But do we just ignore the actual racism and sexism? That’s the thing - intersectionality is a very hard thing to come to grips with. Class, gender, and race as modes of analysis are not easy to bring together, because they are seen as mutually exclusive, by many of us. And “coastal elites” is a somewhat useless term that doesn’t get at the heart of real power and who actually wields it.
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(Belches after crow sandwich.)
Note to self: listen to more Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh for respectful, honest, non-bullying characterization methods of the other side in order to improve effectiveness.
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In a new review of the 1970’s paranoid thriller A Parallax View
"Well, this review is scheduled to go live on Election Day 2016, where the United States of America will decide whether or not “loud man from television show” is enough of a curriculum vitae to become the most powerful man on the planet. And if you think things looked dire in 1974, imagine how we’re going to look with four decades’ hindsight if a man who can be provoked into a week-long tirade by a tweet gets to control the American thermonuclear stockpile.Actually, if that happens, we’d better hope that radioactive cockroaches have a sophisticated oral tradition because there’s no chance that humanity’s going to make it to the end of a Trump presidency if someone from China says something mean about him on television.
I guess I’d rather spend some time in a fictional world where evil is in unquestioned control of my country, but that it’s a corporate villain rather than a single human one. Because at least a corporation is going to try and perform in a manner that makes money. There’s no point in being the richest man on the cinder that used to be Earth, so an evil CEO looking to reshape the country into something favorable to his company (over a dozen or so of the little people’s dead bodies) is preferable in many ways to the evil that could potentially be in charge in January of 2017. I’m sure that the filmmakers thought this was going to be a horror movie, but I wonder if they ever saw things getting so bad in real life that their film would be a comforting escapist entertainment.
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Hasan said it better than I could, so here:
I get that not everyone who voted for Trump did so because they personally are racist (although “racist” is a lot broader than “attends KKK victory rallies”), but just like we blame people in other countries for not doing anything to stand up to racist totalitarian autocrats on their way up the power ladder, people who voted for Trump cannot be disconnected from the racism and hatred that were central to his campaign.
All that having been said, the solution is to recognize and understand why people were so willing to ignore all of the ugliness that Trump unloaded on America during the campaign, and work to address those problems so that otherwise-decent people don’t end up choosing between “it might not get any better for me” and “I don’t care if it gets worse for anyone else” - even if those perceptions are flawed, it’s the choice they ultimately felt they were presented with this year.
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I’ve mentioned my interracial-lesbians-for-Drumpf friends on here… My wife’s aunt and cousin both voted for him – they are Mexican-Cuban (not the moneyed sort). All of them seemed to be motivated by the Killary Mythos.
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It could be seen as such, if:
- Those were her own actual views
- Islam was a race, rather than a religion
Millie, you know we don’t always see eye to eye, but over the last 20+ years as a white cis male I have been told countless times:
-I am the reason misogyny exists.
-All racial issues are my fault.
-I am the perpetrator of rape culture.
-I am a homophobe/hater of anything LBGTQ.
-I am ignorant, stupid, worthless, and should be exiled from society.
The reality is these people don’t care about the same issues a lot of BB does, it’s not a part of their lives. It is far more important for them to exert their energy and time on finding a way to replace their ever dwindling income and security. They have reached a point where their desperation has turned from fear into anger and Trump was a way to channel this. Everyone posting in these Trump forums comments about how scared they are, how uncertain, how bad it’s going to be. Welcome to how they feel. On a personal level the vast majority of Trump voters don’t want to see you, the left, or anyone else hurt - they want what everyone else wants, a voice and respect.
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I would say that anybody who would actually change their vote based upon what a few celebrities say about them and/or their “camp” is not really giving proper consideration to the issues at hand, anyway. If blowing leaves don’t end up here, they end up over there - and there is no way to please or avoid alienating everyone.
I would ask those who were offended “Why exactly do you think she is talking about you?”
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That’s exactly what I’m seeing. That, and the weird belief – against all evidence to the contrary – that he’s a good businessman who isn’t a fraud.
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You haven’t been told that: you’ve internalized statements people have made, thinking they’re talking about you personally.
Most women have men in their lives they love dearly. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a huge problem with regard to misogyny. The two facts co-exist. The same is true with regard to other forms of bigotry.
