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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#338376: Nov 9th 2020 at 6:45:07 AM

As long as the Republican party keeps being racist, the Democrat party has to be anti-racist. If, hypothetically, you're saying that you want the Democrat party to focus more on the issues that matter to you, not your race, you're missing the fact that your race is one of the issues that really matter to Republicans, and if the Democrats do nothing about that, you could be killed in a hate crime.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Nov 9th 2020 at 7:45:52 AM

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#338377: Nov 9th 2020 at 6:53:52 AM

Well obviously they should still be anti-racist.

The point being made however is that by always talking about the black vote etc, those groups are reduced to only those particular issues, and it can end up overlooking other issues important to those groups.

So when those groups tend to vote Republican anyway because of jobs or the economy, it makes clear that Democrats need to pick up that side more, making a better argument to those groups about how they will provide in those situations.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
nova92 Since: Apr, 2020
#338378: Nov 9th 2020 at 6:59:09 AM

Okay, since I can't listen to the video, I read the paragraph again, and here's where I think I am:

1) If, by "identity politics", the writer meant the sort of shallow analysis and outreach that treats groups as a single monolith, and "actual issues those people care about" includes issues that particularly/exclusively affect minority voters, I'm on board.

2) However, identity politics is all too often used as a dogwhistle that basically says any recognition of minorities (women, LGBTQ people, non-white people) or their unique struggles is putting the focus on identity over issues, with issues often being a codeword for things that affect white men. If that's what's happening here (I genuinely can't tell), I think it's basically another form of "Democrats must pay attention to the working class!" stuff which I'm sick of.

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#338379: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:13:23 AM

I don't think that's what is happening here.

Why do you think Democrats having to listen to the working class is bad?

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
ShinyCottonCandy Everyone's friend Malamar from Lumiose City (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Everyone's friend Malamar
#338380: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:15:52 AM

[up]Because "pay attention to the working class" is not what they're actually asking.

My musician page
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#338381: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:17:27 AM

Because it's often used as a code for "stop paying attention to racism and only focus on broad economic trends".

You also have the problem of people who will dismiss anything as bad identity politics because it focuses on e.g. race as something that in and of itself needs political consideration instead of what specific policies those voters might want, which is what gives us the problem of "Yeah, you might think I'm not a foreign meal like the face-eating leopard party but if they don't eat my face they'll get tax cuts". And one way to have even worse election prospects would be to abandon the majority of your policies to try and entice a few more minority voters.

Note how these are also mirrors of each other. In both cases, calls to ignore identity politics are just "focus on my economic and social policies instead".

Edited by RainehDaze on Nov 9th 2020 at 3:18:07 PM

Resileafs I actually wanted to be Resileaf Since: Jan, 2019
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
#338382: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:17:30 AM

I think there's more a thing that Democrats are accused of not listening to the working class because they're listening to poc, to women, to LGB Ts, and this statement ignores that the Democrats are also listening to workers (after all, it's the Democrats that are supporting a higher minimum wage and various worker protections) but they're listening to everyone at the same time and people get jealous that other people's problems are being treated as equally important.

Edited by Resileafs on Nov 9th 2020 at 10:18:36 AM

minseok42 A Self-inflicted Disaster from A Six-Tatami Room (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
A Self-inflicted Disaster
#338383: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:19:36 AM

[up]X4 By "pay attention to the working class", some people don't mean create more jobs, improve working conditions, build a better social safety net etc... but rather use working-class white males as an excuse to label people concerned about racism, gender discrimination, LGBT+ rights, the environment etc... as upper class twits.

Edited by minseok42 on Nov 10th 2020 at 12:20:02 AM

"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#338384: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:26:40 AM

The point being made however is that by always talking about the black vote etc, those groups are reduced to only those particular issues, and it can end up overlooking other issues important to those groups.

I don't think it is, though. I think the Democrats do a pretty good job of focusing on both addressing racism and economic or cultural issues that affect people of other races. It's not true that, as you seem to be implying, Democrats are just empty talking heads that do nothing but talk about how bigotry is bad and nothing else.

If anything, that sounds like those people fell for Republican propaganda saying that that's all Democrats do, which they obviously have anyway if they voted for Trump. The issue isn't whether Democrats should focus on identity politics or other issues more, the issue is about combating misinformation campaigns that falsely claim that Democrats do nothing but talk about the former and don't care about the latter.

Resileafs I actually wanted to be Resileaf Since: Jan, 2019
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
#338385: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:33:18 AM

I think it really does come down to 'Republican voters have fallen to Republican propaganda'. They refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing by their side because that would mean their side has been successfully lying to them for decades. And they bought it the whole time.

Better for their pride to keep falling for it instead of stopping falling for it.

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#338386: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:40:01 AM

Hi there.

I am here to talk about latinos and why some of them may vote Republican and why Democrats fail to appeal to them.

