Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 431

Warbler said:

excuse me? why would an outright white supremacist vote for Obama?

CatBus said:

Because there wasn’t a white supremacist option on the ballot. The logic is a little monstrous, but I’ve lived in terribly close proximity with white supremacists. The whole belief system is more warped than even the simple level of warped that’s obvious on the surface.

You’re referring to something like the idea that being a n-lover is just as bad as being a n?

JEDIT: Hadn’t read the whole post just above before I asked. So I guess that’s a yes.

You know, this reminds me of the Harry Potter book series. Ron and his family are “the biggest blood traitors there are,” especially with Arthur’s fascination with muggle technology. Muggles, mudbloods and blood traitors all seemed to be lumped in together by people who thought blood purity was important (ie. Slytherins).

Yeah, Rowling’s Death Eaters can very much be read as a drop-in replacement for white supremacists. Even the name “Death Eaters” is derived from a particularly nasty term the early Nazis sometimes used to describe themselves, so she did some research. Also the fact that their leader is someone they’d normally persecute as a mudblood tells of their complex and twisted worldview.

The Believer is another illustration of some of the crazy contradictions that can be found in white supremacy, and it’s based (loosely) on a true story.

Apparently Rowling discovered, after having already invented the racist ideals of the Death Eaters on her own, just how close the real world ideology of the Nazis really was. She visited a Holocaust memorial and discovered the lengths the Nazis went to to determine someone’s supposed racial purity.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/author-chilled-to-learn-harry-s-half-blood-status-has-nazi-parallels-1-540890

chyron8472 said:

Apparently Rowling discovered, after having already invented the racist ideals of the Death Eaters on her own, just how close the real world ideology of the Nazis really was. She visited a Holocaust memorial and discovered the lengths the Nazis went to to determine someone’s supposed racial purity.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/author-chilled-to-learn-harry-s-half-blood-status-has-nazi-parallels-1-540890

Wow. To have done a lot of research is admirable. To have independently come up with so many parallels is… icky. My condolences to Ms. Rowling, that must have been a shock to her.

Has anyone talked about this yet?:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/06/politics/trump-meeting-with-democrats-deal/index.html

Apparently Trump absolutely hates Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and he dropped the GOP suggestions for a postponement of dealing with the debt ceiling in favor of one proposed by the Democrats. And when asked about it afterward, he referred only to “Chuck and Nancy”, while completely leaving Ryan and McConnell unmentioned whatsoever.

I read somewhere that Trump’s “drain the swamp” base hates the GOP establishment, and that Trump is actually following his base by not doing them any favors.

Maybe not talked about it. I made a pee joke, does that count?

Well, the word is that he handed a pretty solid victory to the Democrats, in that when the debt ceiling comes back up again in December, the Dems will have a lot more leverage to get things that they want passed.

https://newrepublic.com/article/144726/trump-screwed-republicans-now-what

Faced with the perennial debt ceiling problem, Trump shocked Washington on Wednesday by agreeing with Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, and Pelosi, his counterpart in the House, to fund the government and raise the debt limit for three months while also providing aid for Hurricane Harvey victims. To call this a “deal” would be generous, as Trump gave Democrats exactly what they had sought. The agreement keeps the debt ceiling issue alive ahead of next year’s midterm elections—giving Republicans ample time to shoot themselves in the foot with infighting over government spending—and provides Democrats with leverage in future negotiations on key issues like granting legal status for DREAMers.

chyron8472 said:

Well, the word is that he handed a pretty solid victory to the Democrats, in that when the debt ceiling comes back up again in December, the Dems will have a lot more leverage to get things that they want passed.

https://newrepublic.com/article/144726/trump-screwed-republicans-now-what

Faced with the perennial debt ceiling problem, Trump shocked Washington on Wednesday by agreeing with Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, and Pelosi, his counterpart in the House, to fund the government and raise the debt limit for three months while also providing aid for Hurricane Harvey victims. To call this a “deal” would be generous, as Trump gave Democrats exactly what they had sought. The agreement keeps the debt ceiling issue alive ahead of next year’s midterm elections—giving Republicans ample time to shoot themselves in the foot with infighting over government spending—and provides Democrats with leverage in future negotiations on key issues like granting legal status for DREAMers.

Perhaps Trump is realizing that the Democrats, despite being a minority party, can actually agree on things and may have a better chance of forming a coalition with moderate Republicans than trying to appease the insane wing of the House.

CatBus said:

moviefreakedmind said:

I don’t buy that all these racists that wouldn’t have voted otherwise came out of the woodwork to support Trump.

Neither do I, but I think you underestimate the number of racists if not outright white supremacists that vote for Democrats, and even voted for Obama.

No I don’t.

