Most realistic best case scenario right now for senate in 2018 is democrats pick up 2, making it 50-50.
Even that is very optimistic.
GOP are defending
AZ (Flake) Plausible
NV (Heller) Plausible
NE (Fischer) conservative Trump state
MS (Wicker) Confederate Trump state
TN (Corker) Appalachian Trump state
TX (Cruz) Texas Trump state
UT (Hatch) Mormon Trump state
WY (Barrasso) Empty Trump state
We're competitive in maybe 3 of those.
Dems have to defend Independents in Maine (King) and Vermont (Sanders) hard Trump states like
Indiana (Donnelly)
Missouri (McCaskill)
Montana (Tester)
ND (Heitkamp)
Ohio (Brown)
WV (Manchin) Plus swing Trump states
Penn (Casey)
WI (Baldwin)
Florida (Nelson)
We're more in danger of being down 60-40 than they are of losing control of the Senate (which would need 3 seats).
yeah it doesnt look good straight up, but who knows what jolly nonsense might happen in the next 20 years that might sway peoples minds...
I find that whole speech to be quaintly antiquated deist blathering.
Nature (capital "N") isn't a thing. There's just nature. And it doesn't entitle us to anything because it has no opinions -- moral or otherwise.
It's the basic is-ought problem. Things ought to be good, but they aren't.
The basic impulses of humanity is bash out the brains of the funny-looking people from the other tribe across the river. Say all you want about respecting their life, liberty and happiness, but a lot of people seems staidly intent on not doing so. And the only reason that one tribe hasn't reduced the other one to livestock yet is because they just haven't quite sussed out all the logistical problems.
Mormons are trusting people because their religion emphasizes trust and co-operation among Mormons. That's not the same as authoritarianism.
I'm perfectly willing to believe that it's both.
You vote and think and do the things your neighbors believe because that's the easy way to win acceptance. It's the norm.
But you can fall out of the community pretty dang hard by coming out gay.
I find it very very unfortunate. I've been to a tiny little Catholic mass in a piece of rented office space and pretty much feeling a sort of communion and general acceptance which is nothing but frighteningly addicting. It's the easy way out. Just participate in the same rituals and thoughts everybody else is having and you belong.
This morning I listened to her talk about how she wished she could go back in time and not hype up Clinton's inevitable victory to her 6-year old daughter, who told her "If Hillary can't win the Presidency, I don't think I can either"
Had to keep myself from crying on the subway
I saw a little girl and her mother dressed as "Hillary Clinton" and "The glass ceiling" on Halloween.
"Suckers!"
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HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
I finally got my subscription to WaPo. Really, like, stupidly easy and cheap to do if you have Amazon Prime, so go do it.
And now I have found my first op-ed confirming my reasoning! Thanks Paul Waldman!
Man, I cannot imagine what this all must feel like for peeps like Hakks or mRahmani, who might actually be targets of hate from either their fellow citizens or their government. I'm a well off white guy and I'm freaking the fuck out. I'm dizzy, I can't concentrate, I feel disconnected from everything around me, and my brain just keeps running down rabbit holes:
- I wonder if there is any Union iconography we can adopt to represent our outspoken opposition to these fascist and racist principles? Would trying to equate the new administration and their congress to the Confederacy have greater social impact than comparisons to Nazis?
- How do we communicate the illegitimacy of this government, and what do we do about it? How do we convince people that Gerrymandering has subverted the will of the people, and that the Electoral College is a relic of slave-owners wanting to have their cake (giant plantations and fucking slaves) and eat it too (greater influence on government over their fellow citizens)?
- Assuming we can take control, the seeds of evil are still deep in our Constitution. Do we need to throw it out and try again? The concept of Amendments is great, but there's no realistic way to amend, and any amendment might later be broken. Would it be more apt to adopt a new version, that enshrines in it's base that ALL PEOPLE are created equal? That outlaws Gerrymandering? What other pillars of our democracy have been infected with rot and need to be replaced if we can ever hope to survive?
- What happens if it comes to insurrection or war? Is it better that I try and live to protect my children, or die trying to protect my fellow citizens?
- How do we destroy the media bubbles that people have chosen to encapsulate themselves within? How do we maintain a free press while shutting down falsehoods and propaganda?
- Does any of it even matter? Are we all going to starve in a decade when the crops no longer grow, regardless of the justice or injustice in our governance?
