United States Politics Thread 47

[zompist]

Older generations are MORE CONSERVATIVE.

Then what about the survey showing that zoomers hold considerably more conservative views on gender? Are older generations simply lying and hiding equally or even more regressive view? Are the zoomers regressive on gender but more progressive otherwise?

Sigh. You read one thing and you think you know everything. I've given plenty of evidence that things are not as you think. It's not my job to hold your hand figuring this out, but I'll give it one more try.

Your survey does not show anything about "the zoomers" being conservative or regressive. Quite the opposite, it shows that 75% of zoomers are on the progessives side (of this one issue). Stop taking something that's true of 25% of a class of people and talking as if it's true of 100%.

I've already told you that people were racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. 50 years ago-- casually, professionally, every day, the majority of people. Source: every goddamn person who was alive at that time, especially the victims of these bigotries.

How does this fact align with your survey? All sorts of reasons. People actually get more liberal as they age. (Yes, you heard otherwise; you heard wrong.) Evangelicalism and Fox News created ideological bubbles, rather than exposing everyone to mainstream ideas. Surveys that use loaded language may get different responses depending on their bias.

[Travis B.]

Older generations are MORE CONSERVATIVE.

Then what about the survey showing that zoomers hold considerably more conservative views on gender? Are older generations simply lying and hiding equally or even more regressive view? Are the zoomers regressive on gender but more progressive otherwise?

malloc: what, precisely, would you expect us to do in response to this supposedly unstoppable right-wing shift? Roll over and just give in?

Well no, but the first step to addressing this problem is recognizing its existence. Nobody else here even heard about zoomers backsliding on women's rights until I mentioned it.

You are selectively focusing on things that happen to, in isolation, seem to support your doomerist worldview when interpreted through a doomerist lens while completely ignoring the many things which can't somehow be construed as supporting your doomerism.

[malloc]

Your survey does not show anything about "the zoomers" being conservative or regressive. Quite the opposite, it shows that 75% of zoomers are on the progessives side (of this one issue). Stop taking something that's true of 25% of a class of people and talking as if it's true of 100%.

But the survey also says that boomers are more progressive on this issue. Regardless of the past, the survey does appear to show that zoomers are more sexist than boomers in the present.

It also aligns with all the stuff I keep hearing about the manosphere, influencers like Andrew Tate and Clavicular gaining incredible popularity among young men, and so forth.

[Travis B.]

Your survey does not show anything about "the zoomers" being conservative or regressive. Quite the opposite, it shows that 75% of zoomers are on the progessives side (of this one issue). Stop taking something that's true of 25% of a class of people and talking as if it's true of 100%.

But the survey also says that boomers are more progressive on this issue. Regardless of the past, the survey does appear to show that zoomers are more sexist than boomers in the present.

It also aligns with all the stuff I keep hearing about the manosphere, influencers like Andrew Tate and Clavicular gaining incredible popularity among young men, and so forth.

You are taking one statistic, from one survey (nothing I have read indicates it was a proper study per se), and extrapolating that in your head to mean "zoomers as a whole are reactionary", while completely ignoring everything else people have been pointing out, such as that Trump is terribly unpopular amongst zoomers at the present (which you responded to with an unsupported opinion that this unpopularity must somehow be due to Trump not being effective at being reactionary, because to you zoomers must somehow be reactionary as a whole (i.e. you assume your conclusion, a classic fallacy)).

[alice]

Your survey does not show anything about "the zoomers" being conservative or regressive. Quite the opposite, it shows that 75% of zoomers are on the progessives side (of this one issue). Stop taking something that's true of 25% of a class of people and talking as if it's true of 100%.

But the survey also says that boomers are more progressive on this issue. Regardless of the past, the survey does appear to show that zoomers are more sexist than boomers in the present.

It also aligns with all the stuff I keep hearing about the manosphere, influencers like Andrew Tate and Clavicular gaining incredible popularity among young men, and so forth.

