Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Just so you know, when you're talking to normal people, this is a tell that you consume way too much right wing media. "Post-modern" is, for some reason, a right wing talking point that just isn't there in the rest of the world.

Just so you know, this is not necessary to remind us you're alive.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Maybe they want a wall just so we'll have a place to bash our heads.

You might actually get it.

On one hand, I read a poll where 1/3 of conservatives won't vote for Trump and I think, "he's fucked." But then I look at Biden and think, "Can he survive to the general?"

And then I hear people say, "He's fucking exhausting... But the economy's good, so..."

If a progressive emerges from that field as the candidate, the economic voters are going to put Trump back in office.

I was talking with a military dude that other night who just moved back from Europe. He ranted about how disgusted he was at Trump, how embarrassing it had been to apologize for Trump to his European friends and colleagues. But who's he going to vote for? In order, Biden (because he won't do anything crazy to fuck up the economy), and if not Biden, Trump.

Never discount the pocketbook vote. Particularly where so many are so concerned about the future. That's why HC is a winning issue for Democrats, and Biden such a compelling candidate (he's associated with the ACA, of course). The people voting on social issues are already locked into their parties. If Biden goes down before general, there's a decent chance its four more years of Trump.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm simply stating that it's not close to a majority of people.

You've noted the minority groups are in the minority. Thank you for sharing this wisdom.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

But I've found that this issue doesn't seem to resonate with many people of any color or background.

People are so focused on their own hectic lives they don't have time to discuss this stuff or think about it deeply. This place is an anomaly. People who have jobs like we do which allow them time to focus on this stuff are an anomaly. The progressive politics that is creating friction within the Democratic Party right now is a tail wagging the dog.

There is a huge disconnect happening inside your head which I don't think I will be able to fix.

Maybe I don't know what you're referring to as identity politics (even though I have explained to you more than once that whenever a person of color asks for a political fix it is for a problem that is aimed at that group of people as a group). But I can't believe that you think that people don't think that their race is part of their treatment. What you're saying doesn't make any fucking sense.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

While we debate this stuff and the media feeds stories about division, it just might be that the rest of the country is ignoring the identity politics of Donald Trump and those against him.

You have it completely backwards and inside out. Trump is pitching to white people exclusively. He does this by pointing to people of color who are asking to be treated fairly and saying, "See? These people are all about identity politics."

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No one said they were. There are endless groups engaging in identity politics right now. Pick a unique background and you'll find a group of people who take it as their identity and have policy requests based on it.

Are you serious? You pick a group of people and tell me why they shouldn't be upset about how they're being treated. Transgendered people can't serve in the military? Muslims are fucking banned? When laws and social norms treat you less than what the fuck are you supposed to do? Just because you don't have their problems doesn't mean those problems aren't important to those people. Identity politics are thrust on you. People don't jump into groups who have problems for fucking fun.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Being black is freighted. There's systemic racism throughout the country. No one is disputing that.

Can you not see that I am picking out one group to use as an example? Can you not apply the same analysis to any other group you keep castigating for using identity politics?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This is where the rubber meets the road. Both of those demands are eminently reasonable and should be accepted and addressed by society. It is not at all controversial to say "Black people have been fucked over, are treated unfairly still, and this needs to be recognized." Where I think people say, "Oh fuck... Here comes more identity politics" is when something like BLM is hijacked by the fringe. And it was.

What are you talking about? How? By whom?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Do you hear about BLM anymore? No. Why? Progressives (of all colors) grabbed the movement and turned it into "Wokeness."

This is so fucking stupid. Really. Please stop it.

BLM didn't go away. It wasn't hijacked. The press stopped covering it because everything in our country is currently on fucking fire. Wokeness. If you're railing against that term it's because you don't want to deal with what it actually means--and being in tune of the types of unfairness that different groups have to endure is all it means.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Wokeness is so large and can mean so many things people don't know how to deal with it. One can offend a woke sensibility in any number of ways. Reasonable people are exhausted by the concept.

I know. It's terrible. How will straight, white people ever deal with having to hear about all the issues they've never had to pay attention to before! Oh, the humanity!

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Messaging matters. Wokeness rings to many as amorphous grievances. BLM, with its elegant and blunt message - Stop shooting us - did exactly the opposite. That message stuck in white America's throat. They couldn't ignore that. Eventually, even Trump signed a bill (too weak, but a start) addressing justice reform. Voting can and should be the next step. But when the message becomes wokeness rather than "Stop precluding us from voting," it becomes weak. Wokeness sounds trendy. It gets mixed up with #metoo, and as these things roll along, there's a snowball effect where all sorts of complaints get attached to it. It becomes muddled, confused, and that's where people start using terms like "identity politics" against it.

