United States Politics Thread 46

[jcb]

I'll have to look into this.

Further reading/watching:
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/ ... -campaign/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LazUZz3K6IY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWq2QvvPw68

Talking Points
Jesse Ventura says Donald Trump "copied everything" from Minnesota governor campaign for 2016 presidential run

[Ares Land]

Is Ukraine going to be better off under Russia? Is Taiwan going to be better off under China?

Why don't you ask Trump voters? I can't help these countries. I can only take what I'm given and think of the best next step. If we do get a multipolar world, it could be easier to undermine each oppressive regime.

We are not getting a multipolar world. That's just Republican propaganda.

One thing that might have happened if political leaders had a minimum of sense is Europe getting its act together and organizing for defense without the United States. Spoilers: that will never happen. One Trumpist creature on Twitter was bragging about "the client kings paying homage to the new emperor" and tell you what, this is more or less what's going to happen.

[Raphael]

Is Ukraine going to be better off under Russia? Is Taiwan going to be better off under China?

Why don't you ask Trump voters? I can't help these countries. I can only take what I'm given and think of the best next step. If we do get a multipolar world, it could be easier to undermine each oppressive regime.

We are not getting a multipolar world. That's just Republican propaganda.

I'd say we currently have a multipolar world, or at least we had one until Monday. We will be back to unipolar once the global autocratic alliance is firmly established as the one pole that dominates everything.

[Ares Land]

I found this series of slides illuminating.

It was, and so was the article. And, I should add, curiously relatable.

[keenir]

great...what about the family or the individual? or is everyone defined by their commons/community membership?

If a family business becomes a megacorp, it will be "taxed" until it's a family business again.

two questions:
1: why the quotation marks around taxing?
2: didn't you just say there'd be no taxes?

okay, a third: doesn't that discourage family businesses from being successful? (you may think "why would that discourage them?" but if they get punished/penalized for having a success that grows them beyond being a small business...)

(and isn't that exactly the conditions you said you were escaping from in your own commons? certainly sounds like it, at least)

How so?

pressure from family/neighborhood/denomination.

[keenir]

One thing that might have happened if political leaders had a minimum of sense is Europe getting its act together and organizing for defense without the United States. Spoilers: that will never happen. One Trumpist creature on Twitter was bragging about "the client kings paying homage to the new emperor" and tell you what, this is more or less what's going to happen.

I don't doubt that many countries will be calling him up to say congrats on being elected...but I don't think he's going to have an easy time making anyone pay him in the way he campaigned for -- getting Eastern Europe to repay the US for the Marshall Plan et al? Japan to repay for all the postwar changes? I don't think anyone will be doing that, whether or not they have enough money to do that.

[WeepingElf]

One thing that might have happened if political leaders had a minimum of sense is Europe getting its act together and organizing for defense without the United States. Spoilers: that will never happen. One Trumpist creature on Twitter was bragging about "the client kings paying homage to the new emperor" and tell you what, this is more or less what's going to happen.

I don't doubt that many countries will be calling him up to say congrats on being elected...but I don't think he's going to have an easy time making anyone pay him in the way he campaigned for -- getting Eastern Europe to repay the US for the Marshall Plan et al? Japan to repay for all the postwar changes? I don't think anyone will be doing that, whether or not they have enough money to do that.

Well, many congratulations are just out of politeness, I think - it is, after all, polite for a democratically elected leader to congratulate a newly democratically elected leader. After all, Trump was elected, and did not conduct a coup d'état, which would be a different matter. But I guess that most European heads of government (with some exceptions like Orbán or Meloni) don't really look forward to having to deal with this madman, and would have preferred a Harris victory. And we must say that we don't know yet how many of the frightening things Trump has announced to do when he is elected will actually be done. (But people used to say the same about Hitler in 1933, and we know what happened.) The congratulations from Moscow and Beijing probably were more sincere, even if it is IMHO far from certain that Trump will be Putin's and Xi's best friend.

[Ares Land]

The congratulations are a given; Meloni looked enthusiastic though; Orbán is definitely overjoyed. It's hard to interpret such things, but Macron was among the very first to congratulate Trump (before the AP calls). I doubt Keir Starmer is a Trump fan, but he'll still place the special relationship (if they still call it that?) first.

Now, nobody's going to pay the US or whatever, whatever Trump might have said in meetings -- that was just him being a clown.

However, this means the diplomacy and defense of European countries that could and should show a modicum of independance will still be aligned with the US, possibly even more so.
Which in turns means that if Trump's plan for peace of Ukraine is to give half of Ukraine to Putin, that's just what's going to happen.

[Xhin]

Weighing in here a bit.

