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

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

TM

Between Trump and the Republicans and some of the hiring/employment/promotion stuff I've been involved in of late, I am starting to think I am finally gaining a small bit of insight into James' Baldwin's seminal quote on rage. I am feeling rage in my dreams.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Well what should happen and what will happen are two different things. In the short run we just have to keep him away from the nuke button. His refusal to condemn white nationalists is to going to make it easier to remove him, right? Or maybe the country has gone completely nuts (possible) and it will make him more popular. Is it Lucy from Peanuts who yells "STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF!"?

I think we can stall him, I think we can put blockades up, I think we can limit the damage, but I also think we're going to spend the rest of our long lives trying to repair what damage occurs, if we're lucky.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I think we can stall him, I think we can put blockades up, I think we can limit the damage, but I also think we're going to spend the rest of our long lives trying to repair what damage occurs, if we're lucky.

There are ways in which Trump is completely ineffectual, and other ways in which it feels like he is making a huge difference.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

The only hope for impeachment is a Democratic majority house, and the only hope for conviction in a Senate Trial after that, and removal from the Presidency is... well, there isn't any. Republicans will muster 34 Senators to defend the possibility of naming Jeff Sessions to the next opening on the Supreme Court.

It has nothing to do with what Trump does, he's already shown that.

I'll cite Niall Ferguson once more:

The progression is Economic Malaise > Nationalism/Tribalism > Scapegoating > Regional Skirmishes > Possibilly, Global Conflict

Trump is a symptom, not a primary cause. Yes, he's an accelerant, and a agitator at the worst time. But historically, that's the only time people like him come to power.

This is not a defense of Trump. This is a request that people consider the broadest possible context, because what we've got happening must be addressed. And if Trump gets hit by a bus tomorrow, it's still going to happen. If Hillary'd won, it'd still be happening, just differently. Or perhaps identically, or in a more lurid manner.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. If society makes this an exclusively or even mainly Donald Trump thing, it'll never fix any of the causes of things like Charlottesvillle.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I hear you. But I agree with 3Greedy. Republicans do not care about this White Nationalist stuff. Rubio and Cruz are just trying to seem Presidential. And the rest are fully behind Sessions and the Administration's racist policies and his flirtation with these groups which make up large swaths of their base. Nothing this guy does is going to get him impeached. Hell, he's shitting all over them and blaming them for his inability to lead. They can lose on every single piece of legislation they want to put in place. As long as they can continue to fill the courts with right wing lunatics, they're going to go along with his bullshit.

You heard McConnell after the embarrassing defeat of his bullshit healthcare bill. "Even on the night when we came up one vote short of our dream to repeal and replace Obamacare, here's the first thing I thought about — feel better, Hillary Clinton could be president."

As the country burns around them, that statement is all that Republicans stand for.

TM

The tech titans getting NZ citizenship sounds like a joke. Until you consider what this place is going to look like in 10 years.

We have a population of people who expect a standard of living fewer and fewer are going to be able to retain in the more-near-than-distant future.

Think China's a demographic time bomb? How aren't we right behind them?

We needed a New Deal infrastructure jobs program in 2000. Instead, we papered over the tech collapse with a r/e bubble.

We keeping trying to avoid taking our medicine... Good luck to us.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'll cite Niall Ferguson once more:

The progression is Economic Malaise > Nationalism/Tribalism > Scapegoating > Regional Skirmishes > Possibilly, Global Conflict

Trump is a symptom, not a primary cause. Yes, he's an accelerant, and a agitator at the worst time. But historically, that's the only time people like him come to power.

This is not a defense of Trump. This is a request that people consider the broadest possible context, because what we've got happening must be addressed. And if Trump gets hit by a bus tomorrow, it's still going to happen. If Hillary'd won, it'd still be happening, just differently. Or perhaps identically, or in a more lurid manner.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. If society makes this an exclusively or even mainly Donald Trump thing, it'll never fix any of the causes of things like Charlottesvillle.

