Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Dismissing half the country (or more) as hysterical is one strategy.

"My upcoming book, Win Bigly, tells you how to persuade others." I think Adder would have more luck there, and that's not saying much.

eta: The thing that was different this week was that it was about Nazis and white supremacy, not just racists, and Trump couldn't bring himself to say those things are wrong. He and his defenders are trying to make it about "race" more generally so that they can tell a story with two sides. But most people in the country find it easy to say Nazis are bad, and Trump doesn't. (And it's not that he doesn't want to be a moral leader -- he has not problem condemning Islamic terrorism, illegal immigration, fake news and leaks. That doesn't seem to have occurred to Adams.)

This is the GOP strategy. The theory is the 2018 voter is not pro-Trump (everyone realizes he's 10,000 ft out of his depth), but virulently anti-the anti-Trump crowd.

The official GOP position isn't Bannon's. But the unofficial one? Absolutely. Read his recent interview. The culture war is the winning strategy... because Trump's record sure as fuck isn't.

The Left and Right are on exactly the same page: Overwrought, dramatic, open conflict. (Neither has jack shit in terms of constructive policy, so expect new levels of knuckle-dragging, mean-spirited, dimwitted emotional bullshit.)

ETA: The Right will be actively trying to trigger the Left. The goal is to scare people. Elements of the GOP think this "Antifa" crowd can be lured into serious violence. It's cynical, and I think misguided, as there aren't many Antifa people out there. But the GOP is going to try it nonetheless. It'll be a lot like the "Black Panthers at polling stations" silliness from 2012.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Hey, from your lips to Paul Ryan's ear, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh neither am I. The GOPis a whole is morally bankrupt.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The Left and Right are on exactly the same page: Overwrought, dramatic, open conflict.

Ah, don't ever change, Sebby.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Ah, don't ever change, Sebby.

If White Nationalist parades aren't overly dramatic exhibitions, nothing is. And these loons are the Right's useful idiots of the moment, intended to bring out the useful idiots of Antifa, and whip up more identity politics arguments on the Left.

The GOP wants to bring out the most shrill voices of the Left to whip up the anti-anti-Trump voters. Exactly as Bannon noted in his interview with the American Spectator.

By the way, it's working. People in the middle aren't picking a side (because neither is offering much in the way of actual policy, and the middle only really cares about the economy and market, which are doing okay for the moment). They're checking out, disgusted with Trump. But also disgusted with the Resistance. It's exhausting to watch for most people, and the default proposition (pretty accurate) is, "Both sides are owned by the same people, and while the man at the top is a huge embarrassment, both are full of shit... and deserve each other." This voter won't punish an R in 2018 because of Trump. He'll view the Trump/Resistance debacle as a freakshow and vote his pocketbook, which choice will be, "don't fuck with a decent economy... vote an incumbent."

Ds won't lose seats as anticipated, but they won't gain any, either. Maybe some trades here and there, with an R losing in one place and a D losing in another. Largely a wash, if all things remain relatively the same through the mid-terms. Which they are likely to do. If the events of this Presidency haven't caused a massive economic shock thus far, I don't think anything this nut does will ever do so.

(By the way, I do not think this is a healthy economy, for many reasons I've previously stated. But relative to where it's been over the last ten years, given the market gain a lot of people [particularly the old] mistake for the actual economy, and the absence of volatility despite crazy world events, it is easy to perceive the economy is on solid footing.)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The Left and Right are on exactly the same page: Overwrought, dramatic, open conflict. (Neither has jack shit in terms of constructive policy, so expect new levels of knuckle-dragging, mean-spirited, dimwitted emotional bullshit.)

Until the "resistance" forms a Khmer Rouge faction, it is not on the same page as Nazis. Picking Nazis as a model to follow is some serious shit. In Charlottesville there were apparently armed Nazis chanting outside a schul.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Until the "resistance" forms a Khmer Rouge faction, it is not on the same page as Nazis. Picking Nazis as a model to follow is some serious shit. In Charlottesville there were apparently armed Nazis chanting outside a schul.

The "Resistance" went full retard on Trump from the outset. Before he started petulantly responding to them like a child, and saying dumb shit like there were fine people among Nazis, it was howling at him for everything he did.

To a lot of people, Trump was an illegitimate president from the start. As were W in 2000, and Obama in 2008.

I could understand how W could be an illegitimate president given how that race was decided. But Obama? He won. Resoundingly, twice. And Trump? Like it or not, he won.

The Resistance is of course not as bad as the Nazis. Nothing is. But more generally, regarding the Right and Left (to which I was referring), at this moment, both are in cuckoo pants land. And they're not listening to a single syllable the other side is saying.