I'm in a rare position where the vast majority of my real life circle supports trump and the vast majority of my online circle thinks we just ended democracy with thunderous applause. I see a lot of the same things pop up on both sides, like "is the other side evil, or just stupid/brainwashed/in a cult?" and "I can't in good conscience be friends with someone who voted X". Obviously the two sides are not equivalent, but the vast majority of the people that support them sure are.

What seems to prevail most is ignorance, in the literal sense of the word. People that support trump are completely unaware of the rise of hate crimes in his era, and how his rhetoric directly emboldens the fringe, and then meanwhile, people that are against Trump are completely unaware of how many people in favor of him are rational lifelong Democrats, or that his base is largely composed of people that otherwise feel orphaned by modern politics.

I would encourage anyone that doesn't understand how the other side can think a certain way to go into those other spheres and learn for themselves. Find those that are tolerant and rational and avoid those that act based on fear of the Other. You may not agree with most of what they say and you may find some of the things they say to be overwhelmingly stupid, but they feel the same way about you and that's just how discourse works. If nothing else, be there to observe. Notice how their priorities differ from yours, and what is seen that you were unaware of vs what is unknown to them that is clear to you. Discover how their ideologies target those differences in perception and provides both reason and feeling to support it. Don't expect to find common ground, but at least walk away with a better understanding of why people think the way that they do.

No one wants what's coming. The best way to ward off that future is to re-establish lines of communication and tolerance with rational actors and put the Fringes back on the fringes. It will take a lot of work to heal fractures caused by inflammatory rhetoric and social media echo chambers, but the stakes are high for failure. Cooler heads must prevail.

[Raphael]

I found this series of slides illuminating.

Some good points, and a good insight into the Trumpist mindset, but a lot of things left out, and some direct contradictions.

For a start, the slides start out by mentioning three highly popular, expensively produced, wildly commercially successful movies that portray country people as Good and city people as Bad. Then, a while later, the slides complain that popular entertainment supposedly focuses only on city people and never mentions country people, except to make fun of them. Taken together, these two parts of the slides are pretty ridiculous.

While the slides list some differences between country people and city people, they never really explain why the city people's traits are supposed to be bad. What, city people are supposedly turning atheist and leaving their churches? Why should anyone have a problem with that? A lot of the complaints come down to saying that, from the perspective of country people, city people are kinda weird. Well, so what? Since when is being kinda weird some kind of major crime, or a legitimate reason to hate someone?

The main sources of tension between country people and city people are not about city people being "arrogant" or some such nonsense. They are about three things:

1) As the slides note, country people and city people are often different.
2) Country people often hate everyone who is different from them.
3) City people, like most human beings, often don't like it when other people hate them for no good reason.

As for the economic stuff, yeah, that's true, but it's neither anyone's fault, nor can anyone do anything about it. It's part of the nature of things that in a large, complex economy, wealth is created by a lot of complicated processes that are more likely to happen in cities than in the countryside, because they involve interaction between a lot of people. Therefore, rural areas are usually poor, unless they are either close enough to the nearest city to be well-integrated into the city's economy, or lavishly subsidized out of taxes paid by city people and city businesses, or temporarily lucky with the one or other local export.

Donald Trump can't change that, and neither could Kamala Harris. Or you, or me.

For the record, I myself spent most of my life, and currently live, in the suburbs, although I've also lived in both rural and inner-city neighborhoods in the past. Though I'm enough of an introvert that I'm not sure how much effect my surroundings really have on me.

[Travis B.]

Those slides make me less sympathetic towards country people -- if they are correct, then country people are a bunch of hateful, spiteful, self-destructive sorts who would hurt themselves just to stick it to those awful city people.

[keenir]

Those slides make me less sympathetic towards country people -- if they are correct, then country people are a bunch of hateful, spiteful, self-destructive sorts who would hurt themselves just to stick it to those awful city people.

Some of them very well may have...I keep feeling like this is Brexit, Round Two: a lot of people casting what they felt was a protest vote, and then waking up the next day to something they may not have been in full favor of.

[Linguoboy]

Those slides make me less sympathetic towards country people -- if they are correct, then country people are a bunch of hateful, spiteful, self-destructive sorts who would hurt themselves just to stick it to those awful city people.

Some of them very well may have...I keep feeling like this is Brexit, Round Two: a lot of people casting what they felt was a protest vote, and then waking up the next day to something they may not have been in full favor of.

To quote a popular meme, "Just wait until they look around in two years' time and realise that groceries aren't any cheaper."