What would it take to make you change your mind, to accept that things are not quite as bad as you like making them out to be? Anything?

[Travis B.]

I wonder how malloc will react to the Supreme Court's skepticism about Trump's executive order abolishing birthright citizenship, and how he will find a way to find a negative in this.

[malloc]

What would it take to make you change your mind, to accept that things are not quite as bad as you like making them out to be? Anything?

Quite a lot. There are numerous glaring and potentially apocalyptic problems facing the world right now: global warming, the far right sweeping elections, AI forcing humans out of the workforce, multiple wars and genocides raging across the world. We are closer than ever to WWIII with Trump taking reckless action against one country after another. Global warming could collapse civilization and kill billions in the coming decades. The latest incarnation of fascism has liberal democracy on the ropes and it would only take a few electoral wins here and there for the reactionaries to achieve permanent victory. That is not doomerism or paranoia but simply an honest evaluation of our current circumstances. We made the mistake of underestimating the reactionary tide over the past decade and now we're paying the price. We can still turn things around, but that does require acknowledging just how bad they've gotten.

It often seems like people assume liberalism is a natural law, that something about human nature or cosmic fate prevents alternatives from succeeding. Quite the contrary, the success of liberalism is merely a quirk of history. Had things gone differently, the monarchies of early modern Europe might have prevented liberalism from overthrowing them or even developing as a philosophy in the first place. We would have no conception that the masses had any right to control the government, that women should have the same opportunities as men, and all the other liberal ideals we take for granted today. Right now there are millions of reactionaries across the world fighting tooth and nail to destroy liberal democracy and they are damn close to succeeding.

[Travis B.]

global warming,

A problem, but not humanity-ending at this very point.

the far right sweeping elections,

At least here in the US, the far right is busy losing elections, which is why they are panicking.

AI forcing humans out of the workforce,

You obviously aren't paying attention, because the big issue now is not whether AI will replace humans but quite the opposite, i.e. when will the AI bubble pop.

multiple wars and genocides raging across the world.

If one ignores Africa, I can count three major wars -- the Iran war, the Ukraine war, and the Afghanistan-Pakistan wars (and some other minor conflicts like the Thailand-Cambodia border conflict), and two genocides, what the CCP is doing to the Uyghurs (which while horrible could be far worse, when one contrasts it with the likes of Rwanda and Cambodia) and the lingering aftermath of Gaza and like. Again, nasty, but things have been worse in history.

We are closer than ever to WWIII with Trump taking reckless action against one country after another.

Really, compared to the height of the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union were on the edge of nuking each other?

Global warming could collapse civilization and kill billions in the coming decades.

Substantiate the "kill billions in the coming decades" part.

The latest incarnation of fascism has liberal democracy on the ropes and it would only take a few electoral wins here and there for the reactionaries to achieve permanent victory.

Again, as we have been pointing out time and time again, you've been covering your eyes and plugging your ears in reaction to anything to the contrary. There is a reason the Republicans have been pushing the SAVE America act ─ because they are faced with imminent defeat and are desperate to do anything to prevent it.

Yes, fascists have gotten disturbingly good polls in many places, but to a good extent this is because they have not been in power except in places like Hungary, Russia, China, and Israel, which are not necessary the best models for liberal democracy anyways, and thus have had the luxury of not being judged on their records in power. What is happening right now in the US is what happens when they are judged on their record in power.

That is not doomerism or paranoia but simply an honest evaluation of our current circumstances.

It is a highly distorted view of things that simply is not in accordance with all the facts.

We made the mistake of underestimating the reactionary tide over the past decade and now we're paying the price.

What is happening is a general unhappiness with the state of late stage capitalism, which reactionaries have taken advantage of, but at the same time has led to things such as (as we have pointed out) socialism being more popular in the first world than any time in generations.

We can still turn things around, but that does require acknowledging just how bad they've gotten.

You, though, have been insisting on just how impossible things supposedly are, a situation that is not borne out by the facts.

