The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Flea »

whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:
"We do not punish people according to the Christian precepts of our faith -- so there’s a difference."
[/i]

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

beantownbubba wrote:Why does this preposterous, easily disprovable lie depress me more than so many other preposterous, easily disprovable lies? I don't know, but reading that Trump said that his tax proposal "will not benefit me" was like taking a punch to the stomach. The air went right out of me and the hole we're in suddenly seemed so much deeper, darker and inescapable.

People are always going to argue about the economic impact or fairness or of this or that tax or this or that deduction. That discussion is not even relevant to this issue. For this purpose let's even assume that this tax plan is the best idea ever to come out of Washington. We've got one of the richest men in America (or at least he says he is) saying that he won't benefit from the elimination of the estate tax. We've got a real estate developer whose complex business structure consists almost entirely of "pass through entities" like partnerships and limited liability companies saying that he won't benefit from a change in the tax code that will allow those who use pass through entities to turn much of their income from personal (taxed at 35% under the proposal and 39% now) to business (taxed at 25%) at the stroke of a pen. We've got someone who claims to be in the highest of income tax brackets claiming that he won't benefit from a straightforward reduction in the highest income tax rate. The only way any of this could be true would be if in fact Trump is not just not as successful as he claims but downright poor.

We're talking one to one correspondence, an exact overlay, of the taxes to be cut under this plan and the taxes Trump is supposed to pay. How on earth can he say that he won't personally benefit? The scope and audacity of the lie is so yuge as to be almost incomprehensible. How is this not obvious to everyone in America? Ok, the pass through stuff is arguably complicated (though a reduction of 14 percentage points, or about a 36% reduction from the current rate, would seem to be easy enough to comprehend), but the rest of it is completely obvious and requires no analysis or even computational skills.

Why not just say, "yeah, I benefit but it's not about me, the country benefits so much more"? I guess even Trump knows that the words "it's not about me" are just about the only ones that vast swaths of the public will know can't be true. Maybe the concept is so foreign to him that he couldn't speak those words even if he wanted to.

Whatever. I just can't stand the bullshit anymore.
Like I said. Read it and scream. Or pull your hair out. Or bang your head against the wall. Merely weeping seems hardly sufficient.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... 56028cd77b
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Speaking of taxes and tax cuts and tax reform, I don't think many people like the current system. From those who think the income tax is unconstitutional (aka fruitcakes w/ guns), to those on the right, center, left and everywhere else, everybody's got real problems w/ the way the tax system is designed and the way it works.

Which to me means that there's real room for negotiating here. There are an almost infinite number of outcomes (other than the income tax being abolished, sorry fruitcakes) a good number of which would be better than what we have. In a world of fair, honest, people who wish to do the right thing and good things for the most people, this would be a goldmine of opportunity. Instead we have Trump and the GOP not only doing their by now usual one party half baked (9 pages? Really?) shtick but talking about passing the thing w/out involving the Dems. In fact, the very fact that the GOP is approaching "tax reform" this way tells you all you need to know about what they're up to: If they had the majority of the country's interests at heart they would probably take a very different approach.

The plan is (a) awful, (b) a terrible waste of an opportunity and (c) made that much more grotesque by the outright lying about it.

And if you're saying "right, like you've got a better idea," yeah, I do. It's about 8 years old by now but it's still far better than what's currently on the table. For starters, it assumes/requires revenue neutrality (meaning the new plan would bring in the same amount of taxes as the current plan). IMHO that's the only way to truly tackle tax reform. Once you have a new system you can start talking about tax cuts, but just cutting taxes is not "tax reform" it's, surprise, surprise, just another giveaway to the rich.

Like I said, I just can't take the bullshit anymore.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

https://twitter.com/SalHernandez/status ... 64/video/1

in case there are any issues with that link......

“The loss of life, it’s always tragic, but it’s been incredible the results we have with respect to the loss of life. People can’t believe how successful that has been, relatively speaking,” Trump said.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

Chartering private jets: $400,000

Amount paid back to the American taxpayers: $51,887.31


Quitting your job before Trump can yell, “You’re fired!”: Priceless
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

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“Every death is a horror, but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous — hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump said, before turning to a local official to ask how many people had died in storm."
.................

“I think it’s now acknowledged what a great job we’ve done, and people are looking at that,” he said. “And in Texas and in Florida, we get an A-plus. And I’ll tell you what, I think we’ve done just as good in Puerto Rico, and it’s actually a much tougher situation."
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by pearlbeer »

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/r ... -iran-deal

Ugh. It is time to talk seriously about the 25th Amendment, or some other way to get this guy out of office. He is just piling on dangerous decisions, one after the other. From my understanding, nearly everyone in his own administration advises against decertifying the Iran deal. Very few in Congress or the Senate or the global stage are calling for a decertification of this deal. Moreover, how in the fuck are you going to be able to potentially negotiate North Korea out of their arms if you prove that you are very willing to go back on your word??? It is insane, incredibly dangerous and deeply stupid.

