Self-recommending. Pointer from Tyler Cowen. An excerpt:
I’m a fan of the political scientist Karen Stenner, who divides the groups on the right into three: The laissez-faire conservatives or libertarians who believe in maximum freedom, including economic freedom and small governance; the Burkean conservatives, who fear chaos, disruption, and disorder — these are many of the conservative intellectuals who have largely opposed Trump.
And then there are the authoritarians, who are people who are not necessarily racist but have a strong sense of moral order, and when they perceive that things are coming apart and that there’s a decrease in moral order, they become racist — hostile to alien groups including blacks, gay people, Mexicans, etc. This is the core audience that Trump has spoken to.
That’s not to say that most people who voted for him are authoritarians, but I think this is the core group that provides the passion that got him through the primaries.
But perhaps the key idea is this:
We haven’t talked about social media, but I really believe it’s one of our biggest problems. So long as we are all immersed in a constant stream of unbelievable outrages perpetrated by the other side, I don’t see how we can ever trust each other and work together again.
It’s not just social media. The mainstream media also deal in a “constant stream of unbelievable outrages.” The double standards are glaring. Elizabeth Warren attacks Wall Street, and she is called a brave progressive. Donald Trump attacks Wall Street, and he is called anti-semitic. If the Pope were to say that capitalism needs to be softened by religious beliefs, then the media would report that he “gets it.” Steve Bannon says pretty much the same thing, and supposedly he is a white nationalist.
Related: Scott Alexander writes,
There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he’s “the candidate of the KKK” and “the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement” is made up. It’s a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. That it came to dominate the election cycle should be considered a horrifying indictment of our political discourse, in the same way that it would be a horrifying indictment of our political discourse if the entire Republican campaign had been based around the theory that Hillary Clinton was a secret Satanist. Yes, calling Romney a racist was crying wolf. But you are still crying wolf.
Tyler Cowen thinks that Alexander is naive. I think not. The fact that real rape happens does not make false accusations of rape helpful. And the fact that real oppression happens does not make false accusations about it helpful.
If minorities come under attack under President Trump, then I will rally to their defense. But the wave of post-election rallies strikes me as more counterproductive and divisive than healing or inclusive. If what you want is a peaceful, inclusive society, then you should model peaceful, inclusive rhetoric and avoid contrived outrage.
You are right, and Tyler is wrong in this case. The Dem losers are desperate to find a scapegoat for their loss which allows them to avoid actual change.
Sadly, there is a LOT of avoidance about defining “racism”. To me, non-racism was clearly defined in MLK’s “I have a dream” speech. Judging people based on their character, not their skin color.
Affirmative Action is a policy that fails this test — it is a racist policy.
People who support racist policies are racist. This is a pro-black (anti-white) racist policy.
An unspoken alternative definition of racism is supporting any change which seems to hurt blacks more than white, or that seems to help non-blacks more than it helps blacks.
Until there is a better and more honest consensus on what “racism” is, throwing the word around as an insult is a little … insulting.
Who needs more character to achieve a B+ GPA, an upper middle class suburban kid, or a poor inner city kid who has to navigate a battlefield to get to school every day? Not to mention the kids who gets into a major school only because of their wealthy donor parent who is an alumnus. You hardly ever hear complaints about them.
I think Haidt makes his best comment as pessimistic when it is optimistic that he can recommend it at all:
“we’ll have to give up on doing big things in Washington, and do as little as we possibly can at the national level. We’re going to have to return as much as we can to states and localities, …”
As for the racism issue; Haidt also handles that: The reason it dominated the political discourse is because the election was one small phase of a grand religious war. If there is one thing that the alt-right can teach, it is that the sides in the conflict are essentially religious – Progressivism is a religion, probably descended from a kind of Protestantism through the lens of the ‘Enlightenment’ – and the sacred values/taboos of Progressivism, such as racism, are perceived by Progressives as the key issues of value, to the exclusion of _everything else._
“If what you want is a peaceful, inclusive society, then you should model peaceful, inclusive rhetoric and avoid contrived outrage.”
Well, yes. The best approach would seem to be to take Trump and his team at their word that they are not racist/white supremacist/antisemitic and then be vigilant hold them to it. But while that may be the best strategy for a peaceful, inclusive society, it may not be for the future partisan advantage of the blue team. If *that* is your highest priority, then amping up the rhetoric to 11 and trying to make Trump and his administration as radioactive as possible may be the way to go.
