United States Politics Thread 47

[Raphael]

This reminds me, a while ago, elsewhere on the web, I saw a post by someone who argued that the most likely outcome of the current political developments in the USA would be something like Mexico during the long PRI rule. That wouldn't be 1984, but it would be grim enough in its own right.

[Ketsuban]

Does it seem to anyone else like when malloc says something like "maybe so, but" you can cut the first few words off the sentence because it means he's pretending to concede a point to you while actually dismissing what you just said in order to keep dooming?

Trump and other right wing populists have figured out the secret of retaining power indefinitely. Despite his utterly terrible record and constant scandals, Trump has only gotten more popular over the years

Meanwhile, in reality.

increasing his vote count with every election

Vote share in the United States presidential election is a terrible metric for actual approval because of how staggeringly undemocratic the electoral college is. Putin likewise has been transparently undermining Russia's electoral system for his entire political career—you can see his vote share go from a narrow plurality to Kim-style absurdity over successive elections, culminating in claims of 99% approval in occupied regions of Ukraine. (Orban is a trickier case—there has been electoral fraud, particularly relating to postal votes from the Hungarian diaspora, but he also seems to be genuinely popular in Hungary. Maybe it just has a groundswell of racists like the UK, where whatever Nigel Farage is calling his party this week consistently teeters on the brink of benefiting from first-past-the-post as a voting method. The BBC continues to be accused of giving him disproportionate amounts of largely positive coverage, compared to the mixed and often critical portrayal of His Majesty's Government or Opposition.)

[keenir]

Does it seem to anyone else like when malloc says something like "maybe so, but" you can cut the first few words off the sentence because it means he's pretending to concede a point to you while actually dismissing what you just said in order to keep dooming?

very much so, yes.

see also "Yes and" and "But also".


I was starting to worry It was a figment of my RAM. Er, I mean of my imaginationnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

[keenir]

Even if you consider the conditions in 1984 incredibly unlikely to pass, they still feel more likely than the world improving at this point.

Well, if you have no desire to protest or to stop glooming, you could always vote with your feet...I hear the MacDonald Islands are in desperate need of a human to live there, so Trump won't slap the penguins with crippling tarrifs.

Maybe so, but Trump and other right wing populists have figured out the secret of retaining power indefinitely.

...and yet shows no inkling of how or when to use that secret.

[Raphael]

Even if you consider the conditions in 1984 incredibly unlikely to pass, they still feel more likely than the world improving at this point.

Well, if you have no desire to protest or to stop glooming, you could always vote with your feet...

I hate to sound like I'm defending malloc, but from everything I've heard about his financial situation, he can't just move to a different country any time he feels like it.

[malloc]

I hate to sound like I'm defending malloc, but from everything I've heard about his financial situation, he can't just move to a different country any time he feels like it.

Quite. Not to mention, the far right is gaining ground pretty much everywhere and moving would not necessarily solve my problems. It might only take a few years for my destination to elect its own reactionaries.

[Torco]

you could move to vietnam? it's unlikely they'll elect a far right reactionary over there, and you'd save up on heating.

disclaimer: i know, i know, moving countries is a big deal, almost no one does it on account of politics unless they're facing a direct threat of violence from the government, blabla.

[zompist]

The idea here is not to make this thread the malloc show. Move on, people.

Grief and anger are appropriate reactions to the ongoing crisis. Giving up is not. We've had decades of malloc not understanding things, and one more post is not going to breadk through. The best we can do is no longer let him take over threads for pages upon pages.

[keenir]

I hate to sound like I'm defending malloc, but from everything I've heard about his financial situation, he can't just move to a different country any time he feels like it.

Quite. Not to mention, the far right is gaining ground pretty much everywhere and moving would not necessarily solve my problems. It might only take a few years for my destination to elect its own reactionaries.

Really? you're going to teach penguins how to be far-right reactionaries? {look where i suggested you move to}

I have faith in you, buddy.

[MysteryMan23]

So, there's protests across the nation today. What kind of effect will they have? Should we be optimistic?

[zompist]

So, there's protests across the nation today. What kind of effect will they have? Should we be optimistic?

Is it going to get rid of the Republicans tomorrow? No. Does it matter? Yes.

[malloc]

But how old are the people in those protests? I have heard many times that MAGA and other reactionary movements have made massive inroads among young people. Given the unfortunate reality of human mortality, that means the US will trend further and further right for the foreseeable future. What we really need is some way to compete with all the massively successful right wing influencers that young people follow these days.