It often seems like people assume liberalism is a natural law, that something about human nature or cosmic fate prevents alternatives from succeeding. Quite the contrary, the success of liberalism is merely a quirk of history. Had things gone differently, the monarchies of early modern Europe might have prevented liberalism from overthrowing them or even developing as a philosophy in the first place. We would have no conception that the masses had any right to control the government, that women should have the same opportunities as men, and all the other liberal ideals we take for granted today. Right now there are millions of reactionaries across the world fighting tooth and nail to destroy liberal democracy and they are damn close to succeeding.

You do the polar opposite, and baselessly assume that reaction is certain to win out over any opposition, despite the realities of the matter, and refuse to listen to the voluminous evidence we have all been giving you to the contrary.

[Raphael]

Going off on a tangent, not directly related to the malloc-vs-everyone-else thing:

global warming,

A problem, but not humanity-ending at this very point.

For a while, I've had this nagging suspicion that, later this century, global warming will lead to all kinds of bad things that might otherwise not have happened, and lead to a lot of bad things happening more often and on a larger scale than they might otherwise have done, but the world won't end - and then, the successors of today's global warming deniers will claim that the fact that the world didn't end "proves" that their side was right all along.

[zompist]

For a while, I've had this nagging suspicion that, later this century, global warming will lead to all kinds of bad things that might otherwise not have happened, and lead to a lot of bad things happening more often and on a larger scale than they might otherwise have done, but the world won't end - and then, the successors of today's global warming deniers will claim that the fact that the world didn't end "proves" that their side was right all along.

You know enough history that you should know that that's not really how things work. Historical situations don't just repeat. Political factions change, even if they themselves don't realize it. The quarrels of one century are not those of the last.

With global warming, either we're going to address the problem, or most of civilization collapses. FWIW the chances of the latter are less given the renewables revolution: there is a way out. Assuming we do get through it: does everybody learn nothing? Consider similar crises in the past:

1. The Depression. Did everyone go back to laissez-faire, with no understanding of Keynesianism? No, no one did, though Keynesian methods are often misapplied.
2. Naziism. Did Germany just go back to Naziism? No, it's a pretty healthy democracy. (I know, there's AfD, but they don't seem to be close to power.)
3. The Thirty Years' War. Did Europe keep fighting religious wars? No, it pretty much agreed that religious wars were dumb. It went on to political wars instead.
4. Nuclear bombs. All wars are now nuclear, right? No, they're not.

I'm not at all saying that things always get better. Sometimes a lesson is only learned for a couple of generations, till all the people who lived through the last crisis are dead. Sometimes one kind of crisis (e.g. the ozone hole) is solved, only for a worse one to replace it (global warming). Sometimes-- pretty often-- people don't learn what should be pretty clear lessons. (Good reading here: Orwell's writings on the English governing class in the 1930s.)

It's likely that something called "conservatives" will exist in future societies for a long time. But the specific contents of their beliefs will be unrecognizable in a hundred or two hundred years.

[malloc]

2. Naziism. Did Germany just go back to Naziism? No, it's a pretty healthy democracy. (I know, there's AfD, but they don't seem to be close to power.)

Sure but it has been rising continuously in the polls over the past decade. The last I checked, it was polling at something like twenty-five percent, not enough to take power on its own but sufficient to force its way into coalition. It would not take much more to become the core of a governing coalition outright.

[WeepingElf]

2. Naziism. Did Germany just go back to Naziism? No, it's a pretty healthy democracy. (I know, there's AfD, but they don't seem to be close to power.)

Sure but it has been rising continuously in the polls over the past decade. The last I checked, it was polling at something like twenty-five percent, not enough to take power on its own but sufficient to force its way into coalition. It would not take much more to become the core of a governing coalition outright.

Nope. No other party is willing to form a coalition with the AfD, not even the conservative CDU/CSU. Instead, there is an ongoing serious discussion about banning the AfD (which will be difficult because the hurdles set by the constitution are very high). All mainstream democratic parties agree that the AfD is too incompetent and too dangerous to be entrusted with any kind of responsibility. Also, no other party is involved in that many public scandals. Sure, the AfD is a challenge to German democracy, but German democracy is far from defenseless. And zompist is right about history: it doesn't repeat itself, and most of the big mistakes are made only once.