To make this kind of call, one should have a serious policy position an accompanying speech. To make a move like this as a country, we are owed a damn good explanation. Sadly, I doubt Trump really knows the details of this deal, other than 'Obama did it, so it must be bad.'
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

Son, this ain't a dream no more, it's the real thing

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

not even sure what the point of posting this is anymore, but...........

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/p ... v=top-news

Rex W. Tillerson....... was said to have called Mr. Trump a “moron.”

Mr. Tillerson initially did not deny it, but later had a spokeswoman insist he did not say it. The president, in an interview with Forbes magazine released on Tuesday, said that even if it were true, he was at least smarter than Mr. Tillerson. .

“I think it’s fake news,” he said. “But if he did that, I guess we’ll have to compare I.Q. tests. And I can tell you who is going to win.”
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by pearlbeer »

Pop just about says everything that needs saying here:

https://deadspin.com/gregg-popovich-cal ... 1819597527
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Mr. B »

pearlbeer wrote:Pop just about says everything that needs saying here:

https://deadspin.com/gregg-popovich-cal ... 1819597527
God I love how Pop stands up in the middle of Texas and says the god-damn right thing over and over again.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Mr. B wrote:
pearlbeer wrote:Pop just about says everything that needs saying here:

https://deadspin.com/gregg-popovich-cal ... 1819597527
God I love how Pop stands up in the middle of Texas and says the god-damn right thing over and over again.
The contrast in leadership style, leadership ability and success between Popovich and Trump are pretty damn stark.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by pearlbeer »

beantownbubba wrote:
Mr. B wrote:
pearlbeer wrote:Pop just about says everything that needs saying here:

https://deadspin.com/gregg-popovich-cal ... 1819597527
God I love how Pop stands up in the middle of Texas and says the god-damn right thing over and over again.
The contrast in leadership style, leadership ability and success between Popovich and Trump are pretty damn stark.
I'm hoping Pop eventually runs to replace our jack-ass Governor or Lt.Governor.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

pearlbeer wrote:I'm hoping Pop eventually runs to replace our jack-ass Governor or Lt.Governor.
If he's as smart as he appears to be he's too smart too do that.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

It's really too bad. The one useful thing I thought Trump & the Republican Congress might address effectively is tax reform. But as of this moment, they don't even seem to be trying as they default back to the comfort of a massive and poorly thought out tax cut.

Just to clearly define our terms, by tax cut I mean a reduction in tax rates that simply reduces the amount of taxes paid by taxpayers as a whole w/out addressing the corresponding drop in revenue and w/out addressing the systemic problems w/ the tax code.

By contrast, tax reform means addressing the systemic problems with the tax code, preferably by scrapping the current structure and creating something far more simple and straightforward and which is geared to correcting the reality and perception that the tax code is a game regularly won by the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Put more simply, tax reform would result in companies like GE actually paying taxes.

FWIW, I don't see how tax reform can be seriously addressed unless it is intended to be revenue neutral (i.e. the new system should be structured to raise the same amount of revenue as the current system). Otherwise, you're never dealing w/ apples & apples and you can never tell what you're really accomplishing. Once you've reached revenue neutrality then you can make further adjustments if necessary to consistently support the overall goals of the new code (and that can be done before or after the new code is put in place). But cutting revenues first makes a joke of the "reform" part of the equation right from the start.

Sad. Pathetic. Predictable. Sigh.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by lotusamerica »

Nothing personal, but this is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard you say. Based on what would you ever have thought this?

Ok, I guess that is personal, but personal with a smile...
beantownbubba wrote:It's really too bad. The one useful thing I thought Trump & the Republican Congress might address effectively is tax reform..

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

lotusamerica wrote:Nothing personal, but this is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard you say. Based on what would you ever have thought this?

Ok, I guess that is personal, but personal with a smile...
beantownbubba wrote:It's really too bad. The one useful thing I thought Trump & the Republican Congress might address effectively is tax reform..
Nah, not even close to the most ridiculous thing I've ever said, even on this site.

In my defense I note the small but important modifier "might." I.e. There was a chance, something far less than a certainty.