- It took far longer to type this than to think any of it, and think it in greater detail and with more branching paths and examinations. I also can't seem to type very well right now, I have to keep correcting very silly mistakes that I normally wouldn't be making. I'm still lightheaded. Is it stress? Disease? Something worse?
How the fuck am I supposed to focus on making power point slides about inane work shit while the world is crumbling down around me?
I'm going to take my alarmist hat off here for a minute. Things are bad, there is no way around that. But they're not hopeless yet. I believe that if we stay loud, maintain pressure, and nip this shit in the bud, we can blunt a lot of the worst of what Trump will try. Internment camps are probably not going to happen. But their continued non-existence relies on us standing up and making a fuss and loudly proclaiming that they are unacceptable and will never be acceptable. We will have to fight similar battles across a whole slate of issues, but we can do that. We had to do that to get this far in the first place.
We do need to reach out to potential R allies who voted for Trump. Not all of them are raging neonazis. Most are not. Our safety and progress relies on putting aside our righteous outrage though, and spoon feeding them baby morsels to help them understand why these issues are so critical.
Congress is giving the executive branch a say in all spending.
I expect to see economic base-pandering on a large scale. They can't redevelop all of rural America. But if they have their resources organized, they can extensively throw money at enough smaller cities and rural areas in conservative states and swing state territory they deem politically useful, creating some amount of jobs for low skill workers in the process. The appearance of beginning this phase of redevelopment and resulting propaganda would contribute to a perception that things are being done.
On their political agenda- Prior to his winning, I honestly had no clue what he wanted other than an ego boost/self promotion. I even gave some credence to the idea that he was Hilary's plant. How I wish now that conspiracy theories were true.
I really hope I'm not being alarmist, and I would really like anyone to correct me if I'm mistaken in what I've been able to glean about who these people are and what they want.
From what I can tell, there is an agenda, and I think it's a global right wing white supremacist agenda. It's more than small time political opportunism. Yes, there's greed and power involved. But that's not what's unique about them.
US foreign policy and global hegemony is perceived to be declining or an absolute failure in terms of its ability to guarantee security for other countries, particularly in regions where a competing power is involved (Russia and China)
The US is widely projected to be surpassed by China, which acts in its own interest and culturally self defined in terms of ethnicity, without any regard for people of different origins beyond profiteering. It's easy to see why such a society is the envy of right wing racial supremacists. And it's a growing trend in both the first and third world.
Long story short, I think they want a white nationalist bloc, an alignment of as many countries with a caucasian majority with European heritage as possible based on election results. Russia would be a member.
This would be primarily for the purpose of abandoning all inessential military activity outside of their region (with the exception of Russia) in order to negotiate more forcefully for favorable economic terms from China, particularly going forward when it becomes the world's strongest economy. Abandonment of any voiced concern for human rights or national sovereignty, or real geopolitical opposition to China's adventures in Asia would be the single strongest bargaining chip, beyond even their government's wildest dreams.
Immigration and pluralism would be strongly discouraged, though nominally tolerated, while economic protectionism would take hold in a strong way. These people will take hits economically if they can pay their own and stay in control.
Note- this is all what I think is their ultimate aim. No politician in a democracy ever gets to enact their vision. They will try to undermine democracy as much as they can, not least through cultivation of their base, and creating uncertainty over who exactly the racist/extremist/elements are by pitting economically and socially aggrieved working class and uneducated whites against people that fight for social welfare. One of the issues that concern me is that they have a mob that they want people to tangle with, as a way of creating distracting provocations, occupying the opposition's time and efforts. They want it to be as pointless to talk about politics in America as it is in Russia. There's likely going to be some amount of organized internet mass posting, both from people that do it voluntarily and people they hire.
The reason I think this is because the alt right tries to say "nope not us, the racists are that way. They sure are annoying aren't they? gosh darn racists" and on the other hand deliberately triggering those same people into an all out race war that the old republicans primed them for over 8 years.
I think there's a level of subversion and mafia style organization that needs to be understood, before even attempting to restore sanity and deceny in society.
Overall, their agenda will most likely be stillborn, not least because it could only be pursued very gradually, and also because sane people exist.
The issue though, is that there has to be clarity about how they opposed. And a refusal to go back into a bubble, at least in terms of awareness of what's happening, and what could happen. For myself, I'd say instead of avoiding misogynists, anti PC and racist people, I want to see how they think, I want to see how they're leveraged, and I want to see what their strategy is, because one thing about these people is that they might be more organized than they would appear, given that they're still wearing the old Republican party's carcass.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I find that whole speech to be quaintly antiquated deist blathering.