I'm just pissed because I'm fed up with bigots. Screw who you want to blame it on, there's no excuse for it, whether on a street in Charlottesville or in an office building in Boston.

And I have unkind words for anyone who wants to try to excuse it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'll cite Niall Ferguson once more:

I'm not sure what you think Ferguson has to say here that Karl Marx didn't say earlier and better.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'll cite Niall Ferguson once more:

Your argument is more convincing when you don't cite someone without any credibility.

I mean, I don't think anyone doesn't see a relationship between economic malaise and nationalist/racist flair ups.

It's just that anyone who knows anything about the history of this country also knows that economics does not hardly explain our racism.

And even if you want to use economic performance to analyze white nationalism, you really need to deal with it's relationship to perceived gains by black people.

Trump isn't a symptom of economic malaise. He's a symptom of outrage that we elected a black president and that black lives were in danger of mattering while some white people weren't getting ahead.

And if Trump gets hit by a bus tomorrow, it's still going to happen.

Maybe, but I don't know, given that pretty much all of the political order has been willing to forgo/condemn the worst of it. I don't think any other conceivably possible occupant of the White House would employ Steve Bannon, for example.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

It's just that anyone who knows anything about the history of this country also knows that economics does not hardly explain our racism.

This is like saying that the Holy Roman Empire wasn't Holy, Roman or an Empire. It's satisfyingly simple and provocative, but surely the truth is more complicated.

And even if you want to use economic performance to analyze white nationalism, you really need to deal with it's relationship to perceived gains by black people.

Like I was saying.

Trump isn't a symptom of economic malaise. He's a symptom of outrage that we elected a black president and that black lives were in danger of mattering while some white people weren't getting ahead.

Why not both?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I keep toying with the following ideas, and I'm going to put them out here even though I'm not done with them yet.

Obama and Democrats stand, more or less, for the principle of equality. Obama's election was a realization of a promise of equality for people of color that had previously seemed more notional than real. Lots of people turned out to be more comfortable with that in principle than in the White House.

Trump stands for traditional hierarchies, in all sorts of ways. He is utterly uninterested in the principle of equality. His views on race are pretty clear. He is pleased to discriminate between religions. He unabashedly hires rich people because they're better. MAGA is about restoring an American where people knew their place. So is law and order. Arguably, his views on immigration are not really about removing immigrants from the country, but about imposing on them a second-class status which subordinates them to the rest of the country.

On this view, most Republicans are good with this. A few are really committed to the principle of equality and also limited government, and struggle with Trump, but it turns out that most liked limited government because they were opposed to the federal government's ability/propensity to level traditional hierarchies and act on the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment.

eta: A great many Republicans are more concerned with the zero-sum game over political power and status within this country than they are with things like growth and opportunity and growing the pie, and this is because they are acutely conscious of the status they have lost and are losing, and that their political coalition is smaller, population-wise and waning. This is why Republicans are basically OK with voter suppression -- it preserves their place.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I think we can stall him, I think we can put blockades up, I think we can limit the damage, but I also think we're going to spend the rest of our long lives trying to repair what damage occurs, if we're lucky.

Gorsuch gets a lifetime pass from me because he affirmed the granting of an SJ in my favor in the 10th.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I'm just pissed because I'm fed up with bigots. Screw who you want to blame it on, there's no excuse for it, whether on a street in Charlottesville or in an office building in Boston.

And I have unkind words for anyone who wants to try to excuse it.

I've no time for bigots. They're a mix of idiots who don't know better and evil degenerates.

But if we make Trump the focal point of opposition, we fall into a trap. He becomes a martyr to an asshole demographic, and a blame magnet for those seeking to simplify a complex problem.