In this essay, I will...

    talk about Latinos 

As may be obvious, latinos are not a singular bloc that can be so easily condensed as to be interchangeable and if you ever call me a Mexican so help me god before that steam drill shall beat me down I will kill you with a hammer in my hand. There is an important element that may be getting ignored, and I suggest you give a read to some research papers like this one, in Rio Grande Valley of Texas, which shed light on it.

The difference is generational.

Immigrant born children to the U.S are kids who grew up on areas with low education, who got there via legal, or illegal means, surrounded by people who probably got there by illegal means, in the most dejected areas. All they've known, is a life surrounded by poverty - without the frame of reference their parents did. Their livelihood was spent being bullied by the (increasingly minority) whites telling them they are criminals. And how could they not agree? They see it in their communities, in their news, in their lives. Latino and black crimes are exacerbated far more than others.

But not them, no.

They are one of the good ones and if only others behaved then maybe they could belong.

In comes the jingoistic party. The party that screams and shouts America, Law and order, that promises to punish the criminals. That promises that the individuals are punished based on their crimes alone.

The "individual responsibility" party and ideology.

The Democrats don't sell that. The democrats sell unity for unity's sake. But they don't sell that delicious retribution that the people who've made your life hell by daring to be of your same race deserve. You could be "normal" if only your peers stopped commiting so much crime...

Their parents, once settled in, may be lured by this too. Once they settled in, of course, not before. After all, the democrats' ideals of giving citizenship appealed to them when they weren't citizens, but once they are, they find the Democrats don't really solve their current issues a lot.

That is one aspect of what makes the latino vote go for Trump. I can tell you this because of personal experience which, sadly, seems to match something the American Progress think thank suspects:

In recent congressional and presidential elections, the Latino electorate has proved to be extremely influential. And this political influence continues to grow each day as nearly 2,000 Latinos turn age 18 and become eligible to vote. All told, 3.3 million Latino citizens will turn age 18 between 2012 and 2016. Nearly 60 percent of these newly eligible Latino voters will be second-generation immigrants. These children of immigrants have witnessed firsthand the impact our broken immigration system has on their families and their friends. CAP’s analysis found that immigrants and their children vote at higher rates than third-generation immigrants. Thus, as immigrants and their children become a larger share of the Latino electorate, the voter turnout rate for Latinos will likely increase, and fixing our immigration system will become a greater priority than in previous elections.

As the window of opportunity for the current House to pass immigration reform closes, so too does the chance for Republicans to gain the support of the Latino electorate in the 2014 and 2016 elections. There are nearly 2 million second-generation Latino immigrants who are coming of age and will be eligible to vote for the first time in 2016. If Republicans want to have a fighting chance in the 2016 election, they must appeal to the new electorate, and they can do so by passing immigration reform.

And they did. The latino voters ate the harsh punishment promises of the Trump campaign up because again: they see themselves as innocent, and the criminals as besmirchers who stain their name.

And this is just one of the elements that are important regarding this. There are others that explain the differences per area. Texas Latinos, for example, are probably Mexican. For some reason, Costa Rican immigrants tend to go to LA, or Boston, but most of them are from Pérez Zeledón, a notoriously uneducated and poor region, whose own culture has an impact on how the people go there without necesarily reflecting the whole of Costa Rican reality.

Miami is an interesting, if brief example: Cuban Immigration to Miami comes in two large waves, the first, during the Cuban Revolution, as the rich landlords and their families suffered under the Castro revolution. They were the first to move to Miami and they set the guidelines for all other Cubans to follow - be anti Cuba, want to nuke Cuba, and destroy Cuba. No other party other than the Republicans wants to get even close to the idea of nuking Cuba as the first-wave Cuban Immigrants want to, and so it is inevitable, and impossible, to convince the Cubans and Cuban-born immigrants to vote for anything else. Sorry.

They're completely and absolutely a lost cause that are defined by their loathing and if you want to win them over, just promise to nuke Cuba.

As someone else said earlier, the best thing the Democrats can do is to actually get results. I wish I could promise you "And thus you will guarantee the latino vote for Democrats forever and ever" but no, you won't. These are a group that are defined by a systemic lack of opportunities, education, in an environment that is if not hostile, prejudiced against them.

Democrat voters tend to be those who have access to quality education and opportunities: liken them to that, and strip away the power of the racial profiling in police by reforming it, and you may have a chance to make the Conservative narrative trip on itself.

Edited by Aszur on Nov 9th 2020 at 9:51:11 AM

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#338387: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:50:04 AM

Again, I don't think the one stating that was a Trump voter, and it is a little disingenuous to assume they are because they criticize the Dems.

I have to say, discussing Democrats sometimes feels like navigating a minefield of dog whistles and insinuations at times.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#338388: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:52:44 AM

This is a super-annoying but also super-predictable discussion.

Leftists really need to stop buying into conservative propaganda about Democrats (and/or non-whites) as elites and anti-racism as an elite belief.

Also, as far as Latinx goes, the controversy over that has never sat well with me.

I get that people don't like having their language dictated to them.

However, some... Latinos and Latinos do use Latinix, so framing it as an outside impoition is not accurate.