Nature (capital "N") isn't a thing. There's just nature. And it doesn't entitle us to anything because it has no opinions -- moral or otherwise.
It's the basic is-ought problem. Things ought to be good, but they aren't.
The basic impulses of humanity is bash out the brains of the funny-looking people from the other tribe across the river. Say all you want about respecting their life, liberty and happiness, but a lot of people seems staidly intent on not doing so. And the only reason that one tribe hasn't reduced the other one to livestock yet is because they just haven't quite sussed out all the logistical problems.
Recent research seems to indicate that this is incorrect. Altruism and cooperation are just as much a part of human nature as tribalism and warfare. It's not either/or, it's and/also.
I know my mom basically swamps all her Republican representatives with how she loves them but Trump scares her and I love her for it (she actually voted Hillary and she campaigned vigorously for her)
edit: need to repeat this because we should never stop repeating it, Trump got less votes, we can't let him forget it, or the representatives, or anyone, remind them of that and the fact that there's another election in 4 years
You are wrong, there is another election in 2 years.
You're wrong, there's another election in 5 months
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
I find that whole speech to be quaintly antiquated deist blathering.
Nature (capital "N") isn't a thing. There's just nature. And it doesn't entitle us to anything because it has no opinions -- moral or otherwise.
It's the basic is-ought problem. Things ought to be good, but they aren't.
The basic impulses of humanity is bash out the brains of the funny-looking people from the other tribe across the river. Say all you want about respecting their life, liberty and happiness, but a lot of people seems staidly intent on not doing so. And the only reason that one tribe hasn't reduced the other one to livestock yet is because they just haven't quite sussed out all the logistical problems.
Recent research seems to indicate that this is incorrect. Altruism and cooperation are just as much a part of human nature as tribalism and warfare. It's not either/or, it's and/also.
Corollary: People are also awfully selective about who they give their altruism and cooperation to.
Naturally, Dave is just fine. He's good people. He's not one of the people from across the river.
I also wouldn't be an advocate of like, you know, an inclusive democratic society if I thought it's always impossible for tribe A and B to cooperate, eventually. Which still doesn't keep tribe C being a bunch of racist shitburglars.
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HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
Man, I cannot imagine what this all must feel like for peeps like Hakks or mRahmani, who might actually be targets of hate from either their fellow citizens or their government. I'm a well off white guy and I'm freaking the fuck out. I'm dizzy, I can't concentrate, I feel disconnected from everything around me, and my brain just keeps running down rabbit holes:
- I wonder if there is any Union iconography we can adopt to represent our outspoken opposition to these fascist and racist principles? Would trying to equate the new administration and their congress to the Confederacy have greater social impact than comparisons to Nazis?
- How do we communicate the illegitimacy of this government, and what do we do about it? How do we convince people that Gerrymandering has subverted the will of the people, and that the Electoral College is a relic of slave-owners wanting to have their cake (giant plantations and fucking slaves) and eat it too (greater influence on government over their fellow citizens)?
- Assuming we can take control, the seeds of evil are still deep in our Constitution. Do we need to throw it out and try again? The concept of Amendments is great, but there's no realistic way to amend, and any amendment might later be broken. Would it be more apt to adopt a new version, that enshrines in it's base that ALL PEOPLE are created equal? That outlaws Gerrymandering? What other pillars of our democracy have been infected with rot and need to be replaced if we can ever hope to survive?
- What happens if it comes to insurrection or war? Is it better that I try and live to protect my children, or die trying to protect my fellow citizens?
- How do we destroy the media bubbles that people have chosen to encapsulate themselves within? How do we maintain a free press while shutting down falsehoods and propaganda?
- Does any of it even matter? Are we all going to starve in a decade when the crops no longer grow, regardless of the justice or injustice in our governance?
- It took far longer to type this than to think any of it, and think it in greater detail and with more branching paths and examinations. I also can't seem to type very well right now, I have to keep correcting very silly mistakes that I normally wouldn't be making. I'm still lightheaded. Is it stress? Disease? Something worse?
How the fuck am I supposed to focus on making power point slides about inane work shit while the world is crumbling down around me?
I'm going to take my alarmist hat off here for a minute. Things are bad, there is no way around that. But they're not hopeless yet. I believe that if we stay loud, maintain pressure, and nip this shit in the bud, we can blunt a lot of the worst of what Trump will try. Internment camps are probably not going to happen. But their continued non-existence relies on us standing up and making a fuss and loudly proclaiming that they are unacceptable and will never be acceptable. We will have to fight similar battles across a whole slate of issues, but we can do that. We had to do that to get this far in the first place.