[Ketsuban]

For a while, I've had this nagging suspicion that, later this century, global warming will lead to all kinds of bad things that might otherwise not have happened, and lead to a lot of bad things happening more often and on a larger scale than they might otherwise have done, but the world won't end - and then, the successors of today's global warming deniers will claim that the fact that the world didn't end "proves" that their side was right all along.

You know enough history that you should know that that's not really how things work.

I think what Raphael is talking about is things like this xkcd comic, where a character uses the fact it feels too cold to pooh-pooh the idea of global warming when it's actually a consequence of global warming reducing the number of days per year where it feels cold to the point that people have become unaccustomed to them. We can see something similar with Y2K, where people doubt it was ever a problem because it was dealt with so completely that the only easily-identifiable evidence is things which weren't important enough to fix such as arcade machines.

[Raphael]

You're generally right, zompist, though I do have some quibbles.

Historical situations don't just repeat. Political factions change, even if they themselves don't realize it. The quarrels of one century are not those of the last.

Partly true, but not always. See, for instance, your reviews of Frederick Lewis Allen: https://zompist.wordpress.com/2011/12/2 ... yesterday/ https://zompist.wordpress.com/2011/12/2 ... yesterday/

Then there are the ongoing arguments about the rights and wrongs of the US Civil War. And the fascists have successfully re-opened questions that used to be seen as having been settled once and for all.

Assuming we do get through it: does everybody learn nothing?

Oh, I don't doubt that a lot of people will learn a lot of things. Just not everyone. And political movements, as you have pointed out, I think, rarely ever explicitly repent.

2. Naziism. Did Germany just go back to Naziism? No, it's a pretty healthy democracy. (I know, there's AfD, but they don't seem to be close to power.)

Mostly right, but, well, the relationship of various parts of German society with Naziism after 1945 is an extremely complicated matter on which a lot of people have a lot of different opinions. Often strong opinions.

The East has its own issues. As for the West -

Given who raised me, and with whom the people who raised me hung out at the time while I got to take in what they were talking about, and what media-related materials were available in my home, I grew up with a lot of exposure to what you might call the Standard West German Left-Wing Boomer version of that period in history. To simplify things a lot, that take on things states that West Germany was a fascist society thinly disguised as a democracy until young radicals in the late 1960s started to rebel against the way their Nazi parents and grandparents were running things, and, very, very, gradually, started to change the country. The ones among them who chose the "change the system from within"-path called their project, presumably after reading about Mao, the "Long March Through the Institutions".

That is, of course, a pretty self-congratulatory version of history, but I don't think it's completely false.

Somewhat related, at some times, Der Spiegel magazine tried to promote a version of history in which the starting point for the gradual switch to real democracy was the public outcry over the Spiegel Affair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_affair

As for now - sigh. Say about our establishment politicians what you want, but they've run the country for several generations now without turning it into a field of rubble. They're muddling through managing a generally stable and prosperous place. But people don't like the ocean's exact shade of pink, so they're increasingly turning to people not that different from the people who, the last time they got to run the country, did turn it into a field of rubble.

3. The Thirty Years' War. Did Europe keep fighting religious wars? No, it pretty much agreed that religious wars were dumb. It went on to political wars instead.

Your general point is completely valid, and there were some extremely brutal religious wars in Early Modern Europe. But I always want to kind of add an asterisk whenever I see the Thirty Years' War described as a religious war.

Yes, it started out as a simple Catholics vs. Protestants thing. But various political intrigues had the result that a lot of political and military leaders changed sides without changing their religion. So towards the end, it was more like a free-for-all. And keep in mind that France intervened in the war in support of what was, theoretically speaking, the Protestant side, at a time when the French government was effectively run by Cardinal Richelieu.

