US Election 2020

[JimC]

A bit OTT, Seabass. Most people on the forum, Brian and I included, have no illusions about the racist and right-wing nature of today's Republican party. The issue is that you tend to see everyone who votes for Trump as a Proud Boy nazi. The reasons why poorly educated white voters voted for Trump are multi factored, and it's worth exploring why such a massive distrust of "the system', and the Democrats in particular occurred...

[Seabass]

A bit OTT, Seabass. Most people on the forum, Brian and I included, have no illusions about the racist and right-wing nature of today's Republican party. The issue is that you tend to see everyone who votes for Trump as a Proud Boy nazi. The reasons why poorly educated white voters voted for Trump are multi factored, and it's worth exploring why such a massive distrust of "the system', and the Democrats in particular occurred...

He still has 90% support with Republican voters. Even if not all of them are virulent racists, I think it's fair to say at this point that the ones who aren't virulent racists are totally fine with the virulent racism. It simply does not bother them one iota.

Not all Nazi voters were virulent racists either. But the racism didn't bother them. They were all complicit.

[Tero]

JUST LIKE AT THE STOP AND SHOP GAS STATION!
Plexiglass to separate Harris and Pence at VP debate
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/0 ... ate-426514

[JimC]

Some Trump voters who are not intrinsically racist may indeed be ignoring the racist elements of his presidency. Some may even dislike it, but will still vote for Trump instead of Biden. So, if their voting is not motivated by racism, don't you think it's important to understand the reasons why they might vote for Trump?

[Brian Peacock]

...

Steady on there Seabass. I didn't say that the parties were the same, just that they are both rampant capitalists whose political and personal interests lie in shoring up that system. Why do you find that so triggering? If I had a stake in the election I'd be voting Democrat, but that doesn't mean that I sign up to their grand vision of some kind of socially-responsible version of capitalism. One cannot be socially progressive and economically conservative - which is essentially the Democrat position is it not? - because social policy and economic policy are inextricably intertwined: social policy is economic policy.

Lol. No, Brian, what triggers me is when white guys tell me I should be nicer to white nationalists.

Don't be racisty.

What triggers me is when white dudes tell me that a political organization that wants to eliminate people who look like me and another political organization that accepts people who look like me are basically the same. What triggers me is when white people tell me that I'm the one doing the dehumanizing when I say mean things about people who don't think folks who look like me are "real Americans".

I don't think it would be productive to get into a competition here over which one of us is more of a victim in our society than the other. Firstly, you're assuming far too much about me and who I am I'm afraid, and consequently I feel no compulsion to justify my point of view on the basis of how oppressed you think I am, or should be, relative to you. Secondly, where the system seeks to glibly divide us into winners and losers, the strong and the weak, the virtuous and the ignoble, the predators and their natural prey, etc, it's our job as progressive idealists to refute and negate those kinds of convenient categorisations - not simply because they're fictitious categories that do not reflect the reality of modern life, but because they're propagated by Power for Power and always put Power at the top of the pile. Who's telling you that performative victimhood justifies or legitimises one's perspective? The Right, that's who - because they play the #OUTRAGED and #BUMHURT card if the wind blows in the wrong direction on a Wednesday afternoon. I have no use for that paradigm.

While we're discussing triggering, why does it trigger you when I say nasty things about Trumpists? These are people who think that in order for America to be made great again, it has to be made white and Christian, because non-whites and non-christians can only ever be moochers. Or to put another way, in order to restore health to the volkskörper, the parasites and impurities must be eliminated. But somehow, I'm the bad guy for calling them "Trumpzis"...

If it bothers me when you call everyone who voted Trump a racist its probably because I see it as a waste of time and energy, time and energy that could be put into something more productive and beneficial for the community at large. It's a waste of what Chomsky once called energised idealism. I've talked about this in similar terms before but you seem reluctant to be charitable on this matter. I've also mentioned why I think "racist" sloganising is just another kind of easy categorisation that separates people into good and evil, worthy and unworthy, us and them, and that it takes no account the individual's material conditions and/or their place or role within a system they have little or no control over. Not to mention that calling an entire voting demographic racist is to engage in the parlance of the culture war - and only the Right can win that one I'm afraid. We have to find a different paradigm.

And before you get all hot and bothered and accuse me of ignoring or excusing real racism and racists, as you have before: racism and racists have to be opposed for the good of the entire community, and that opposition has to meet those destructive forces on their own ground, whether that be with strong words, milkshakes, or cricket bats. However, as most people identifying with the Right side of politics have been tricked, manipulated, and relentlessly bullied by the system into accepting that the worst excesses of neo-liberalism are a fact-of-life - in a situation where fascism is merely liberalisms self-defence mechanism - then holding each of them individually to account for those excesses not only forecloses on the possibility of them changing their minds, but in facts negates that very possibility entirely. In this regard all one would be doing is justifying their self-identification with neo-liberalism and then helping them entrench those ideas as norms. I'm quite prepared to argue my point and defend it as best I can, but I stake no claim to the moral high ground - I prefer to leave that to those who are so absolutely convinced of their own rectitude that there is no longer any need for them to think about anything more than once.