We do need to reach out to potential R allies who voted for Trump. Not all of them are raging neonazis. Most are not. Our safety and progress relies on putting aside our righteous outrage though, and spoon feeding them baby morsels to help them understand why these issues are so critical.
So much of my mental real estate in this past week has been occupied by fake conversations with Beasto's relatives in Trump Country Washington
like fucking debate prep
talking to myself in my office out like like a loon
It is so much harder for me to reach out to them without triggering immediate defensiveness and doubling down than it is for them to talk at me about how it's just about taxes, deregulation, taking their country back
I find that whole speech to be quaintly antiquated deist blathering.
Nature (capital "N") isn't a thing. There's just nature. And it doesn't entitle us to anything because it has no opinions -- moral or otherwise.
It's the basic is-ought problem. Things ought to be good, but they aren't.
The basic impulses of humanity is bash out the brains of the funny-looking people from the other tribe across the river. Say all you want about respecting their life, liberty and happiness, but a lot of people seems staidly intent on not doing so. And the only reason that one tribe hasn't reduced the other one to livestock yet is because they just haven't quite sussed out all the logistical problems.
Recent research seems to indicate that this is incorrect. Altruism and cooperation are just as much a part of human nature as tribalism and warfare. It's not either/or, it's and/also.
Corollary: People are also awfully selective about who they give their altruism and cooperation to.
Naturally, Dave is just fine. He's good people. He's not one of the people from across the river.
“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
A video of an encounter at a Starbucks near the University of Miami showed a man screaming “Trump” at an employee after he said it took too long for his order.
Edit: Fun game before the video: Guess if the cashier is white
While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.
Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
How are they that bad at this?
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness
HOW DARE THAT MAN PUT MY DAD IN PRISON FOR BREAKING THE LAW
Honestly, people are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore — I mean, that’s how Trump got elected. He just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything, and when the things he said turned out not to be true, people didn’t care because they’d already accepted it. It’s real scary. I’ve never seen anything like it.
You mentioned Trump, and you’ve probably heard the argument, or the concern, that fake news somehow helped him get elected. What do you make of that?
My sites were picked up by Trump supporters all the time. I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don’t fact-check anything — they’ll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist.
Thing is, the conservative tea party wing of the gop that really are true believers will oppose makework spending for rural poors, and infrastructure spending
Democrats need to put a spike in that wedge and hammer it if it presents itself by offering their sincere assistance
While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.
Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.
"White privilege" is a way of sociologically explaining why white people do better in America than most other races without going all Bell Curve and saying "They are just better." It *isn't* a way of insulting white people who do less well than average. Some immature, young liberals might use it that way but they are *wrong.* That's not what it means.
Social justice activists are *rarely* saying "You may be homeless and starving but at least you are white and privileged!" They are saying "The reason why there are proportionately more homeless and hungry black people than white is white privilege."
Thing is, the conservative tea party wing of the gop that really are true believers will oppose makework spending for rural poors, and infrastructure spending
Democrats need to put a spike in that wedge and hammer it if it presents itself by offering their sincere assistance
Republicans will spend if they think it's for a "good cause".
While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.
Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.
"White privilege" is a way of sociologically explaining why white people do better in America than most other races without going all Bell Curve and saying "They are just better." It *isn't* a way of insulting white people who do less well than average. Some immature, young liberals might use it that way but they are *wrong.* That's not what it means.
Social justice activists are *rarely* saying "You may be homeless and starving but at least you are white and privileged!" They are saying "The reason why there are more homeless and hungry black people than white is white privilege."
And then Fox, Breitbart et all tale that message and twist it to sell it as anti white racism. The few who DO take it too far are just bonus points.
Thing is, the conservative tea party wing of the gop that really are true believers will oppose makework spending for rural poors, and infrastructure spending
Democrats need to put a spike in that wedge and hammer it if it presents itself by offering their sincere assistance
Republicans will spend if they think it's for a "good cause".
Trump has been talking to world leaders on unsecured lines without being briefed or prepped for the calls.
That seems like it should be a bigger deal but eh, it does not involve emails.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
So if Trump's transition ends up as the mess it appears to be when he takes office on January 20th, does he immediately blame Obama? Assuming he even admits it, of course.
While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.
Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.
