What could Trump do to cause his supporters to vote against him?

[Seriati]

Just because you like Trump, and he says he likes his steak well done, does not mean that you approve of well done steak. If you defend him for liking steak well done, then now you own it.

No you only own it if you claim that steak well done is likable.  Plenty of people eat things that are repugnant and I'd be happy to defend that they like them, that doesn't mean I own that those things are good to eat.

You ought to call him out on it and say that you don't like steak well done. You are also no longer invited to my barbecue.

What I usually say, is the steak is done, if you want to ruin yours feel free to put it back on the grill.

EDIT - And I apologize for the dredging up of a bunch of old posts.  Missed 3 weeks and this thread took some interesting turns.

[Seriati]

It's facile to the extreme to denounce something already ridiculous to the vast majority of people and think you're being real or edgy or something.

The war to distort perception goes both ways.  A lot of people on the left are reeling.

That's true, they believed they had a permanent majority and would never have to give up the reins again.  Then they showed utter contempt for the American voters, and found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (shouldn't be a surprise, they did the same thing when they ran John Kerry in an election they should have won against George Bush).

It’s not that anyone believed that we didn’t have serious problems with racism still but we at least believed that the days of open hate speech had gone the way of the dinosaurs or at least relegated to, “*censored* grandpa says when not out in public.”

Who is engaging in open hate speech? 

Pretty much the left has carte blanche to do so, and even grandpa's are crucified on the right.  Or are you conflating policy positions - like the need to stop illegal immigration with "hate speech"?

Then we saw a lack of willingness to govern while Obama was in office that was hard to chalk up to JUST party politics.

It wasn't hard at all.  I've yet to see a credible argument of a moderate policy that Obama put forward that was opposed.  Meanwhile, what we see today is that anything Trump says is opposed ("America was never that great") and policies like Abolish ICE (notwithstanding a majority of the country wanting a secure boarder). 

Literally, what the right was accused of.  The left even labelled itself the "resistance," not the resistance to policy x or policy y, just the "resistance."

Then the Republican party’s response to his presidency?  Donald J. Trump.

Not the party response.  The party flat out hated him.  The voter response.  You may even remember when the media supported Trump and the speculation was that Hillary pushed him to run to make her campaign easier.  Lol.

Certainly the media took great glee in backing Trump in his efforts to tear down Republicans "with an actual chance to beat Clinton."

A man who seems to take sick glee in fomenting racial tension.

Maybe you can point out the "sick glee"?  I've never seen it.  In fact, most of the "fomenting racial tension" is in the heads of the left and not in actual reality or policy.  Meanwhile, he's actually focused on policies to bring economic development, jobs and a real chance of a future to minority communities.  But the meme of "racism" is more important than the reality of better futures.

So we ask ourselves, “is it really THIS bad still?”  Probably not, but if you read, watch, listen to the news or social media, it sure looks like a HUGE backslide in open racism and bigotry.

I agree, I never thought the left would adopt open bigotry and racism on the scale they have. 

As it will continue to do so, and frankly, it should until we either out breed the ”problem” and everyone is enough of a melting pot it’s pointless to categorize, or just we get over it and actual equality is achieved.  I’m hoping for option that doesn’t take many generations to achieve…

If we still believed in a melting pot, culturally, we'd be well on the way to eliminating racial disagreement.  Respecting each our and being inclusive to new ideas is far more community building than insulating ourselves and excluding others as guilty of cultural theft.  Emphasizing separate cultures does little more than ensure cultures clash.

[D.W.]

They are not, they are provoking violence and even initiating it.

Such as?  Or do you mean showing up when alt-right groups are protesting.  As that is literally the ONLY things I’ve read about them doing.  If those are the situations you are also referring to, then it’s a chicken or egg issue.  Did the alt-right invite violence, or did Antifa showing up to counter protest invite the violence? 
I’ll be clear on this part.  I personally, don’t give a poop.  If there’s violence, cops should make arrests and sort them out.  I am not supporting violence.  I don’t support Antifa in general as far as how they are characterized by the right.  I, in fact, don’t even believe they exist as characterized by the right.  I believe (and I could be way off base here) that they are a handful of counter protestors spoiling for a fight that are, correctly pissed off about seeing racism and open hate paraded around.  They are a boogeyman of the right media and our president and that’s pretty much the extent of it.  A make believe menace based loosely on a few violent individuals in masks.
Now if instead you mean Antifa goes places and provoke violence or initiate violence against random citizens going about their day whom they have identified as “their enemies”, please cite one of these incidents.  I was not aware this “group”, in so far as it’s not just random counter protestors wearing a mask, behaved this way. 

Racists are always wrong about their opinions.  They are not wrong to defend themselves from violence.

Agreed.  Or, at least they are legally allowed to.  Taunting someone until they hit you is “your right”, but it’s not “right”. 

I say "original" because even though the label was created by racists to rebrand themselves the media and the left have at times used it to "label" nearly half the country.  The way it's used today is not descriptive but rather designed to tar and feather anyone that doesn't agree with the left

All I can say to this is I think you are wrong.  To flip this around the media of the right is trying to make their consumers terrified that not only are The Left violent (see recent remarks by our beloved President…) but that we hate ALL Republican voters.  That we think you are ALL racists.  It’s pure horse poop.  However you are ALL letting a lot of your leadership get away with behavior you insist doesn’t represent you.  And we ‘of The Left’ do see this, and take note.

It is worth it.  Protesting racists is an objective good.  Punching them is not.  Pretending and covering for groups that claim they are morally justified in punching them is objectively bad.

I disagree.  They MAY be morally justified.  They just aren’t legally justified.  It’s an important distinction for me.  I wouldn’t punch a racists because I obey the law.  I may want to when I hear them spouting off.  I see nothing wrong with that desire, and I feel it is correct to feel hostility towards those people.  It may not be constructive though…  So self control is important.

Yes, originally.  But again I point you to the wiki, that isn't where it's stayed.  If all we're talking about is Klansmen, we don't really need to use the term, there aren't enough of them to matter.  Instead, it gets used so much to try and tar anyone on the right as "the same as a racist" and it's utility other than as propaganda is effectively zero.

You do realize that the Alt-Right is a significant threat because it IS more than just Klansmen or Nazis.  And while you worry about The Left painting others with the brush, I worry about those on the Right flying the banner voluntarily because of some perceived safety in numbers fortress mentality against the terrible Left aggressors. 
Was Hillary wrong for calling Trump supporters “deplorable”?  Heck ya.  But then we get large groups of those supporters embracing the label.  Some of them even taking particular delight in acting in ways the left would find deplorable…
The Alt-Right is no longer saying, “Hey, do you support white supremacy and hate brown people?  Why not join us?”  They instead say, “Stick it to The Left!  They hate you anyway and we should stick together and show them who’s boss!”  So blame us if you want for the Alt-Right ‘brand creep’.  I’d be happy if the label faded away. 

Join their websites and go to where they protest.

  Do they protest in isolation, or am I correct they are exclusively a ‘response force’ to alt-right, KKK, nazi protests/marches?  I’m not looking for a street address or anything.  They are getting some high profile attention as of late.  You’ve called them terrorists.  So I’m just asking for a little info to back up the rhetoric.

[D.W.]

TheDeamon, I've got no idea how to properly respond to your post about Social Justive vs. Justice...

I've never once in my life heard the term phrased/defined in such a way as to support your statements.

I suppose I can see why you took issue with the word "simple" but the rest of it comes across as nonsense to me. 

Those attempting to "rig" anything tend to be "simple" stabs at extracting Justice from the existing system.  Patches not repairs, I guess. 

If you are suggesting 'The Left' is not ideologically pure, and free of opportunists; then I agree.  Beyond that, no clue what you are getting at.  Justice in society IS 'social justice'.  Social Justice is not some code word for, "my turn to be king of the hill."

[D.W.]

That's true, they believed they had a permanent majority and would never have to give up the reins again.

Then those people were idiots.  It takes some serious twisting of “a lot of people” to make this quote meaningful.  I won’t return fire and say “nobody believes this” but… well you get the point.  Anyway, what I MEANT was, they believed that open blatant racism in public had been pushed back such that it was no longer a concern.  While most still understand there is a lot of work to reach equality, we thought that level of social decency was permanent.  WHOOPS!

The abolish ICE thing did strike me as a ridiculous proposition, until it was pointed out they weren’t always around. (Somehow I had entirely forgotten about "pre-ICE" even though it is a recent change.)  And our borders didn’t magically become more secure IMO when they were created.  I’m not convinced getting rid of them and re-re-branding back to INS and changing oversight would solve anything, but the proposal isn’t as pant-pooping-insane as it sounds on its face.   

Literally, what the right was accused of.  The left even labelled itself the "resistance," not the resistance to policy x or policy y, just the "resistance."

A lot of truth to this.  *I* see differences in the agenda of each white house and proposed legislation, but I get why others would not. 

Maybe you can point out the "sick glee"?  I've never seen it.

Too subjective.  If you’ve never seen it, I doubt the two of us sitting watching clips of him over beers with me going, “right there!  Can’t you just TELL what he was feeling when he said that?”, would precipitate a eureka moment on your part. 