[keenir]

But how old are the people in those protests?

not dead yet; thats all i can swear to.

I have heard many times that MAGA and other reactionary movements have made massive inroads among young people.

and? so? therefore?

do you have the same social or religious views you did five years ago? ten? twenty? I know I don't.

Given the unfortunate reality of human mortality,

which one?

that means the US will trend further and further right for the foreseeable future.

until, like many of the hippies from Woodstock did, the young people - *gasp* - change their minds again.

What we really need is some way to compete with all the massively successful right wing influencers that young people follow these days.

yeah, if only we had a place where lots of political and social videos could be posted and shared with people of similar and dissimilar views. we could name it after the old nickname for the highly influential television...hm, how to abreviate boob tube?

ooh, I know! the Ootube! or something like that?

[rotting bones]

But how old are the people in those protests? I have heard many times that MAGA and other reactionary movements have made massive inroads among young people. Given the unfortunate reality of human mortality, that means the US will trend further and further right for the foreseeable future. What we really need is some way to compete with all the massively successful right wing influencers that young people follow these days.

It's not just influencers. There's been a whole conservative shift in the way progressives present their program that's slowly making them irrelevant. One source of the confusion is that people see politics as a spectrum when it's not. People who are against center-left rhetoric are not always against far left ideas.

[rotting bones]

you could move to vietnam? it's unlikely they'll elect a far right reactionary over there, and you'd save up on heating.

disclaimer: i know, i know, moving countries is a big deal, almost no one does it on account of politics unless they're facing a direct threat of violence from the government, blabla.

I don't understand contemporary Marxists who support China and Vietnam. These are market economies with political repression. If we're going to have market economies anyway, why not have free speech too with Social Democracy?

Of course, should any of these states fall, the result would be a genocide.

[rotting bones]

I understand that a generation of Americans has been radicalized by Fox News. What I don't understand is, why is Fox News so popular in America? Is it just the outrage porn? If so, then why is liberal outrage seen as lame?

Are there social institutions pushing people to watch Fox News?

[malloc]

It's not just influencers. There's been a whole conservative shift in the way progressives present their program that's slowly making them irrelevant. One source of the confusion is that people see politics as a spectrum when it's not. People who are against center-left rhetoric are not always against far left ideas.

What people do you have in mind like that?

[rotting bones]

What people do you have in mind like that?

Poor people are often put off by the soaring, West Wing style rhetoric liberals really love. When you have trouble affording groceries, you don't want to listen to prose poetry about how society is becoming more just for other groups. What you want to do is break something.

Dividing the working class like this is dangerous for minorities. It has repeatedly led to fascism.

[zompist]

I understand that a generation of Americans has been radicalized by Fox News. What I don't understand is, why is Fox News so popular in America?

Buncha reasons-- I need to update my political pages. But to start with the most counter-intuitive reason: it's because the country has gotten way more liberal.

To see this, chew on one pair of facts.
Nixon won in 1972 with 61% of the vote.
Trump won in 2016 with 46% of the vote.

That's a swing of 15%, which is huge in a modern electoral system. In historical memory the 60s belonged to the "counterculture" when everyone was a rebel. But that picture is wrong: only a minority were rebels. It was a more conservative country; the rebels just got more media attention.

You can go back way more-- say to 1936, when Roosevelt also got 61%. But it was a different situation back then. Probably there is a generational cycle going on here. A political party can rarely stay in control past half a century.

How is it that the country is more liberal? Well, look around. There was a civil rights revolution for Blacks and for women. Gay marriage is legal. Obamacare brought universal healthcare very close (the GOP is trying to claw it back of course). A surprising 42% of the public are favorable about "socialism". 79% think taxes on the rich should be higher-- including a majority of Republicans. People of color are more of the country (38%) than ever before. The strongest age group for Harris (51-47) was people under 30.

So that's the thing to understand about conservatives: they are desperate. The stuff they want now-- white supremacy, no abortion, suppression of women, homophobia, throttled immigration, US manufacturing booming, non-challenging education-- is what the country had in the 1950s. They want everything since then reversed, and to hell with democracy because if things keep going as they have, they lose-- forever. Fox News is popular because it amplifies the sense of disquiet they already have and promises to implement that reversal.

[rotting bones]

I agree that America is more liberal. When voters are disappointed in the liberals, it usually demotivates them instead of turning them conservative.

But don't left-leaning Americans become Fox zombies as they get older? Is this nostalgia for their childhood?