Eeeeh, Murdoch and his ilk are pretty platform-agnostic. Our loony press is all about war with Spain this week. Whats in the barmy papers in Oz?
It wasnāt 45ās base who voted for all that shitty downright evil state and local ārepresentationāā¦
The pre-Trump GOP base were also overwhelmingly white, racist and not-poor.
Iām not seeing a huge contrast in the demographics. The Trumpeters have a few more overt Nazis, the old-school GOP had a few more Machiavellian plutocrats.
But, in general, itās the same people.
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Sure, those bastards fuck over every culture they touch, but some culturesā give them more to work with than others.
Although thereās no shortage of ugly here in Oz, America does ugly best - just cast a glance to the White House to see the personification.
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I think @Wanderfound is right about the gerrymandering issue, actually and the role that plays in getting and keeping the GOP in power, especially on a state level. Here in GA, that literally just happened again, with some previously very white, very middle class districts getting some more diversity and the district lines being moved to preserve that white, middle class demographic.
This is common practice and is more blatant now that the voting rights act has been effectively gutted. [quote=ātlwest, post:15, topic:98161ā]
Iām unwilling to assume that a huge number of Americans (or any group) are either deeply stupid or just simply evil, so Iāll stick with sociological speculation about culture.
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Honestly, I think that they (we?) are smart enough to see the corruption in the system and are seeking out ways around that. They also realize that the rot is in both sides, and are willing to try anything to get it out. They just donāt see how Trump himself is actually still connected to that rot. They assumed that his wealth and temperament would mean he could be free of this rot, but they were wrong, because he is a core part of the larger rot of American inequality.
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I dunno, I think you have to be pretty fucken thick to either fail to look at the guyās history, or assume that somehow it wonāt be relevantā¦
Anyone who bought that shit about draining the swamp is an absolute sucker.
Hey, I know! Iām sick of politicians, letās elect someone who isnāt one.
Except he lies even more than a politician. Thatās pretty special. Oh, and by the way, all that machinery of democracy is considered quaint these days; surplus to requirements.
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To be fair, Obama ran on a platform of greater transparency, and although the radical right was wrong about many of the things he was doing in secret, there is no doubt that the security state didnāt go away, but in fact expanded under Obamaā¦ He even engaged in a war on whistle blowers.
I think that there are certainly the just flat out ignorant, but there is the āletās burn it downā contingent.
But sure enough, many Americans are apparently ambivalent about democracy, maybe in part because they really see themselves going no where fast. Thatās not entirely untrue, even if itās not the entire truth of the matter.
Iām not working up a defense of Trumpkins here, just a more complicated explanation, as I see it. YMMVā¦
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the targeting of whistleblowers particularly bugs me about Obama.
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Growing up in suburbs of NYC Iāve had a lifetime of watching Trump lie.
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I think people tend to focus on the presidential disaster. But to me the story of American exceptionalism is in the Republican majorities everywhere else. Obama helped me ignore this fact, but dear God are a lot of Republicans elected at the state and congress level, and I donāt think itās just gerrymandering and disenfranchisement (although Iād like to believe so).
While I like to put those āother peopleā in a box labelled awful, a tiny bit of honesty requires me to look inward. Do I support open borders? No. Yet, Canada could take in 100 million, and their lives would be massively improved. It would be the greatest possible good that Canada could ever do in terms of increasing human welfare.
Why donāt I support it? Fear, greed and bigotry
Fear - fear that other cultures that are antithetical to mine would dominate the social and political discourse.
Greed - Iām not uniquely competent. Another 100 million Canadians would probably drop by salary to close to the world average for my vocation, say a factor of 3. Thereās no ethical reason why I should be earning 3 times what equally competent people elsewhere do. Iām just greedy.
Bigotry - I like my culture. I consider it preferable to many others and want to see it continue. Yet my brand of liberalism is almost unknown outside of urban developed nations. So Iām willing to see millions upon millions continue to suffer simply because I want to preserve my culture. I donāt consider the fact that I am āculturalistā rather than āracistā to be all that different.
The only difference between me and the Republican mentality is not a matter of kind, but only a matter of degree. And to be honest, itās a matter of degree that 90% of the world would consider invisible.
Of course, that doesnāt stop me from fighting for what I consider right. But it does keep a lid on my righteousness while doing so.
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If you look at the history of it, the gerrymandering effort began with state legislative races, and focused in a few key states they hoped to flip republican. It was a cheap investment to sway small local state rep races, and they swung that to bias at a national level. And sure, started trying it in other states after that.
The really sad part of this is the Dems seeming inability to muster any organized response from a majority (but losing) position.
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