"White privilege" is a way of sociologically explaining why white people do better in America than most other races without going all Bell Curve and saying "They are just better." It *isn't* a way of insulting white people who do less well than average. Some immature, young liberals might use it that way but they are *wrong.* That's not what it means.
Social justice activists are *rarely* saying "You may be homeless and starving but at least you are white and privileged!" They are saying "The reason why there are more homeless and hungry black people than white is white privilege."
It's also far reaching in a way that can be difficult to convey, like how you'd probably be even be worse off as a black homeless person than a white one, which you can't say without seeming to belittle the still very real poverty and social issues that people of majority groups face.
So if Trump's transition ends up as the mess it appears to be when he takes office on January 20th, does he immediately blame Obama? Assuming he even admits it, of course.
Blaming Obama is going to be the go-to for the next 4 years
Thing is, the conservative tea party wing of the gop that really are true believers will oppose makework spending for rural poors, and infrastructure spending
Democrats need to put a spike in that wedge and hammer it if it presents itself by offering their sincere assistance
Republicans will spend if they think it's for a "good cause".
i.e., war against browns
I think ethnic patronage by the state to some extent is inevitable over the next 4 years.
How to prevent the scale of it is one thing. But the other is, what to do about it. People like money.
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
How are they that bad at this?
If only christie had closed the bridge sooner the transition would not have been able to hit the abutment.
While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.
Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.
"White privilege" is a way of sociologically explaining why white people do better in America than most other races without going all Bell Curve and saying "They are just better." It *isn't* a way of insulting white people who do less well than average. Some immature, young liberals might use it that way but they are *wrong.* That's not what it means.
Social justice activists are *rarely* saying "You may be homeless and starving but at least you are white and privileged!" They are saying "The reason why there are more homeless and hungry black people than white is white privilege."
It's also far reaching in a way that can be difficult to convey, like how you'd probably be even be worse off as a black homeless person than a white one, which you can't say without seeming to belittle the still very real poverty and social issues that people of majority groups face.
Yup.
It's a macro-explanation that can easily be misinterpreted one way or another.
While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.
Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.
"White privilege" is a way of sociologically explaining why white people do better in America than most other races without going all Bell Curve and saying "They are just better." It *isn't* a way of insulting white people who do less well than average. Some immature, young liberals might use it that way but they are *wrong.* That's not what it means.
Social justice activists are *rarely* saying "You may be homeless and starving but at least you are white and privileged!" They are saying "The reason why there are more homeless and hungry black people than white is white privilege."
It's also far reaching in a way that can be difficult to convey, like how you'd probably be even be worse off as a black homeless person than a white one, which you can't say without seeming to belittle the still very real poverty and social issues that people of majority groups face.
It's pointless saying it because it is cruel. Would you say to a black homeless guy, "At least you have your legs, unlike that homeless guy in the wheelchair on the other side of the street?" There is no point guilting the downtrodden because there is always someone less fortunate.
It is only useful against people who say things like "No-one ever gave me anything! My parents kicked me out the house right after university and I worked my way up the ladder in my uncle's company from the very bottom, cleaning the toilets! If I can do it, anyone can!"
So if Trump's transition ends up as the mess it appears to be when he takes office on January 20th, does he immediately blame Obama? Assuming he even admits it, of course.
Blaming Obama is going to be the go-to for the next 4 years
Damn this Soros-funded liberal media Obummer plot to delay TeamMAGA from already bringing jobs back etc
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
How are they that bad at this?
Oh, is it unusual for a transition team to experience purges less than a week after being initially set up?
If this is indicative of his administration, Trump's cabinet is going to involve nightmarish levels of reshuffling.
While terms like “racist,” “white privilege,” and “implicit bias” intend to point out systemic biases in America, for white Americans they’re often seen as coded slurs. These terms don’t signal to them that they’re doing something wrong, but that their supposedly racist attitudes (which they would deny having at all) are a justification for lawmakers and other elites to ignore their problems.
Imagine, for example, a white man who lost a factory job due to globalization and saw his sister die from a drug overdose due to the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic — situations that aren’t uncommon today. He tries to complain about his circumstances. But his concerns are downplayed by a politician or racial justice activist, who instead points out that at least he’s doing better than black and brown folks if you look at broad socioeconomic measures.
"White privilege" is a way of sociologically explaining why white people do better in America than most other races without going all Bell Curve and saying "They are just better." It *isn't* a way of insulting white people who do less well than average. Some immature, young liberals might use it that way but they are *wrong.* That's not what it means.
