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

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

It's funny that you are now insisting that change must come from the top down. I really don't think it works that way.

ETA: Or maybe I don't think it works that way in this environment in particular. A White House that wanted to push for justice could potentially foster change with a less broad social movement behind it, but we don't have one of those right now.

We don't because Trump's an asshole who hired a piece of shit like Sessions.

All the more reason for Paul and Booker to restart their justice reform initiative.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Trump's an asshole

From the Roth thing I linked yesterday:

To understand Trump is also to understand his appeal as an aspirational brand to the worst people in the United States. What his intransigent admirers like most about him—the thing they aspire to, in their online cosplay sessions and their desperately thirsty performances for a media they loathe and to which they are so helplessly addicted—is his freedom to be unconcerned with anything but himself. This is not because he is rich or brave or astute; it’s because he is an asshole, and so authentically unconcerned. The howling and unreflective void at his core will keep him lonely and stupid until the moment a sufficient number of his vital organs finally resign in disgrace, but it liberates him to devote every bit of his being to his pursuit of himself. Actual hate and actual love, as other people feel them, are too complicated to fit into this world. In their place, for Trump and for the people who see in him a way of being that they are too busy or burdened or humane to pursue, are the versions that exist in a lower orbit, around the self. Instead of hate, there is simple resentment—abject and valueless and recursively self-pitying; instead of love, there is the blank sucking nullity of vanity and appetite.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

From the Roth thing I linked yesterday:

That is a fantastic bit of writing.

But now I'm regretting calling Trump an asshole. When I used that term, I did so without considering the one thing that may disqualify him from its application: His endless whining.

The hallmark of an asshole - what makes his company preferable to that of a douchebag, tool, shmuck, or prick - is his Teflon composition. An asshole does not care. He'd never whine he was being treated unfairly. He'd assume that part of the game.

Say what you will of an asshole, he's not entitled. He offers no quarter and expects none. There is something respectable in that. I wouldn't want it over for dinner, and I wouldn't want my kid to emulate it, but it does demand a grudging acknowledgement of its talents.

Trump is only part asshole, more man-baby. A coddled bully who's truly annoyed at being compelled to punch outside his weight. A true asshole wouldn't cry. He'd have put his ego aside and played the game.

A true asshole with all the advantages President Trump was given would have already gotten tax reform and ACA repeal done. This 80% man-baby in asshole's clothing has no chance of getting either.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

2

Also, there were decades worth of gay rights activism around various issues (remember ACT UP?) before marriage equality became a thing. No one stopped to become unified and coordinated, or worried about looking reasonable.

I listened to a chunk of Morning Joe driving this morning. The references to AntiFa were numerous. The criticisms of the Left, by this recently very anti-Trump program (not just AntiFa, but college "snowflakes" [their word] dis-inviting speakers) were many.

One would swear there were loads of violent Leftists around the nation, rather than just a few pockets of these twits here and there. One would assume the same about Nazis. A mass media consumer might assume idiots banning speakers at Berkeley and assaulting a professor at a Charles Murray speech are the rule, rather than embarrassing and quite infrequent exceptions. That consumer might think these "snowflakes" are an actual danger to free speech, rather than garden variety college kids with their heads up their asses, whose whining will cease, quite brutally, when they graduate.

If one were a cynic, he'd guess the media loves the Nazis v. AntiFa and "college leftists against the First Amendment" narratives, and that it is giving outsized coverage to minor phenomena to gin up ratings.

If one were a serious cynic, he might think a lot of politicians love this stuff because it gives them something with which to rally their low information voters. Finally, he'd assume, if America were a giant poker game, there are an awful lot of suckers at the table. Perhaps more so than ever before.

While onward persists our 2% "recovery" and conversion to a Gilded Age economy.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I was running three conversations. It's hard to deal with Ty and Hank and TM at once. Don't take it as a slight, but I don't think about my replies to you in as much detail.

Like this last comment of yours... A tax voter is an ideologue?

Yes, Sebby, someone who consistently places a single interest above all others is an ideologue.

This has been your moment of basic political science.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Everybody but BLM. Justice reform first.

Well, I'm pretty sure that no one who has ever participated in BLM would agree with you but okay.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

A true asshole with all the advantages President Trump was given would have already gotten tax reform and ACA repeal done. This 80% man-baby in asshole's clothing has no chance of getting either.