But the meme of "racism" is more important than the reality of better futures.

I hope you are correct that he makes changes that will have a long term positive impact for everyone and particularly those at the lower end of the economic scales.  I think you’ve got blinders on if you don’t see him pandering to racial fears, but that doesn’t mean the man (and his policies) can’t result in some positive things.  I disagree with his economic theories, but I could be wrong. 

I never thought the left would adopt open bigotry and racism on the scale they have. 

I get that this is intended as a ripost… but that’s pretty much the extent of me grasping what you are referring to here.

If we still believed in a melting pot, culturally, we'd be well on the way to eliminating racial disagreement.  Respecting each our and being inclusive to new ideas is far more community building than insulating ourselves and excluding others as guilty of cultural theft.  Emphasizing separate cultures does little more than ensure cultures clash.

Agreed.  Other than perhaps gun control, this is where I diverge most from ‘The Left’ as a brand.  Attempting to preserve and partition cultures and enclaves and minority/majority voluntary segregation and calling it a positive thing is the most backwards thing we do.  I don’t “respect your culture”, because it’s MY culture as well.  Melting pot away.  Keep what you like, discard what you don’t.  We don’t need economically linked social isolation.  Be that by skin color, religion or voting habits…  That’s not the way things are trending though.  The Great Melting Pot experiment seems to have failed.  Or is in danger of failing right now.

[Seriati]

They are not, they are provoking violence and even initiating it.

Such as?  Or do you mean showing up when alt-right groups are protesting.  As that is literally the ONLY things I’ve read about them doing.  If those are the situations you are also referring to, then it’s a chicken or egg issue.  Did the alt-right invite violence, or did Antifa showing up to counter protest invite the violence?

It's not a chicken or the egg situation.  Antifa specifically shows up to punch racists.  They post about it, they organize it and when they show up they start fights.  Racists have been organizing their small demonstrations for years, we know what they do at them.

Antifa subscribes to the philosophy that racist words ARE violence and therefore Antifa is justified in responding to that violence with physical violence.

I’ll be clear on this part.  I personally, don’t give a poop.  If there’s violence, cops should make arrests and sort them out.

I agree.

Now if instead you mean Antifa goes places and provoke violence or initiate violence against random citizens going about their day whom they have identified as “their enemies”, please cite one of these incidents.  I was not aware this “group”, in so far as it’s not just random counter protestors wearing a mask, behaved this way.

Honestly, I don't see any reason that I should have to find a "random" person they have harassed.  Everyone they have harassed has a right to free speech.  Much like the ACLU used to defend Nazi's that's where we should be coming out today on any violent suppression of speech.

But we've seen multiple incidences of violence and threats of violence used to shut down speakers on the right.  A few I can think of, Ben Shapiro (which is really stretching into a fairly mainstream speaker), Anne Coulter, Mylo Yiannapolis, the Bell Curve guy (name escapes) me, were all well publicized.

Racists are always wrong about their opinions.  They are not wrong to defend themselves from violence.

Agreed.  Or, at least they are legally allowed to.  Taunting someone until they hit you is “your right”, but it’s not “right”.

 

You don't actually have to listen to them.  How are they taunting you, other than by you choosing to interact with them?

It's interesting that "stand your ground" is an offense to the world view of the left, but the idea that racists are taunting someone who deliberately followed them to a place and could easily walk away into violence makes sense somehow. 

I say "original" because even though the label was created by racists to rebrand themselves the media and the left have at times used it to "label" nearly half the country.  The way it's used today is not descriptive but rather designed to tar and feather anyone that doesn't agree with the left

All I can say to this is I think you are wrong.  To flip this around the media of the right is trying to make their consumers terrified that not only are The Left violent (see recent remarks by our beloved President…) but that we hate ALL Republican voters.  That we think you are ALL racists.  It’s pure horse poop.  However you are ALL letting a lot of your leadership get away with behavior you insist doesn’t represent you.  And we ‘of The Left’ do see this, and take note.

Is it horse poop?  Did you look at the Wiki?  It actually identifies as groups that have been labelled alt right, christian fundamentalists (massive group very few of which are remotely racist) and Trump campaign supporters (what over 60 million voters?).

Heck, above Greg asserts that 'tens of millions of Americans' support slavery because they make arguments about the confederacy in the civil war.  That's an incredibly broad and false brush.  One can easily view that slavery was completely wrong, but that hasn't nothing to do with another issue that was connected to the civil war.  It's this bizarre tribal world we live in where a tribe has to be right about 100% of everything or about 0% and we can't have a somethings that make sense on each side.

It is worth it.  Protesting racists is an objective good.  Punching them is not.  Pretending and covering for groups that claim they are morally justified in punching them is objectively bad.

I disagree.  They MAY be morally justified.  They just aren’t legally justified.  It’s an important distinction for me.  I wouldn’t punch a racists because I obey the law.  I may want to when I hear them spouting off.  I see nothing wrong with that desire, and I feel it is correct to feel hostility towards those people.  It may not be constructive though…  So self control is important.

Why are you complaining about a characterization if you believe what you just said? 

No one is morally entitled to meet words with violence.  Period.  This is not just a legal matter.

Yes, originally.  But again I point you to the wiki, that isn't where it's stayed.  If all we're talking about is Klansmen, we don't really need to use the term, there aren't enough of them to matter.  Instead, it gets used so much to try and tar anyone on the right as "the same as a racist" and it's utility other than as propaganda is effectively zero.

You do realize that the Alt-Right is a significant threat because it IS more than just Klansmen or Nazis.

Did I misunderstand you when you seemed to be claiming that I was wrong that "alt-right" is being defined too broadly?  And now you're asserting it is a broad term?

The Alt Right is not a threat.  Racism is not picking up speed, it's a failed philosophy that's only being held up as a strawman to justify extremism.

And while you worry about The Left painting others with the brush, I worry about those on the Right flying the banner voluntarily because of some perceived safety in numbers fortress mentality against the terrible Left aggressors.

 

What are you worried about?  Show me the racist brown shirts attacking the left.

Are you just worried that your ideas can't beat the ideas of racists? 

Was Hillary wrong for calling Trump supporters “deplorable”?  Heck ya.  But then we get large groups of those supporters embracing the label.  Some of them even taking particular delight in acting in ways the left would find deplorable…

Honestly, couldn't care less what she called them.  Where its wrong is the easy acceptance of the lie that millions of people that have legitimate policy disagreements with her can be dismissed as nothing but racists.

The Alt-Right is no longer saying, “Hey, do you support white supremacy and hate brown people?  Why not join us?”  They instead say, “Stick it to The Left!  They hate you anyway and we should stick together and show them who’s boss!”  So blame us if you want for the Alt-Right ‘brand creep’.  I’d be happy if the label faded away.

 

No you wouldn't.  Without the label you'd have to have a real argument with someone about whether having an open border and allowing people from repressive countries with massive violence into the country without any constraints or controls is really in the best interests of the country, instead of just labeling them as racists and dismissing them.

Join their websites and go to where they protest.

  Do they protest in isolation, or am I correct they are exclusively a ‘response force’ to alt-right, KKK, nazi protests/marches?

No, your just guilty of white washing them.  They are "response" force to anyone they perceive as the slightest bit off of their "pure" ideology.  Did you read the story of the leftist protest who got beat down by Anti-fa because he brought a US flag to try and "reclaim" it for the cause?

I’m not looking for a street address or anything.  They are getting some high profile attention as of late.  You’ve called them terrorists.  So I’m just asking for a little info to back up the rhetoric.

Organized in secret, with a plan to do violence to intimidate political opponents, showing up with weapons and disguises and actually committing violence.  What part of that is not terrorist behavior?

If Nazi's did the same thing and beat up their opponents would you not think they were engaging in terrorism?

[D.W.]

Honestly, I don't see any reason that I should have to find a "random" person they have harassed. 

Agreed.  I tend not to respond to such requests… but:
A:  Antifa ONLY gather in response to a protest /  march by groups they “want to punch” (in your words)
B:  Antifa organize and gather independent of any catalyst protest / march and do… whatever. 
Are they out “punching people” proactively?  Or ONLY where racists have gathered to voice their racisim in an organized gathering/protest/march?

That’s the question I’m trying to get answered.   It is my assertion that they exist EXCLUSIVELY as a counter. 

[Seriati]

D.W., I think you're missing the point.  They define "racist" very broadly.  The idea that they are "reacting" to anything is false.  By the way calling them "Anti-fa" is false, they are literally facists.

I'm not going to represent the validity of this link, but here's a source https://www.dailywire.com/news/20343/timeline-antifa-violence-january-%E2%80%93-august-2017-frank-camp that demonstrates a fairly broad violence trigger.  There are a lot more links on google that you can easily find.

[D.W.]

You don't actually have to listen to them.  How are they taunting you, other than by you choosing to interact with them?

Correct.  And?  I was drawing a parallel.  Illustrating a point.  Thought that was obvious.  This behavior, on both sides, reminds me of (is equivalent to) drunk teens getting in each other’s face daring each other to take the first swing while they talk trash.  Shocker, violence sometimes occurs. 

