White identity and sexism gave Trump the electoral college

boing
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Seems like you’re putting forth the notion that this race was swayed primarily by active racism as opposed to what I’m saying which is most people just don’t give a fuck about the “other”.

If you believe that earnestly then I presume you’re either purchasing firearms and survival/guerilla gear or you’re on the ASHER web board researching the most efficient method of shuffling off this mortal coil. Because the outcome under what it seems like you’re proposing is literal race/class warfare.

/here’s a tip, if you are using the ASER boards disregard anyone with an old account. If they’ve been on that board for long then how much can they know?

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I don’t disagree with his content - but can we all agree that twitter is terrible for information in long form?

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What I’m saying is that if you were somehow able to run the race again but without sexism and racism Trump never gets anywhere NEAR the nomination, let alone winning the general election. For example a woman who had five kids by three spouses, cheated on all of them, publicly boasted about sexually assaulting young men etc. could never hope to get the endorsement of either major party even if she was otherwise qualified for the job.

And yes, I’m also saying that racists and misogynists think that it will hurt their own interests if we allow women and minorities to have a larger share of power in our society. Giving women the vote was the right thing to do, but it meant that every man’s vote was suddenly worth half of what it had been. Voting for “self-interest” is not always morally defensible.

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[quote=“LapsedPacifist, post:77, topic:89524, full:true”]
Hillary promised a no-fly zone over Aleppo.[/quote]

Please. A former Secretary of State wasn’t going to do that unilaterally. Her husband didn’t do that in the Balkans. I suspect she was going to try to look tough by going to the UN, demanding one, and then blaming Putin for continuing to hinder humanitarian efforts when the Security Council vetoed it. That claim wouldn’t be a hard case to make in regard to a country that’s already bombed an aid convoy, and she would have had her cheap “I’m tough” points without risking an incident with the Russian airforce.

And you think the President-elect who’s vowed to increase military spending while pursuing an isolationist foreign policy mixed with vows to “bomb the hell out of ISIS” and “take the oil” in a world where he thinks there should be more nukes wouldn’t support the same systems? The only difference is that Putin is guaranteed that his orange fanboi won’t authorise that software patch, whereas with Clinton he would have had to settle for a high probability that she wouldn’t authorise it.

And Putin understands that the most peaceful co-operation of all is having a buffoon as POTUS who’ll be easily flattered into standing aside while Russia annexes eastern Ukraine and what one of his chief advisors characterises as “some place which is in the suburbs of St. Petersburg” (AKA NATO member nation Estonia). For the next four years he has that, thanks in part to his interference in the election.

For all that you complain about people falsely characterising Putin as the devil, you seem to do the same when it comes to Clinton. They’re both ruthless politicians who act accordingly: Clinton the less competent, Putin the more authoritarian. I like neither of them, but I don’t draw false equivalencies between them, either.

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I wouldn’t consign myself to either the left or the right, and I get to suffer right along with you. With Hillary, I would have suffered also.

The DNC could also be to blame for deciding we deserve Trump.

Regarding Hillary and nukes. There is the no-fly zone. There is also Victoria Nuland of “EFF the E.U.” fame and for bragging about spending 5 billion to destabilize Ukraine. Nuland is Hillary’s international right hand. She is a dangerous Neo-Con and she is rabidly anti-Russian. The Neo-Cons heartily endorsed Clinton, and she has been hugging and kissing them for years. A Hillary administration would have been exceedingly pro-war, globally destabilizing, and continued the failed “send in troops/no fly zone” policies of the last three administrations.

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cough Peter Thiel cough

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How about we blame/credit the DNC for Hillary and the RNC for Trump.

I also blame the American public for which one they ultimately chose, but that’s just me.

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It’s the early stages. At the moment, the consensus seems to be working to get the Democratic party away from Third Way economic policy and back to a platform that connects to and offers something to those left behind by neoliberal globalism (which is not limited to white Americans). That means single-payer universal health insurance. That means infrastructure spending supported by tax increases on the ultra-wealthy and defence cuts so we don’t end up in an inflationary spiral. That means re-regulating the banks with a new version of the Glass-Steagall wall. That means negotiating trade deals that take labour into account and that don’t further promote the sovereignty of multi-nationals.