It’s not all about you.
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Well apparently half the country has internalized the part where they keep getting called idiots, stupid, worthless, and ignored. I mean I’ve watched half or more of the regular BB commenters verbally scorn what the Trump supporters have done.
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And, crucially, they don’t care that the person promising to give it to them will take it away from so many others.
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Yes, there’s so MUCH shit smeared on him that his supporters are wiling to look past and pretend they can’t smell. What I’m trying to grapple with is how the establishment left failed to see what it was that so many of supporters were seeing in him that made them overlook the shit and ignore its smell – I really don’t think all that many of them voted for him BECAUSE of the shit. For so many (maybe most?), it was the perception of him as an outsider to a system that they feel and believe isn’t working for them, and his claim that he could hear their pain and was going to heal it. I keep coming back to Michael Moore’s comment, that they see him as a Molotov cocktail they can throw through the establishment’s window. It’s a huge, and legitimate, sentiment that the establishment Dems refused to acknowledge, let alone address. (not that I think you disagree with any of that)
I scorn what they’ve done too. They looked past the shit, and failed to realize how it’s about to smeared all over the place, and on them too. But what I don’t scorn en masse is “them,” the Trump voters, or at least, I don’t scorn all of their motivations. I have as much scorn for a Dem establishment that IS elitist and out of touch, which accounts for a lot of why they failed to reach so many Trump voters that they would have otherwise. Hell, it basically accounts for why they were all in from very early on for Clinton instead of Sanders.
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Yes, well, Trump might talk about helping working families, but so far his policies aren’t much different than what other Republicans have offered over the years. And those who voted for Trump because he was a “Washington outsider” and was going to “drain the swamp” should watch and see just how many Washington insiders end up in his cabinet. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
True, but at the same time, why can’t Americans recognize that Obama was hamstrung at every turn by Republicans in congress who refused to allow anything to get done. Democrats are typically willing to work with a Republican President even if they disagree, whereas the GOP said from day one “nope, nothing’s going to get done, it’s our duty to oppose the President even on things we might normally be OK with.”
Whether voters wanted Trump in office because they thought he would really address their economic grievances, or if they just wanted to send the Democrats a message, the reasoning is faulty or foolish in both cases.
I agree, the Democrats should become a lot more progressive and let the chips fall where they may. But I doubt a President Sanders would get anything done in a GOP-controlled congress, and a squeezed middle class would still be in the same bind.
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And don’t forget he without question will take it away from them.
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But as SamB pointed out, if we are going to put all Muslims into a blame bucket and have them police themselves, then we should have our own white male blame bucket (hmm, I like that phrase).
Just because you are not racist, bigoted, horrible scum it does not exclude you from responsibility, not anymore.
Black people can’t say, ‘Oh, I’m not one of those gang members that kills people’, ‘I look black, but I identify as a white person’. White people somehow can get away with the phrase ‘I’m not racist, but…’
So, we white men have a lot to answer for. Being open-minded isn’t enough. By our inaction we allow all of this to perpetuate. If you aren’t actively condemning racism, you are actually condoning it with your silence. I just read through all of Trump’s 100 day plans and as a white middle-class man, I’m going to benefit big time. But at the loss of everyone else who is not as fortunate as me.
This is just wrong and unfair.
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Well, that’s Sanders point, isn’t it?
If Trump isn’t full of shit, and really wants to help working people, he’ll get support. But he isn’t, so he won’t, and it’ll be pointed out.
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“Welcome to how they feel.” Christ I think you are being earnest too.
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I’m new to this online political persuasion stuff. I’m a chronic lurker, but this election has me typing. Please see milliefink’s comments in this thread for a better-expressed version of the point I’m trying to make.
I know and am related to a lot of these people. The ones I know aren’t monsters. I just think that we progressives have got to use our empathy superpowers on those with legit economic fears and concerns in order to persuade the persuadable among them.
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You have a point there about Hillary failing to bring in the conservative working class base. The DNC likes to focus on more liberal, progressive agendas and policies (not entirely but more than the republicans), and for this race the DNC really leaned into the progressive rhetoric… further alienating and driving conservative minded people toward Trump.
Frankly Bernie was the one to beat Trump, and Hillary and the DNC have no one to blame but themselves for cheating him out of real chance to victory.
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