mitigatedchaos

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Source: disexplications politics trump

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bambamramfan

Jon Stewart, John Oliver…mostly enact the pure arrogance of the liberal intellectual elite: “Parodying Trump is at best a distraction from his real politics; at worst it converts the whole of politics into a gag. The process has nothing to do with the performers or the writers or their choices. Trump built his candidacy on performing as a comic heel—that has been his pop culture persona for decades. It is simply not possible to parody effectively a man who is a conscious self-parody, and who has become president of the United States on the basis of that performance.”

Zizek citing Stephen Marche
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Source: slavoj--zizek politics trump

bambamramfan

marcusseldon

I said I’d talk about politics less, but I feel like I do need to get this out of my system.

There’s an idea going around both on my dash, and people I know in person, that the behavior of people on the left is what caused Trump to be elected. Different groups get the blame, whether it is rich white liberals in Silicon Valley, DC, and Hollywood, the campus left, black lives matter, internet SJWs and feminists, mainstream media journalists, late night comedians, or some combination of these, the theory goes that Trump was essentially a white working class middle finger to the condescension, radicalism, and disrespect toward traditional values of members of these various left-wing groups. People who put forward this theory say that to win back Trump voters, the left needs to be kinder, more compassionate, and less radical toward white working class (WWC) culture, values, and way of life. The claim is that if only the left were nicer to WWC people and respected their way of life more, Trump would have never even won a Republican primary, let alone an electoral college majority.

Now, leaving aside whether it would be personally moral and virtuous to be more compassionate and less radical toward the WWC (probably to at least some extent), I want to raise doubts about whether this perspective is actually useful for winning elections and defeating Trumpism.

No doubt many WWC people, and those sympathetic to them, feel condescended to, disrespected, and that their way of life is under attack by the left. There is also no doubt that there have been individuals and groups on the left that have been openly hostile to the WWC way of life, where “white male” is an insult, conservative Christians are publicly degraded and mocked, performative flag-waving nationalism is seen as not just gauche but stupid and hick-ish, and where white rural people are assumed to be personally racist and homophobic.

But, all political movements are going to have their assholes who degrade the other side and openly disrespect them. It’s easy to miss when you largely live in left-wing bubbles online and off, which I imagine is true of most people on my dash, and is certainly true of me, but the right has their own version of this, and it’s popular. There’s a post going around my dash about a condescending line in a Meryl Streep speech, and how this is an example of liberal condescension that created Trump, but I guarantee you that more people listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on the radio every day than saw that Meryl Streep speech. And Limbaugh and Hannity on an almost daily basis disrespect, mock, and condescend to liberal constituencies, values, and ways of life. And guess what, Republicans still won.

People like Limbaugh and Hannity, not to mention Fox News and Breitbart, make their money by inflaming a sense of grievance and resentment of the left among the disproportionately rural, older, religious, and WWC Republican base. These outlets have far more political reach and power than random SJW blogs, the campus left, black lives matter, actors or tech billionaires giving speeches, or even late night comedians.

In the educated liberal bubbles that I and many people in my online and offline circles reside in, the reverse can seem true. It can seem like left-wing culture is omnipresent and the right is completely stifled by blacks lives matter, SJWs, and late night comedians. But in other circles, which comprise nearly half the country, the reverse is true.

In many ways, the left is already on net more compassionate to the WWC than the right is to left-wing constituencies. There were countless articles in left-wing outlets talking to Trump voters in order to understand and sympathize with Trump voters. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen an article in a right-wing outlet that went to Harlem, San Francisco, or Ann Arbor, trying to compassionately understand the motivations and lifestyle of people on the other side from their point of view.

So the idea that the left must hold itself to an even higher standard on compassion and than the right to win elections seems implausible to me (again, leaving aside whether holding ourselves to a higher standard would be more virtuous and moral).