I know that when you say media, you really mean the social conversations that take place there, but I find that by saying the problem is social media, we anthropomorphize it and stop seeing where the blame really belongs. We do the same thing with money.
I’m a little taken aback at the comparisons here. The reasons that Donald Trump and Steve Bannon are seen as racists aren’t because of a narrow arguments they made that you cite as overlapping with Elizabeth Warren and the Pope. They both have a large body of racist statements made over time and their prescriptions are threatening to people in a very visceral way. How could you look a Mexican American or a Muslim American in the eye and tell them that their outrage was contrived?
These two men have worked hard to convince us that they are racists. We should believe them.
What has Trump said that is racist?
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/article/2016/jun/08/donald-trumps-racial-comments-about-judge-trump-un/
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-epic-statement-on-mexico-2015-7
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-would-certainly-implement-muslim-database
First one is nationalist, not racist. He also gave Cruz the business for being born in Canada.
Second one not familiar with.
Third one isn’t about race, but religion.
No, I know the statements he made that are not actually racist.
When everyone says Trump is racist against Mexicans (sic), can we be 100% certain a judge of Mexican descent will be 100.0000% unbiased?
Answer: no. And that isn’t racist.
Until recently, our country had a set of core values, one of which was that individuals were to be judged by the content of their character, not their lineage, or race or creed. We didn’t develop that value because lineage has a 0.0000% effect on our judgements, but because we have chosen culturally to not delineate politically along tribal factions. We Intrinsically don’t believe in it, and we have a 100+ year history of immigration where this value has held, with spectacular success. This is perhaps the single most important value in our society, and neither you or Trump appear to understand it at all.
The arguments in Trump’s favor seems to fall along two lines. Some argue semantics, and say this isn’t really racism, it’s something else. Well, being a mexican or a muslim is really a complex mixture of traits, and technically, race can get lost in the wash if you want it to. But when a candidate warns that “tremendous infectious disease” is pouring across the border, that tends to cut through the ambiguity, at least for me.
Others argue there are numerous statements that imply Trump isn’t racist. He said “I love Mexicans” for god’s sake!
Human beings behave in conflicting ways all the time. If you observe someone being cruel, and then you observe them acting kindly on a few occasions, do you view them as a kind person? Do you split the difference? No. You view them as dangerous.
“These two men have worked hard to convince us that they are racists. We should believe them.”
Did you actually read the Scott Alexander piece?
> These two men have worked hard to convince us that they are racists. We should believe them.
Um… whatever their personal thoughts are regarding racial minorities, convincing us that they are racist is definitely not something that Trump or Bannon is trying to do. Some who is trying to convince that they are a racist does not say “I love Mexicans!” or talk about “a New Deal for African-Americans”. I am not saying these men aren’t racist, but pretending that you are simply taking them at their word when your interpretations are often the literal opposite is quite disingenuous
Let’s be clear mainstream journalists are the ones who are trying to convince us that these men are racists. These journalists may even be right. Certainly Trump and Bannon are less concerned than other public figures about being called racist, but if that’s your threshold for being “openly racist” then let me introduce to at least half of the people in this country who disagree.
Truth, or confirmation bias? I think if you wanted to show that Trump was not racist or anti-Muslim or homophobic, you could find plenty. The Alexander speech would be a good place to start. Then move on to the speech of Peter Thiel at the Republican convention, and Trumps comments there about gays and other groups. I was anti-Trump, but it had little or nothing to do with his supposed prejudices.
The idea that there are tens of millions of bloodthirsty neo-nazis all over the US is beyond laughably absurd, yet this is what the media wants us to believe.
No wonder they lost and will continue to lose.
I think Trump knew what he was doing, just not in the sense the progressives think and not in the calculated dog whistle version of the narrative. He was simply saying things in a way he knew both sides would become emotional about.
He is no more racist than he is wallist. The only way we will get a wall is if people oppose alternative border controls. Anyone want to bet me yet? The purpose of “the wall” was to create an emotional response. If the racists like him and the people who claim it is racist to have a border (and especially a wall) hate him, it is mostly because he had to run as a Republican and that is where those opposite extremes happen to be.