No one is morally entitled to meet words with violence.  Period.  This is not just a legal matter.

My morality says differently.  Period.  I believe klansman deserve, an ass kicking.  I believe my grandma deserves a smack across the face when she says something racist.  I don’t go out and kick ass, or slap my grandma, but I BELIEVE they deserve it.  I’m just arguing semantics.  WHY?  Because, if I concede your classification of Antifa is accurate, then I believe they are morally justified in violence.  They have CHOSEN to disregard the law in order to act on that moral justification.  THAT, I have a problem with.  They are acting on a moral justification and creating anarchy.  I prefer a world of just laws over one of moral justifications.  Moralities differ.  Laws (ideally) are open for all to see so one knows how to act to stay in good standing in society.

Did I misunderstand you when you seemed to be claiming that I was wrong that "alt-right" is being defined too broadly?  And now you're asserting it is a broad term?

We disagree in WHO is broadening the term, and for what purpose.

Are you just worried that your ideas can't beat the ideas of racists?

I’m worried that rational thought doesn’t factor into it at all.  And I do worry our pathetically slow crawl away from our country’s history regarding racism is in danger of slowing further or even back sliding instead of making long strides forward.

No you wouldn't.  Without the label you'd have to have a real argument with someone about whether having an open border and allowing people from repressive countries with massive violence into the country without any constraints or controls is really in the best interests of the country, instead of just labeling them as racists and dismissing them.

I’ll chalk this up as a generalization.  It misses the mark pretty widely as it pertains to my thoughts on immigration.  I have problems with fear mongering, racial or otherwise, but I’m pretty far from the characterization of the open border loving liberal.

No, your just guilty of white washing them.  They are "response" force to anyone they perceive as the slightest bit off of their "pure" ideology.  Did you read the story of the leftist protest who got beat down by Anti-fa because he brought a US flag to try and "reclaim" it for the cause?

You must be reading a lot into my words to consider that an attempt to white wash.  It was an honest question.  No I hadn’t heard that.  Was this an event where Antifa showed up at a leftist protest and attacked them/him for ideological impurity?  (No KKK, Nazi or Fascists present?)  That would be an example of what I was asking for.

Organized in secret, with a plan to do violence to intimidate political opponents, showing up with weapons and disguises and actually committing violence.  What part of that is not terrorist behavior?

If Nazi's did the same thing and beat up their opponents would you not think they were engaging in terrorism?

Indeed.  As that is a serious claim, then there should be evidence and citations available.  The FBI should be out in force after them.  Understand, I’m NOT suggesting that those things aren’t terrorism.  My exposure to Antifa is ridiculously small.  I find it hard to just accept they are such a big deal.  That’s why I’m nitpicking things like “moral justification” vs “legally justified”.  I don’t KNOW the specifics on how “they” operate.  It’s why I’m asking questions.  I’m not trying to make excuses for Antifa.  I’m trying to figure out what is actually to this whole craze about them.

[D.W.]

Thanks for the link Seriati.  That's easily the most condensed info I've seen on the issue. 

[DonaldD]

Words matter.  Antifa members might be evil; they might use violence with the goal of enforcing their desires; they might proactively attack innocents.  But those attributes do not fascists make.

Antifa, at least many if not most of them, are more appropriately labelled anarchists. Fascism at its most simple, is a philosophy prioritizing the nation (usually in the context of race); the two concepts are antuthetical, and the term "antifa" is not a coincidence - there is simply no amount of semantic gymnastics that is going to square that circle. 

[TheDrake]

A:  Antifa ONLY gather in response to a protest /  march by groups they “want to punch” (in your words)
B:  Antifa organize and gather independent of any catalyst protest / march and do… whatever. 
Are they out “punching people” proactively?  Or ONLY where racists have gathered to voice their racisim in an organized gathering/protest/march?

Many of the members of Antifa do indeed form their own marches and protests. They are drawn from the same pools that have rioted over various things in various places, from WTO protests to BLM. As anarchists, they generally reject the right of the police to tell them where they can go. As a result, they often initiate physical contact with police, trying to push past barricades. They have been known to join with union groups, from IWW to AFL-CIO, and will generally use similar tactics like preventing someone from getting to work or from leaving a parking lot. Those that attempt to push through are met with violence.

[D.W.]

Thanks TheDrake.  I think a lot of the disconnect is my questions about who they are and what they do (or have done) are being taken as defense of those actions I've not mentioned.

Person 1:  How can you defend them?
Me:  I got no clue WTF they're up to, where they're doing it, and to whom.

As I thought they ONLY punched Nazis and Klansman, it was hard to give a *censored*.  Not sure I do or not still, but the last page here has helped me understand what has those right wing commentators all hot and bothered.

[TheDeamon]

Then the Republican party’s response to his presidency?  Donald J. Trump.

Not the party response.  The party flat out hated him.  The voter response.  You may even remember when the media supported Trump and the speculation was that Hillary pushed him to run to make her campaign easier.  Lol.

Which runs us back to:

The right tribe doesn't just disagree with, but despises certain vocal elements within the "left" tribe, which they see as ascendant, to the point where they see those voices as an existential threat to their way of life. As Fenring noted, these groups (eg: Antifa) are numerically small, but disproportionately influential. They are absolutely a major cause of the fear driving Trump's supporters into his arms, as surely as Nazi and white supremacist supporters of Trump drive people away from him, into the arms of whoever is leading the charge against him.

Can you consider the hypothesis that those on the right seek out and publicize (and even fictionalize)  the most extreme or divisive voices on the left with the explicit intention of motivating their supporters?

Easy to hypothesize, the media does it in every election season where they find a Republican running for a minor state office somewhere that says something offensive and report it on a national basis as if it were a plank of the Republican party.  Are you now concluding this is unfair?  Or is it only unfair, where a majority view of the party you support is held against them?

It's also easy to reject "extremist voices," but I've not actually seen you reject specific philosophies as extreme.   Which views exactly do think are extremist or divisive on the left and that we're only hearing because the right is trying to apply them too broadly?

Which if someone bothered to go back and dig through late 2015/early 2016--and onward posts, you would see many of "the conservatives"/so inclined on this forum lamenting exactly that behavior from the press. By that spring I'd also decided that strategy was a bad approach for them to use with Trump, even if it worked on Romney. That panned out to be correct:

Which goes back to Trump being a great candidate because he is such a terrible candidate. It is a giant middle finger at "the establishment" and its "politically correct" power base.

In other words: They ran a "terrible candidate" to make the less terrible ones easier to beat, but the voter mood was "f--- that!" and decided to throw a really big spanner into the works. What should have made him easy to beat, instead served to make him difficult to defeat for weak candidates. (Which Hillary was, for numerous reasons, however right or wrong those may be)

Both sides wanted to send a message to the establishment.  One seemed to be a positive message (if more left than many wanted) and the other seemed entirely negative wrapped in a token layer of patriotism.

Keep in mind, in 2014 it was widely reported, at least among "the Right Wing Media" that the powers that be in Washington basically declared war on the Tea Party during the primaries and were doing everything in their power to crush it. I'm 99.9% certain that "a lot" (but not necessarily most) of the support for Trump is a very direct consequence of the Republican "Establishment" doing the political equivalent of unzipping and taking a whiz on much of their grass roots support base. They're seriously pissed off, after having been pissed on by their own side, and more than happy to gleefully burn down the GOP political establishment around their ears if they can pull it off because of that.

Which is why Trump being a terrible candidate made him a "good pick" in their mind.

That is what I keep re-iterating. Trump wasn't getting a lot of the (early) support he received because they felt he was a strong candidate that would accomplish much of anything they truly support. He received that support because he's such a train wreck waiting to happen that the hope is there won't be much of a GOP establishment left to effectively fight back against their own "Grass Roots" in the future. Putting the Democrats through hell in the process is just an added bonus.

This also probably describes why his approval/support numbers are so high despite everything else. He's accomplishing what they wanted--mayhem reigns in Washington's political halls of power.

But the founders were very clear that no system can exist free of corruption/tyranny/oligarchy without constant vigilance and refusal to allow entrenched bureaucracy from forming. This means never really having an easy status quo, and requires the population to be willing to risk it all to do battle with the state when it begins to cater to oligarchs. Right now the people are absolutely unwilling to do this; power isn't taken, it's given.

Uh, I'm pretty sure what's being seen with Donald Trump is a shot across the bow for "The Establishment" in Washington. I think a majority of the population is fully aware that we are dealing with an entrenched and rather pernicious Oligarchy. Trump's success, as well as the showing of Bernie Sanders were likely both reflections of that. The Republican voters just seem to be further along in the process of realizing what they're up against, and they're not happy about it, as such the voter revolt went further with him.

October will be a very interesting month, to say the least. Who wins in November will likely make it even more so. 2018 is going to be an "interesting" year to see to see if the respective Party Machines have properly digested and understood what happened this year. They'll probably have another chance in 2020, but if they blow it that time, it's probably not going to be pretty.