Even if the left was nicer to the WWC, I don’t see that changing vote patterns, or making the WWC feel any less resentful and under attack. Suppose 90% of the left-wing people who are being blamed for the rise of Trumpism became nicer. The Limbaughs and Hannitys and Breitbarts of the world, and the millions who follow them, wouldn’t take a step back and say “you know, maybe the left doesn’t hate me or my way of life”. No. They would continue to cherry pick the worst examples, as they already do, from a smaller set of mean liberals in order to inflame cultural resentment and grievance among their followers, and they would also continue to see things that I think aren’t mean and are true that the left says, like that black people have a rougher relationship with the police than other groups, as offensive and attacking their dignity and way of life.

I’m not saying there’s no way to convince some of these people over to the left. But, pointing the finger at the meaner (and numerically smaller) strains of the left and thinking that if only for them being condescending and disrespectful we would be in a golden age of liberal dominance in politics doesn’t strike me as true or productive.

bambamramfan

So I get your frustration, and a lot of what you say is correct. It’s far too tempting to say “Hey leftists-who-disagree-with-me, YOU’RE the reason our enemy won!” without sufficient proof. That’s just opportunism.

And we should treat the WWC (and all of the WC) in this country with compassion, and we should help their material needs, regardless of whether it wins us elections. Trying to come up with political justifications for basic human decency is a bit creepy.

(Plus, not to mention a Far Right resurgence is occurring across the entire developed world. It seems very petty to blame that on a few annoying American liberals. There are deeper trends here.)

I feel you here.

However, there is some countervailing evidence here.

1. If we’re not being condescending to them, we should listen to what our enemies are saying. And in between accusations of corruption and defending the free market, Republican voters seem really, really upset about Political Correctness. Obsessed with it, and explicitly saying they support idiots like Trump just to defy Political Correctness.

You can dismiss what they say and come up with other reasons they voted the way they did (they just want to be racist, or economic anxiety) but then that is being patronizing because you aren’t really listening anymore. If you listen, Political Correctness is a huge deal to them, and teasing out the source of that sounds like a worthwhile endeavor.

2. A lot of this is just projection from some left-of-center allies about the illiberal tactics used by establishment social justice, such as extreme arrogance, dismissiveness, shallow analysis, using institutional power to punish dissenters, and a bunch of other mindkilling, groupthink tactics. Said allies (or, former allies) really hated those tactics, and so rejoice in blaming them for the defeat of the mainstream SJ candidate.

Projection is not a good source of analysis of course, and so they might be wrong that this really caused Trump’s victory. But said establishment really should pay attention to how many enemies it has, even “on its own side.” Their tactics are really ticking off their friends, causing dissension every step away. SJ can try to ignore this dissent and pain as long as they wield the hammer, but don’t be surprised when their enemies leap at any weakness as a chance to earn some rhetorical points.

Social justice has enraged and alienated conservatives, libertarians, moderates, socialists, communists, and artsy anarchists. At some point it will have no friends left except the business-friendly / socially liberal wing of a city-based party.

3. Something happened between 2012 and 2016. There’s some reason Republicans started really getting into unbridled rudeness and race-baiting. You can’t even wholly blame Trump for finally opening the floodgates, he tried in 2012. What the hell happened to make voters so much more racist, or at least racist-tolerant? It’s not like there are a lot more immigrants around or other normal causes of racial strife (let alone to explain the tolerance of crude sexual behavior.)

And to the unaided eye, one of the real changes of the past 4 years was the political visibility of intolerant liberalism. So it’s at least worth considering “the thing that changed in the last 4 years, is somewhat responsible for the rather different outcome this time around.”

mitigatedchaos

Regarding #1: If a 100% black company is okay, but a 100% white company “isn’t diverse enough”, this implies whites are inherently worth less than PoC. If women have equal beneficial capabilities to men, but men are uniquely violent and oppressive, this implies women are better than men.

I think people can feel this even if they don’t consciously realize it.

Also, as one of those alienated types, those tactics you mention make SJ a liability to me in many ways.

Source: marcusseldon politics gender politics race politics trump

wirehead-wannabe

thathopeyetlives

First question: What does one even do about Russia secretly interfering with our politics? If people are actually involved (and apparently Flynn was) you can impeach or disqualify them. Trump has been president for a few weeks and has managed to screw up royally, so we could kick him out, but earlier on… you’re kinda out of luck unless you want to totally screw up the politics.

