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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Out of curiosity, what are your guys' thoughts on Jon Stewart's comments in this
article regarding Trump's victory? Namely this quote:
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Yeah, my biggest concern is not Trump per se but the impact it will have in america, I feel it create the dea that feeling are more important, that politics and status quo are like fashion stament that can get change if it a little bit stale and the whole "Laws are idiotic if they dont get me what I want"
While is true, is hard to said for other who vote from trump for other reason aside of racism, as best they are delusional at worst they have been played by a con man
Stewart isn't necessarily wrong, and he is correct in saying that dialogue and conversation is key going forward. However that doesn't change that even the most benign Trump voters, the ones simply concerned about their economic future and who aren't personally particularly racist, were still complicit enablers in normalizing his bigoted behavior, and were ignorant enough to believe that the snake oil he was selling them was actually going to solve all their problems. Their distrust in the political system has only created the possibility that an even worse system will be created in its place.
edited 17th Nov '16 9:57:13 PM by Draghinazzo
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And continuing that isn't going to get them to vote Democrat any further. You can condemn all you want but you're not going to change their minds unless you bring something else to the table. You attract flies with honey, not vinegar. You may think that your stopping short of calling them fullblown racists is an extreme concession on your part that somehow sets you aside from the attitude Stewart is condemning, but all other people see is a Principles Zealot.
edited 17th Nov '16 10:02:56 PM by AlleyOop
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If I was going to assign blame, I would try and explain to them the distinction between being personally racist and being complicit in racism.
It's like committing a hit and run against someone you hate, as opposed to falling asleep on the wheel and hitting a pedestrian as a side effect.
In the latter case, you didn't particularly hate the pedestrian, but you showed a deliberate carelessness about what would happen if you were to take that course of action (driving while extremely tired) and it still resulted in someone getting hurt.
It's not about your private life, it's about responsibility.
And it's undeniable that in their ignorance they may have created an even more crooked system than the one they were trying to displace. And if everything goes to shit they may not even realize it, because they won't be told about it. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
edited 17th Nov '16 10:02:22 PM by Draghinazzo
I'm just gonna quote Hasan Minhaj here.
“Even if that’s not why most people voted for him, open racism should just be a deal breaker. You may not personally be a racist, sexist xenophobe, but that comes with the package… so if you take that deal, what you’re telling me is, ‘Hey man, I don’t hate you. I just don’t care about you.'”
Maybe the people who voted for Trump aren't ableist, but they watched him mock a disabled man on national TV and thought 'that's not a dealbreaker'. Maybe they aren't misogynist, but they listened to him claim that the women bringing rape cases against him 'wouldn't be [his] first choice' and thought 'he tells it like it is'. Maybe they aren't racist, but they watched him... well, say just about anything, and decided he should be President for it.
So no, Jon Stewart, you're right, we shouldn't assume that all the poor white voters are racist. We should take this election as a clear sign that poor white voters couldn't give less of a shit about Muslims being deported or women being punished for having abortions or gay children being tortured, as long as someone tells them loudly enough that they'll make the jobs come back. But how do you reach people like that? If you can only appeal to them through their own economic interest, how do you do that when it feels like nobody understands economics, statistics or science anymore?
I'm tired. Less than two weeks out and I'm already so tired of this.
edited 17th Nov '16 10:06:37 PM by RedSavant
It's been fun.Here's a link to the Flynn story.
So far, he has only been asked to be the National Security Adviser. Contrary to popular belief, he hasn't actually accepted the position just yet.
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Simple: You have to make them feel, by giving them an appealing rhetoric and being charismatic. Your arguments should still be based on facts and logic, but if you can't dress them up in a convincing fashion you're not gonna get very far.
Welcome to post-fact politics.
edited 17th Nov '16 10:08:00 PM by Draghinazzo
Quite frankly, if the Democrats want to gain power again, they are going to have to change their strategy, big time. Democrats can be the morally superior political party all they want, but with the Republicans controlling everything, the Democrats can't do shit to stop the Republicans or Trump from implementing every horrible thing they want. The Democrats have to convince people to vote for them, especially in the Rust Belt where the presidential election was lost.
edited 17th Nov '16 10:23:48 PM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food BadlyGentle reminder than Hilary won the popular vote by margin larger than a fair number of electoral winners- in terms of absolute number of votes, she's ahead of everyone but Obama. I'm sceptical of the idea that they need to 'change their strategy, big time' when their current strategy, although it may have lost, lost by the smaller amount any strategy has ever lost by.