"We tried it your way, and discovered the system is hopelessly rigged. We tried it our way to send you a message, you utterly failed at understanding it. Redress, it seems, isn't possible under the current system..."

"We tried it your way, and discovered the system is hopelessly rigged. We tried it our way to send you a message, you utterly failed at understanding it. Redress, it seems, isn't possible under the current system..."

I think if Clinton wins, the DNC will dodge the bullet in 2020. I think she'll be left-ish enough for the disaffected parts of the electorate that would participate in the Democratic primaries will be relatively quiescent. The GOP (if it still exists) will be even more of a train wreck than this year.

I think Clinton is the "business as usual" candidate, and most of the voter base isn't going to be happy with that while the Republicans are busy with internal mayhem. Meanwhile the angry voter block that normally goes Republican is just going to become more enraged. I'm almost hoping that by some fluke the Republicans/right wing side of things manages to obtain enough voter support that it's the lefties who flip out in a violent manner first, but we'll see.

I do know that I wouldn't take a bet against rioting in the event of a Trump win at this point.

Would you be happy with either of them as President?  What do you imagine would happen in their first term?

Trump would either cease being so flamboyant and move to political center, which I think is his true color, and likely be a 1 term President regardless.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised to see him either resigning or being impeached in his 1st year in office.

Well, at least on this one, "The Left" will not allow him to move to "the center" whatever that may be these days, at least, not yet. We'll see what November brings.  However, he DID make it past his 1st year in office. If he can make it to January 21st, its even possible for him to resign and for Mike Pence to theoretically spend 10 years as PotUS if he managed to turn certain other things around. But honestly, I think I'd almost prefer Trump in office over Pence in the same seat.

And back to where this post started:

And blaming it all on Trump is inconsistent with the fact that the batsh-t crazy things he says today are not appreciably more batsh-t crazy than the things he has been saying for over a year, but only Hillary Clinton's campaign has been able to make him pay for that.

I never came off the fence on Trump being a ringer in this election cycle, with the idea of getting the Republican Nominee to stake a political position the Democrats could make him pay for in the general. As Trump did to Romney in 2012. Only this time, the ringer became the nominee through a twist in the political tides.

Anybody can look like a genius when running against a Straw Man, gender is irrelevant.

I'm still on that fence by the way.

Trump's problem isn't old news, it's new news. It seems like he can barely go a couple of days without mouthing off on camera. If he stopped saying outrageous things, people would stop reporting on them. He's shoveling coal into a fire and then complaining that it keeps getting hotter.

It's only a problem if you are trying to win.    If your goal is publicity, both the acts and the feigned outrage of how his detractors react to them, are steps along the same path.

Pretty much, what is happening plays right into the whole "Trump ran for President for the publicity, not to become President" scenario.

My thinking about Trump's campaign has shifted again.  Pete (I think it was Pete) was the first here to suggest that Trump wasn't really running to be President, but to satisfy some other goal.

I think I was the first one to fully outline it on Ornery, although I know there are older accusations that Trump was ringer from the start, most people who held to that view shut-up at some point during the later portion of the primaries and the run-up to the RNC. Some probably even managed to convince themselves otherwise for awhile.

I've read several articles in the last week suggesting that, and they make a certain kind of sense.  Rather running a campaign in which he will lose, he may be trying to lose by design.  It's becoming increasingly harder to believe that anything he says or does has as its purpose to increase the chances of his winning.

And paradoxically, if more people buy into it, it also becomes possible that his odds of winning will increase. The more convinced people become that Trump doesn't want the job, the more likely it becomes that people will vote for him as a protest vote, much like what went on in Brewster's Millions for the fictional NYC Mayor race.

Why would he do that?  Just to bolster his ravenous need for attention isn't good enough, because after the election all that attention goes away.  He *wants* something out of all this that will survive and grow and I think he's going to get it.  What the country gets is not all that interesting to him.

The attention does go away, but the name recognition remains, which is why many publicists and PR types will occasionally say "There's no such thing as bad publicity." It's all about spin control.

The other thing you're ignoring is that if Trump loses in November, don't be surprised to see filming for another season of "The Apprentice" or some other (new) reality TV program with Trump as the lead, to start filming by January.

Which isn't to mention the possibility he has a documentary crew following him around currently. Romney did that in 2012, Trump may be taking it to "another level."

Well, if there was a documentary crew following him around, we haven't heard about them yet, which at this point would be an utterly amazing feat given everything else that happened regarding his campaign since then.

I'm having a hard time pulling up the earlier/other comments I remember making back then regarding Trump, but then, I guess its entirely possible some/many of those comments were actually being made elsewhere during the time frame in question.

[TheDeamon]

As it will continue to do so, and frankly, it should until we either out breed the ”problem” and everyone is enough of a melting pot it’s pointless to categorize, or just we get over it and actual equality is achieved.  I’m hoping for option that doesn’t take many generations to achieve…

If we still believed in a melting pot, culturally, we'd be well on the way to eliminating racial disagreement.  Respecting each our and being inclusive to new ideas is far more community building than insulating ourselves and excluding others as guilty of cultural theft.  Emphasizing separate cultures does little more than ensure cultures clash.

DW, the "Melting Pot" is anathema for most left-wing groups. That implies integration, that means "uniqueness is lost." (It also makes "us vs them" harder to play out)

The last thing they want is for people to become "Americans" or for "Americans" to become more like another group. (Hence why "cultural appropriation" is no longer acceptable)

You are what are, you should forever remain what you are, because that's your "identity" and that's important above everything else. Anybody who suggests you change in order to adapt should be ignored or ridiculed. The melting pot needs to be destroyed with utmost haste, it destroys identity.

[TheDeamon]

Join their websites and go to where they protest.

  Do they protest in isolation, or am I correct they are exclusively a ‘response force’ to alt-right, KKK, nazi protests/marches?  I’m not looking for a street address or anything.  They are getting some high profile attention as of late.  You’ve called them terrorists.  So I’m just asking for a little info to back up the rhetoric.

The rioting/"wide scale vandalism" that happened during Trump's inauguration in Washington D.C. was largely connected to Anti-Fa and associated groups. I guess you could call that a "counter protest" but I think that's a wee bit a stretch. That's one I can recall offhand.

[D.W.]

TheDeamon: 

RE: melting pot.
I know, it bums me out in a major way.

RE:  rioting, I don't think Antifa was even on my radar back then.  It's a perfect example of what I was asking for an example of.

[TheDeamon]

Words matter.  Antifa members might be evil; they might use violence with the goal of enforcing their desires; they might proactively attack innocents.  But those attributes do not fascists make.

Antifa, at least many if not most of them, are more appropriately labelled anarchists. Fascism at its most simple, is a philosophy prioritizing the nation (usually in the context of race); the two concepts are antuthetical, and the term "antifa" is not a coincidence - there is simply no amount of semantic gymnastics that is going to square that circle.

More accurately, they're anarcho-socialists, they're more closely aligned with Stalinism than Nazism. Not that there is much practical difference between the two. In fact, the historical Anti-Fa from 1930's Germany was essentially an arm of the German Communist party. Not Fascists, but not particularly good people all the same.

[Greg Davidson]

So many Seriati posts to refute

First of all, Greg, all these questions were answered on the prior thread.  If you've forgotten the answers I would suggest you re-read it.

Quote
If the models were "fine", how did they result in a catastrophic failure.

They didn't, they failed to express what would happen in a non-historic event.  Much like I've never seen a "standard" climate model that throws in a random catastrophic meteor strike (and there we know they happen so it's not even non-historic), the financial models did not include a consideration of a national scale increase in default rate.  If you look at the historical record, stability is the only word to describe it, prior to the crisis.

That last sentence explains how you can believe in conservative economics - because you have no memory for history. Because before the economic collapse of 2008 there was the dot-com bubble, the Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980's, the Great Depression, and a string of many more speculative collapses running back to Dutch Tulip bulbs in the 17th century. If you don't understand or recognize that history, you can't understand Keynes or appropriately value the benefits provided by the financial regulations implemented to address these repeated "instabilities". 

[yossarian22c]

Then we saw a lack of willingness to govern while Obama was in office that was hard to chalk up to JUST party politics.

It wasn't hard at all.  I've yet to see a credible argument of a moderate policy that Obama put forward that was opposed.  Meanwhile, what we see today is that anything Trump says is opposed ("America was never that great") and policies like Abolish ICE (notwithstanding a majority of the country wanting a secure boarder). 

The Dream Act - passed biparitson in the Senate and the house refused to debate or vote on it.
The stimulus - Stimulus is the standard policy response to a downturn in the economy.
ACA - no public health insurance options included, nothing close to the NHS in the UK or Canada.
Merit Garland was a centrist pick for the SC - no vote/hearings on him in the Senate.

Most of Obama's foreign policy was pretty centrist as well.

Feel free to label all of those extreme in some way but at some point they all had bipartisan support (McConnell had recommended Garland for previous SC openings) before Obama endorsed them.

Abolish ICE was a stupid over-reactive policy proposal to Trump's policy of stripping children away from their parents at the boarder and having no good plan to reunite them. But as DW pointed out ICE is a post 9-11 agency and getting rid of it isn't the same thing as calling for open boarders.