Second question: What is actually going on? Is Trump genuinely trying to be friends with Russia and enemies with China (stupid plan in a world that successfully avoids war!) or just Putin wants to weaken the USA with idiot leaders or what?

wirehead-wannabe

My gut feeling is that either that Putin blackmailing/threatening/bribing Trump, or that authoritarian leaders with a socially conservative support base flock together. Or both.

mitigatedchaos

Russia + China is not an unreasonable combination. So yes, I think preventing that is part of it. China is about to enter a period of decline, but it’s still more likely to become a global hegemon than Russia.

I think there are several things going on here.

Trump actually does have some level of respect for authoritarian rulers, I think. Even I sometimes look at China and think about what could be accomplished if all the NIMBYs were stopped from holding up projects, even though I know actually doing that wouldn’t work out so well. But I think half of it on Trump’s part is just signalling.
The sanctions over the Ukraine, as far as I can remember, have not actually been lifted and are likely to stay in place, as far as I can tell.
Russia itself is less powerful than it has been, both in terms of its economy and its conventional military. They couldn’t really invade America even if they wanted to, and they aren’t going to become a global hegemon. China is a much greater threat to America’s global power long-term, depending on just how bad all their looming crises become. China also sticks out more to his base because it wasn’t Russia that the jobs got offshored to.
Trump is probably seeking to cooperate with Russia when it suits America’s interests, rather than just fight Russia across the board. In part, he wants to signal this to Moscow.

This also depends on just how you define “America’s interests”. If you think of democracy or global capitalism as being synonymous with “America’s interests”, then I don’t think Trump agrees with you.

Trump probably does find Islam threatening in a way that he does not actually find Christians, Hindus, gays, transgender people, etc threatening. So, let’s suppose he wants to drain the migrants out of Europe. Right-wing parties are gaining steam, and others are shifting right on the issue. But so long as there is nowhere to put the migrants, the media can pelt the nativists with stories about migrant suffering. Enter the Syrian “safe zones” plan from his campaign. Paying off the construction of temporary housing and mass issuing of rations is cheaper than a lot of military action, it keeps the migrants out of Europe, and it creates somewhere to put them for when they leave Europe without triggering the same level of media-based political fallout. However, to do this, he needs support from Russia/Putin.

Trump is signalling that he does not care if Syria is ruled by a tyrant. He’s willing to compromise if it gets him his safe zones.

Source: thathopeyetlives politics trump

I think this dust-up on transgender soldiers will actually burn some of Trump’s political capital.

I’ll let you in on something about his power - previously, a lot of these things where he got the media all fired up over something, he had at or near majority support from the actual citizens or it was something most people outside of politics just don’t care about.

This one’s gonna be a lot narrower. The opposition will be able to get some actual traction out of it.

politics trump

mutant-aesthetic

twitter.com

Julian Assange 🔹 on Twitter

“10/ Here's Singapore's long term prime minister Lee Kuan Yew:”

a-sleepygoldenstorm

What neither side of US politics wants to admit: the promotion of identity politics combined with the declining white super majority has led to turbo charged white identity politics. Since Dems catered for non-white identity politics, Trump and the GOP took hold of white identity politics.

Most countries that do not have a 70%+ super majority ethnic group have ethnicized electoral politics.

mitigatedchaos

Yes, my fear is that Lee Kuan Yew is right.

Source: a-sleepygoldenstorm politics torches in the night racepol

collapsedsquid

mitigatedchaos

I reasoned the PC stuff was like antibiotic resistance in bacteria. It doesn’t matter today, it doesn’t matter tomorrow, but one day, 30 years from now, multi-drug-resistant TB develops and the problems pile on and on from there.

…but if you can keep developing new antibiotics fast enough to keep up with it, you can sort-of ignore your bad practices and the collateral damage they cause.

I thought that’s what was happening, and that the reckoning wasn’t going to be until 2028, as the result of a slowly building fire of, well, various mens’ movements refusing to comply with male gender roles (something already in progress at the fringes). Instead the tension was lurking beneath the surface across multiple axes, but the media didn’t want to talk about it and people would be socially punished for talking about it sometimes, so it wasn’t as visible.