And I'd say that after 1648, religion didn't simply disappear overnight as a motive for waging wars in Europe. It just gradually became less prominent.

(Good reading here: Orwell's writings on the English governing class in the 1930s.)

Yes, of course! They're among my favorite writings, which I've re-read a lot.

[Raphael]

And zompist is right about history: it doesn't repeat itself,

But, as they say, it rhymes.

and most of the big mistakes are made only once.

On this, we disagree.

[Travis B.]

As I have mentioned before on here, the Historikerstreit goes to show that West Germany still wasn't fully de-Nazified even in the late 1980's.

[WeepingElf]

As I have mentioned before on here, the Historikerstreit goes to show that West Germany still wasn't fully de-Nazified even in the late 1980's.

Yes, it isn't even completely de-Nazified today, as the votes for the AfD show (though certainly not all AfD voters really are Nazis). But which country is free of fascist currents? Point is that the neo-Nazis are marginalized in the political arena, and a coalition including the AfD appears unlikely in the foreseeable future.

But we are digressing from the topic here, and that is United States politics - which is more dreadful than German politics, with the equivalent of the AfD in power, but not as utterly and hopelessly fouled up as malloc likes to claim.

[alice]

What would it take to make you change your mind, to accept that things are not quite as bad as you like making them out to be? Anything?

Quite a lot.

Such as? Trump losing heavily in the midterms, possibly?

NOTE!!! I am not asking you if you believe Trump is going to lose heavily in the midterms; I think we can all guess the answer to that. I am asking: if he does, would you concede that things have become slightly better? And if some of the things which you say will change your mind actually happen, similarly?

[zompist]

Historical situations don't just repeat. Political factions change, even if they themselves don't realize it. The quarrels of one century are not those of the last.

Partly true, but not always. See, for instance, your reviews of Frederick Lewis Allen: https://zompist.wordpress.com/2011/12/2 ... yesterday/ https://zompist.wordpress.com/2011/12/2 ... yesterday/

I said "don't just repeat" for a reason. I agree with the dictum you quoted, that history doesn't repeat but it rhymes.

So, yes, there are similarities between the 1920s and the time I was writing that review, the 2010s. But there are important differences too: the economy was laissez-faire with no safety net; the Depression is not the 2008 recession; the big cultural fight was for women's suffrage— no major party wanted to address racism.

Then there are the ongoing arguments about the rights and wrongs of the US Civil War. And the fascists have successfully re-opened questions that used to be seen as having been settled once and for all.

The current fascist revival seems to fit the more cynical formulation of that dictum: "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, the second time as farce."

Note what I said about a crisis repeating after two generations. That fits here: WWII ended 79 years before Trump's re-election.

I'd also note that revisionist stories about the Civil War are not new; they've been going strong since the end of Reconstruction— 1877. It's remained a truism that slavery is bad, but there were a lot of attempts to glorify the South ("Gone with the Wind", "Dukes of Hazard", Li'l Abner, etc.), paint the contest as about "states' rights" instead of slavery and as some kind of evenly matched, no-blame cosplay event. The North turned out to be OK with merely denying Blacks rights rather than enslaving them.

No argument with your recollections of Germany. I'd just note that a "leftism" that was simply Russia-worship was prominent in the West for decades— it was Orwell's main preoccupation. I think it's become far less prevalent in the US but certainly hasn't disappeared.

And keep in mind that France intervened in the war in support of what was, theoretically speaking, the Protestant side, at a time when the French government was effectively run by Cardinal Richelieu.

Richelieu never let his religious convictions, if he had any, get in the way of what he saw as the interests of France.

[Travis B.]

I'd just note that a "leftism" that was simply Russia-worship was prominent in the West for decades— it was Orwell's main preoccupation. I think it's become far less prevalent in the US but certainly hasn't disappeared.

Tankies are definitely still a thing, and you can most certainly find tankies who somehow seem oblivious to the fact that the Soviet Union fell ~34 years ago and that Putin is not a big-C Communist.