Other politicians can seem inauthentic because they are trying to speak for a group and compromise their own individuality. Trump doesn't have this problem. He is an authentic asshole, speaking for himself. When he does occasionally say things scripting for him by his staff, he doesn't sound very happy to doing it and it doesn't sound like him because it's not. He's usually very authentic. But this makes him a terrible legislator, because he doesn't purport to speak for anyone but himself. Why should Congress change the tax code or healthcare laws in the ways he wants? Because he wants a win? That's not a very good reason, and he doesn't have another.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I listened to a chunk of Morning Joe driving this morning. The references to AntiFa were numerous. The criticisms of the Left, by this recently very anti-Trump program (not just AntiFa, but college "snowflakes" [their word] dis-inviting speakers) were many.

One would swear there were loads of violent Leftists around the nation, rather than just a few pockets of these twits here and there. One would assume the same about Nazis. A mass media consumer might assume idiots banning speakers at Berkeley and assaulting a professor at a Charles Murray speech are the rule, rather than embarrassing and quite infrequent exceptions. That consumer might think these "snowflakes" are an actual danger to free speech, rather than garden variety college kids with their heads up their asses, whose whining will cease, quite brutally, when they graduate.

If one were a cynic, he'd guess the media loves the Nazis v. AntiFa and "college leftists against the First Amendment" narratives, and that it is giving outsized coverage to minor phenomena to gin up ratings.

If one were a serious cynic, he might think a lot of politicians love this stuff because it gives them something with which to rally their low information voters. Finally, he'd assume, if America were a giant poker game, there are an awful lot of suckers at the table. Perhaps more so than ever before.

While onward persists our 2% "recovery" and conversion to a Gilded Age economy.

Not sure why it's cynical to think that a person whose job is to sell advertising would be interested in figuring out which programming sells advertising.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Why should Congress change the tax code or healthcare laws in the ways he wants?

Not disagreeing but another problem is that he mostly doesn't know or care how healthcare or the tax code is changed, he just wants to be able to say it changed, which means he's a non-player helping get a deal done.

The GOP is accomplishing nothing because it's a mess and it has no leader.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

Yes, Sebby, someone who consistently places a single interest above all others is an ideologue.

This has been your moment of basic political science.

Kind of humorous.

The "tax voters" have been the worst of all ideologues over much of my life, in the sense that they are voters whose minds are closed to any discussion that does not fit their ideological preconceptions. A good example of this is trying to talk to Sebby about healthcare policy, where he puts forward the dumbest possible ideas in practice but ones that fit his ideological comfort zone.

Lately, of course, those tax voters have been eclipsed by the Fox ideologues, who began as tax voters but then discovered hate.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Why should Congress change the tax code or healthcare laws in the ways he wants?

A key issue in here is what does he want? My understanding is that we will not have a proposal on taxes from the White House, and if anyone here can give me five points that form the core of the administration's health care policy I'll give you a magical pony.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Kind of humorous.

The "tax voters" have been the worst of all ideologues over much of my life, in the sense that they are voters whose minds are closed to any discussion that does not fit their ideological preconceptions. A good example of this is trying to talk to Sebby about healthcare policy, where he puts forward the dumbest possible ideas in practice but ones that fit his ideological comfort zone.

Lately, of course, those tax voters have been eclipsed by the Fox ideologues, who began as tax voters but then discovered hate.

A tax voter has no ideology. This person is acting in the simplest form of rational self interest.

An true ideologue has an "ideal" behind his vote. YMMV, but tax voters tend to simply not want to pay taxes. They're similar to older voters who are dependent on SS, and so vote against anyone they think might cut their benefits. It's transactional.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

A tax voter has no ideology.

huh.

This person is acting in the simplest form of rational self interest.

That's an ideology.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

A key issue in here is what does he want? My understanding is that we will not have a proposal on taxes from the White House, and if anyone here can give me five points that form the core of the administration's health care policy I'll give you a magical pony.

He had to get HC done to create "savings" to build into the tax reli-- er, "reform" program. Without the former, I don't think he can do the latter.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

huh.



That's an ideology.

i·de·ol·o·gy
ˌīdēˈäləjē,ˌidēˈäləjē/
noun
noun: ideology; plural noun: ideologies

1.
a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

"the ideology of republicanism"
synonyms: beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, ethics, morals

Grover Norquist is a tax voting ideologue. He's also .01 percent of tax voters. The stockbroker down the street who votes based on taxes so he can put a few more bucks into his retirement account is not an ideologue.