So, Alexander is naive in the sense that Trump was playing the histrionic reactions to his poorly/cleverly chosen rhetoric. It wasn’t just the progressives crying wolf, Trump set the trap and they took the bait. This isn’t even new. Obama is a master of it.
I’m pretty sure the Republic doesn’t heal from the fracturing this election both revealed and caused. And there is no way to get back to even remotely fair norms of political contest.
Douthat agrees with Cowen, but I think they’re just both ‘mood disaffiliating’ from Trump.
The main concern of Trump’s administration is not African Americans but immigrants policies. I suspect the administration will do a Muslim regristary, national stop & frisk, large deportations and a few other similar programs. So they make a statement against immigrants without trying to bother conservative voters like yourself. The above are easy to rationalize for a lot of voters. Here are the
1) He is incredibly disliked and opposition party tends to strength out of office.
2) If HRC lost partially due to emails and corruption, Trump seems to top her on these concerns. (The whole blind trust stuff is funny and shows poor judgment.)
3) A lot of Paul Ryan’s programs will truly hurt the core WWC voters. Trump ran to protect Social Security and Medicare and anything to dismantle these will not be popular. Remember Bush 2005 – 2006?
4) WWC voters want manufacturing jobs and they are not coming back. While you are fine with this, these voters carried Trump and expect him to deliver.
national stop & frisk?
How are they going to do that? The whole sanctuary city issue is the same. The federal government cannot direct state and local law enforcement to enforce federal statutes, even if they could get a statute for national stop and frisk.
What the federal government can do is say, “We give you money under program X. If you do not do Y, we will stop giving you that money.” States generally fall in line. That is why we have a national drinking age of 21 and a national law of speed limits.
Paul Ryan has already shut down the idea of a Muslim registry, and there are more than enough Republicans in the senate (it would only take 3 anyway) who will be happy rain on Trump’s parade. He won’t get his wall either; even if he does eventually he’ll likely be near out of office before building it gets underway, and afterward it will just be undone. Even on immigration, I don’t think he’ll get beyond maybe some fairly moderate increase in deportations.
Rand Paul has already dropped party loyalty and publicly shut down potential Trump SoS appointees. Between Republican ‘infighting’ and the nascent administration’s disorganization, my suspicion is Trump will be quite ineffectual at achieving his policy goals.
It just astounds me that people continue to flat-out deny Trump’s alt-right/White supremacist/anti-semitic/racist (i.e. neo-Nazi) connections.
Now most of the evidence come from the Nazis themselves. I’ll just start with the main anecdotal evidence that I’ve encountered: a couple of the more popular twitterers that I read, namely Matthew Yglesias (who is Jewish, and a Democrat) and Patrick Chovanec (who is a Republican and an Irish/Polish Catholic, but he works in finance, so…) get attacked with anti-semitic slurs literally every day in response to their criticisms of Trump on Twitter. I know that Chovanec blocks them them all and assume that Yglesias does, but they just keep coming and coming.
As far as evidence in the media, I knew there was a lot of it, and figured it would be easy enough to google a general round-up. Here’s a good one; take a look.
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/16/updated-complete-history-donald-trumps-relationship-white-nationalist-movement/214491
Again, most of the evidence come from the Nazis themselves: statement after statement of enthusiastic support, praise of him as something unprecedented in mainstream politics.
From his own side, I suppose there’s slightly less evidence and it’s slightly more circumstantial. Here’s the main relevant paragraph from the above link (which contains linked text in the original):
“White nationalists didn’t only praise Trump from afar: They rubbed elbows with the campaign. Trump himself has repeatedly retweeted white supremacist messages and accounts, such as “WhiteGenocideTM.” Trump surrogates have directly courted white nationalists by giving interviews to white nationalist media outlets. A “pro-white” radio host received press credentials to cover a Trump rally and the Republican National Convention. And Trump selected the leader of a white nationalist political party to be a convention delegate (he resigned following media exposure).”
I should note that Trump has a very consisted pattern of implying things and then denying he implied what he implied, saying thing and then denying he said what he said, doing things and then denying he did what he did. Again, a massive amount of evidence for this pattern, and I’m sure I good google a roundup if anyone likes, but I won’t for a moment.
As far as Bannon, the main claim of his White Nationalist connection comes from a guy who worked with him at Breitbart (though there are others who have made similar statements). He has them come out clarifying that he didn’t mean to imply that Bannon was himself a White Nationalist, merely that he was deliberately courting them.