More importantly, as I understand it, the term has way more to do with being inclusive of non-binary people than it does out of some misplaced concern that romance languages are sexist. So, it's hard for me not to see objections to Lantinx as coded bigotry. Like it's not really different than how English-speaking bigots object to using "Their".

[up] Maybe you could stop interpreting critics of Democrats in the best possible light and Democrats' in the worst possible light?

Edited by Hodor2 on Nov 9th 2020 at 9:54:01 AM

RAlexa21th Zettai Ryouiki Enjoyer from California (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I <3 love!
Zettai Ryouiki Enjoyer
#338389: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:54:21 AM

I think the Dems should not just look at Latinos (and also Asians) as giant blobs of brown or yellow. Study the sub-demographics. Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Guatemalans, etc. All ages brackets and education levels. Not until then can they accurately gauge what the demographics think.

Continue writing our story of peace.
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#338390: Nov 9th 2020 at 7:58:17 AM

One other comment about leftists, even if you don't think social policies are important or see them as elite values (which again, are bad things to believe), Democrats still have much better economic policies than Republicans.

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#338391: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:02:31 AM

I think the Dems should not just look at Latinos (and also Asians) as giant blobs of brown or yellow. Study the sub-demographics. Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Guatemalans, etc. All ages brackets and education levels. Not until then can they accurately gauge what the demographics think.

That is useful to an extent, but they all share important things beyond "HABLA ESPAÑOL" which makes it useful and viable, policy-wise, to group up.

And also, the Republicans do it, and they get their vote. Just that they appeal to other stuff. Emotional stuff.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#338392: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:12:08 AM

The flaw is that Democrats assumed all Latinos would be united on opposing ICE as their top priority, which didn't turn out to be the case.

ScubaWolf from South Carolina Since: Feb, 2020
#338393: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:14:37 AM

[up] Because as it turns out, Humans are Bastards

"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
RAlexa21th Zettai Ryouiki Enjoyer from California (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I <3 love!
Zettai Ryouiki Enjoyer
#338394: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:15:06 AM

[up][up][up][up]The Republicans are still sticking with this trickle down BS, aren't they?

Edited by RAlexa21th on Nov 9th 2020 at 8:15:22 AM

Continue writing our story of peace.
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#338395: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:16:34 AM

I guess nobody has a solid answer or more info on this topic?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Resileafs I actually wanted to be Resileaf Since: Jan, 2019
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
#338396: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:20:29 AM

[up]If the Supreme Court doesn't play nice, Biden can add more Supremes to the court to reduce the influence of those who act in bad faith.

PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#338397: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:23:31 AM

I've heard some Hispanic people talk about how they like the idea of a gender-neutral term for Spanish-speakers, but they don't like Latinx, so I've heard Latine as a suggested alternative (introduce "E" as the gender-neutral alternative to the masculine "O" and the feminine "A" for ending words).

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#338398: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:26:52 AM

You can always find people in a given group who will vote seemingly against their best interest, or because they prioritize something specific that still doesn't make a lot of sense.

Latin voters are already a strong potential demographic for the GOP anyway because a lot of the older ones are conservative, anti-abortion, and have a "fuck you got mine" attitude. In some sense it's not surprising that some of them would have voted Trump despite everything.

And the democrats did make a big mistake by not doing more to reach out to these communities (or at least, Biden's campaign did), and they need to fix that going forward, but some specific latin groups will probably be very difficult to gain ground with, like cubans.

Also in regards to the whole latinx thing, it was a term coined by LGBT+ latin people to try and create a more inclusive label for them, which is perfectly good but it's not realistic to expect that most latin people outside the US will want to use it.

EDIT:

I have to say, discussing Democrats sometimes feels like navigating a minefield of dog whistles and insinuations at times.

That's because US politics is full of dogwhistles and insinuations.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 9th 2020 at 1:29:11 PM

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#338399: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:29:33 AM

[up][up][up]Not without the Senate

[up][up]Yes. It sounds weird. Spanish language can already make accomodations to refer to things in a gender-neutral way if you spend a bit more than half a quark thinking about it.

If the latino LGBTQ+ people want to take Latinx for themselves, they are welcome to it. If they intend to brand anyone who doesn't use it as raging homophobes, they will find some recalcitrance.

Edited by Aszur on Nov 9th 2020 at 10:29:54 AM

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#338400: Nov 9th 2020 at 8:30:20 AM

That does seem like a more organic approach.

RE reasons for Trump doing as well as he did, I do think that Democrats could/should have done a lot more to present Trump as corrupt and self-dealing, because that might have persuaded a few more people that it wasn't in their interest to vote for him, despite how appealing all the bigotry was.

One theory I've found interesting is that because Republicans weren't really following social distancing, their get-out-the-vote was particularly successful because they were going door-to-door and having big in-person events, which Democrats weren't.

Also in the category of people who believe voting Trump is in their interest, Trump was able to arrange things so that people got a check with his name on it, but no aid was passed which could be identified with the Democratic Congress, since the Senate held it up. And with the lack of aid, it was probably a lot easier to get people to blame Democrats for the lock downs.


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