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Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#128276: Jun 30th 2016 at 8:29:52 AM

[up] And then soon followed by "Trump murdered"?

Keep Rolling On
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#128277: Jun 30th 2016 at 8:31:19 AM

Hillary doesn't have enough crazy, gun-worshipping, murder-happy psychopaths on her side for mutually-assured destruction.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#128278: Jun 30th 2016 at 8:31:30 AM

"Donald Trump cannot be allowed to merely lose the election, he needs to be humiliated so badly that the very ideas he represents are discredited in anything resembling mainstream politics for generations to come."

The country is too politically heterogeneous for something like this to happen. I'll settle for a Dem victory, no matter the margin.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#128279: Jun 30th 2016 at 8:35:36 AM

Still, I would send a good message if she was able to carry a few normally safe red states.

I remember that was shown to be a possibility early on but that could very easily have changed at this point.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#128280: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:01:23 AM

[up][up]Chirac got a historic 80% against Le Pen once. The FN is still very healthy.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
megarockman from The Sixth Borough (Experienced Trainee)
#128281: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:02:06 AM

The current 538 polls-plus projections (takes into account polls and things like the economy - this is the model most favorable to Trump at 26.5%) have Clinton with a 47% shot at NC, 39% shot at AZ, just under 1-in-3 for MO, a 27% chance at GA, and 21% for SC. Though I'd imagine these are not independent probabilities.

edited 30th Jun '16 9:03:44 AM by megarockman

The damned queen and the relentless knight.
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#128282: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:04:03 AM

Honestly the thing that scares me about a Trump presidency isn't really the man himself. He's a consummate attention whore, too inept and disinterested to enact any serious policies other than embezzling towards his own coffers before getting impeached. The real danger comes from his supporters who would be emboldened by his election to start burning crosses and firing guns in the streets.

Say what you will about Hillary, her checkered past, and her questionable allegiances, but I wouldn't feel less safe walking down the street around her supporters compared to Trump's.

edited 30th Jun '16 9:05:32 AM by AlleyOop

PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#128283: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:14:25 AM

Trump's ideas won't be discredited as long as the white voters behind him remain feeling like they're under the threat of marginalization, cultural extinction and that the system is out to ruin them.

Racism is ultimately a product of nurture (i.e. it's taught). That voting block will keep voting the way it does as long as it has something to make the mythology of its racism and paranoia feel like it's justified. That all the bad things it hears about Blacks, Muslims and Mexicans 'makes sense' to them.

You can't crush them electorally, that just entrenches and justifies the myth. See how most religious sects/cults work. There's a very strong X cannot Fail, only be Failed thing going on. Trump's ideas will only be hardened and crystallized further.

If you want to kill off those ideas, you've gotta find someway else to do it.

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#128284: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:17:09 AM

[up]Racism is, at its core, the fundamental root of the problem of 90% of the domestic issues our country faced both today and of decades past.

It's not going away, unfortunately. Especially considering that without the Southern Strategy, the GOP would be irrelevant, if not outright DOA at the polls

New Survey coming this weekend!
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#128285: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:20:34 AM

Not so sure about whether racism is solely taught. In-group bias is a thing that probably isn't solely nurtured.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#128286: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:22:21 AM

I'm not saying it isn't the basis of the problem.

I'm saying electoral landslide destruction ain't gonna do it. You need to give the marginalized whites a reason to turn their swords of racism into a plowshare of common humanity. But crushing them electorally, rubbing it into their faces, and mocking and jeering them to death probably sin't gonna fix the problem, or try to get such people to try something else when they end up vilified and a constant joke.

I'm not saying let them be racist, but if you want such ideas to die, you need to give them a reason to throw away those ideas.

Not so sure about whether racism is solely taught. In-group bias is a thing that probably isn't solely nurtured.
Not solely taught, but in-group bias is ultimately psychological. People are ultimately raised into racism/prejudice.

edited 30th Jun '16 9:24:06 AM by PotatoesRock

Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#128287: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:25:01 AM

[up]

You need to give the marginalized whites a reason to turn their swords of racism into a plowshare of common humanity. But crushing them electorally, rubbing it into their faces, and mocking and jeering them to death probably sin't gonna fix the problem, or try to get such people to try something else when they end up vilified and a constant joke.

I can only see that making the problems worse — are you suggesting that the answers lie with sustained (and reasonable) economic, political and electoral reform?

edited 30th Jun '16 9:25:33 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#128288: Jun 30th 2016 at 9:53:03 AM

Possibly, and trying to listen to these people and treat them as people instead of Othering them. I think socio-economic reform would help, but I think something else has to be attacked, and I'm not sure exactly what. Those that don't just want to see the world burn and might be easiest to offer the olive branch to, of what I understand, seem to share a belief they've been screwed out of opportunity, and no one gives a fuck about them.

Apparently a lot of the hatred of Blacks, in the south, was started by the Plantation owners to prevent their white subordinates and black slaves from both getting funny ideas together. Yes, it's arguably a bit of a classist issue like Captain keeps hounding on, but if you look, a lot of history trends towards the powerful, regardless of their titles, putting two groups against each other while they, the guys on top, do something the other two groups would object to if they weren't both trying to kill each other.

It probably requires reform, but I don't think it's solely a political answer. I think it's also a cultural one. You need to give these people a reason, that doesn't demean them or belittle them, that they'd be better off.

But the system sure ain't helping.

Demonic_Braeburn Yankee Doodle Dandy from Defective California Since: Jan, 2016
Yankee Doodle Dandy
#128289: Jun 30th 2016 at 10:29:46 AM

The Donald Trump campaign is vetting Chris Christie (R) as a potential running mate for the presumptive presidential nominee, according to multiple reports.