Literally, what the right was accused of.  The left even labelled itself the "resistance," not the resistance to policy x or policy y, just the "resistance."

I'm not sure which part of the left you're talking about, maybe some groups on social media? I think I'm much happier not being a part of social media political commentary - it seems like the YouTube comments of political debate (full of bluster, anger, and immaturity).

But I would like remind everyone human brains really don't interpret social media well. People have very large online networks that keep them connected to 100's or 1000s of people they would have lost touch with in a pre Facebook world. I'm perfectly willing to believe that out of 60+ million people that voted for Clinton that between 1 and 5 million had mini-meltdowns and unfriended people who voted for Trump. Which means that if you have a couple hundred FB friends you were likely to see one or two such temper tantrums play out post election. However it really doesn't represent the larger percentage of liberals in the country. But "outrageous" actions get more attention and are more noticed than more mundane or expected reactions so our brains fool us into thinking those outrageous actions are common and widespread.

Its just like any rare but shocking event, school shootings, child abductions by strangers, plane crashes, etc. We hear about almost all of those events when they happen almost anywhere in the country so most people have a much larger fear of those events than is warranted by the actual risk they pose.

I think both sides need to stop amplifying the most heinous voices on the opposite side in attempts to have guilt by association. David Duke and the KKK are pretty marginal groups, sure they still hold a redneck loser rally ever now and then but by and large we would be better off to largely ignore the ***holes and move on with our lives but come down like a ton of bricks on them when/if they actually break laws to intimidate people. The right should do the same with anti-fa, I had literally never heard of them prior to the right making a big deal about them and their role in the street fights in Charlottesville. I've still never met anyone IRL (or online) that claims to be a member or who has even talked about joining (if they are even organized enough to join).

[yossarian22c]

As it will continue to do so, and frankly, it should until we either out breed the ”problem” and everyone is enough of a melting pot it’s pointless to categorize, or just we get over it and actual equality is achieved.  I’m hoping for option that doesn’t take many generations to achieve…

If we still believed in a melting pot, culturally, we'd be well on the way to eliminating racial disagreement.  Respecting each our and being inclusive to new ideas is far more community building than insulating ourselves and excluding others as guilty of cultural theft.  Emphasizing separate cultures does little more than ensure cultures clash.

DW, the "Melting Pot" is anathema for most left-wing groups. That implies integration, that means "uniqueness is lost." (It also makes "us vs them" harder to play out)

The last thing they want is for people to become "Americans" or for "Americans" to become more like another group. (Hence why "cultural appropriation" is no longer acceptable)

You are what are, you should forever remain what you are, because that's your "identity" and that's important above everything else. Anybody who suggests you change in order to adapt should be ignored or ridiculed. The melting pot needs to be destroyed with utmost haste, it destroys identity.

Yeah, I'm pretty bummed about the cultural appropriation thing as well. I'm all for the more libertarian philosophy of live and let live in whatever way you choose (while making sure to be respectful of other's right to do the same). I don't really care whether or not that way of life matches how your parents did it or some pre-conceived notion of your culture being tied to the color of your skin.

[Greg Davidson]

And there is just a blizzard of things that you say Seriati and clearly believe but they are not anchored in fact.

they believed they had a permanent majority and would never have to give up the reins again

I am a member of "they" and I never believed that, neither did most people I know who are on the left. I am sure some did, because there are millions of people on the left.

Who is engaging in open hate speech? 

Candidate and later President Trump. Repeatedly lying that thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey were cheering on 9/11 is indefensible. Calling immigrants rapists and murderers. Inciting his crowds to consider the press as the enemy of the people. These are the acts of despots across history - inciting hatred is an evil but common tactic of authoritarian regimes.

I've yet to see a credible argument of a moderate policy that Obama put forward that was opposed.

His very first policy was a stimulus for the economy. Republicans and Democrats had voted for a $150BM stimulus plan under President Bush just 12 months earlier https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/washington/25fiscal.html. A year later when President Obama proposed a stimulus plan under much more dire circumstances (losing 800,000 jobs per month), Republicans not only voted against it, but they asserted that stimulus plans don't create jobs. In fact, 115 of those Congressional Republicans made this very assertion in Washington, and later when the stimulus arrived they took credit in their district for the jobs that were created by the stimulus. 

Heck, above Greg asserts that 'tens of millions of Americans' support slavery because they make arguments about the confederacy in the civil war.  That's an incredibly broad and false brush.  One can easily view that slavery was completely wrong, but that hasn't nothing to do with another issue that was connected to the civil war.  It's this bizarre tribal world we live in where a tribe has to be right about 100% of everything or about 0% and we can't have a somethings that make sense on each side.

No, it is a very nuanced world where determinations of justice require careful consideration. But that doesn't mean some things can't be true. I would agree that many people love the Confederacy not because they love (or even think of) slavery, but because they love the culture of nobility and virtue that they grew up associating with the Confederacy. But I hold them responsible for understanding that at the heart of all of their positive associations there is a horrible evil, and that the historical Confederacy was built to defend and protect slavery.

Where its wrong is the easy acceptance of the lie that millions of people that have legitimate policy disagreements with her can be dismissed as nothing but racists.

What evidence do you have that policy is a substantially greater motivator of Trump supporters than racism? It's not a lie if it's true, and for your counter to be true you would need to prove that there is not even a few "millions" of people who are for Trump because of racism.

DW, the "Melting Pot" is anathema for most left-wing groups. That implies integration, that means "uniqueness is lost." (It also makes "us vs them" harder to play out)

The last thing they want is for people to become "Americans" or for "Americans" to become more like another group. (Hence why "cultural appropriation" is no longer acceptable)

No, that's not true of me. And it's not true of most liberals that I know. When you think of national politicians, it is more Republicans who use phrases like "real Americans to exclude others.   

[Seriati]

So many Seriati posts to refute

First of all, Greg, all these questions were answered on the prior thread.  If you've forgotten the answers I would suggest you re-read it.

Quote
If the models were "fine", how did they result in a catastrophic failure.

They didn't, they failed to express what would happen in a non-historic event.  Much like I've never seen a "standard" climate model that throws in a random catastrophic meteor strike (and there we know they happen so it's not even non-historic), the financial models did not include a consideration of a national scale increase in default rate.  If you look at the historical record, stability is the only word to describe it, prior to the crisis.

That last sentence explains how you can believe in conservative economics - because you have no memory for history. Because before the economic collapse of 2008 there was the dot-com bubble, the Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980's, the Great Depression, and a string of many more speculative collapses running back to Dutch Tulip bulbs in the 17th century. If you don't understand or recognize that history, you can't understand Keynes or appropriately value the benefits provided by the financial regulations implemented to address these repeated "instabilities".

So in other words you haven't actually looked at what we are actually talking about - historical default rates on mortgages.

You know the subject of the models you were ranting about, and the things that were the root cause of the crisis.  But heck, you're right, the tulip crisis is Holland is what I should be considering, because, well, instability has occurred somewhere, sometime, and that's way more relevant than the actual data that was subject of what we were discussing.

[Seriati]

The Dream Act - passed biparitson in the Senate and the house refused to debate or vote on it.

Since the Dream Act had and still has bipartisan voter support, one might ask why it's never been passed.  The answer is that there is a bipartisan majority of politicians that refuse to address immigration.  Neither side will let the "other side" fix it, even though there's a clear majority of voters that won't it fixed.  Given this has been the case for decades it's not really an Obama vs. obstructionist Republicans issue.

The stimulus - Stimulus is the standard policy response to a downturn in the economy.

It has been a "standard" response, but it's also a controversial one, with fair arguments that "too much" actually depresses recovery.  In any event, Obama locked in "emergency spending" levels as standard, and Trump is spending even more.  Obama doubled the deficit, and your compliant is that we didn't spend even more?  Growth was non-existent for him because of the regulatory burden he added, not because he didn't get to go with an even bigger deficit.

ACA - no public health insurance options included, nothing close to the NHS in the UK or Canada.

ACA was already a far left policy, public option was even further left.  Trying to nationalize one of the largest industries in America, eliminating health options for the entire country and forcing private citizens to buy a private company product is no where near a centrist position.

Merit Garland was a centrist pick for the SC - no vote/hearings on him in the Senate.

Merrick was the most centrist of Obama's 3 picks.  His first two are extreme left.  Merrick's biggest "crime" is that he's unabashedly for the expansion of the regulatory state, with a record of complete deferral to bureaucrats, oh and that he was replacing Scalia.  Kind of like if Trump were to get to appoint a replacement for Ginsburg right before a Presidential election.

Most of Obama's foreign policy was pretty centrist as well.

"Most" of Obama's foreign policy wasn't opposed by Congress either.  Where he did get opposed it was decidedly not on centrist positions.

Feel free to label all of those extreme in some way but at some point they all had bipartisan support (McConnell had recommended Garland for previous SC openings) before Obama endorsed them.

Garland would have breezed through as either of Obama's first 2 picks.  I'll let you in on a secret, if Hillary had won the election, there's very little chance that she would have renominated Garland.  He would have "withdrawn his nomination" (because she forced him out behind the scenes, but wouldn't have wanted the political damage of pushing him out).

