American Politics

[Altocharizard55]

Originally Posted by phoopes

I'm just wondering why it's so hard for you to believe that African-Americans can protest effectively.

Originally Posted by Zelphon

Oh hey, racism.

Yeah, I'm going to have to second both of the previous comments that this was a super uncalled for insinuation, or in Zelphy's case, direct statement.

I disagree with a very large number of Shuckle's political views as well, however, nothing presented in -any- of his statements warrants personal accusations/insinuations like these. Really, really not okay. There is no reason for this to devolve into what amounts to an ad-hominem attack.

I would post more about why his previous statement does not in any way support the claims made, but I think Shuckle gave an adequate defense of himself prior. (In direct regard to the insinuations)

[phoopes]

Okay so my long response just got eaten (will retry later) but I do need to post this before I go about my day: it was never my intention to imply that you were racist, that was just poor wording on my part and I apologize. I don't agree with Zelphon's comment that you were being racist. I was just questioning why it was so hard for you to believe that the BLM movement could become organized and have clear goals. Because before you claimed that Hillary was getting involved directly with them in some sort of conspiracy theory way. My view is that it only makes sense for them to become more organized and effective, as the movement has been around for a few years now. BLM are perfectly capable on their own without liberal whites stepping in and taking the reigns like you implied.

[Shuckle]

I understand bad wording, phoopes. Unfortunately due to the nature of what was actually said with that poor wording, I didn't really have the choice of responding differently. I hope you can forgive me for blowing up at you - I do respect you as a person and I hope that we can get past this ugly issue.

@Alto: You agree with me on more than you think. I tend to naturally act as a counterweight for the political ideals of groups I'm in. Most people think I'm a leftist, actually; it's pretty rare that people claim I'm a conservative haha.

Honestly most of the reason I come across as conservative here is that I made a couple troll posts in support of Trump. Then learned more about Trump and learned he wasn't that awful and actually kind of good, so I tried to defend him. Both were mistakes.

BLM are perfectly capable on their own without liberal whites stepping in and taking the reigns like you implied.

The problem, as I point out in my overwhelmingly long post, is that this seems to be the actual goal of #BLM. Not to improve the lives of black people, but to make the national discourse more shouty and recruit people to their side of an argument that didn't exist beforehand.

The founders of #BLM basically just took a class in community organization and learned how to rally people behind a slogan. It's impressive that they made it as far as they did, and it's amazing that they might actually accomplish change in the world. But as a movement they need to step it up and come up with reasons to exist or they will suffer the same problems as OWS.

The media seems to be helping them do it by trying to focus on the 2 valid reasons #BLM has for existing. Having a couple valid points is a strong start. But if the group can't tighten its focus onto solving those issues, it will either fade away or start to be used for unpleasant, reactionary violence.

[deoxys]

Honestly most of the reason I come across as conservative here is that I made a couple troll posts in support of Trump. Then learned more about Trump and learned he wasn't that awful and actually kind of good, so I tried to defend him. Both were mistakes.

I appreciate you admitting fault but really, not cool man. You're just like every /pol/ and /r/The_Donald user in that sense, and you're better than that. Again, at least you have admitted it was a mistake, so I guess it's over and done with. But please... don't bring ironic support trolling here like it's reddit/4chan.

I just needed this to be said. You've admitted and owned up to it, but man. :/

[Snorby]

I think everyone needs this in their life.

[Jerichi]

Is it possible to be so jaded with American politics that you will basically just pick whatever seems the least insane out of all insane options just so we can have at least something that is not total anarchy?

The founders of #BLM basically just took a class in community organization and learned how to rally people behind a slogan. It's impressive that they made it as far as they did, and it's amazing that they might actually accomplish change in the world. But as a movement they need to step it up and come up with reasons to exist or they will suffer the same problems as OWS.

I think this is something that modern, Internet-capable protests are really going to need to learn. We're going to go through progressive movements weekly if these movements don't start to organize some internal leadership or at least come up with a consistent message. It would be nice if we could see a movement that achieves its goals without exploiting everyone's collective outrage and subsequently spiraling out of control into an extremist nosedive that just crashes and burns and kills all the progressives on board.