I've said to serious Rightie friends, "Hey, the fucking guy excused Nazis. And he's a fucking idiot. Come on..." They react like I'd offered heresy, and talk about how the media's been kneecapping Trump from the start.

Moderate Rs are more circumspect. They see both sides.

I've said to Liberal friends, "I assess policies, not politicians... I think Trump needs to go, because he's a horrible spectacle, but I'm not losing my mind over it." They accuse me of suborning Nazism. Unless you're 100% against everything tied to this Administration, you're the enemy.

And... I'm still getting emails from right wing friends about how Obama ruined the country!

It's wild. I read shit here and everybody lives in This Reality. Then I read the crazy emails from GOPers, and everybody lives in That Reality.

The Right is clearly more untethered. But the siloing is simply amazing. I haven't seen it this overheated since Fahrenheit 9/11.

Serenity Now... Serenity Now!

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The Left fucked up when it started calling everyone a sexist/racist/xenophobe with abandon. I understand why it did so. But as strategy, this was counterproductive.

I could see this train wreck coming years ago. It started after Zimmerman's murder of Martin. At that moment, I could say to most white GOP folks I know, "The court system is racist" without fear of inciting a fistfight. I could say to even old white conservative men, "Look. I did crim law in a city. Black people get fucked by the court system. And the cops are brutal to them. BLM has a serious fucking point." They'd probably call me a pinko, intellectual, or some other shit behind my back, but they'd respect the view. Because I didn't throw "racist" around loosely. I applied the descriptive where it fit, sparingly, and I backed it up with facts, and some experience.

But then along came the election of 2016. Suddenly, charges of racism and sexism were everywhere. Many were valid, but many were not. Social liberals like me didn't care because we were used to our well meaning liberal friends overreaching in their indictments. But a lot of conservatives got seriously pissed off about the over-labeling of too many people as racists and sexists for the smallest of perceived offenses. And the Libertarian (Bill Maher) wing got sick of hearing liberals enforce speech codes on people.

At this point, seeing all sides rather dispassionately, I recall thinking, "The Left's going to go too far and fuck it up... They're grieving every slight, however minor. A really useful movement like BLM is going to be forgotten as a result." And that's pretty much what happened.

What I very much did not see was a resurgence of truly racist psychopaths having the nerve to self-identify and march. And I certainly did not envision this group including the sort of polo and khaki wearing sorts I saw in video of Charlottesville. The scariest thing about that march isn't the nut on Vice with an AK-47. It's the parade of cubicle moles who look like they walked out of a J Crew catalog marching along singing "blood and soil!"

I'm a closet elitist. I believe knuckle draggers should be insulted and compelled to enlightenment. But I'm also a realist. I understand that when you throw around serious charges like racist and sexist too loosely, at too many people, and you assume a moral pedestal and judge all those who don't follow your liberal view of the world to the letter, you're going to get brushback.

You've lost many of the GOP moderates who'd normally support your valid indignation at things like Charlottesville. Nobody rallies to the aid of a Robespierre brandishing moral opprobrium and calling everything that even slightly offends his views a bigot or a fascist.

This only heals by people tapering the invective. It starts with the chief antagonist, Trump, being removed, and the rest of us returning to civil discourse, and refraining from fighting on every fucking mole hill on which a liberal and conservative wish to battle.

If I've not made it clear, let me repeat: He needs to go. We can't have what we had in Charlottesville anymore. His comment afterward invited repeat similar events.

This post is fucking sickening.

Your argument is that liberals are to blame for calling people out on their bullshit such that the people who have been called out are so wounded that they decided to vote for an overt racist who explicitly condoned violence because of hurt feelings? We have to be responsible for them putting a racist in office because when they overlooked racist shit we said that makes them, at the very least, okay with racism and at worst racist? This is absolutely batshit crazy.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

People like you, and your counterparts on the right, cause people like me to check out.

You mean check out and either vote for a racist idiot or flush your vote so that one can win office? Yeah. That was Adder's fault.

Get a fucking grip.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/princ...ther-ray-dalio

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

There are fools on the Left who overaccuse (the sorts who called Maher a racist, the campus crybabies who ban speakers, the Huffpo demographic, etc.). They dilute the claims of the serious people behind things like BLM. The opportunists on the Right lump them all together and use the weak grievances to suggest all grievances are frivolous or overwrought.

You are way worse when it comes to overstating than the people you actually accuse of overstating.

The problem with your argument and all the assholes who get called out on their bullshit is that none of you actually listen or think when someone asks you to consider anything when it comes to race. There are degrees of racism. And the fact that someone asks someone else to consider their confirmation bias or to understand what "privilege" is and how it exists is not the same as being accused of being a fucking Nazi. The fact that they can't hear something like that and not have a knee jerk reaction to identifying with a man who used accusations of our sitting President being a non-citizen from deep, dark, evil Africa and placing that man in power is asinine. And the fact that you blame the left for that type of reaction is beyond.