They need to win in the future, yes. But it seems to me they have a lot more room to lose support than they do to gain it- which, given that they current control absolutely nothing, says a lot about how borked the system is- so strategy changes should be approached cautiously. We need to be on the defensive right now; protecting what we have and praying the GOP will stand up to Trump.
I think Stewart is ignoring that while they didn't vote for Trump because they're racist, being willing to vote for Trump is a sign fo racism. Not racism is the form of hatred of minorities, but racism is the form of a willingness to let minorities die and suffer so that you can profit.
Now here's the super hard thing, the fact that people who voted for Trump are racist can't be a conversation ender, they're racist enough to be willing to let minorities die if it profits them, that's horrific, but we still need them and that means we have to show them that letting minorities die won't profit them.
They're racist and self-interested, we still have to appeal to them though and that appeal will probably include not strait up calling them racist.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThe popular vote however does nothing at this time. As long as the electoral vote exists, it means they need to appeal to all voters, not just some. So they absolutely do need to change their strategy. And you know what? Even if the electoral vote gets removed, it's still better to not throw out accusations and talk to them in a completely reasonable manner and try to convince them of what they're doing and why it's wrong morally.
Shadow?Thing is the way the system works means it doesn't matter how much support they get in the states that care the most about socially progressive issues, like the East and West Coast. Those states are already well within their grasp and it wasn't enough to win the election. What they need is to obtain consistent and decisive victories in the less diverse Rust Belt states. They can afford to lose ground among the voters who demand that they prioritize social issues without budging in favor of more economic ones.
Again that's not a nuance most of these people understand, due to lack of education or exposure to media, a perception that liberals are arrogant and self-righteous, and what have you. Collectively as a society it seems like we're simply not "ready" for that kind of message yet. It's seen as ivory tower level discourse, like a lot of discussion about Internalized Categorism, cultural appropriation, rape culture, and things like "racism = power + privilege, therefore minorities can technically never be 'racist'". All of these things are valid and big deals when presented in their proper context, but already also suffer badly from being misconstrued by the very liberals whose jobs are to understand these things.
So if even liberal wannabe intellectuals are constantly using these terms wrong, then a high school dropout working in a car factory certainly won't get it either. And examples of liberals behaving badly with these terms gets more publicity than the correct uses of them, because people fucking up makes for good tabloid fodder in general. Therefore you have to appeal to these people with a different kind of language. Even if it feels like you're watering down your message, you have to present it in a way that these people can understand and support.
edited 17th Nov '16 11:02:52 PM by AlleyOop
The tricky part will be convincing those people that those local industries and jobs (coal and steel mostly) are on an inevitable road to obsolescence and that it's time to embrace other opportunities. It will be up to the Democrats to provide and educate them on those opportunities.
It's not going to be easy to convince people who are afraid of change to embrace it instead.
While I do agree with the necessity of watering down the message, I do find it kind of ironic, considering the whole "anti-PC" thing Trump supporters love to flaunt. But liberals have to watch their words, avoid sounding "smug", can't call people racist or deplorable even if they are doing racist and deplorable things, etc.
edited 17th Nov '16 10:49:16 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedIn this case, the propaganda machine of the republican party play a role in handle things to trump, as they create the pausability that ether Hilary is worse than Trump or that the media is having double standard, so they can counter everything "Trump said a racist thing? Hilary said the super predators coment, Trump said awfull things about women? Hilary defend is husband, Trump is to friendly with Russia? Hilary and Obama dosent said anything about the Saudis" if you mix with Trump outsider status, it create a up hill battle for her.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"When I say "change their strategy, big time," what I mean is winning elections in both state governments and the federal government as well as convincing more people in the Rust Belt to vote Democrat again. These are the very places where the Democrats are losing to Republicans. Democrats can get 100% of people in California and New York to come out and vote Democrat, but California and New York are just two states out of fifty and in the United States, every state matters.
Wizard Needs Food Badly

Should that scenario come to pass, we can only hope the next generation of American oligarchs are more competent than Trump.
edited 17th Nov '16 9:30:01 PM by CaptainCapsase