I thought that tax reform, at least as I conceive of it (i) crosses (touches on?) so many interests and POV that are somewhere between nothing in common and diametrically opposed on most issues and (ii) offers so many opportunities for old fashioned compromise and horse trading. Perhaps most relevant or responsive to your question, tax reform could be a place where populism, economic nationalism, traditional Republican conservatism and some portions of the Democratic moderate-to-liberal agenda meet. And whatever the final product turned out to be, Trump would sign it. Yeah, I know, that's a mouthful and requires a detailed analysis to support/defend, but hopefully just the broad statement is enough to answer your question (i.e. right or wrong, that's how I thought about the subject).
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by lotusamerica »

Haha... thanks for not being offended. That's a really rare trait these days ;-)

Yeah, I get it. You'd think. I'd like to as well. Problem is, or at least part of the problem is, everybody hates each other so much and are so involved in constant battling and media warring that they can't even agree on the things that they agree on.

And I'm becoming....conservative. No not that kind of conservative, but conservative about changing laws because almost every major change in law and budgeting for many years now seems to just tilt the table more toward multinational corporations, military (and related contractual) spending, rich people. And by military I don't mean the troops - they're still pretty much paid shit.
beantownbubba wrote:
Nah, not even close to the most ridiculous thing I've ever said, even on this site.

In my defense I note the small but important modifier "might." I.e. There was a chance, something far less than a certainty.

I thought that tax reform, at least as I conceive of it (i) crosses (touches on?) so many interests and POV that are somewhere between nothing in common and diametrically opposed on most issues and (ii) offers so many opportunities for old fashioned compromise and horse trading. Perhaps most relevant or responsive to your question, tax reform could be a place where populism, economic nationalism, traditional Republican conservatism and some portions of the Democratic moderate-to-liberal agenda meet. And whatever the final product turned out to be, Trump would sign it. Yeah, I know, that's a mouthful and requires a detailed analysis to support/defend, but hopefully just the broad statement is enough to answer your question (i.e. right or wrong, that's how I thought about the subject).

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Clams »

Yes it's very tough to offend beantownbubba (and believe me, I've tried)
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Cross posted from the books thread:

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla is barely a book. It's listed at 143 pages, and that's w/ a lot of help from typesetters, designers and whoever else makes all that white space look almost natural. It's really more of an extended magazine/journal essay and the lack of footnotes reinforces its status as "popular journalism" more than rigorous academic writing. But when you've got the goods, size doesn't matter and if the lack of footnotes helps the book reach a broader audience I'm all for it.

This is a really incisive, important book that should be read by everyone who cares about politics in the USA, but especially by anyone who considers themselves to be a Democrat, liberal, leftie, progressive or even merely anti-Trump. I've never heard of Lilla before but apparently he's got a good reputation as a smart, thoughtful guy (he's a professor at Columbia) and smart and thoughtful is what he delivers.

The book is mostly big picture, overview/explanation of trends-type stuff and it is enormously helpful in understanding how we got where we are. His analysis of what he calls the Roosevelt Dispensation morphing into the Reagan Dispensation morphing into today's relative anarchy has the satisfying feel of "yeah, THAT's what I thought even though I didn't know I was thinking it."

His critique of identity politics as practiced by the Democrats, on campus and by the left generally is spot on and in the context in which he places it (i.e. post the 2 major Dispensations) makes a whole lot of sense. As often happens w/ books that are good at identifying and explaining a problem, the "how to fix it" part is less than compelling. In particular, the irony of him telling the left not to preach, lecture and turn everything into a moral and mortal battle over good and evil while he preaches, lectures and turns everything into a moral and mortal battle would be amusing if it weren't such a letdown, but even so, his message is important and largely correct imho. Admittedly Lilla seems to be settling some scores w/ those who apply identity politics to stifle debate and freedom on campus, but that's ok 'cause he's right :)

His concept of "citizenship" as the complex of rights and obligations that unites us and forms the basis of any lasting political movement is sensible. The related analysis of how leftish politics moved from "outward looking" and "we-based" to inward and self-absorbed has the ring of truth, though it is surprising that he made it through 140 pages w/out once mentioning Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism. And his observations concerning the reliance on and unsustainability of "forced" changes through the courts and other non-democratic means explains a lot about how the left has found itself where it is today.

As someone who has written/spoken often about the dangers, dead ends and unsatisfying intellectual underpinnings of identity politics, THIS is what I meant even though I never articulated it as well.