TM

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Until the "resistance" forms a Khmer Rouge faction, it is not on the same page as Nazis. Picking Nazis as a model to follow is some serious shit. In Charlottesville there were apparently armed Nazis chanting outside a schul.

And the police didn't send anyone, so volunteers from the neighborhood (including at least one recent veteran, IIRC) helped the single armed security guard protect the building and attendees.

Of course, people were really scared by them, which is what they wanted. How on earth is open carry legal? Even Dodge City and Tombstone in the literal Wild West prohibited the open display of guns. And some of these guys were wearing uniforms remarkably similar to US military gear. Why is this legal?

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Hank's close. I am saying people need to think before knee-jerking to, "That's racist!" or "That's sexist!"

When every slight is racist or sexist - and a lot of dumb people on the Left take that approach - the indictment loses all meaning.

Maher is an excellent example. He is not a racist. He used a term he had no license to use. But it was not a racist act. It was, in fact, intended to be ironic -- to make fun of racists. Ice Cube got it. Almost every black person got it. They took him to task for using the word recklessly, as they should have. But frivolous thinkers like you? Their first response is, "He's a sexist! A bigot! A racist!"

Most of the dimwits on the Left who do this dumb shit are clueless white kids. I suspect Black people level the charge more judiciously because they have a reverence for the concept.

Your example disproves your point.

Bill Maher said something pretty stupid. He was taken to task for it. Instead of turning himself and his show into a platform for racism and turning toward Trump, he had people on to explain to him why he was wrong. He sat there and listened, participated, and, it would seem, changed his behavior based on that give and take.

If he did decide to throw up his hands and say, "Okay, fuck it. I'm racist! I now support Trump," your argument is that those who criticized him would be to blame for that? That's beyond stupid.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Didn't Hil say his supporters were a bunch of deplorables? I took it to be a blanket attack.

Really, Hank? Come on. You're better than this.

"I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and don't get complacent, don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, he's done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

"But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

She's been proven to be prescient.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

You are way worse when it comes to overstating than the people you actually accuse of overstating.

The problem with your argument and all the assholes who get called out on their bullshit is that none of you actually listen or think when someone asks you to consider anything when it comes to race. There are degrees of racism. And the fact that someone asks someone else to consider their confirmation bias or to understand what "privilege" is and how it exists is not the same as being accused of being a fucking Nazi. The fact that they can't hear something like that and not have a knee jerk reaction to identifying with a man who used accusations of our sitting President being a non-citizen from deep, dark, evil Africa and placing that man in power is asinine. And the fact that you blame the left for that type of reaction is beyond.

TM

You're confusing an assessment of what happened, and strategy, with me making a moral judgment.

I'm not making a moral judgment. I'm assessing strategy here, and stating what I see happening. I might be right, I might be wrong. We can debate that.

But when I'm applying a strategy analysis, or a factual analysis, "sickening" doesn't fit. In fact, that's exactly part of the problem. On both the right and left, if one is to discuss these things provocatively, or question either side's views, he's The Enemy!

I'm just telling you what I see. You can tell me I'm nuts. That's fine. But I see Newton's Law applying here. Trump overheated everything, the Resistance replied in kind, and now the Trumpkins are replying in kind. There's a ratcheting up of craziness that's exhausting moderates. That will inure to the benefit of incumbents, which is not good for the Dems in 2018.

The Ds keep losing and wondering why. You can blame Russia, voter suppression, etc. But when a critic says, "Hey, here's how your party fucking up," it might do well to listen instead of assuming him an enemy. My liberal friends (it's odd to say this, as I'm socially farther left than most of them) and right friends (odd to sy that too, as I'm economically pretty solidly right) can get pissed I'm not "on the team," and call me a moral relativist, and that's true (I kind of am one). But the points I've made? They're worth considering.

Because I am checked out. My sole interest right now in every debate with a Right or Left person is to find a hole in their argument and explain why they ought to engage the argument in a more circumspect fashion that might actually effect a solution to a problem. That I actually find interesting.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

And the police didn't send anyone, so volunteers from the neighborhood (including at least one recent veteran, IIRC) helped the single armed security guard protect the building and attendees.

Of course, people were really scared by them, which is what they wanted. How on earth is open carry legal? Even Dodge City and Tombstone in the literal Wild West prohibited the open display of guns. And some of these guys were wearing uniforms remarkably similar to US military gear. Why is this legal?

Talk to the money folks. The divide and conquer strategy is working nicely. As it always does.