM
There's plenty of racist rich white people. There always have been. The worst racists in America have always been the richest. They, after all, are the ones benefiting from oppression the most.
The problem is removing their authority and influence. Not giving money and support to the poor majority who aren't the source of America's racial problems (and very often are progressive or uncaring about the issue).
Trump's supporters are the racist middle and upper class. Not poor laborers.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 21st 2019 at 1:19:22 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Just wanted to throw something out there, which given the state of political gridlock vis a vis the shutdown may actually be the only way to resolve this thing.
With the results of the NFL Championship games, we have New England Patriots and the LA Rams in the Superbowl.
Trump is famously a fan of the Patriots. LA Rams are from California ergo Nancy Pelosi's state. (Annoyingly she represents San Francisco so politically very unlikely to be a Rams fan - but the LA coliseum is bracketed by the districts represented by Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff so I'll take that instead.)
So sod all the political deal making that isn't going to go anywhere, lets bet it all on the result of the Superbowl. It's a good a solution as any.
Charles you’ve mentioned child poverty and children going without food, I’m curious though, is that a national thing or is it infact a state level thing confined to red states where Republicans have caused such policies on purpose?
Because things like racial discrimination are a problem in all 50 states, while if starving children is only a serious thing in one or two states the federal government’s ability to help is going to be minimal, as the state government will just refuse aid because it wants the children to starve.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranFood insecurity in the United States is obviously less a thing than in many parts of the world but the issue of it is far larger than anyone is willing to admit. In the case of Kentucky, it's a consequence of multiple factors and strongly related to the opiod crisis.
There's a massive alliance of churches (local not Big Box or "the for-profit Republican corporate churches) in the region which give daily meals to stave off the worst of the situation but in a very real way for a large portion of the state, when they don't go to school, they don't eat.
For the most part this is due to the mass poverty of the state and the deliberate attempt by the state government to destroy as much assistance for the public as possible. Mitch's dream is to eliminate all social programs for the poor in Kentucky and has worked heavily to this regard (and was the main force behind attempting to repeal the ACA with nothing to replace it).
The opiod crisis is a massive drain on the finances of the poor and most vulnerable for how it relates. 1500 Kentuckians die a year from overdoses (5000 from complications relating to drug use) and there's something akin to 15x more addiction to opiods than the rest of the country barring Ohio and West Virginia (that's multiples not percentage, FYI). Mitch and company have embezzled or diverted funding for treatment from the federal government while blocking local attempts to help both with hunger as well as treatment. Many have said it's a deliberate genocide against the poor and its not entirely wrong.
The drug economy is linked directly to white supremacy in the state with our Generic Ethnic Crime Gang equivalent being The Klan, Hell's Angels, and Neo-Nazis (which are indistinguishable down here—you don't have to choose to be one or the other here). Lots of money goes into their pockets, which they use to buy guns and more drugs, which they use to expand their business. The cops don't interfere because, in the words of Big trouble in Little China, cops have better things to do than get killed—which is what happens when Nazis have machine guns and M16s.
(The reported crime rate is actually extremely low, 40% less than the average of the country but there have been many challenges to this on the basis that it may well be multiple levels less reported)
Roughly 20% of the state lives in poverty as well. Kentuckians depend on assistance while working multiple jobs that don't provide enough money to sustain a family. Those who do eat, eat cheap ass products that make you strangely fat for people who barely get enough to eat.
Demographics wise, Kentucky is 90% white, 7% black, and 3% everyone else including mixed races. Blacks, of course, have disproportionate representation among poverty and twice as much poverty as white Kentuckians percentage wise but smaller in the overall numbers wise.
http://www.nccp.org/profiles/KY_profile_7.html
For impoverished children numbers:
Child’s Race/Ethnicity
- 22% (170,945) of white children live in poor families.
- 44% (38,212) of black children live in poor families.
- 41% (22,279) of Hispanic children live in poor families.