Social justice activists are *rarely* saying "You may be homeless and starving but at least you are white and privileged!" They are saying "The reason why there are more homeless and hungry black people than white is white privilege."
It's also far reaching in a way that can be difficult to convey, like how you'd probably be even be worse off as a black homeless person than a white one, which you can't say without seeming to belittle the still very real poverty and social issues that people of majority groups face.
The problem seems to be that it does belittle the very real poverty problems that a lot of people face. Also, it turns racism from actions that people do, to a natural state of white people that they must make amends for. So, the fight against racism turns from getting actual results that improve the lives of minorities, to a way for middle-upper class white people to show how virtuous they are. See: The backlash against "safety pins" for being patronizing.
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
How are they that bad at this?
Oh, is it unusual for a transition team to experience purges less than a week after being initially set up?
If this is indicative of his administration, Trump's cabinet is going to involve nightmarish levels of reshuffling.
We are absolutely going to be hit by another terrorist attack within the next 4 years, if only because the government is going to be staffed entirely by utter fucking imbeciles who couldn't tell a piece of chalk from a nuclear bomb.
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
How are they that bad at this?
Oh, is it unusual for a transition team to experience purges less than a week after being initially set up?
If this is indicative of his administration, Trump's cabinet is going to involve nightmarish levels of reshuffling.
We are absolutely going to be hit by another terrorist attack within the next 4 years, if only because the government is going to be staffed entirely by utter fucking imbeciles who couldn't tell a piece of chalk from a nuclear bomb.
Even if Professor X was the president, we would be hit by a terrorist attack because no security service is 100% perfect and terrorist attacks happen every so often.
However the agents on the ground who do the anti-terror work are going to be the same people, so they will continue doing pretty much exactly the same thing, unless their budget gets cut or something.
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
How are they that bad at this?
Oh, is it unusual for a transition team to experience purges less than a week after being initially set up?
If this is indicative of his administration, Trump's cabinet is going to involve nightmarish levels of reshuffling.
We are absolutely going to be hit by another terrorist attack within the next 4 years, if only because the government is going to be staffed entirely by utter fucking imbeciles who couldn't tell a piece of chalk from a nuclear bomb.
And if the attack targets a Trump property, say a bombing of Trump Tower, his reaction is going to involve nukes. No way it doesn't
In the American system, a President has more than 4,000 political appointments to begin filling in the crucial weeks between election and inauguration. Christie had made many trips to Washington to set up a transition, but progress had slowed as the polls seemed to indicate no such effort would ultimately be needed. It wasn’t long before the first transition to take place was Christie’s. The New Jersey governor had never been a favorite of conservatives, or of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father Christie had sent to jail years ago for making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and tampering with a witness. By Nov. 10, Christie had breakfast with Vice President–elect Mike Pence in New York, and it wasn’t long after that Pence had replaced Christie as transition chief. Christie could stay around with a title if he wanted, but everyone suspected his days as a member of the formal inner circle were over. Days later, even those close to Christie, like intelligence expert and former Representative Mike Rogers and Christie attorney William Palatucci, would be purged as well. Trump subsequently called Rogers, trying to bring him back. Christie was still fielding calls from Trump after the shake-up. “This thing is heading into a bridge abutment. It didn’t have to be this way,” one senior Republican involved in the transition said of the turmoil. “But it is.”
How are they that bad at this?
Oh, is it unusual for a transition team to experience purges less than a week after being initially set up?
If this is indicative of his administration, Trump's cabinet is going to involve nightmarish levels of reshuffling.
We are absolutely going to be hit by another terrorist attack within the next 4 years, if only because the government is going to be staffed entirely by utter fucking imbeciles who couldn't tell a piece of chalk from a nuclear bomb.
I have serious misgivings about Trump's first terrorist attack aftermath speech.
Posts
this wasn't the overton window, it was the lure of all that sweet clickbait anti clinton revenue
Breitbart calls that a victory, FWIW.
Nature (capital "N") isn't a thing. There's just nature. And it doesn't entitle us to anything because it has no opinions -- moral or otherwise.
It's the basic is-ought problem. Things ought to be good, but they aren't.
The basic impulses of humanity is bash out the brains of the funny-looking people from the other tribe across the river. Say all you want about respecting their life, liberty and happiness, but a lot of people seems staidly intent on not doing so. And the only reason that one tribe hasn't reduced the other one to livestock yet is because they just haven't quite sussed out all the logistical problems.
"Suckers!"