Needless to say, this whole paragraph is stupid. There are surely multiple complaints. You and most white people don't want to deal with multiple complaints. Only the really big things should count. The rest is just whining. So you fixate on a shorthand description of people standing in solidarity and understanding of the many issues this country has with those who have been historically marginalized and dismiss it all. The reason why that works is because you want to dismiss the stuff you don't think is important.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Agreed 100%. Trump is the king of identity politics. He's wrapped up all sorts of grievances under one angry banner.

It's weird to hear you say that because whenever you mention identity politics, it's always aimed at other people.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

It's confusing as all fuck and totally alienating to most Americans outside his base. The only reasonable voters he'll attract in 2020 are those who figure the economy is good, so why fuck with it?

So, you.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think if we play Trump's game, we lose.

If transgender people want to fight in the military, how is saying, "Hey! This ban isn't fair!" playing his game? He instituted a policy that affects people. They are pushing back. Others support them. What the fuck is the alternative?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think things should be dealt with on an issue by issue basis.

Oh, well, let me alert all my woke friends!

Here's what you've done. You have prioritized what should be important. You have dismissed a bunch of other shit. You have inflated people like AOC to the position of leader of the Democrats. You ignore everything but what annoys you and you have labeled what annoys you and what you have deemed unimportant as "wokeness" and have told everyone that that term has swallowed everything thus rendering it overbroad and useless. But here's the truth: You do this because you don't give a fuck about almost all of it. And that's the magic of people, like you, who scream and yell about identity politics, and playing Trump's game, and whatever other bullshit gets you out of actually looking at the issues that matter to people who aren't like you.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

We need to rollback a predatory justice system. We need to make election day a national holiday so everyone can vote. These are real concrete fixes following which many of the smaller concerns will disappear. The last thing we need is a Progressive Woke Identity Politics Machine, where a microaggression is as important as a police murder, fighting Trump's Identity Politics Machine, where every crazy concern of marginalized whites is gifted utterly unwarranted credibility.

The last sentence is only occurring in your head (and people like you). You are dismissing the actual asks you've listed (some of which are being proposed by actual House leadership) and blaming that dismissal not on the McConnells of the world, but on groups of people who also have asks for fair treatment. It's sickening.

It's the same analysis as when white people were up in arms over political correctness. Group a bunch of complex issues that are really affecting people into one term, cite an example of what you have deemed the most frivolous one, dismiss it all.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

You have it completely backwards and inside out. Trump is pitching to white people exclusively. He does this by pointing to people of color who are asking to be treated fairly and saying, "See? These people are all about identity politics."

Sebastian is not bothered by Trump. He is bothered by people who react to Trump. Do not ask him to explain this.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Really good post by Josh Marshall on Rod Rosenstein, who could have been so much worse and so much better.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Really good post by Josh Marshall on Rod Rosenstein, who could have been so much worse and so much better.

I have friends, as I'm sure you do, among the crowd who have occupied conservative justice posts over the last several administrations. In talking with them these days, while they are all horrified in various ways by Trump, they are also all still very much Republicans. Most, but not all of them, have the customary stick up their ass, they are usually pretty open elitists, and they're hostile toward everything from health care reform to voting rights. So they look at Trump and say, yes, he's a wretched crook, but he's our wretched crook. They all think various fairly nasty Republican figures of the past, from Nixon to Bork, got a raw deal. Yet, most of them play by the rules and only a few question Brown v. Board.

I put Rosenstein in that crowd. Sure, he's got his own self-defined sense of honor and he has character in the sense that he is unlikely to lie about his conduct (but don't criticize his Yale bud who tells a few racist jokes in the locker room as having any kind of stain on his character). They are people who can be much worse, even if for the most part they're not particularly appealing, though sometimes quite amusing (and actually I can think of one of them who I think has actual good character - I still can't figure out why he's a Republican). And they're mostly people who are willing to accommodate Trump even if they do so with some disdain.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

GrumpyEsq., DM me please.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Sebastian is not bothered by Trump. He is bothered by people who react to Trump. Do not ask him to explain this.

I think the disconnect may be that:

1. I’m not terribly exercised about Trump. Nor was I about Obama or Clinton or Bush I or Reagan. The last time I sincerely cared about the President was Bush II, whom I think was worse than almost all others because of Iraq. I also truly detest Pence and Sessions because they’re hardcore social conservatives who think the govt should police morality, using their rules, of course. But they’re not Presidents. So no, I’m not viscerally invested in re Trump.

