Congratulations, Stupid.

[MacCruiskeen]

(a response to this post in the "I Hate Liberals Thread," or whatever it's called)

oh ffs, jack

[slomo]

Jack, let me ask you a hypothetical question: had a Democrat (Clinton or Sanders or whoever) won the election because of an EC technicality, would you still agree that the EC should be abolished? Or would you exhort the Trump supporters to "accept the outcome of our political process"? Because to me it seems like people use whatever convenient excuse exists to argue for getting their way.

I get it: Trump is a bad person. No argument from me there. And I don't even like the EC system, it does seem archaic and unjust. But I do believe in intellectual consistency, as much as one can achieve given the normal human tendency towards cognitive dissonance, etc.

[overcoming hope]

from where I live (Bloomington, IN)

A client of my wife was accosted immediately after an appointment at my wife's business. A Trump supporter was yelling about Trump ruling the world and sending all the Mexicans back to Mexico. My wife's client shook her head at this and the supporter, a man, yelled, "Fuck you, you Mexican loving whore."

2 blocks from my house on a trail I walk every day there are swastikas and KKK spray painted on the trail and light posts.

Trump has emboldened racists. He has normalized and legitimized racism. Everyone please try to understand this.

[slomo]

I'll mention one silver lining in all this. At least now the truth about the ugly shadow lurking in the American psyche is now exposed and cannot be denied.

[Joe Hillshoist]

A response for Joe from here:

Yes, here in the Communist Metropolis of New York City, I know & have met so many white people who have no problems with racism as a system (their personal prejudices or lack thereof in everyday life may vary). They will be "white ethnic." I'm thinking of several specific people here currently in my life, who are like dozens I've known well. They don't really want to acknowledge racism as a system or talk about it, sort of like guruilla. They may find mention of it offensive or annoying, and do not care about black people being shot. They will more care about BLM making trouble, what are they complaining about again? Others will be more straight-up and say, "yeah I'm racist, whatever." The tendency will be to assume cop shootings are justified. (I've had people say, about videos of shootings of the unarmed, that the victim showed "attitude," why didn't he comply, etc. etc.). Some of them vote D. I doubt very many know or give a shit who Bundy is, though on that I've made no poll. Distant and irrelevant. On the Bundy ally who was killed, almost surely they'd think it's his just desserts for fucking with the government. But there I'm speculating. Most people don't watch FOX and just think all media and all politicians are equally bullshit, they're all crooks, what can you do, etc. The way you fuck with the government is to evade taxes. In fact, their attitude will be that most people are shit, actually. Angry about the world? Sure, mostly. They might hate Donald Trump, or they might think he is a businessman and he must be good at it because he has money, which is always good thing to have. They will hate Clinton. "White" is not an explicit category of pride (people who think that shit are a minority group and tend to be hopeless, indeed deplorable). Pride or in any case affinity will be in the ethnic or cultural group. "White" is just the desirable minimum of normal, the kind of person who is assumed to be non-dangerous and won't annoy, harrass, drive down property values, etc., with whom one might hang out. "Black" is the people you don't want to see around your neighborhood, or have anything to do with besides that everyone runs into everyone else in Midtown and on the subway. Since this is New York, many of the people who might be rednecks in, say, a Kentucky context make plenty of fun of rednecks. (By the prevailing neo-RI logic, that must mean that Trump voters in New York who were snide to the poor helpless flyover people caused the latter to be alienated and vote for Trump.) Stay down, don't get involved, work for yourself & family is more the normal thing.

.

I've been thinking about this for a few days and dunno what to say.

Years ago someone said living around NY was living around the most dog eat dog place on earth. Dunno how you build any movement with people like that.

[Joe Hillshoist]

(a response to this post in the "I Hate Liberals Thread," or whatever it's called)

oh ffs, jack

Jack you are one of the last people I would consider a liberal.

[JackRiddler]

Nixon won it too. The game goes on, it just keeps going on.

Here's a coming move a lot of people are forgetting. Something's coming out of the woods, has been coming for a long time, and what's coming out of the woods is not a bear, or a bull, but a fucking dragon. Then, for once, the way Americans (and the great world of neo-Americans on the Internet) don't remember anything for longer than five minutes will, for once, work to advantage. The next crash is Trump's.

.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Quite. He lost the vote but won the game.

I know it seems sus - what happened in the 1700s but its completely understandable that when you get a bunch of separate states together to elect a federal leader for a new federation they are all part of they are going to want the vote to come from them (the states as entities) not the new citizens of the federation.