Abolish ICE was a stupid over-reactive policy proposal to Trump's policy of stripping children away from their parents at the boarder and having no good plan to reunite them. But as DW pointed out ICE is a post 9-11 agency and getting rid of it isn't the same thing as calling for open boarders.

Well except it's clear that the left does want open borders.  They literally advocate for them.  They oppose deportation for illegal aliens, unless they are convicted of another crime.  Effectively, if you get here you can stay.

Literally, what the right was accused of.  The left even labelled itself the "resistance," not the resistance to policy x or policy y, just the "resistance."

I'm not sure which part of the left you're talking about, maybe some groups on social media?

I honestly don't believe you.  It's impossible to have consumed any television, print or social media and never have heard the left referring to itself as the resistance.

[Seriati]

they believed they had a permanent majority and would never have to give up the reins again

I am a member of "they" and I never believed that, neither did most people I know who are on the left. I am sure some did, because there are millions of people on the left.

Those are great anecdotes.  Maybe you'd like to refute the articles that were written on the point.  A quick search found over 25 million results in the time period.  Maybe they were all written by the same person, who isn't one of your inner circle of friends.  Maybe not.

Who is engaging in open hate speech? 

Candidate and later President Trump. Repeatedly lying that thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey were cheering on 9/11 is indefensible. Calling immigrants rapists and murderers. Inciting his crowds to consider the press as the enemy of the people. These are the acts of despots across history - inciting hatred is an evil but common tactic of authoritarian regimes.

Claiming he saw American Muslims cheering 9/11?  That isn't hate speech.  We all saw images of cheering from non-US Muslims (at least before the media decided to suppress that story).  Yes, it's an embarrassment that he won't back away from a clearly erroneous claim, but that's not hate speech.

"Call immigrants rapists and murders," sort of what he said, and definitely over broad, on the other hand quite a few drug cartels and gangs have taken advantage of our soft borders to import rapists and murderers.  I'll give you some credit, as the claim is overbroad (kind of like your claim on the civil war).

Is that it?  That's really not the language of despots.  Not is the language of an authoritarian.  It's the language of a demagogue.  Kind of like labelling your opponents as a "basket of deplorables" or as racists, sexists, fascists, or whatever.  If we're really going to call out hate speech, I'd suggest a very big mirror.

Heck, above Greg asserts that 'tens of millions of Americans' support slavery because they make arguments about the confederacy in the civil war.  That's an incredibly broad and false brush.  One can easily view that slavery was completely wrong, but that hasn't nothing to do with another issue that was connected to the civil war.  It's this bizarre tribal world we live in where a tribe has to be right about 100% of everything or about 0% and we can't have a somethings that make sense on each side.

No, it is a very nuanced world where determinations of justice require careful consideration.

No it's really not.  You're literally advocating for not using careful consideration.  One can't admire anything, or believe that one side was partially correct, or even completely correct about some issues, because of the taint of a particular repugnant view.

If a racist believes in free speech, must we reject free speech?

But that doesn't mean some things can't be true. I would agree that many people love the Confederacy not because they love (or even think of) slavery, but because they love the culture of nobility and virtue that they grew up associating with the Confederacy. But I hold them responsible for understanding that at the heart of all of their positive associations there is a horrible evil, and that the historical Confederacy was built to defend and protect slavery.

Really?  You "hold them responsible" for a fact they already acknowledge.  I haven't heard anyone defend slavery.  You want to bring it up solely because you view it as a trump card to overrule any other possible disputes.  What does slavery really have to say about whether we should have national or local government?  Either level can be a true oppressor, either level can be the real protector of rights.  There are reasonable arguments that local communities have better insight into the rules they want, and reasonable arguments that they will oppress those who disagree.

Where its wrong is the easy acceptance of the lie that millions of people that have legitimate policy disagreements with her can be dismissed as nothing but racists.

What evidence do you have that policy is a substantially greater motivator of Trump supporters than racism?

Let's be clear.  By racism you mean white on black racism, which is the most reviled form and a form that is actively practiced by a tiny fraction of the country (like 1% or less).  Trump's support was about the same size as Hillary's.   Ergo, policy was substantially greater motivator than "racism."

Now on the hand, if we look at actual racism, which the Democratic party accepts and endorses so long as its any other racism than white on black, then it's pretty big chunk of what motivates their supporters.  I mean heck, blatant sexism - if you are a woman you are a traitor if you don't vote for a woman - was endorsed repeatedly by party leaders.

Fact is, the Democratic party is far more racists and sexist, they've just "defined" their racism and sexism as socially acceptable.

It's not a lie if it's true, and for your counter to be true you would need to prove that there is not even a few "millions" of people who are for Trump because of racism.

No I really don't.  Even if every racist in the country voted for Trump  -which literally didn't happen as most racists are Democrats (even white on black racists are fairly evening distributed between parties) - that doesn't make him a racist.  We have a binary system, repugnant people have to vote for someone, and when neither candidate is actually a racist, they have to find a reason other than satisfaction of their policy goals to pick one.

DW, the "Melting Pot" is anathema for most left-wing groups. That implies integration, that means "uniqueness is lost." (It also makes "us vs them" harder to play out)

The last thing they want is for people to become "Americans" or for "Americans" to become more like another group. (Hence why "cultural appropriation" is no longer acceptable)

No, that's not true of me. And it's not true of most liberals that I know. When you think of national politicians, it is more Republicans who use phrases like "real Americans to exclude others.

Lol.  I challenge you to talk about the need for a melting pot on any leftist community.  You'll discover very quickly how the issue really plays out.

[Greg Davidson]

So in other words you haven't actually looked at what we are actually talking about - historical default rates on mortgages.

You are in error, sir, that's what you are talking about. I am talking about the creed of free market (or neoclassical or Austrian) economics that posits certain behavioral patterns about the entire economy that are frequently refuted by history. When Alan Greenspan confessed that there was a fundamental flaw in his philosophy, he was not referred to a data trend on mortgage defaults, he was referring to the behavior of the vast majority of firms in an economy. Of Greenspan is wrong (and even he admitted he was wrong), than the Republican platitudes that regulation is bad and the free market is good are dangerously simplistic and wrong.

Claiming he saw American Muslims cheering 9/11?  That isn't hate speech.

This is either hate speech or something worse - if you look at cases such as Rwanda or Serbia under Milosevic, the words of Donald Trump are as severe as those used to incite genocide. Trump has not incited genocide, so on that scale he's not as bad as Milosevic. If this is not hate speech, exactly what would qualify as hate speech for you?

[Greg Davidson]

You want to bring it up solely because you view it as a trump card to overrule any other possible disputes.

Wrong again - I have probably made 5000-6000 comments here and never done that. How many false things do you have to assert, Seriati, before you recognize that you sure are asserting a whole lot of false things.

Oh, and my favorite is your assertion that the Democrats are the racists. Come on, even the actual racists like the Klu Klux Klan are 100% behind President Trump. Ar you saying they don't know what they are talking about but you do?

[Fenring]

Oh, and my favorite is your assertion that the Democrats are the racists. Come on, even the actual racists like the Klu Klux Klan are 100% behind President Trump. Ar you saying they don't know what they are talking about but you do?

In this case I believe he's not referring to rednecks/Klansman, but rather to the core beliefs of the new stream of liberals which in his opinion are inherently racist in both overtones and content. Seriati's repeated argument seems to be that the former group exists, and is probably Republican, but is also small and getting smaller over time, whereas the latter group, while not steeped in a history of lynching and such, is much larger and is gaining traction. I would tend to agree with you, Greg, that he's overstating the case, however I also agree with him that this new brand of 'justice' often does sound awfully racist to me. Did you read those tweets written by Sarah Jeong, who was subsequently hired by the NYT as an editor? No doubt she's never attacked a white person with a crowbar and so doesn't stand equally beside an old-time Klansman in terms of severity of her actions, but oh man...are you telling me those tweets weren't racist? The type of position she posits in them is a more extreme version of what I see frequently in softer tones in 'alt-liberal' material.

As a side comment on the economic issue, it seems to me ridiculous to suppose that anything in economic history has ever been "consistent" or "predictable." Any claim I've read about so far attesting to 'understanding' economics has always been proven to be a farce, and the best thing I can say about it thus far is that economic study is decent at short-term gambling strategies but completely useless at long-term forecast. For a 5-10 year period these theories can be decent (but not always); go further than that and "non-historic" things have a funny habit of always happening.

[TheDeamon]

Oh, and my favorite is your assertion that the Democrats are the racists. Come on, even the actual racists like the Klu Klux Klan are 100% behind President Trump. Ar you saying they don't know what they are talking about but you do?

Which party does the Black Panthers support again? Or am I confused, racism isn't something exclusively belonging to white people.

[TheDeamon]

On a tangental note:

How is it that Crazy Rich Asians is getting "crazy huge" amounts of popular media praise and attention, rather than being called out for being racist?