And I’ve heard the same said about Trump. Now I’ve seen statements by Trump that imply pretty clearly to me that he has some pretty bigoted attitudes toward Jews, Blacks and other groups, but for both him and Bannon, the main point is that when your going to be in a position of (massive) power and you’ve been deliberately courting Nazis, even for the most cynical reasons, your personal feelings don’t matter at all.
Ugh, I’m a bad typist.
We have a 2 party system. That’s all it is.
“Again, most of the evidence come from the Nazis themselves: statement after statement of enthusiastic support, praise of him as something unprecedented in mainstream politics.”
The Communist Party has officially endorsed Democratic candidates for years. Yet they’re (rightly) never tarred with that brush. Just as Sanders isn’t smeared by the kind things the famine-loving, forced-labor loving Venezuelan government has said about him.
If the proverbial shoe were on the other foot, these arguments would go nowhere near mainstream awareness and dissemination, but stay confined to the conservative news ghetto.
Revolutionary socialists being on the democrat side is way differed from far right being on the conservative side.
I can’t figure out why, but it is.
Here are a few the quotes from that link, which I’m assuming you did not click on.
Neo-Nazi Site Daily Stormer: “Vote For The First Time In Our Lives For The One Man Who Actually Represents Our Interests.”
Hate Group Leader Jared Taylor: “Trump May Be The Last Hope For A President Who Would Be Good For White People.”
Hate Group Leader Richard Spencer: “Trump Thinks Like Me. … Do You Think It’s A Coincidence That Everybody Like Me Loves Trump And Supports Him?”
This is a new level of enthusiasm.
Here is the CPUSA endorsement of Hillary, very much lesser-of two evils.
http://www.cpusa.org/article/taking-a-sober-look-at-the-2016-election/
Nobody in his right mind thinks she’s a commie, let alone actual commies.
Absolutely no parallel here whatsoever.
And he just appointed a racist for attorney general…
All just a big coincidence I’m sure.
Just to clarify: “Absolutely no parallel here whatsoever” is NOT sarcastic.
“All just a big coincidence I’m sure” is TOTALLY sarcastic.
Please name a conservative politician who, by your definition, definitely *isn’t* a racist.
You should (re-)read the Scott Alexander piece, specifically regarding Trump’s disavowal of David Duke an the prevalence of white-supremacists in general. Thinking that Trump was in anyway trying to appeal to white-supremacists borders on conspiracy theory. The KKK can’t even adopt a highway in Georgia! Well, at least not without help from the ACLU and the transportation department failing to file an appeals correctly[0].
Also, claiming that receiving an unsolicited endorsements from unsavory people as a sign of a “connection” is really weird generally.
[0]http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/us/georgia-kkk-adopt-a-highway-lawsuit/index.html
And ye, and yet, somehow this stuff just keeps coming up again and again and again.
I’m just going to copy/paste text, since obviously nobody’s clicking.
Trump Has Repeatedly Retweeted White Supremacist Accounts. The New York Times wrote of Trump’s penchant for promoting white nationalists on Twitter:
But on the flatlands of social media, the border between Mr. Trump and white supremacists easily blurs. He has retweeted supportive messages from racist or nationalist Twitter accounts to his nine million followers. Last fall, he retweeted a graphic with fictitious crime statistics claiming that 81 percent of white homicide victims in 2015 were killed by blacks. (No such statistic was available for 2015 at the time; the actual figure for 2014 was 15 percent, according to the F.B.I.)
In January and February he retweeted messages from a user with the handle @WhiteGenocideTM, whose profile picture is of George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. A couple of days later, in quick succession, he retweeted two more accounts featuring white nationalist or Nazi themes. Mr. Trump deleted one of the retweets, but white supremacists saw more than a twitch of the thumb. “Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR has gone full wink-wink-wink to his most aggressive supporters,” Mr. Anglin wrote on The Daily Stormer.