- 19% (2,867) of Asian children live in poor families.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 21st 2019 at 4:23:02 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Or, to summarize, "Kentucky is a shithole and we have the Republicans to blame. The Federal government stepping in is our only hope."
It's also doubly notable the Republicans show every bit the same hatred, bile, and destructive tendencies for poor whites as they do minorities.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 21st 2019 at 4:24:48 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Child hunger is indeed a serious problem in Alaska.
Alaska is an odd duck - we're the last of the Rockefeller Republican strongholds, and we're very much fans of sucking up every dollar of federal aid that Don Young and Lisa Murkowski can get us. And we still need much more money to keep our kids fed (partly because getting food to Alaska is so expensive).
So yeah, child hunger is a countrywide problem.
In Alabama, they say "Thank God for Mississippi!"
Much of the Deep South in general is borderline third-world.
Edited by Ramidel on Jan 21st 2019 at 3:44:05 AM
New Deal federal inspectors said Appalachia was like visiting the 17th century. Families living in log cabins in the woods where people ate what they grew.
The highways, Tennessee Valley Authority, trains, coal & steel plants, river regulation, and flood walls changed things but there's still a complete distance of what people THINK America is like and what it is in a lot of places.
You go to a rural area for example and explain independent farming is a dead industry.
Because to the guy you're telling, you're saying he and his family will DIE because there's no chance of them moving to another industry before poverty kills them.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 21st 2019 at 4:53:56 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Kamala Harris is officially running for President.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/politics/kamala-harris-president-2020/index.html
I'd include Gabbard as a no-hoper, she has no demographic or faction within the party to appeal to.
People who want progressive economic policy will have Warren and probably Sanders if they're purists, and possibly Harris or Gilibrand too.
People who are doves will have Sanders and possibly Warren.
Inversely there are very few groups that are plausibly willing to tolerate her litany of sins, saying nice things about Sanders might be enough to get some people to overlook your awfulness normally but that isn't enough to win on in a proper Presidential Primary.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jan 21st 2019 at 9:11:20 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangYeah the only group Gabbard appeals to are the Sanders loyalists (by which I mean people who are drawn by Sanders as a person, not by his progressive ecenomic ideas), who will all go strait to Sanders the moment he runs.
It’s why Gabbard running confuses me, she either is an idiot, thinks Sanders isn’t going to run or plans to drop out once Sanders announces.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI've had poor things to say about Warren in the past, mainly about how she seems to be a bit too focused on consumer economics and not enough on other topics. Not that this is a bad thing, just that I'd like to see her take a bit broader of an approach. It works great as a Senator but not so well as President. That said, when she speaks about economic issues, she sounds like she just plain knows more about the topic, in greater depth, than Sanders, who seems rigidly stuck to his stump speech every time he appears.
That's part of what turns me off about Bernie: he never has anything new to say. No details, no meat behind the showmanship. He's like the classic stereotype of the "ideas guy", who lets other people handle the details because he can't be bothered.
Of all the candidates running today, Elizabeth Warren is the one I'd most trust to be an honest President who would genuinely work for what she feels to be the people's best interests. This is probably because I'm most familiar with her, especially her work on the CFPB.
Gillibrand and Harris both sound good too, although I'm less familiar with them. When Gillibrand showed up on Rachel Maddow last week, she was intelligently answering questions and not just reciting talking points like a well-trained robot. I've heard Castro talked up as a potential candidate for years, although I know very little about him.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2019 at 9:28:24 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

With regards to the "True Progressive" thing, the reason people are doing that is because Bernie tried to trademark the term "Progressive" for his movement. Back in 2016 and early 2017, we heard this shit all the time: that there were Progressives who preached the Gospel of Sanders, and then there were Democrats who cared about issues like racial injustice.
"True progressives" come up whenever the conversation turns to Sanders as a kneejerk reaction to his idea that a "Progressive" is someone who only cares about economic inequality. It's an effort to reclaim the verbage by pointing out that "Progressive" meant something before he hijacked it.
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