And now I have found my first op-ed confirming my reasoning! Thanks Paul Waldman!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/11/17/why-democrats-need-to-fight-donald-trump-from-the-moment-he-takes-office/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e:homepage/story&utm_term=.8c60015012d8
NNID: Hakkekage
You should limit your intake.
Channel that urge to know into something positive like cleaning up or working out or whatever.
George Takei knows a couple things about this stuff. He had some pretty good words to say, I think.
I'm going to take my alarmist hat off here for a minute. Things are bad, there is no way around that. But they're not hopeless yet. I believe that if we stay loud, maintain pressure, and nip this shit in the bud, we can blunt a lot of the worst of what Trump will try. Internment camps are probably not going to happen. But their continued non-existence relies on us standing up and making a fuss and loudly proclaiming that they are unacceptable and will never be acceptable. We will have to fight similar battles across a whole slate of issues, but we can do that. We had to do that to get this far in the first place.
We do need to reach out to potential R allies who voted for Trump. Not all of them are raging neonazis. Most are not. Our safety and progress relies on putting aside our righteous outrage though, and spoon feeding them baby morsels to help them understand why these issues are so critical.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Apparently not aware that he didn't want his kids going to school with Jewish kids.
I expect to see economic base-pandering on a large scale. They can't redevelop all of rural America. But if they have their resources organized, they can extensively throw money at enough smaller cities and rural areas in conservative states and swing state territory they deem politically useful, creating some amount of jobs for low skill workers in the process. The appearance of beginning this phase of redevelopment and resulting propaganda would contribute to a perception that things are being done.
On their political agenda- Prior to his winning, I honestly had no clue what he wanted other than an ego boost/self promotion. I even gave some credence to the idea that he was Hilary's plant. How I wish now that conspiracy theories were true.
I really hope I'm not being alarmist, and I would really like anyone to correct me if I'm mistaken in what I've been able to glean about who these people are and what they want.
From what I can tell, there is an agenda, and I think it's a global right wing white supremacist agenda. It's more than small time political opportunism. Yes, there's greed and power involved. But that's not what's unique about them.
US foreign policy and global hegemony is perceived to be declining or an absolute failure in terms of its ability to guarantee security for other countries, particularly in regions where a competing power is involved (Russia and China)
The US is widely projected to be surpassed by China, which acts in its own interest and culturally self defined in terms of ethnicity, without any regard for people of different origins beyond profiteering. It's easy to see why such a society is the envy of right wing racial supremacists. And it's a growing trend in both the first and third world.
Long story short, I think they want a white nationalist bloc, an alignment of as many countries with a caucasian majority with European heritage as possible based on election results. Russia would be a member.
This would be primarily for the purpose of abandoning all inessential military activity outside of their region (with the exception of Russia) in order to negotiate more forcefully for favorable economic terms from China, particularly going forward when it becomes the world's strongest economy. Abandonment of any voiced concern for human rights or national sovereignty, or real geopolitical opposition to China's adventures in Asia would be the single strongest bargaining chip, beyond even their government's wildest dreams.
Immigration and pluralism would be strongly discouraged, though nominally tolerated, while economic protectionism would take hold in a strong way. These people will take hits economically if they can pay their own and stay in control.
Note- this is all what I think is their ultimate aim. No politician in a democracy ever gets to enact their vision. They will try to undermine democracy as much as they can, not least through cultivation of their base, and creating uncertainty over who exactly the racist/extremist/elements are by pitting economically and socially aggrieved working class and uneducated whites against people that fight for social welfare. One of the issues that concern me is that they have a mob that they want people to tangle with, as a way of creating distracting provocations, occupying the opposition's time and efforts. They want it to be as pointless to talk about politics in America as it is in Russia. There's likely going to be some amount of organized internet mass posting, both from people that do it voluntarily and people they hire.
The reason I think this is because the alt right tries to say "nope not us, the racists are that way. They sure are annoying aren't they? gosh darn racists" and on the other hand deliberately triggering those same people into an all out race war that the old republicans primed them for over 8 years.
I think there's a level of subversion and mafia style organization that needs to be understood, before even attempting to restore sanity and deceny in society.
Overall, their agenda will most likely be stillborn, not least because it could only be pursued very gradually, and also because sane people exist.
The issue though, is that there has to be clarity about how they opposed. And a refusal to go back into a bubble, at least in terms of awareness of what's happening, and what could happen. For myself, I'd say instead of avoiding misogynists, anti PC and racist people, I want to see how they think, I want to see how they're leveraged, and I want to see what their strategy is, because one thing about these people is that they might be more organized than they would appear, given that they're still wearing the old Republican party's carcass.