The Once and Future Liberal might also be seen as a companion piece to George Lakoff's The Political Mind about which I posted in March, as the latter asks similar questions and addresses similar issues from a different perspective. While they come at things from different backgrounds, Lilla and Lakoff reach similar conclusions about the way issues need to be presented and the ways in which large groups of people hear, process and understand political messages (in a word it's a lot more of an emotional subconscious process than we like to think). If I had to choose one it would be Lilla's books because the central place of identity politics in the current formulation or understanding of leftish politics is to my way of thinking the key issue for anyone who shares similar goals but has significant doubts about the means.

Lilla writes well and clearly which, combined w/ its [lack of] length, makes it a short, easy read well worth your time and attention.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

I read it, and have seen/read Lilla interviewed quite a bit. I think he gets it almost entirely wrong. I've posted a link below that I think is a really good counter argument that I mostly agree with. I would pick nits and share my own thoughts but I probably won't have time until the weekend.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... lla-215607
Identity politics—the practice of appealing to voters’ tribal instincts at the expense of weaving a more all-embracing agenda—is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it’s as American as apple pie. More to the point, throughout our history, identity politics has almost always meant white identity politics—a style of persuasion rooted in appeals to white resentment and privilege. It was the Democratic Party’s key strategy in 1864; it’s what animated the insurgent campaigns of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace; and it was the Republican Party’s major play in 2016, when its standard bearer, Donald Trump—the country’s leading birther and a stalwart nativist of the crudest variety—incited angry white voters against the specter of their multicultural present and future.


It’s ironic, then, that today’s critics of identity politics focus not on the GOP, which has progressively degenerated into a revanchist white pride party, but on Democrats who, according to Columbia University’s Mark Lilla, espoused a politics of inclusive liberalism “from the New Deal up until 1980,” but then pivoted toward an “ideology … that fetishizes our individual and group attachments” at the expense of “a universal democratic ‘we.’”

The problem with this analysis is not simply that it sidesteps white identity politics, past and present. It also gets the history of modern liberalism wrong. The architects of the New Deal coalition were not, as Lilla suggests, silent on the matter of race or ethnicity. Indeed, they understood that the Democratic Party’s electoral majority was shaky because it relied on a collection of otherwise discordant voting blocs. And the candidates who managed to hold it together did so by embracing identity politics.

In other words, identity politics didn’t make the Democrats lose; it was the only way to win.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

More rebuttal. this one more of a "debate" piece between Lilla and Symone D. Sanders

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... 68f6acf305
Lilla says it’s easier to unite people around principles, rather than asking white people to try to imagine what it’s like to be of a different race or ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.
“Rather than immediately talking about African Americans or transgender or gays or women or whatever group, instead, you should start by saying, ‘Do we or don’t we agree about equal protection under the law?’ If we believe in equal protection, then women being paid three-quarters of what men earn is unfair. What about redlining or lending policies that prevent African Americans from moving to the suburbs? Once you have people in parties agreeing on principles, then you can try to persuade them.”


Sanders argues that can be accomplished without silencing everyone else. She pointed to a survey of “swing voters” (Trump voters who had voted for Obama previously) and Democratic voters who didn’t vote in 2016 (largely African Americans and millennials) commissioned by Priorities USA.
“The results might be stunning to some. Both groups were concerned the government might make cuts to Medicare and Medicaid or other important government programs, both were concerned about their economic situation, both supported increased spending on infrastructure and both supported providing paid leave to new mothers. A strategy of separating ‘white-working class voters’ from the rest of the electorate, is what Donald Trump did in 2016 and harks back to the ‘Southern strategy’ of the Republican Party during the presidential election of 1968. It is a type of ‘identity politics’ for white people. This is a strategy that feeds off inflammatory rhetoric, false dichotomies and the ‘othering’ of people. When in fact, voters actually have more in common with one another than they think. We do not have to deny or ignore our differences to find common ground.”
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

From NYT Review of Books. This is a little more balanced conceding that Lilla has some points but fails badly at making them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/book ... beral.html
Lilla acknowledges that social movements like feminism and civil rights played important roles in American history, raising questions and insisting on changes that could be secured no other way. At the moment, however, he finds such movements to be counterproductive, sucking energy away from the simple and urgent task of getting more Democrats into office. He disparages Black Lives Matter as “a textbook example of how not to build solidarity,” and dismisses “sex relations, the family, the secretarial pool, schools, the grocery store” (read: women’s issues) as all but irrelevant to serious politics.