The Dems acting like liberals again goes beyond economic policy, of course. They also have to maintain their committment to social liberalism and to honouring our committment to support (in a measured way) our liberal-democratic allies abroad (both nation-states and smaller groups) when they come under pressure by right-wing authoritarians.

The “deplorables,” I’m afraid, are lost causes. Hardcore bigots and sexists and right-wing authoritarians wouldn’t be won over by that kind of Democratic party (or the current one for that matter) under any circumstances. That 27% or so Know-Nothing portion of the electorate is a lost cause, and the Dems should have written them off in 1992 instead of shifting to the right.

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That was the argument twenty years ago. The reality now is that the Democrats hold neither the House, the Senate, the Presidency, nor the Supreme Court. They also are extremely weak in the majority of states. And we ARE ruled by oligarchs.

I’m not trying to insult you, really, but the Democrats have utterly failed in their pro-corporate, pro-Wall Street, third way ideology. It’s a rout at this point. This should (must really) be admitted and faced.

I think the most important era in this country was the New Deal Era which eventually morphed into the Civil Rights era. Post that period, the Democrats have been engaged in retreat while encouraging identity politics over solidarity politics. It has utterly and completely failed.

I don’t know how to defeat the vast amounts of money in politics, but accommodating it like the Neo-Liberal Dems have done sure ain’t working.

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Trump also stated he will greenlight any decision his VP suggests, so literally nothing he says can be taken seriously.

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And you elected a Neocon in trump as he represents every establishment Republican in he GOP, so I don’t understand the cheering.

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The DNC used all of its overt and covert power to chose a losing candidate. They can’t be blamed for the mess that is the Republican party, that is certainly the result of some really bad thinking. Aim as much ridicule at them as they deserve, as far as I’m concerned. But don’t dismiss how badly the DNC created an insulated circle shouting “Hillary” while the rest of the country was shouting either Bernie or Trump, just to not have another four years of the status quo.

I think the DNC would have rather lost than admit that their policies turned the stomachs of a large amount of American voters, and that is not how you win an election.

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It’s the same argument now, because despite their loss of all branches of government for the next four years (and the SCOTUS for 20) the party is a member of the duopoly and, judging by the popular vote, there’s still a demand for it. That said, if they want to be the duopoly party that wins in the future so that they can create a successful challenge to Citizens United they certainly must adapt by rejecting Third Way platforms. Adapting, however, does not mean complete surrender when operating on an opponent’s ground.

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I didn’t elect him. I didn’t vote for Trump. Okay? I want the Goddamn Democratic party to get off it’s elitist ass and start representing the American people. Legitimately slagging a horrible Democratic candidate doesn’t mean that I love the opposition. That assumption is truly something I don’t understand.

Trump did not have the Neo-Con endorsement. Hillary did, and she did because they thought that she was far more likely to do their bidding than the buffoon, Trump. That was dangerous. Now we have other dangers, namely Trump and his administration. But, she was far more likely to pursue the Neo-Con wishlist, even though it was completely ignored by her supporters. That wishlist was an existential danger that now MAY (or who knows) may not be off the table. If Hillary was elected however, it was definitely on the table.

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I honestly don’t think Putin will annex the Baltic states. He’s no earthly reason to do so. Hell, Eastern Ukraine is a stretch: if he wanted to do so the best time’s long since passed. Unless he wants to wait for Ukraine to inevitably collapse. The one problem I can see which might cause him to do anything of the sort is the fact that the more aggressive NATO is the less tolerable NATO countries in close proximity to major population centers become. Recall the response of the United States to Cuba which is about as far away from Florida as Tallinn is from St. Petersburg.

Note: this is not me defending his moral fiber. Just his sanity.

And it’s funny you should mention the Balkans. If you look at Putin’s speeches, his foreign policy was shaped (so he says, repeatedly) by the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. He was part of the Russian delegation on Kosovo at the time of the handoff after resolution 1244 was signed, and mentions this as a formative experience regarding his stance on American foreign policy.

So while you might be okay with the Clinton approach to the Balkans, Putin isn’t. And he has nukes.