EDIT: By the way, I’ve been exposed to my fair share of astoundingly stupid people. Your “close proximity” to white supremacists isn’t unique. I know a lot of passively racist idiots, and they don’t vote Democrat, and they definitely didn’t vote for Obama. White supremacists didn’t vote for Obama in any meaningful quantity. I see no reason to bother discussing that.

moviefreakedmind said:

I know a lot of passively racist idiots, and they don’t vote Democrat, and they definitely didn’t vote for Obama.

Certainly there were lots of reasons Obama voters may have switched to Trump, but…

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/upshot/the-obama-trump-voters-are-real-heres-what-they-think.html?mcubz=0

Using this and other data, political scientists have argued that racial resentment is the strongest predictor of whether voters flipped from Mr. Obama to Mr. Trump, and the biggest driver of Trump support among these voters.

Yes, racial resentment is the strongest predictor of the Obama-Trump vote in this survey data.

We all know racists, but it seems at least in this regard that the ones I know were more representative of racists nationally, in that at least some of them will vote for Democrats, even Black Democrats, when the Republican alternatives aren’t racist enough.

Well, the survey information they’re basing that on does not indicate white supremacist views. For example, the fact that they don’t believe in white privilege probably comes from the fact that they’re working-class households in places like the rust belt.

moviefreakedmind said:

Well, the survey information they’re basing that on does not indicate white supremacist views. For example, the fact that they don’t believe in white privilege probably comes from the fact that they’re working-class households in places like the rust belt.

Of course I’m committing the cardinal sin again of using the R word without stating in which sense. I’m using “racist” in the casual “holds racist views” sense, so a much larger group than white supremacists, but smaller than the “unknowingly perpetuates racism” sense. When you said racists voted 99% Republican, I made the assumption you were using it in that sense and I responded in kind.

I believed both of our statements were about these casual racists in general, I just added that it could even extend to a few white supremacists too. If it turned out you were just talking about white supremacists the whole time, mea culpa, that would be a small group, and your 99% number was conservative IMO. In the sense I’m using the word, the survey results seem to back me up. It definitely shows racists, in the broader but not all-encompassing sense of the word, voted for Obama, and then switched to Trump more strongly than any other measured demographic. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find a white supremacist or two in there too – but there’s no evidence on that either way.

I don’t even agree that that qualifies as casual racism.

moviefreakedmind said:

I don’t even agree that that qualifies as casual racism.

People in the survey were given a multi-point scale (strongly agree/disagree style) on questions like: Does the existence of racism make you angry/not interested/glad? Now I don’t have the raw data in front of me, so I’m not sure how people answered this particular question, but people who are glad about racism are racists. I’d even say people who deny the existence of racism and/or acknowledge its existence but don’t bother to care are racist. IMO the questions in the survey were good enough to measure some degree of racism. Now there’s methodology and honesty and all that too, but apparently someone gave racist enough answers or they wouldn’t have been able to come to any conclusions.

Warbler said:

CatBus said:

moviefreakedmind said:

I know a lot of passively racist idiots, and they don’t vote Democrat, and they definitely didn’t vote for Obama.

Certainly there were lots of reasons Obama voters may have switched to Trump, but…

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/upshot/the-obama-trump-voters-are-real-heres-what-they-think.html?mcubz=0

Using this and other data, political scientists have argued that racial resentment is the strongest predictor of whether voters flipped from Mr. Obama to Mr. Trump, and the biggest driver of Trump support among these voters.

Yes, racial resentment is the strongest predictor of the Obama-Trump vote in this survey data.

We all know racists, but it seems at least in this regard that the ones I know were more representative of racists nationally, in that at least some of them will vote for Democrats, even Black Democrats, when the Republican alternatives aren’t racist enough.

I still don’t get that. I mean even if the Republicans aren’t racist enough for you, surely the Dems aren’t going even less racist, especially the black Dems. If I were racist, I doubt I’d be voting for the Dems or black people. If I couldn’t stomach the Republicans, I would probably write-in Hitler or maybe George Wallace or something like that(again, if I were racist). No way I would vote for the Dems or any black person(again, if I were racist).

The trick is, you’re imagining yourself being a logical racist. Such a beast doesn’t exist. To an overt racist, Democrats aren’t “less racist” than Republicans. They’re both touchy-feely-hippy-dippy-Abraham-Lincoln-kumbaya-ebony-and-ivory-in-harmony wannabes – equally. So you either don’t vote or you move on to a second tier of criteria. However, that has likely changed now. After Trump, I think people will assume, for better or worse, that all Republicans are racist until proven otherwise, and those votes are now gone for the Democrats for the long term.

Racists in general, and even some white supremacists, are not single issue voters. They also have opinions on medical marijuana, the Iraq War, minimum wage, and so on. Democrats can do well on many of these issues. Not all anti-abortion voters vote for Republicans either, because abortion is not the only issue.

darth_ender said:

Don’t get me started on you’re punctuation of late.

T,BTFY.