This is a shame, because he identifies some truly important questions that liberals and leftists of all stripes will have to face together: How should the Democratic Party balance diversity with a common vision of citizenship? How and where should concerned Americans focus their energies — on social-movement activism, on “resistance,” on electoral politics? How should universities preserve free speech in an age of impassioned conflict? How, for that matter, can Democrats start winning a few more local races? Lilla acts as if there are easy answers to these questions. “We need no more marchers,” he writes. “We need more mayors.” But isn’t it possible that we need both?
I'm sorry, Bubba. Please don't think this is personal but this touched a nerve. I think what Lilla suggest completely ignores political reality and the fact that he's calling for the reversal of identity politics while Trump and his ilk are relishing in it and successfully won with it is ironic in the extreme.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Iowan »

Tequila Cowboy wrote:From NYT Book Review. This is a little more balanced conceding that Lilla has some points but fails badly at making them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/book ... beral.html
Lilla acknowledges that social movements like feminism and civil rights played important roles in American history, raising questions and insisting on changes that could be secured no other way. At the moment, however, he finds such movements to be counterproductive, sucking energy away from the simple and urgent task of getting more Democrats into office. He disparages Black Lives Matter as “a textbook example of how not to build solidarity,” and dismisses “sex relations, the family, the secretarial pool, schools, the grocery store” (read: women’s issues) as all but irrelevant to serious politics.

This is a shame, because he identifies some truly important questions that liberals and leftists of all stripes will have to face together: How should the Democratic Party balance diversity with a common vision of citizenship? How and where should concerned Americans focus their energies — on social-movement activism, on “resistance,” on electoral politics? How should universities preserve free speech in an age of impassioned conflict? How, for that matter, can Democrats start winning a few more local races? Lilla acts as if there are easy answers to these questions. “We need no more marchers,” he writes. “We need more mayors.” But isn’t it possible that we need both?
I'm sorry, Bubba. Please don't think this is personal but this touched a nerve. I think what Lilla suggest completely ignores political reality and the fact that he's calling for the reversal of identity politics while Trump and his ilk are relishing in it and successfully won with it is ironic in the extreme.
You aren't wrong about Trump using white identity politics to his advantage, but I'd argue that the reason he was able to do it is a result of the backlash created by the identity politics the left gathered around previously.

Identity politics scored some huge left wing victories by bringing disadvantaged groups into the fold. But then some on the l left (especially in campus settings) took it to the point of excluding the historically advantaged groups. This starts becoming not only hypocritical as hell, but divisive. It fuels people on the other extreme, pushes away sympathetic but unaffected folks, and opens the door for a monster to seize that scenario.

Which is exactly what happened.

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Tequila Cowboy
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

Iowan wrote:You aren't wrong about Trump using white identity politics to his advantage, but I'd argue that the reason he was able to do it is a result of the backlash created by the identity politics the left gathered around previously.

Identity politics scored some huge left wing victories by bringing disadvantaged groups into the fold. But then some on the l left (especially in campus settings) took it to the point of excluding the historically advantaged groups. This starts becoming not only hypocritical as hell, but divisive. It fuels people on the other extreme, pushes away sympathetic but unaffected folks, and opens the door for a monster to seize that scenario.

Which is exactly what happened.
Did that have some effect? Sure, but I would argue a couple of points; 1) you can't put that genie back in the bottle 2) fighting the identity politics on the right with some kind of Kumbaya version of shared issues is just not reality. The quote above from Lilla that “We need no more marchers,” he writes. “We need more mayors.”. How about we need more Mayors coming from the marchers? Political leaders were born out of the Civil Rights and feminist movements why not out of the LGBTQ and Black Lives Matters movements? The key is leadership from the grass roots and that comes from a sense of tribalism which, in the perfect apex, leads to democratic whole. Just as one example Lilla chastises and virtually ignores any benefit from BLM, do you really think the Democratic party wants them as enemies? If you think the GOP is fractured just watch the Democrats if they take Lilla's advice. the Politico piece I posted above is excellent. It shows how we've always been a nation of identity politics and how that has informed so much of our history, good and bad. Pretending diversity doesn't exist or is somehow unimportant in a soon to be a non-white majority nation seems suicidal.
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Iowan
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Iowan »

My point is more on the lines of that if we can't get past identity politics, we doom our existence to fighting over things that shouldn't be relevant to how you're treated by our government.

Diversity should be embraced and celebrated. It's often used as a wedge. That doesn't mean you ignore it, you just quit wedging. There are absolutely going to be future leaders in, for example, BLM. Find the people who articulate the real point (our criminal justice system disproportionately harms African American males, and we need to change it) of the movement; not just yell at people and say that their inherent privilege invalidates their belief or opinion.

The left has positively used identity politics in the past, but it's reaching a point where they create more division. To get past the idea that some groups are inherently inferior and thus don't deserve full rights, you to have rise above tribalism. Tribalism will just perpetuate the idea that some group is going to rise to the top and subjugate the others. Which is what equal rights is supposed to destroy.

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