So, now I've got that off my chest...

Did you watch the video? Only I noticed you haven't really made a fair attempt to represent, honestly reflect, or comment on the points I made in the posts you've been quoting. My first comment was short of course - merely a pithy encapsulation of an idea. You seemed to take it as an unjustified attack on the Democrats and slapped the Goodwin card down on the table for good measure, presumably to put me in my place. My second (above) went a little further in describing a broader view, but to that you appeared uninterested, and far keener on attacking me for not understanding what it's like to be an oppressed minority, because you assume that I cannot belong to one, or even two minorities on the basis of what? My race, perhaps, eh? Still have nothing to say on the matter? Then let me be a little more explicit for you just in case...

My problem, such that it is, is with liberalism and liberals. Here I mean liberals in the traditional social and economic sense rather than 'liberals' in the American cultural sense. Notwithstanding their outward differences, the political institutions of both American parties have their foundations in the unreconstructed social and economic ideals of liberalism, with the Republicans merely being what I'd call 'no-bullshit liberals', that is; liberals who are prepared to take liberalism to its logical conclusion without any heed for the mess or misery they leave in their wake. The Democrats might be a little more reluctant, or squeamish, to take liberalism to such extremes, and they may genuinely believe they can harness Capital interests for social good, but at the same time they don't strike me as the kind of political organisation that wants to limit or curtail Capital interests - not least perhaps because their personal and political interests rely on the income stream Capital provides. After all, politics is an expensive business these days isn't it(?)

However, I am absolutely not saying that both parties are exactly the same. I'm just pointing out that they are both liberal parties in a system where liberalism is the justifying ideology of Capitalism, and Capitalism is the current over-arching system of Power. But is it really surprising that the Democrats represent the interests of liberalism? Aren't we all liberals these days, in the sense that liberalism is the framework on which we've built our social, economic, and political architecture for at least a couple of hundred years now - the means by which we live our lives, succeed or fail, live or die? Isn't liberalism the only game in town, and if so, how do you think that's working out for us down here on the bottom of the pile?

[Tero]

https://www.salon.com/2020/10/05/openly ... ing-rules/

Trump's campaign launched an "unusually aggressive" push on the local level, sending 100 county election officials in North Carolina "threatening letters" and "misinformation" to urge them to disregard a new rule that makes it easier for voters to fix mistakes on their mail ballots, according to the Associated Press. The warnings came after the state Board of Elections settled a lawsuit after ballots cast by Black voters in the state were disproportionately rejected.

[laklak]

Fix mistakes? You don't get to "fix mistakes" on an in-person ballot, fuck it up and it's tossed out. Nah, that's bullshit. If you're too fucking stupid to fill in an absentee ballot correctly then you don't get to vote.

FFS this universal suffrage bullshit is going to be the death of The Republic.

[Tero]

The mistakes are like, not using 2 envelopes some states require.

Man Standing Outside Polls With AK-47 Just There To Protect People From Voting

https://www.theonion.com/man-standing-o ... 1845275010

[laklak]

RTFM. Always good advice.

[Brian Peacock]

The mistakes are like, not using 2 envelopes some states require.

Other states require that ballots have to be posted on a Wednesday before 10am, into an East facing postbox, and only while there's a smell of fresh bread in the crisp autumn air.

[NineBerry]

Fix mistakes? You don't get to "fix mistakes" on an in-person ballot, fuck it up and it's tossed out. Nah, that's bullshit. If you're too fucking stupid to fill in an absentee ballot correctly then you don't get to vote.

FFS this universal suffrage bullshit is going to be the death of The Republic.

I completely agree. There should be an intelligence test before being allowed to work with questions like

"Can wearing masks work against the spread of infectious diseases"

[X] Yes
[ ] No

"Do CO2 and other gases in the upper atmosphere increase the greenhouse effect and cause a global climate change?"

[X] Yes
[ ] No

"What is Q?"

[X] The 17th letter in the alphabet
[ ] An insider telling the truth about the Deep State


and so on

[rainbow]

You forgot the options of bacon and cheese.

[rainbow]

Another scenario:
Biden wins with about 300 electoral college votes
https://www.electoral-vote.com/
Trump croaks before Jan due to covid complications and a stumble down White House steps

Would Pence take over in the meantime?
How much damage could he do?

[Seabass]

So, if their voting is not motivated by racism, don't you think it's important to understand the reasons why they might vote for Trump?

Sure. I don't think I've ever suggested otherwise.

[Tero]

Scientists did not get elected! Rudy coughs and talks debate.


daily beast has the Fox video
https://www.thedailybeast.com/rudy-giul ... k-advocacy