Recent research seems to indicate that this is incorrect. Altruism and cooperation are just as much a part of human nature as tribalism and warfare. It's not either/or, it's and/also.
You're wrong, there's another election in 5 months
Wisconsin is all kinds of special :rotate:
Corollary: People are also awfully selective about who they give their altruism and cooperation to.
Naturally, Dave is just fine. He's good people. He's not one of the people from across the river.
I also wouldn't be an advocate of like, you know, an inclusive democratic society if I thought it's always impossible for tribe A and B to cooperate, eventually. Which still doesn't keep tribe C being a bunch of racist shitburglars.
So much of my mental real estate in this past week has been occupied by fake conversations with Beasto's relatives in Trump Country Washington
like fucking debate prep
talking to myself in my office out like like a loon
It is so much harder for me to reach out to them without triggering immediate defensiveness and doubling down than it is for them to talk at me about how it's just about taxes, deregulation, taking their country back
Yeah but from WHO
WHO did you take it back from
Cause I only had a crumb and you FUCKING TOOK IT
NNID: Hakkekage
Edit: Fun game before the video: Guess if the cashier is white
HOW DARE THAT MAN PUT MY DAD IN PRISON FOR BREAKING THE LAW
holy white privilege batman
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Democrats need to put a spike in that wedge and hammer it if it presents itself by offering their sincere assistance
"White privilege" is a way of sociologically explaining why white people do better in America than most other races without going all Bell Curve and saying "They are just better." It *isn't* a way of insulting white people who do less well than average. Some immature, young liberals might use it that way but they are *wrong.* That's not what it means.
Social justice activists are *rarely* saying "You may be homeless and starving but at least you are white and privileged!" They are saying "The reason why there are proportionately more homeless and hungry black people than white is white privilege."
Republicans will spend if they think it's for a "good cause".
And then Fox, Breitbart et all tale that message and twist it to sell it as anti white racism. The few who DO take it too far are just bonus points.
i.e., war against browns
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
That seems like it should be a bigger deal but eh, it does not involve emails.
My Backloggery
It's also far reaching in a way that can be difficult to convey, like how you'd probably be even be worse off as a black homeless person than a white one, which you can't say without seeming to belittle the still very real poverty and social issues that people of majority groups face.
Blaming Obama is going to be the go-to for the next 4 years
I think ethnic patronage by the state to some extent is inevitable over the next 4 years.
How to prevent the scale of it is one thing. But the other is, what to do about it. People like money.
If only christie had closed the bridge sooner the transition would not have been able to hit the abutment.
Yup.
It's a macro-explanation that can easily be misinterpreted one way or another.
It's pointless saying it because it is cruel. Would you say to a black homeless guy, "At least you have your legs, unlike that homeless guy in the wheelchair on the other side of the street?" There is no point guilting the downtrodden because there is always someone less fortunate.
It is only useful against people who say things like "No-one ever gave me anything! My parents kicked me out the house right after university and I worked my way up the ladder in my uncle's company from the very bottom, cleaning the toilets! If I can do it, anyone can!"
Damn this Soros-funded liberal media Obummer plot to delay TeamMAGA from already bringing jobs back etc
Oh, is it unusual for a transition team to experience purges less than a week after being initially set up?
If this is indicative of his administration, Trump's cabinet is going to involve nightmarish levels of reshuffling.
The problem seems to be that it does belittle the very real poverty problems that a lot of people face. Also, it turns racism from actions that people do, to a natural state of white people that they must make amends for. So, the fight against racism turns from getting actual results that improve the lives of minorities, to a way for middle-upper class white people to show how virtuous they are. See: The backlash against "safety pins" for being patronizing.
We are absolutely going to be hit by another terrorist attack within the next 4 years, if only because the government is going to be staffed entirely by utter fucking imbeciles who couldn't tell a piece of chalk from a nuclear bomb.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Even if Professor X was the president, we would be hit by a terrorist attack because no security service is 100% perfect and terrorist attacks happen every so often.
However the agents on the ground who do the anti-terror work are going to be the same people, so they will continue doing pretty much exactly the same thing, unless their budget gets cut or something.
And if the attack targets a Trump property, say a bombing of Trump Tower, his reaction is going to involve nukes. No way it doesn't
I have serious misgivings about Trump's first terrorist attack aftermath speech.