Or right, it was written, produced and directed by Asians with an Asian Cast. They can lampoon Asians all they want, as they are part of that group. But my interest was more on the "All Asian" aspect of it. That it also makes plays on racial sterotypes among other things for comedic effect is to be ignored.

Yes, I get the "representing a new demographic" and the "Crazy Rich Europeans" equivalent could describe a rather large number of A and B-list Comedy productions out of Hollywood over the past 100 years. So "I get that." But two wrongs don't make a right.

[TheDrake]

Let me say this to the brothers and sisters who listened and watched that speech. We may not like the vessel that said what he said, but I ask us to truly examine what he said, because it is a fact that for 54 years, we have been voting for the Democratic party like no other race in America. And they have not given us the same loyalty and love that we have given them. We as black people have to reexamine the relationship where we are being pimped like prostitutes, and they’re the big pimps pimping us politically, promising us everything and we get nothing in return.

Leader of the new Black Panther Party. So no, they don't support the Democratic Party.

[Greg Davidson]

I would tend to agree with you, Greg, that he's overstating the case, however I also agree with him that this new brand of 'justice' often does sound awfully racist to me.

Yes, I absolutely agree that there are voices on the left who say things that I consider to be bigoted/racist, including Sarah Jeong. But there is no comparison between the racism of the Republican Party and its nationally elected leaders and that of the Democratic Party and its leaders when it comes to racism.

TheDeamon, your reference to the Black Panthers is interesting (even in 2008, Fox News only had "the New Black Panther Party", which was two angry black men shouting in a clip that Fox News broadcast across the nation something like 248 times running up to the election).  I disagree with your both-sides-do-it argument, the history and extent of the Black Panthers is nothing like the history and extent of the Ku Klux Klan, and the current endorsement of President Trump by extremists is unprecedented and unmatched by anything for any other President in living memory.

[TheDeamon]

I disagree with your both-sides-do-it argument, the history and extent of the Black Panthers is nothing like the history and extent of the Ku Klux Klan, and the current endorsement of President Trump by extremists is unprecedented and unmatched by anything for any other President in living memory.

Uh, there are people still alive who remembver Woodrow Wilson as PotUS, they may be a very small fraction of the population at this point, but they do exist.

So if you're asserting Trump is more racist(or even homophobic) than Woodrow Wilson, who was very openly affiliated with the KKK, you have a bit of ground to cover.

[Seriati]

So in other words you haven't actually looked at what we are actually talking about - historical default rates on mortgages.

You are in error, sir, that's what you are talking about.

I'm not in error, go back and read it more closely.  The ONLY thing I've ever claimed was so stable as that it would be nonsensical to have "predicted" such a non-historic change is the default rate.  That was the underlying factual basis for the entire sub-prime crisis, and honestly, its just an indisputable fact as to its stability.

Claiming he saw American Muslims cheering 9/11?  That isn't hate speech.

This is either hate speech or something worse - if you look at cases such as Rwanda or Serbia under Milosevic, the words of Donald Trump are as severe as those used to incite genocide. Trump has not incited genocide, so on that scale he's not as bad as Milosevic. If this is not hate speech, exactly what would qualify as hate speech for you?

Really?  You think saying he saw American Muslims cheering (which didn't occur) at a time when one could have seen non-American Muslims cheering, immediately after Muslim terrorists killed 2000 US citizens, is "worse" than the genocide inciting comments that directly dehumanized entire populations?

Maybe you should go back and actually look up some of the quotes to which you are referring.

[Seriati]

You want to bring it up solely because you view it as a trump card to overrule any other possible disputes.

Wrong again - I have probably made 5000-6000 comments here and never done that. How many false things do you have to assert, Seriati, before you recognize that you sure are asserting a whole lot of false things.

You do have a lot of comments, and you're often reasonable.  I also have a lot of comments, and am often reasonable.

However, this is not one of the cases where you are being reasonable.  Walk me through how this taint works, if you don't intend it as a trump. 

Oh, and my favorite is your assertion that the Democrats are the racists. Come on, even the actual racists like the Klu Klux Klan are 100% behind President Trump. Ar you saying they don't know what they are talking about but you do?

Maybe you have stats on that, which you'd like to provide.  The actual studies that have looked at white on black racism, show an embarrassingly high amount in BOTH parties.  Here's an older link https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-white-republicans-more-racist-than-white-democrats/.  This doesn't get into the self identified racists like the KKK (which historically, exist primarily in states with very large Democratic majorities, and have historically been registered Democrats).  Maybe you have some specific data on that.  Again, you make assertions on this point, but they're routinely what you wish rather than reality.

But lets get really really.  If you include any racism other than white on black, there's no contest which party houses the majority.  It's literally the Democrats. 

[DonaldD]

You think saying he saw American Muslims cheering (which didn't occur) at a time when one could have seen non-American Muslims cheering, immediately after Muslim terrorists killed 2000 US citizens

You don't get to just make this stuff up.  Maybe he said it immediately after 9/11.  But he also repeated it in 2015, and then again after he was told that there was no substantiation.  https://www.factcheck.org/2016/08/trumps-revised-911-claim/

Trump, Nov. 21, 2015: Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering. So something’s going on. We’ve got to find out what it is.

[Seriati]

Reading comprehension on this site is really going downhill.  What did I make up DonaldD?  Did you miss this:

Yes, it's an embarrassment that he won't back away from a clearly erroneous claim, but that's not hate speech.

[DonaldD]

Yes, reading comprehension is not great. You said "You think saying he saw American Muslims cheering (which didn't occur) at a time when one could have seen non-American Muslims cheering"

I showed you that he made the claim in 2015 (the "saying" from your statement) which was not "at a time when one could have seen non-American Muslims cheering" as you claimed.  The important part of my Trump reference was the date, not the statement, the accuracy of or exact wording of which nobody disputes.

[Seriati]

DonaldD, again, he made the claim about what he saw at the time the World Trade center was collapsing, not that he saw it in 2015.  Is there some confusion here?

[D.W.]

That it was BS then, and he "stuck to his guns" even after that.

*edit:  At first it could be a mistake.  Repeating it again later gives weight to the theory that it is a calculated move.  (hate speech)  Alternately, and equally plausible, Trump doesn't ever feel the need to correct himself and would rather bend perceptions around his mistakes being 'the truth' rather than admit them.

I personally feel it's both.

[Fenring]

DonaldD, again, he made the claim about what he saw at the time the World Trade center was collapsing, not that he saw it in 2015.  Is there some confusion here?

He's talking about the veracity of the claim that Trump made that statement. You're talking about the evaluation of whether the statement is hate speech or not. So I guess there is some confusion :p

[Seriati]

That it was BS then, and he "stuck to his guns" even after that.

Yes, it's an embarrassment that he won't back away from a clearly erroneous claim, but that's not hate speech.

DonaldD, again, he made the claim about what he saw at the time the World Trade center was collapsing, not that he saw it in 2015.  Is there some confusion here?

He's talking about the veracity of the claim that Trump made that statement. You're talking about the evaluation of whether the statement is hate speech or not. So I guess there is some confusion :p

Well, again, I clearly conceded the veracity point.  Someone talking in 2015 about what they saw in 2001 could make an error about where what they saw occurred (and you could have seen cheering non-US muslims in that time period).  But there's no reason not to back off it, once it became clear it was an error.

[Greg Davidson]

The ONLY thing I've ever claimed was so stable as that it would be nonsensical to have "predicted" such a non-historic change is the default rate.  That was the underlying factual basis for the entire sub-prime crisis, and honestly, its just an indisputable fact as to its stability.

Right, and that "ONLY" claim is both wrong and not germane. When you are changing policy in a dramatic way because of your economic ideology, you have a responsibility to assess the likelihood of uncertainties and risks. That is not nonsensical - it is basic competence. I hope and assume that you have never been hit by a car - but it would be nonsensical for you to assume that since you had never been hit, you never could. We have never had human-caused effects that changed the climate, are you saying that it is nonsensical to even consider such a possibility because it is "a-historical"?

[TheDeamon]

The ONLY thing I've ever claimed was so stable as that it would be nonsensical to have "predicted" such a non-historic change is the default rate.  That was the underlying factual basis for the entire sub-prime crisis, and honestly, its just an indisputable fact as to its stability.

Right, and that "ONLY" claim is both wrong and not germane. When you are changing policy in a dramatic way because of your economic ideology, you have a responsibility to assess the likelihood of uncertainties and risks. That is not nonsensical - it is basic competence. I hope and assume that you have never been hit by a car - but it would be nonsensical for you to assume that since you had never been hit, you never could. We have never had human-caused effects that changed the climate, are you saying that it is nonsensical to even consider such a possibility because it is "a-historical"?

To be fair here, it was more Keynesian Economics that failed to predict what happened than the "Austrian" school, and if you remember which school reflects which politcal outlook in the US, that turd belongs with the Democrats.

The other thing is you are comparing apples and oranges. "Without Historical Precedent" in this case means almost literally "without precedent within the modern era of record keeping going back nearly 100 years in many cases, and further in others." Whereas people getting hit by a car is certainly within the realm of historical precedent, and sufficiently so that they can give you a "reasonable" probability as to your likelihood of being hit by one should you not take "extraordinary measures" to either mitigate or compound the risk respectively.