In fact, Mr. Trump’s Twitter presence is tightly interwoven with hordes of mostly anonymous accounts trafficking in racist and anti-Semitic attacks. When Little Bird, a social media data mining company, analyzed a week of Mr. Trump’s Twitter activity, it found that almost 30 percent of the accounts Mr. Trump retweeted in turn followed one or more of 50 popular self-identified white nationalist accounts. [The New York Times, 7/14/16]
Trump Repeatedly Refused To Denounce David Duke. Trump created an uproar when he repeatedly refused to disavow David Duke for supporting his campaign. Trump later bizarrely blamed a “bad earpiece” for failing to denounce Duke during the interview. [CNN.com, 2/29/16; Washington Examiner, 2/29/16]
Trump Refused To Denounce Neo-Nazi Supporters Who Threatened Reporter. During a May interview, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Trump if he would denounce anti-Semitic death threats against a reporter who wrote a profile of Melania Trump. Trump refused to condemn the threats, saying he was unaware of them and adding, “I don’t have a message to the fans. A woman wrote a article that was inaccurate.” [Media Matters, 5/6/16]
Trump Selected White Nationalist Leader As Delegate. As Mother Jones noted, the Trump campaign selected “William Johnson, one of the country’s most prominent white nationalists,” as a convention delegate from California. Johnson later resigned following criticism, and the Trump campaign blamed a “database error” on the selection. [Mother Jones, 5/10/16]
Trump Campaign Was Forced To Return Donation From Johnson. The Trump campaign accepted a $250 donation in September from Johnson and returned it after Media Matters and People for the American Way criticized Trump. [Media Matters, 3/11/16]
Trump Adviser And GOP Congressmen Gave Pro-Trump Interviews To White Nationalist Radio Host James Edwards At The RNC. Several members of Congress and Trump campaign official Gary Berntsen gave pro-Trump interviews to James Edwards and his “pro-white” radio show The Political Cesspool during the Republican National Convention. [Media Matters, 7/24/16]
Trump Campaign Gave Press Credentials To James Edwards. Trump’s campaign gave press credentials to Edwards and The Political Cesspool to cover a Tennessee rally in February. [Media Matters, 3/1/16]
Donald Trump Jr. Gave Interview To James Edwards. Donald Trump Jr. gave an interview to white nationalist leader James Edwards. The interview aired on the Liberty RoundTable, which is hosted by Edwards’ syndicator and guest host Sam Bushman. Edwards appeared on the program as a guest and questioner. The Trump campaign later claimed they were not aware of Edwards’ views; Edwards hit back at the campaign by claiming that the interview happened because “a press agency that’s scheduling interviews for” Trump Jr. reached out to him. [Media Matters, 3/3/16]
Trump’s Convention Displayed Tweets From White Nationalist Accounts. The Republican National Convention displayed tweets from white nationalist accounts on its ticker. The tweets came from the accounts “@Western_Triumph” and VDare.com. [Time, 7/22/16]
Trump Adviser Retweeted An Anti-Semitic Message. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who is advising Trump’s campaign and was reportedly considered as a potential running mate, shared a tweet that read, “Not anymore, Jews. Not Anymore.” Flynn later apologized, claiming it “was a mistake.” [CNN.com, 7/24/16]
Trump Surrogates Promoted Campaign In Interview With Neo-Nazi. Diamond and Silk, two YouTube personalities who serve as surrogates for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, promoted his candidacy in an interview with neo-Nazi and Trump supporter John Friend. Friend believes the Holocaust is “one of the most egregious and outrageous falsehoods ever perpetrated,” “Jews Did 9/11,” and Adolf Hitler was “the greatest thing that’s happened to Western civilization.” [Media Matters, 3/24/16]
Donald Trump Jr. Retweeted Anti-Semitic Author Kevin MacDonald. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted that Trump Jr. in August “retweeted an attack on Hillary Clinton by Kevin MacDonald, a psychologist notorious for his theories of Jewish manipulation and control. The Aug. 29 tweet itself had nothing to do with Jews or the theories that have made MacDonald popular among Holocaust deniers. In it, MacDonald referred to Clinton’s interactions as secretary of state with UBS, a Swiss bank that also has contributed to the Clinton Foundation.” [Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 9/1/16]
Trump Senior Adviser Promoted Anti-Semitic Hate Site’s Trump Endorsement. A.J. Delgado, a senior campaign adviser, retweeted a Trump endorsement from anti-Semitic website The Right Stuff in October. The Right Stuff tweeted: “At this point anyone not insane enough to want a war with Russia should vote Trump.” The tweet prior to the message that Delgado retweeted was an anti-Semitic attack on Republican strategist Dan Senor. [Media Matters, 10/11/16]
Trump Campaign Has Accepted Donations From Prominent White Nationalist Leader William Johnson. The Trump campaign accepted a $250 donation in September 2015 from Johnson and returned it after Media Matters and People for the American Way criticized Trump. However, Johnson subsequently donated more money to the Trump campaign that reportedly has not been returned. The Daily Beast reported in October 2016:
According to FEC filings, Johnson contributed $1,000 on June 22, 2016 and an additional $500 on June 28. Both of these have yet to refunded according to the filings.
