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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@smokeycut: Ah, now I get it—I was translating mentally from my native language, where "armband" literally translates into "bracelet." I was thinking Hey, does this mean my rainbow-colored pride bracelet makes me look like a Nazi? ...The rainbow part and the pride part gotta carry more weight, right?
Unfortunately, the single armband is also very popular in Japan, including in red, though they tend to also have big letters on them saying what they're for (usually committees of some kind). Granted, "we just think Nazi fashion is cool, honest!"-type non-critical thinkers are also pretty popular in Japan.
It's been fun.Right, I didn't mean to conflate those two as being directly connected.
^Armbands in general aren't a problem and 99% of the ones in Japan are used for civic offices and so on. It's just that Japan also has a problem with going "those Nazis sure dressed sharp, huh!" and ignoring the problems with that.
Edited by RedSavant on Nov 5th 2020 at 11:15:26 AM
It's been fun.Oh. To clarify, I agree with you. I was directing that at Memers.
Specifically, the use of Japan as an example of innocent uses by "countries that didn't fight the Nazis". Like yes, I expect there are places where arm bands are popular where no one would even think of a Nazi association, but I doubt that is the case in Japan, since the country was allied with Nazi Germany in World War II.
Edited by Hodor2 on Nov 5th 2020 at 10:21:47 AM
Well maybe ya should look at Red Armband of Leadership then? This is getting off topic though.
Feeding into that. one of his tweets is literally ‘Stop the Count!’
Edited by Memers on Nov 5th 2020 at 8:51:07 AM
We Waited in Vain for a Repudiation That Never Came
: "Trump may well end up losing to Biden, but Trumpism remains a viable political strategy."
That, if anything, is the surprise of this election. Although it is still too early to make any definitive statement about the shape of the electorate (broad white support for Trump notwithstanding), it is clear that the president made modest inroads with Black and Hispanic voters, especially men. This is most apparent in the states of Florida, Georgia and Texas, where Trump outperformed his 2016 totals in several areas where Hispanic voters make up a majority.
We don’t yet know why Trump made those gains — although the aforementioned performances, which figured prominently in his outreach to those groups, may have something to do with it — but this shift is a useful reminder that politics does not move along a linear path. For all of our data, the political world is still a fundamentally unpredictable place. A decade ago, for example, Democrats believed that demographic change — the shift from a “majority white” country to a “majority minority” one — would give the party an almost unbreakable lock on national politics; that a growing population of Asian and Hispanic Americans would inevitably redound to liberal benefit. At the time, I wrote that this was unlikely, that while it was a seductive theory, there was not much evidence to support the vision of an enduring Democratic majority. Racial and ethnic identity, I argued, were too fluid, and there was no guarantee that future members of those groups would think of themselves as “minorities” in the way that has been historically true of Black Americans. Changing conditions — greater assimilation and upward mobility — could make them as volatile in partisan politics as European ethnic groups were in the 20th century.
If the Hispanic shift is as large as it appears to be, then we are living in that reality. What I didn’t expect is that it would come heralded by a Republican like Trump. But this only speaks to the diversity, ideological and otherwise, of the Hispanic electorate, which is as varied in racial background and national origin as most other groups of Americans. To extend an earlier analogy, it is probably as useful to speak of “Hispanics” in 2020 as it was to speak of “Europeans” in 1950. The category is just too broad, obscuring (in electoral politics, at least) far more than it illuminates. Again, it is too early to say that there’s been a permanent realignment, although some trends — like the rising partisan significance of gender and education — are clear. It’s true, though, that the possibilities for change and transformation are wide open. Perhaps a future Republican, one with the same or similar fame and charisma, will build a real majority from the foundation laid over the last four years. Perhaps a future Democrat will turn the party’s consistent voting majority into a greater share of electoral votes and congressional seats. Perhaps we see neither and are in for another decade of fierce partisan competition between two equal and evenly-matched sides. The 2020 election, in other words, will have an outcome. But it won’t be conclusive. It will be an uncertain result for an uncertain time in American life. Political trench warfare will continue. Total victory, whether in politics or anywhere else, is not on the immediate horizon. The future remains unwritten and is perhaps even more unknowable than before.
"The 2020 election, in other words, will have an outcome. But it won’t be conclusive. It will be an uncertain result for an uncertain time in American life. Political trench warfare will continue. Total victory, whether in politics or anywhere else, is not on the immediate horizon. The future remains unwritten and is perhaps even more unknowable than before."
Edited by DeMarquis on Nov 5th 2020 at 12:02:00 PM
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.Which a lot of people seem to be responding to with STOP THE PIGEON.
"Yup. That tasted purple."I've been doing some research into why people vote Republican. This article seems to encapsulate a lot of it: Many Latino Men Are Supporting President Trump This Election
. At the very least, with this group you can't just assume it's all racism.
"But that derisive rhetoric doesn't faze him, he said. This party is where he feels at home.
"Our families and our communities, you know, really took care of each other and took care of ourselves. We weren't really focused on what is the government going to do for us," he said. "The independent spirit of our community really drove me to the Republican ideal of making sure that you're able to provide for yourself and your family, that you have that independence and that liberty to be able to start your own business or work where you wanted to, or go to school where you wanted to go and have those opportunities available."
His Christian faith also aligned him with the Republican Party on issues such as abortion. And while he said he probably wouldn't phrase things the way Trump does sometimes, Latino voters such as him are attracted to the message of lower taxes and lower costs of living, especially in California."
That, and the fact that the Republican Party has apparently been building bridges with this community for decades, while the Democrats apparently haven't, explains some things.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.

I got curious, so I tried to work it out. My brain enjoyed this distraction.
TLDR: Puerto Rico gets 4 seats, DC gets one at large seat. The losers are Florida, New York, Ohio, Alabama and Oregon.