I’d like to think there is some new path where the word “Racism” can be made powerful again, but I cannot find it. It would require socially punishing false accusations of racism, which simply isn’t feasible under the current ideological framework. I’m not one to buy into the “Contradictions of $Ideology” idea much, (since most of the people pushing it are Communists ignoring the ‘contradictions’ essentially inevitable to their own system,) but I think this is partially a case of that.

In some ways I welcome the Populism, though. My estimate of corporate oligarchy and permanent majority has declined significantly.

politics trump identity politics

the-grey-tribe

Oh Em Gee! Trump tweets a stupid edited gif that could have even been slightly funny on reddit or tumblr (but not exactly endorse- or reblog-worty) and every newspaper and TV station on the planet makes a story out of it.

Trump showed poor judgement, but somehow we make a still bigger deal out of this than we probably should.

If I were Trump, I would get a cat and tweet cat pictures once a week, and the occasional cocktail recipe, just to keep people on their toes.

Confusion Politics at work.

the-grey-tribe

He could probably use this to bury an executive order or firing of a staffer or something

mitigatedchaos

That appears to be what’s happening in the general case of Trump Says Something Outrageous. It’s wild to watch.

There’s this massive pool of outrage to be drilled and tapped because the dumber parts of the Left and Liberal political groups have been using offense as a weapon and configured themselves for high offendability and heavy tribal signalling.

I’m hoping our Shitposter in Chief is going to exhaust some of the supply.

politics trump

collapsedsquid

Really says something that now I sort all political commentary I read into “Pre-Trump“ and “Post-Trump.“

collapsedsquid

mitigatedchaos said: Did you at least give Trump a 15%+ chance of winning the election?

I hate to give odds on stuff like that because it drives me nuts, but to me the “Trump era” starts well before the election. I’m defining it as the moment when we knew that “Trumpism” was something that existed and was more than marginally popular in the US.

Even if Hillary had won or probably even if Cruz had squeaked out the nomination, it would have changed shit. The political writing reflects that.

argumate

What about all the people who were going nuts for Palin in 2008?

collapsedsquid

Palin didn’t go through the primary. We could all say that she basically didn’t matter. She was just this weird VP that McCain chose and didn’t take seriously. Trump was chosen directly by primary voters, the fact that he could win says something.

mitigatedchaos

I would tend to agree on Palin. I haven’t seen excitement for Palin like I have for Trump.

There are so many things that allowed this to happen, and I think many of them would have been preventable if people, uh, behaved better. I don’t mean this as a virtue critique of the Trump voters, but rather the opposite. Overuse of terms like “racism”, ignoring the plight of American workers, not reaching out to areas outside the cities, focusing primarily on minority demographics, talking about “demographic destiny” with glee, and so on.

@collapsedsquid My question was mostly to ping whether you were aware of these looming things beforehand, and if so, for how long. While I saw “sexism” being overused as a term, I didn’t really realize just how thin it had worn outside of internet communities. However, the further they got into the primary, the more I said “this is unpredictable, so I’m revising the chance of a Trump win upwards”.

politics trump

mutant-aesthetic

abellionhearts
“This is a drawing I finished today [July 20, 2017] to represent the kind of president we could have (if he was a sane individual, of course) but we just don’t for various reasons. If you are a Trump supporter you aren’t allowed to...

Source: abellionhearts shtpost sorry artist guy politics trump cw augmented reality break

mitoticcephalopod

honestly if you call trump anything other than his actual name I immediately start discounting your opinion no matter how much I otherwise agree with you.
calling him “drumpf” or “45” or whatever other bullshit you’ve come up with doesn’t like, hurt the trump brand or hurt his feelings in any meaningful way. you’re just being an idiot.

mitigatedchaos

Orange Capitalism Man. The Orange Man. Our First Meme-American President.

- neutral on Trump, calls him other things so left/libs panicking he’ll become the next Fuhrer don’t immediately stop listening

politics trump cw

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

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