When asked about the contributions, Johnson told The Daily Beast he thought had given even more than the documented amount.
“I donated more than $1,500,” he said in an email. “I think I am near the max of $2,500. I paid by credit card and I don’t keep my personal accounts, so I don’t know for sure, but I have given on many occasions.” [Media Matters, 3/11/16; The Daily Beast, 10/31/16]
Trump Campaign Accepted Donations From White Nationalist Leaders Michael Polignano And Peter Brimelow. Trump’s campaign accepted donations from Michael Polignano and Peter Brimelow, white nationalists who both manage virulently racist publications. Polignano is the managing editor and webmaster for Counter-Currents, a website and publishing company that publishes white nationalist and pro-Hitler material. Brimelow is the editor of VDare.com, a white nationalist and anti-immigrant website. [Media Matters, 9/14/16]
Well, I just tried to copy paste a whole bunch of text, because obviously nobody’s clicking on my link. It’s under moderation, for obvious reasons, but better to just paste a link to the relevant anchor and hope somebody bothers with it.
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/16/updated-complete-history-donald-trumps-relationship-white-nationalist-movement/214491#interactions
Just an amazing that he keeps doing this kind of stuff again and again and again.
But I’ll agree that this is not his only problem, by a long shot.
“Nobody in their right mind…”
So it’s just taken for granted. Not everyone agrees with you. They’d draw a line e.g. from Gramsci to Hillary Clinton’s social liberalism.
Look, Jessie “Hymie Town” Jackson had praise for Sanders: http://wapo.st/29FFYqZ
Must mean Sanders is sending anti-semitic dog whistles!
We can play this game all day. But trust me it’ll get old…
Let’s not forget Hillary’s connection with Saul Alinsky. She praised the man and considered herself a student of his. I don’t think it controversial that many people in this country would find his “Rules for Radicals” deeply disturbing. The man literally endorsed demonizing and destroying the reputation of one’s political opponents (see rules 5 and 13).
Well, it is getting old, but, again, my link above… I’ve been through a lot of campaigns and the quantity of this stuff, both in terms of his behavior, quoting these people, hiring them, and of the explosion of hate acts in his name, the obvious since his election, the statements that many of them now feel empowered, is really unprecedented.
And that’s my last comment. I never really expected this to get anywhere here. I never do.
What a bunch of content-less poo-flinging
Shouldn’t have offered a quick summary of so much information, as it only invited nitpicking you see above, as well as this kind of dismissal.
Plus mentioned the twitter stuff I’ve observed and the explosion of racist attacks done in Trump’s name since the election.
My mistake.
Oops, somehow deleted this: should have just posted the links, in hopes that someone here would bother taking a look.
(1) I’m pushing 50. At this point, every Repub presidential candidate of my experience is a racistsexist(and more recently)homophobic HITLER!! surpassed only by the one four years later.
(2) The news is full of stories of Broadway audiences interrupting performances to berate the VP-elect, physical assaults on Trump supporters, BLM riots, cops assassinated.
You can firehose all the chaff you want. It’s your team that objectively has a problem with hate and violence in the real world.
All your racistsexisthomophobicauthoritarian stuff is pure projection. You throw that poo at Trump to distract from the fact that your team has done and is doing much worse.
So, when black supremacists supported Obama, we could correctly conclude Obama must be a black supremacist or “have black supremacist ties?”
Or when the Communist Party endorsed Clinton (and she has yet to disavow that endorsement), does that mean she must be a communist?
There’s this thing called logic you might want to try using sometime.
“At this point, every Repub presidential candidate of my experience is a racistsexist(and more recently)homophobic HITLER!! surpassed only by the one four years later.”
Ignoring the all-caps Hitler, that’s a pretty accurate description of the trajectory of the Republican Party over the last half century Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Trump.