Low population or low resource states would never sign on to a federation like that without a guarantee they didn't suffer some significant disadvantage because of sudden population shifts due to gold rushes, seasonal work and the growth of states with stronger economies.

That is completely understandable imo.

There are some really weird laws about how the electoral college system works tho many of which seem to be only about 150 years old.

[Project Willow]

Insulting seems to work fabulously well. I guess what Pie does not realize he is saying is that some people are privileged to insult, and still be treated like delicate flowers lest they be insulted in return. Long as they are this fictional image of Joe Bluecollar who wouldn't have voted for Trump except for Samantha Bee, whom he's never heard of, being so mean to him. (Or just plain racist fucks angry because they think the Liberal Stasi will disappear them if they call people niggers.)
.

Naw, my in person contacts post election and my entire FB feed for months prior have been filled up with terrified-of-Trump Hillary supporting liberals who've been busy doing pretty much nothing but spending 75% of their time calling Trump voters hateful, sexist, racist bigots, and the other 25% calling third party voters stupid, privileged brats. It's a definite thing in my world, and it is exactly what PTB want. I'm glad Pie took a swing at it.

[slomo]

Insulting seems to work fabulously well. I guess what Pie does not realize he is saying is that some people are privileged to insult, and still be treated like delicate flowers lest they be insulted in return. Long as they are this fictional image of Joe Bluecollar who wouldn't have voted for Trump except for Samantha Bee, whom he's never heard of, being so mean to him. (Or just plain racist fucks angry because they think the Liberal Stasi will disappear them if they call people niggers.)
.

Naw, my in person contacts post election and my entire FB feed for months prior have been filled up with terrified-of-Trump Hillary supporting liberals who've been busy doing pretty much nothing but spending 75% of their time calling Trump voters hateful, sexist, racist bigots, and the other 25% calling third party voters stupid, privileged brats. It's a definite thing in my world, and it is exactly what PTB want. I'm glad Pie took a swing at it.

Yup, my experience also. The divisions need to stop.

[OP ED]

What gets me up every day is anticipating that look of abandoned hopes, of resignation to struggling in the eyes of my wwc relatives that my bwc friends have developed over the last few years. Your silly hopes have to be exorcized as a prerequisite to taking this seriously. Maybe in four years we can have real discussions.

[slomo]

Jack, in comparing your experience of NYC to PW's experience and mine, it occurs to me that we are viewing the same phenomenon from opposite perspectives in terms of our social networks. It sounds like you are exposed to a lot of right-wingers. My social network is over-represented with "progressives". Perhaps we are both responding to a lack of nuance and empathy in our local networks? Is that possible?

[JackRiddler]

Jack, let me ask you a hypothetical question: had a Democrat (Clinton or Sanders or whoever) won the election because of an EC technicality, would you still agree that the EC should be abolished? Or would you exhort the Trump supporters to "accept the outcome of our political process"? Because to me it seems like people use whatever convenient excuse exists to argue for getting their way.

I'd be relieved, to an extent. An illegitimate Clinton (but preferably not both houses Republican, because that's exactly what she wanted) would have been a pretty good scenario. But I certainly wouldn't be exhorting anything of the sort. I've always thought the EC should be abolished, of course, and also that it's not enough, it's a partial solution to a problem that should not exist. If I got my fantasy wish list, it would be the presidency and the Senate that are abolished, to the favor of pretty much the German parliamentary arrangement with proportional representation, which makes eminent sense for a big country of 80 million (or 330 million), remarkably stable, people vote for the representation they want and get it, coalitions for 69 years out of 70 or something, remarkably informed political culture no matter how right or left. (Relatively speaking!) Legislature and executive in one, and yet you don't get an extreme power monopoly without even a majority of people actually backing it, like you now have here (again).

However, your scenario is basically science fiction under present circumstances, because so many low-vote states are one-party monopolies of the Republicans. Some mineowners and big ranchers in Wyoming get two senators, it's hilarious. The EC (not that it works as originally intended) swings to the Republicans. 55 votes and 2 senators for CA, 94 votes and 44 senators for the 22 states whose population equals California. Without a doubt greater diversity in all categories in California by far, if that's an argument: huge agriculture and city-suburb, full spread of social class and ethnicity/culture. The EC is specifically designed to reduce the influence of cities.

.

[Project Willow]

Yup, my experience also. The divisions need to stop.

My goodness slomo, we're agreeing with each other, what is happening with this world?

We need a high five smilie.

[JackRiddler]

It's not my "social networks" I've been talking about. It's largely my FAMILY. And their "social networks." And observation of many others like them. Actually represenative of a minority in New York. But a big one, since it's New York.