Now to ramble for a bit:

I got flak from my Blue Dog (it's just shorter than VBNMW) friends for pointing out months ago that all the Democratic appeals were negative: Vote for us or bad things will happen! That didn't seem like a great approach for energising the base, which is how Dems traditionally win elections. The tone changed markedly when Harris replaced Biden, but the messaging remained vague. People wanted to hear how their lives would improve under Harris. Perhaps there were lots of concrete economic proposals and somehow I--a big-city liberal who spends too much time on social media and still reads newspapers--just never came across one.

Sure, most of Trump's appeals were fear-based as well (Jina! Immigrants! Urban crime! Students!), but it's a demonstrated difference between liberals and conservatives that the later are more fear-motivated. Maybe those messages were meant for the undecideds? But again, that's not who wins us elections. Trump got elected by default because millions who voted for Biden apparently just stayed home. This despite the Dems historically running better GOTV campaigns than Republicans and having more money to spend on them.

One friend of mine summed it up as "Harris ran a freedom campaign in a security election." That's not a complete explanation, but I feel it goes a long way. I know that the fact that Clinton also lost against Trump is leading a lot of people to blame her gender (or rather, the sexism of male voters), but the preliminary data doesn't support that. Notably, percentagewise fewer women voted for Harris than voted for Biden and I think it's tough to chalk that all up to internalised sexism. (A Chilean friend saw the large swing in Latino men to Trump and blamed "machismo", but (1) this shift has been in progress for a while and (b) the most pronounced swings--60 pts or more--were in counties on the border with Mexico. Are Tejanos more sexist? Or are they simply fed up with the government's response to the refugee crisis?)

[Travis B.]

Those slides make me less sympathetic towards country people -- if they are correct, then country people are a bunch of hateful, spiteful, self-destructive sorts who would hurt themselves just to stick it to those awful city people.

Some of them very well may have...I keep feeling like this is Brexit, Round Two: a lot of people casting what they felt was a protest vote, and then waking up the next day to something they may not have been in full favor of.

To quote a popular meme, "Just wait until they look around in two years' time and realise that groceries aren't any cheaper."

I expect the Democrats to be resurgent in the midterms... if there are midterms.

[Linguoboy]

I expect the Democrats to be resurgent in the midterms... if there are midterms.

That's the usual pattern. My wonkier friends seem to think that even this Supreme Court wouldn't let the GOP abrogate elections. However, what they will do is continue to enable Republican voter suppression by turning a blind eye to gerrymandering, gutting what remains of the VRA, and just generally showing complete disdain for ensuring broad participation in general elections. So the Senate map will be better for us but winning the House could well be tougher.

[bradrn]

A lot of the complaints come down to saying that, from the perspective of country people, city people are kinda weird. Well, so what? Since when is being kinda weird some kind of major crime, or a legitimate reason to hate someone?

As far as I can see, practically every instance of really fierce hatred ultimately comes down to, ‘those guys are weird’.

[Raphael]

A lot of the complaints come down to saying that, from the perspective of country people, city people are kinda weird. Well, so what? Since when is being kinda weird some kind of major crime, or a legitimate reason to hate someone?

As far as I can see, practically every instance of really fierce hatred ultimately comes down to, ‘those guys are weird’.

Well, I for one hate cruel people, and I don't think that just comes down to "they are weird". Then again, I'm weird.

[Raphael]

(A Chilean friend saw the large swing in Latino men to Trump and blamed "machismo", but (1) this shift has been in progress for a while

That doesn't rule out machismo as a factor, IMO.

and (b) the most pronounced swings--60 pts or more--were in counties on the border with Mexico. Are Tejanos more sexist? Or are they simply fed up with the government's response to the refugee crisis?)

Wait, are you saying that the Biden Administration should have gone all Trump on that issue?

[bradrn]

A lot of the complaints come down to saying that, from the perspective of country people, city people are kinda weird. Well, so what? Since when is being kinda weird some kind of major crime, or a legitimate reason to hate someone?

As far as I can see, practically every instance of really fierce hatred ultimately comes down to, ‘those guys are weird’.

Well, I for one hate cruel people, and I don't think that just comes down to "they are weird". Then again, I'm weird.

I think you misunderstood me. I was talking about the feelings which underlie that cruelty — ‘those people are weird’, followed by ‘weirdness is wrong’, followed by ‘wrongness must be suppressed’.

[Nortaneous]

Demand for correct explanations of Democratic losses that do not in any way implicate the policy preferences of influential parts of the Democratic coalition vastly outstrips supply. If you want an explanation of the rise of Trumpism, you can start by reading the random salaryman who became COVID vaccine data czar by accident, who is probably not an enthusiastic supporter of Trump but who shares with that camp an unwillingness to overlook things the blue team declines to see itself as doing in a relevant sense but factually did. If you don't want to read the whole thing, you can start with the section about redlining.