[cherrypoptart]

https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/24/the-video-of-celebrations-that-was-broadcast-on-911/

https://nypost.com/2015/12/21/nj-police-captain-says-some-muslims-did-celebrate-on-911/

So you have credible witnesses at multiple locations in the second story saying they saw numerous Muslims in America celebrating and then you have more numerous Palestinians celebrating in the streets (something to remember when it comes to funding them). Maybe Trump confused the two groups or exaggerated but at the other end you also have denials that there was any celebration at all: "Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, one of many politicians who blasted Trump after the remarks, still denied that celebrations took place despite the eyewitness accounts. “There are no records of this, and over time, what has happened is that it has become urban legend in many cities where people say they heard or saw something,” Fulop told the website."


https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/september-11-twin-towers-world-trade-centre-new-york-i-knew-muslims-who-celebrated-naive-a7238081.html

Just an interesting article from a Muslim admitting that Western Muslims were happy about the attacks, whether or not they celebrated in the streets.

As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Trump is more correct though to call attention to the fact that Muslim Americans were celebrating and much of the media and the left such as the Jersey City mayor are more wrong because they say it never happened. It's worse to deny something exists at all than it is to exaggerate it. And whether they celebrated in the streets or in the privacy of their homes, as the last story tells it, it is still a cause for concern and something to think about and more importantly, know about and acknowledge happened and still exists in the hearts of some today.

Or we can go the other way like Germany did and have the government collude with the media to cover up mass rape in the streets.

[DonaldD]

Pass the popcorn: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/03/trump-slams-sessions-on-twitter-says-ag-is-hurting-gop-in-midterms.html

[Greg Davidson]

To be fair here, it was more Keynesian Economics that failed to predict what happened than the "Austrian" school

This sentence should win a prize as one of the most wrong statements ever made on Ornery - I believe that it would be hard to write a sentence that was more appreciably wrong than this. Before addressing this argument, The Deamon, I am curious as to what possibly could have been your source for such a wrong-headed statement. Do you remember what you read that made this suggestion to you? And if you do remember where, when you find out from me (or check independently) and find out how wrong this is, what steps will you make in the future to shift your skepticism to the false source(s)?


The risk from a collapse exactly like the one in 2008 is at the heart of the writings of John Maynard Keynes - the notion that industry can be collectively driven by irrational speculation ("animal spirits" in Keynes colorful language), and that once there is a collapse in business prospects, that can create a spiral of collapse in which businesses foresee a still worse business prospects in the future, so they fire workers and cut investments, leading to fewer purchases on newly-fired employees and reductions in orders for capital investments, all of which cause future cut-backs across industries. 

In contrast, Austrian economics is driven by the concept of praxeology, which means that you take on faith that people and firms always optimize in the aggregate. In Austrian economics it might be possible for one or several firms to fail, but you cannot have a speculative failure across the entire financial system.

And your "without historical precedent" comment is also way off base.  Within 100 years in the United States, besides the 1999 dot-com bubble and the 1987 Savings and Loan Crisis, there is the Great Depression itself (which was particularly proximate to Keynes and his writings). And during this time there actually was decent regulation to prevent such speculative bubbles, and antitrust to keep firms smaller to prevent such dangers to the entire economy - such speculative collapses were much more common in the 50 years prior to the Great Depression.

[Greg Davidson]

cherrypoptart,

Your "credible sources" are no better than the numerous sources who claimed to see Jews drinking the blood of Christians in the Middle Ages. 

There were no thousands. Donald Trump didn't see thousands. And yet he lied repeatedly to claim that there were major groups of American Muslims celebrating a terrorist attack on the US (an attack where the only role that US Muslims played was as victims in the twin towers).

Your contrary evidence is that this one retiree reported that he heard 30 Muslims were celebrating something on a Tuesday, and with no understanding of Arabic he leaped to the conclusion that they were celebrating the terrorist attack on the US. 

Look, I don't deny the possibility that there could have been some Muslims who approved of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. With populations of millions, there are always crazy outliers. Immediately after the attacks, the powerful televangelist Jerry Falwell called 9/11 a punishment from God and laid the blame on "paganists", "abortionists", "feminists" and "gays and lesbians", claiming that they "helped this happen" and Pat Robertson (who came in 3rd place in the 1988 Republican Presidential race) concurred with the statements. There are Jews living in Israel who pray for the state of Israel to be overthrown (more of whom are probably among the ultra-orthodox who do not believe that a nation of Israel should exist prior to the coming of the messiah). There are crazy people everywhere - but there were not thousands of Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks that Tuesday, and to tell that lie is to denigrate the entirety of the American Muslim population.

Your "As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle" repeats the common Republican assumption to normalize morally abhorrent behavior with bothsides-isms. There were not thousands of American Muslims protesting in NJ. Donald Trump lied repeatedly when he claimed that there was, and that he had seen it. And this claim of thousands cheering for 9/11 at its core is a racist lie, just like the lies about African Americans raping white women that were used justify lynching, and just like the racists lies that were used in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to incite racial hatred.

 

[DonaldD]

This is not likely to change anybody's mind, since Bob Woodward is probably seen as a partisan by Trump supporters, but if even a fraction of this is true... it's still a disturbing picture.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/04/bob-woodward-book-fear-donald-trump-white-house

[Fenring]

To be fair here, it was more Keynesian Economics that failed to predict what happened than the "Austrian" school

The risk from a collapse exactly like the one in 2008 is at the heart of the writings of John Maynard Keynes - the notion that industry can be collectively driven by irrational speculation ("animal spirits" in Keynes colorful language), and that once there is a collapse in business prospects, that can create a spiral of collapse in which businesses foresee a still worse business prospects in the future, so they fire workers and cut investments, leading to fewer purchases on newly-fired employees and reductions in orders for capital investments, all of which cause future cut-backs across industries.

We should be clear about one thing: there are different philosophies of economics right now (Austrian, Keynesian, Monetarist [now largely defunct], etc) and even with each there can be subsets such as Keynesian-deficit and Keynesian-redistribution, and so forth. And while each of these does make different claims about what will drive the economy the most effectively, at their heart each of these is really a philosophy about how monies should be used. None of them can make a claim to have solved economics or to have direct evidence that their 'methods' are completely sufficient. In fact, they literally cannot be sufficient, because zero out of these theories involves the area of human desire and reason, which are, of course, the heart of economics. Each of the famous 'systems' is a number-crunching algorithm (to be charitable) that makes claims that certain types of economic actions are better; but none gives an account of why anything happens.

I make this specification because it should be clarified that the lack of foreseeing and stopping 2008 isn't the result of the failure of one philosophical system versus the other; the failure comes from a lack of 'economics' being tied in with psychology and motivation. What happened in 2008 was obvious if seen in the following way:

-The odds that many people will jump at cheap mortgages with no money down: 100%
-The odds that banks will be satisfied sitting on worthless subprime mortgages with no effort to monetize them: 0%
-The odds that a process that seems successful in the short term will continue: 99.99%
-The odds that financial institutions will base decision-making on short-term gains rather than long-term theoretical ramifications: 99.99%
-The odds that in any sufficiently complicated system an actual person in the system will be able to unravel to 'totality' of what's going on: 0.01%
-The odds that a complicated system is the inevitable result of a shady operation actually predicated on people not knowing the true value of a tranche: 100% (opaqueness is requisite for the success of the system in these cases)

Well look at that, a 'psychological' statistical analysis of the situation leading up to 2008. I think I should be awarded honorary doctorates for this work, at least in economics and applied stats, maybe in psychology too. Kidding aside, these premises are pathetically obvious and could be determined almost as a thought experiment with trivial ease. The lack of "economics theory" (whatever that's supposed to mean) taking these points into account should only go to show that the big theories out there aren't economic theories but philosophical schools more intent on a political power struggle than in understanding why people do things. They are definitely not theories of economics in any intelligible way as I see it. I'm on this tear because I disagree that any theory of economics is to be applauded or ridiculed as a result of 2008. While I do think there are interested debates to have between Keynesian/Austrian, etc, the vagaries of their disagreements are not at the core of why no one saw it coming. The reason no one saw it coming is that economic activity has long been inspected with one eye closed, and the more important eye at that. In a funny way marketing firms probably have a better handle on economics than trained economists do because at least they're in the business of nailing down exactly what people will and won't do, and how much. Nothing from 2008 was surprising looking back on it; there is no mystery. The only mystery is that it wasn't plain to 'experts' that proceeding with dubious purchases and then monetizing those purchases over and over was a bad thing. That's not a Keynes vs Austrian school issue; it's really a moral issue when put in different terms. What was needed wasn't another 'economist', but a moral doctor.

In conclusion: I agree with you, Greg, that TheDeamon's comment was objectionable. However I also disagree that the current school of Keynesian thought is to be applauded in any way either. 2008 isn't directly a smear or vindication for any system being put forward right now, but is rather than indication that they are not really economic systems of analysis, but more something like systems of procedure. An actual system of analysis would be needed to calculate whether a given system of procedure will actually work or not.