2. So I’m coming at this mostly from a strategy analysis perspective. I understand the grievances and why they’re made. I just see a lack of strategy and common sense. If progressives/liberals focus on the big issues, the little ones the right uses to characterize the people aligned behind these related movements as extreme will go away. If the victims of systemic prejudice are fairly and proportionately represented, the structures that enable such prejudice will be legislatively dismantled.

I Believe there’s a view that one must be deeply anti-Trump and incensed at the man or one is morally deficient. This is a view I find disturbing. I’m entitled to think him or any other President a clown and feel rather indifferent while pointing out errors among those aligned against him.

I’ll probably vote for Biden and regret it. Throw up a crazy progressive and I’ll stay home.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think the disconnect may that:

1. I’m terribly exercised about Trump. Nor was I about Obama. The last time I sincerely cared about the President was Bush II, whom I think was worse than almost all others because of Iraq. I also truly detest Pence and Sessions because they’re hardcore social conservatives who think the govt should police morality, using their rules, of course. But they’re not Presidents. So no, I’m not viscerally invested in re Trump.

2. So I’m coming at this mostly from a strategy analysis perspective. I understand the grievances and why they’re made. I just see a lack of strategy and common sense. If progressives/liberals focus on the big issues, the little ones the right uses to characterize the people aligned behind these related movements as extreme will go away. If the victims of systemic prejudice are fairly and proportionately represented, the structures that enable such prejudice will be legislatively dismantled.

There's no disconnect. I think I accurately described how you feel, and you don't disagree.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

There's no disconnect. I think I accurately described how you feel, and you don't disagree.

But he did explain it, so there's that.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

There's no disconnect. I think I accurately described how you feel, and you don't disagree.

If I can put a point on how I feel, this might do it.

I'm listening to BBC about Venezuela. This provides a teaching moment for the child, who's in the car. Immediately, I explain that the issue is complex, and what's in the media is probably as much narrative as fact. I then jump to our involvement in overthrowing countries (Allende) and supporting despots (Shah, Marcos, Hussein, etc.).

This of course raises the issue of why we're so angry with the Russians for simply adopting the playbook everyone uses. I duck that and explain that we actually have a good bit of socialism in this country and whatever happens in Venezuela, it won't be entirely good versus entirely bad, as it will surely be portrayed in the media.

So I figure that I'll let the action speak for itself. I reach the house, turn on the TV, flip to the US news networks (CNN first) and...

Nothing but stories about Trump and the Democrats. Pulp TV garbage on all the news networks. Trump this, Democrats that. All shit.

Where is Al Jazeera when I need it? (I admit, I may have it and simply not know where to find it... but that's most definitely Not The Point.)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If I can put a point on how I feel, this might do it.

I'm listening to BBC about Venezuela. This provides a teaching moment for the child, who's in the car. Immediately, I explain that the issue is complex, and what's in the media is probably as much narrative as fact. I then jump to our involvement in overthrowing countries (Allende) and supporting despots (Shah, Marcos, Hussein, etc.).

This of course raises the issue of why we're so angry with the Russians for simply adopting the playbook everyone uses. I duck that and explain that we actually have a good bit of socialism in this country and whatever happens in Venezuela, it won't be entirely good versus entirely bad, as it will surely be portrayed in the media.

So I figure that I'll let the action speak for itself. I reach the house, turn on the TV, flip to the US news networks (CNN first) and...

Nothing but stories about Trump and the Democrats. Pulp TV garbage on all the news networks. Trump this, Democrats that. All shit.

Where is Al Jazeera when I need it? (I admit, I may have it and simply not know where to find it... but that's most definitely Not The Point.)

So stop watching that crap.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So stop watching that crap.

I did. Immediately. That's the point.

I should be able to turn on the TV and see what's happening in a situation as significant as the the overthrow of a dictator in a nation in our hemisphere. I mean, the mess in Venezuela only involves Russia, China, Cuba, and us. It's just a wee bit important in terms of world affairs.

I drove an hour this morning. BBC covered Venezuela. Every other news station on Sirius covered nothing but the letter Mueller sent to Barr complaining about Barr's summary. Endless repetitive mental masturbation over what Mueller might be thinking and what a pack of dipshit Senators might ask Barr this morning.

Thankfully, Howard had Tracy Morgan as his guest. When asked about politics, Morgan gave an answer that struck me as perfect in the moment: "I don't care. Fuck them all. I don't believe in that shit."

Morgan's crazy, of course. But he's not exactly wrong.

[Hank Chinaski]

Given that the Report was released, how is Barr's early summary an issue? Makes him look a toady perhaps, but that is his problem, isn't it? How were we harmed?