Any group who acts like morons ironically will eventually find itself swamped by morons who think themselves to be in good company.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#128290: Jun 30th 2016 at 10:30:50 AM

@Tactical: Really now, all of the domestic problems in America arise from racism? I would beg to differ rather strongly. While the GOP uses racism (and on a related note, religion) as a tool to mobilize poorly educated sectors of the population to vote against their own interests and against the common good, the agenda it has historically pursued when in power has largely been economic and foreign policy related until the traditional bosses lost control of the party to populists.

edited 30th Jun '16 10:33:25 AM by CaptainCapsase

DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#128291: Jun 30th 2016 at 10:31:03 AM

Well, somebody has to fetch President Trump's Big Macs.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#128292: Jun 30th 2016 at 10:34:03 AM

The problem I see is that, at its core, these people are folks who believe their culture and their way of life is being threatened, marginalized, and disenfranchised.

And they are absolutely right to think that, because it is. The culture of prejudice, of systemic oppression, is being steadily crushed under the heel of progress. Every time we start a fight over black kids being shot in the street by white cops, every time we shine a spotlight on rape culture, every time we do anything less than hanging immigrants in the streets for white people to point and sneer at, we are taking a match to the culture these people are so proud of.

We can't assure them that their culture isn't in danger, because it absolutely is. We can't discourage them from being defensive about their ideology, because we have every intention of burning it down. For people who believe they have a God-given right to hang a black man from a tree for looking at a pretty white lady, we have nothing to offer but the fact that they are wrong and that we will do everything in our power to strip their power from them.

The issues that these people feel threatened on are also issues that we can't afford to compromise on. We can't set a quota where, like, 50 black kids shot in the face is acceptable per year but no more than that. There's not a middle ground to be had on it. It has to end. It has to go. And that means people who believe it's a valuable part of their culture worth defending are going to push back on it.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#128293: Jun 30th 2016 at 10:41:57 AM

[up] Those kinds of hardcore racists are, in my opinion, comparitively rare in the present day relative to the number of people desperately looking for someone to blame for very real problems plaguing their lives.

vandro Shop Owner from The little shop that wasn't Since: Jul, 2009
Shop Owner
#128294: Jun 30th 2016 at 10:48:09 AM

We can't all be programmers, and the fact that globalization practically requires to retrain(which is not feasible) or ignore(which is how we got here) the blue-collar workers in developed nations, is a very real reason people are willing to side with racists who promise them dignity in work.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#128295: Jun 30th 2016 at 10:51:45 AM

[up] The long term consequences of applying the "divide and conquer" strategy to ethnic groups is another major part of why race issues in the United States are so serious; you can see a similar situation in the Balkans and in many nations that were formerly part of colonial empires.

@Potatoes: Economically empowering the victims of racial oppression is a good way to start; if blacks had a share of the country's wealth similar to other demographics in the country, I expect there's be significantly less persecution simply due to the fact that it would be much harder for, as an example, a police officer to shoot an unarmed black teenager and get away with it when the victims's family has the resources for a prolonged legal battle.

edited 30th Jun '16 11:08:09 AM by CaptainCapsase

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#128296: Jun 30th 2016 at 11:01:03 AM

Those kinds of hardcore racists are, in my opinion, comparitively rare in the present day relative to the number of people desperately looking for someone to blame for very real problems plaguing their lives.

The two are not mutually exclusive. Everyone has problems. Even rich people have problems. Hardship is a universal constant.

But not everyone decides, "The reason I have trouble finding employment? Mexicans. It's because of Mexicans."

And not everyone is looking for someone to blame for their problems. A lot of blame gets thrown around on other people's behalf. When Donald Trump says the Mexicans are sending their rapists into our country, do you think he's speaking from personal experience of having been raped by a Mexican?

edited 30th Jun '16 11:02:42 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#128297: Jun 30th 2016 at 11:11:22 AM

[up] Trump is certainly blaming them for his country's problems, and for the problems facing his supporters; in doing so he's telling other people who to blame. It's classic scapegoating, and is a big part of how these backwards attitudes are perpetuated.

edited 30th Jun '16 11:14:22 AM by CaptainCapsase

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#128298: Jun 30th 2016 at 11:11:29 AM

We can't all be programmers, and the fact that globalization practically requires to retrain(which is not feasible) or ignore(which is how we got here) the blue-collar workers in developed nations, is a very real reason people are willing to side with racists who promise them dignity in work.
Largely because the right-wing political establishment has steadfastly resisted any attempt to redefine what it means to work to include the possibility of minimum basic income and other policies that might redress their supporters' sensation of being left out of the global economy. They do this knowing that they can turn the resulting failings of the system back around on liberals, minorities, foreigners, or whatever, because their base is already primed to accept those things as facts.

The incestuous amplification of right-wing rhetoric is pernicious and quite possibly impervious to being broken by reality. The only way to get it out of our politics is to marginalize it, make it a laughingstock, point out how self-defeating and harmful it is. Giving it credence only emboldens it; we've seen that perfectly with Trump.

edited 30th Jun '16 11:14:13 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#128299: Jun 30th 2016 at 11:15:54 AM

[up] There's a difference between giving credence to racists and trying to resolve the underlying economic issues that are driving people to look for someone to blame, and which demagogues like Trump capitalize on. This phenomena isn't uniquely American, it's happening all over the western world.

edited 30th Jun '16 11:16:28 AM by CaptainCapsase

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#128300: Jun 30th 2016 at 11:22:24 AM

Probably more then that, given all the middle eastern violence going on


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