They just keep getting more and more extreme and awful (the 2 1-termers were sort of placeholding apparatchiks).
Not going to get dragged into a debate of all that other stuff.
I guess you’re now justifying the new going around scrawling swastikas and next to the word Trump in a park named after a Jew, calling Black people the N-word and saying “My President says it’s OK” (I believe that’s right), violent attacks, apparently 700 reported events since the election, or saying that it has nothing to do with any of those things Trump has been doing.
Well, I can see there’s no point in arguing about this. Just put the info out there and people will do what they will with it. Now let’s change the subject. I thought this was a pretty good article.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/17/13626514/trump-systemic-corruption
I was about to say that they’ve gotten perhaps a little better about gay people but then I remember that the new VP wants to imprison them.
Pity about him being (very, very, very politely) berated, though.
Oops, couldn’t resist.
I would make a distinction between the “anti-Semitism” claims about the final ad (which are bogus, but may resonate with people who have been getting unprecedented anti-Semitic messaging on twitter this year), the black/white racial angle (where Trump is in a long line since Nixon of implicitly racializing criminal justice issues, but isn’t breaking new ground) and Trump’s xenophobia against Mexicans and Muslims. On the last, Trump really is breaking new ground. He is also more generally a pure authoritarian without the leavening of libertarian rhetoric of Goldwater/Reagan-derived conservaism.
Well, I’d disagree about it being bogus, as you might guess, in part because of his history. The whole point of dog whistles is plausible deniability. One of Trump’s innovations is to be blatant where his predecessors were subtle, but that doesn’t mean he’s blatant all the time. But it’s a small issue in the scheme of things.
Dig whistles are BS.
Why would a racist who is being openly called a racist have to use code?
Because the far right might swing to the democrats?
Makes zero sense.
Open anti-semitism is less acceptable than open racism among lots of people.
And he does have a habit of claiming he didn’t imply /say/do etc.
But we’ll never agree on this and it doesn’t matter much.
Indeed. The media will call any and every Republican a racist/sexist/whatever no matter what they say; they did it with Romney and McCain too. They see dogwhistles every time one of their candidates opens his mouth to order lunch. How could a candidate convey these ‘secret messages’ to the (negligible) white supremacist or anti-semitic demographic (which probably has a pretty low voter turnout, moreover) when even the things they say that are objectively inoffensive get construed as racist by the media?
As mentioned in Scott Alexander’s post, Ted Cruz’s remark about “New York values.” Media leftists basically made up this idea that it had something to do with anti-Semitism because Jews = New York. The media is so oversensitive to the point of paranoia when it comes offensive remarks about ‘protected groups’ (at least as far as Republicans are concerned) that dogwhistles have lost any hypothetical utility in this day and age.
If Tyler had left it at “naive,” I’d completely agree. The masses are not moved by facts and analysis, but by emotive pleas (elites however sometimes are, fortunately). Alas he did not leave it at that.
I don’t agree Scott is naive. Scott has put a lot of effort into being seen as a voice of reason, and puts a lot of his tribal status on the line to do so. That kind of sacrifice, and not just once but over and over again, is a form of emotional appeal. He understands tribal politics, and he knows the gamble he’s taking. People on the left view him as a traitor, people on the right see him as insincere, but over time people have begun to notice him and take him seriously.
“elites however sometimes are, fortunately”
Citation needed.
I would say elites are driven by different sorts of emotive pleas, ones which appeal to their self-image as elites. Even people who think of themselves as intelligent can be easily manipulated into believing stupid things if you can get them to associate the stupid belief with intelligence in their mind. I work with plenty of brilliant people with PhDs; there is a long list of political beliefs I am willing to bet nearly every single one of them holds, but not a single one of them can cogently defend (judging from the few I’ve challenged on such matters, in any case). They don’t believe the things they believe (outside of their very specific area of research, that is) because they did the analysis and reached a conclusion; they believe them because they’ve been convinced that these things are just what smart, enlightened people believe, and only the uneducated barbarians believe the opposite things.
Nor does making much ado about nothing.
Nor can a peaceful inclusive society be built on lies but must face their divisions and not pretend they don’t exist, or are just some errant element to the true majority that are in fact a minority.
I’m tempted to call BS on the distinction between Burkean conservatives and supposed “authoritarian” conservatives. I’d say they are all Burkean’s and that those whom we call “authoritarian” are really just those who actually suffered the most real disruption to their civic order.