The entirety of our culture is worth indicting for institutional bigotry. And I could be wrong here, but among many others, a big reason is, every time we're faced with a crisis, there's an effort to blame An Other. It's easier to hate a Mexican than to assess one's own failure to attain a skill set resilient through a downturn. It's easier to detest a welfare mother rather than honestly scrutinize one's foolish assumption he'd always have a job at some factory or corporate concern, Just Like Dad.

The real target of ire for these Left Behind sorts are the managers of global capital. The titans of industry (actually, finance) who golf at Trump's courses. These are the people who offshore, who automate, and who eliminate the positions these fungible worker bees occupied.

It needs to be stated clearly to these people. The Black, Mexican, Asian, or Jewish guy down the block isn't taking urrr job. A guy you'll never meet in Indonesia is taking urrr gig. A guy in Silicon Valley writing an app that makes your cubicle toil unnecessary is takin' urrr work. And the billionaire you voted for, and his buddies, are making a fat margin on both of you. His only carry cost is paying a compliant media and political class, and armies of advertisers and PR flunkies to keep you dumb white fucks blaming immigrants when things get really bad. It's divide and conquer. It's just that simple. And you white supremacists? You're the ultimate suckers at the table.

Or maybe I'd just go with Jello Biafra's simple approach: "Nazi punks, fuck off! Fuck off!"

[Oliver_Wendell_Ramone]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I've no time for bigots. They're a mix of idiots who don't know better and evil degenerates.

But if we make Trump the focal point of opposition, we fall into a trap. He becomes a martyr to an asshole demographic, and a blame magnet for those seeking to simplify a complex problem.

The entirety of our culture is worth indicting for institutional bigotry. And I could be wrong here, but among many others, a big reason is, every time we're faced with a crisis, there's an effort to blame An Other. It's easier to hate a Mexican than to assess one's own failure to attain a skill set resilient through a downturn. It's easier to detest a welfare mother rather than honestly scrutinize one's foolish assumption he'd always have a job at some factory or corporate concern, Just Like Dad.

The real target of ire for these Left Behind sorts are the managers of global capital. The titans of industry (actually, finance) who golf at Trump's courses. These are the people who offshore, who automate, and who eliminate the positions these fungible worker bees occupied.

It needs to be stated clearly to these people. The Black, Mexican, Asian, or Jewish guy down the block isn't taking urrr job. A guy you'll never meet in Indonesia is taking urrr gig. A guy in Silicon Valley writing an app that makes your cubicle toil unnecessary is takin' urrr work. And the billionaire you voted for, and his buddies, are making a fat margin on both of you. His only carry cost is paying a compliant media and political class, and armies of advertisers and PR flunkies to keep you dumb white fucks blaming immigrants when things get really bad. It's divide and conquer. It's just that simple. And you white supremacists? You're the ultimate suckers at the table.

Or maybe I'd just go with Jello Biafra's simple approach: "Nazi punks, fuck off! Fuck off!"

Jello's 1985 rant is as timely as ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp50gSJPFpE

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Oliver_Wendell_Ramone

Jello's 1985 rant is as timely as ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp50gSJPFpE

They need to do a reunion tour. Too bad he hates the rest of the band. In fairness to them, however, he must be a serious handful.

You can apply so many of their songs today. "Police Truck" (for the Law 'N Urder crowd), "Holiday" (for the HuffPo Reader demo), "California Uber Alles" (for everyone who thinks, "Positive politics will save us!"), "Too Drunk To Fuck" (the Opioid addled set), "Pull My Strings" (the Hollwood crowd), "Kill the Poor" (the Big Pharma Opioid sales crowd, and the repeal ACA cabal), and of course, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" (for the Breitbart reader).

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Oliver_Wendell_Ramone

Jello's 1985 rant is as timely as ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp50gSJPFpE

it's an hour long? I saw a concert by the Marine band around 85 at the
Jefferson Memorial. Across the water on the mall was a punk concert with the DK's. Suddenly, at a quiet point from the Marines, JB starts yelling "FUCK THE MARINES!!!"