And you think the President-elect who’s vowed to increase military spending while pursuing an isolationist foreign policy mixed with vows to “bomb the hell out of ISIS” and “take the oil” in a world where he thinks there should be more nukes wouldn’t support the same systems? The only difference is that Putin is guaranteed that his orange fanboi won’t authorise that software patch, whereas with Clinton he would have had to settle for a high probability that she wouldn’t authorise it.

Yeah, but Trump’s incompetent and prone to empty bombast. I’m doing Hillary the courtesy of taking her seriously.

For all that you complain about people falsely characterising Putin as the devil, you seem to do the same when it comes to Clinton. I like neither of them, but I don’t draw false equivalencies between them, either.

If I seem to be overfocusing on Hillary’s foreign policy it is because America, in general, has so much going on in that respect. At his most ruthless Putin will take over a part of a neighboring country largely populated by Russians. And this is unjust and against international war. But that’s as far as sanity can take you. Despite popular paranoid fantasies about it, T-14s are no more likely to trundle through Germany than they are to do so on the Moon.

Where I disagree with Putin is his domestic policy. Which is largely terrible. Depressingly, his domestic policy is unfailingly popular. He wins his elections and his chief opposition are the Communists which, while left on economic issues, obviously, are surprisingly reactionary when it comes to social issues. The sort of opposition that defends social view I, and very likely you, find more amenable is not very powerful, probably, really, because they are associated with Americans which are not popular in domestic Russian politics ever since they turned their country into Mad Max in the nineties.

At their most ruthless, Americans will utterly destroy countries on the other side of the world which are completely and comically unable to harm them. And they’ve done so a lot. Grenada. Vietnam. Iraq. Libya. Just to name a few. Seeing as I live outside the protective sphere of the West, I find which country the Americans burn down next a pressing concern. Especially if they provoke Russia into enough anxiety to start staging civil-preparedness exercises for nuclear war. You may not be taking Ms. Clinton seriously, but apparently, the government of the Russian Federation is.

I disagree with Clinton (either one) on domestic issues less, though obviously, I think their (again, both of 'em) attitude towards the banks borders on the criminal and I am not a fan of their attitudes on crime, either. The 1994 bill was… not excellent. But at least we agree on things like equal rights.

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[quote=“LapsedPacifist, post:99, topic:89524, full:true”]
So while you might be okay with the Clinton approach to the Balkans, Putin isn’t.[/quote]

I’m not OK with Bill Clinton’s approach to bombing in Kosovo. I’m very OK with Bill Clinton’s approach to the UN-sanctioned no-fly zones over Bosnia earlier on (no-fly zone != bombing campaign). Putin was likely not OK with either, because he considered Serbia a traditional Russian client state and because Slobo was his kinda guy.

Incompetence = uncertainty. And see Masha Gessen’s rule about “Believe the autocrat.” No-one knows what that clown will do with the U.S. military, but it will be bad. I have said in the past that if Clinton won we’d be stuck with American boots on the ground in Iraq once again, but fighting Daesh insurgents is a bit different from risking an incident with Russia over Syria.

I would hope so. The problem is that his international policy is in large part driven by his domestic concerns. In order to retain power and keep his bank accounts growing he has to throw red meat to his own Know-Nothing nationalist followers, and that means expanding “Russian greatness.” You’re correct, I don’t think the Communists are much better. But the current liberal-democratic opposition is different from what was going on before, and we should be vocally supporting movements like the United Civil Front and Other Russia and people like Gessen, Kasparov and the members of Pussy Riot – especially when Putin’s thugs attack them. It’s not like Putin can whinge about foreign interference in domestic politics now.

I didn’t like Clinton on domestic economic issues, either. But the President-elect will be worse (perhaps literally criminal) in whatever deals he strikes with the banks and his view of law-and-order (see the Central Park 5) makes her odious remarks on “superpredators” look quaint in comparison.

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I took her seriously too. So did my son (Navy) and a lot of the people inhabiting his base. That the military took her serious and were shocked by her cavalier attitude shook me.

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A Clinton-free Democratic party is definitely a good thing. Too bad Trump was the only way to get one.

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Whether the DNC helped Trump get nominated is questionable, but they certainly had the intent to do so.