If we describe “authoritarian conservatives” as those who overreact to perceived threats to civilization, it’s a bit uncharitable to apply that label to anyone for whom civilization in many material respects has collapsed.
A bit of perspective on the loss of critical thought, especially by many well-credentialed individuals
“The fading of the critical sense is a serious menace to the preservation of our civilization. It makes it easy for quacks to fool the people. It is remarkable that the educated strata are more gullible than the less educated. The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism were the intellectuals, not the boors. The intellectuals were never keen enough to see the manifest contradictions of their creeds. It did not in the least impair the popularity of Fascism that Mussolini in the same speech praised the Italians as the representatives of the oldest Western civilization and as the youngest among the civilized nations. No German nationalist minded it when dark-haired Hitler, corpulent Goering, and lame Goebbels were praised as the shining representatives of the tall, slim, fair-haired, heroic Aryan master race. Is it not amazing that many millions of non-Russians are firmly convinced that the Soviet regime is democratic, even more democratic than America?”
—von Mises, Ludwig (1945). Bureaucracy
It seems to me, a lot of people need to take a look at the manifest contradictions in what they are believing and repeating.
In the same section of the book, Mises describes the very European, at least in his time, requirement that an individual report where they spent the night each night. It has turned into a very valuable tool for researchers, this police registry. I thought the call was for the US to be more like Europe? So why all the commotion over the supposed registry for immigrants and visitors from some Muslim countries?
“In most European countries a man has not been free to stay overnight in any place without immediately reporting to the local police department his sleeping place and every change of address. 2”
****
“2. Thus the files of the police departments of many European cities provide full information for the last hundred or even hundred and fifty years concerning every resident’s or visitor’s sojourn and all his changes of address. A priceless and well-exploited source of knowledge indeed for biographers.”
–von Mises, Ludwig (1945). Bureaucracy
I would say that people who say we should be more like Europe have no more an idea of what that means than a Trump supporter when asked ‘when, exactly, was America great, and what made it great then?’
In both cases it’s an idealized time/place that didn’t/doesn’t really exist.
I mean, obviously Europe exists, but not really the idealized version of it; and ironically, Trump is arguably the most European politician in recent American history.
“Authoritarian” seems like very much the wrong word to use here, especially for the phenomenon described. I see the wholesale rejection of identity politics as the much larger force behind Trump. It’s not a fear that things are “coming apart” that is driving this group of voters who are skeptical of immigration, it is a fear that we are on the verge of permanently establishing special rights for non-whites that are not shared by all. The massive, massive mistake of pushing things like “black lives matter”, instead of a more general effort to rein in the excesses of the police divides people based on an identity they can’t change.
I have seen very little to indicate that there is any desire for more government authority, except in the case of the failure to enforce the immigration laws effectively. However, there is certainly something a stronger nationalism present in the populism of Trump and Sanders, where we are to favor the US worker (or non-worker in Sanders’ case) over the non-US worker.
This blog is about holding a charitable view of those with whom you disagree. I don’t see much charity in the above exchanges.
If the media elite held such a charitable outlook and were interested in true freedom to express opinions, rather than name-call everyone who disagrees with them “racists”, they might not have been so surprised with the outcome. A truly balanced, nuanced appreciation of the merits of the candidates might have helped Clinton win. Instead, we get a reflexive ongoing Trump-is-Hitler media tantrum and an aggressively pro-Clinton love affair that apparently half the country has tuned out.
In my view, Obama has been bad for the US – but he has gotten a lot of help in creating these disasters from previous administrations and current Republicans. Four years from now, the most likely outcome is that Trump has been a disappointment to those who are most enthused with him, and that not very much has changed. Will debt be more than $20T? Probably. Will we still be fighting the War on Terror? Probably. Will we have a wall? Probably not. Everybody, calm down! All the things you dislike about Obama and Bush will still be in play.
The current President is not a savior or a tyrant. The next one won’t be, either.
I know that some people here voted Johnson because Trump’s rhetoric is too populist or whatever, but this consistent dismissal of the objections to all theWhite Nationalist stuff as purely partisan just strikes me as odd. Have none of you ever talked to a “never Trump” Republican before?
Maybe y’all should go argue with this guy. He seems pretty smart to me.
https://twitter.com/prchovanec