Sadly, and ironically, the only "group" (and I use this word as loosely as I possibly can) that I can identify that has even resembled anything close to organized that has affected some kind of reasonable, unriotous change using the Internet as a medium is Anonymous, and it's probably because they're so dispassionate about basically everything that they just deal with whatever annoys them, have their fun/laughs/justice boners and move along. They're definitely not a model to live by (though hacktivism somehow has become a major part of global politics #thankssnowden), but it would be nice if we could find some people who use their outrage to work towards a solution and then all take a few deep breaths and continue with their lives instead of fearmongering. I'm definitely not defending Anonymous, but it would be nice to figure out their secret for doing something meaningful (even if it's not exactly a good thing) and then going on their merry way.

[Doppleganger]

Ze polls say that Hillary and Trump have basically reached parity on their unfavourability rankings. It's finally come to this.

Of course, Hillary has a much higher favourability than Trump. Which we should expect. But whew, it she unpopular.

[Whimsy]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

Is it possible to be so jaded with American politics that you will basically just pick whatever seems the least insane out of all insane options just so we can have at least something that is not total anarchy?



I think this is something that modern, Internet-capable protests are really going to need to learn. We're going to go through progressive movements weekly if these movements don't start to organize some internal leadership or at least come up with a consistent message. It would be nice if we could see a movement that achieves its goals without exploiting everyone's collective outrage and subsequently spiraling out of control into an extremist nosedive that just crashes and burns and kills all the progressives on board.

Sadly, and ironically, the only "group" (and I use this word as loosely as I possibly can) that I can identify that has even resembled anything close to organized that has affected some kind of reasonable, unriotous change using the Internet as a medium is Anonymous, and it's probably because they're so dispassionate about basically everything that they just deal with whatever annoys them, have their fun/laughs/justice boners and move along. They're definitely not a model to live by (though hacktivism somehow has become a major part of global politics #thankssnowden), but it would be nice if we could find some people who use their outrage to work towards a solution and then all take a few deep breaths and continue with their lives instead of fearmongering. I'm definitely not defending Anonymous, but it would be nice to figure out their secret for doing something meaningful (even if it's not exactly a good thing) and then going on their merry way.

I mean, I think the secret behind Anonymous is kinda obvious when you think about it - it's their anonymity and, in turn, their lack of emotion. Anoynmity allows a person to act without hesitation, due to them not fearing an emotional backlash. If these movements can detach their emotional investment to the cause, both positive and negative, then they'll work so much more efficiently.

[Doppleganger]

I think it's more than just emotion, although that's definitely part of it.

Anonymous' domain is over the internet and in ideas. They don't have financial power or military power. So their most effective actions are restricted to hacktivism. Their masked protests are no more effective than traditional protestors.

Anonymous also has leadership, although not in the traditional sense of someone or a group of someones making the decisions. Ideas reach the top of the brainstorming pyramid and everyone independently recognizes them as good ideas, and acts in their own way of accomplishing them. This makes them different from something like Occupy, which was motivated purely toward anger at Wall Street with no formed idea as to what they were angry about and how to solve the problem.

With community driven thinking, the idea is there. Now you have a destination, so a bunch of people trying to reach that destination will eventually lead to someone succeeding.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

Is it possible to be so jaded with American politics that you will basically just pick whatever seems the least insane out of all insane options just so we can have at least something that is not total anarchy?

Relevant 20 years ago, relevant now.

[Mercutio]

I have a Don't Blame Me I Voted For Kodos mug at work...

[deoxys]

I've never seen so many people jerk each other so furiously



they've already gilded him over 11 years of reddit gold

if they're not careful their dicks are going to start chafing

[Mozz]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Ze polls say that Hillary and Trump have basically reached parity on their unfavourability rankings. It's finally come to this.

Of course, Hillary has a much higher favourability than Trump. Which we should expect. But whew, it she unpopular.

Read a fun article that said that the Dems are scared that men are just telling pollsters they'd vote Hil, but they're going to stay home or vote Trump. This convention is a huge middle finger to straight white males,

[Doppleganger]

When I read this morning that Trump invited Russia to hack Hillary's emails and spill more info, my immediate reaction was it was a huge gaffe and could cost him in the polls (or even invite prosecution under the espionage act. Since then, I've come to realize it was hardly impulsive, but was instead quite calculated and insidious.

True to Trump's reality TV background, he knows that any attention is better than no attention. And he managed to not only divert attention away from the DNC, but also get the DNC to focus on him. This is the same trap that Trump's Republican rivals fell into during the second Fox Debate Trump skipped out on.

I don't know if Hillary has realized it yet, but she's being character assassinated badly, and often in presidential elections if you can't rehabilitate your image or recover from a criticism, it could be lethal. What killed Kerry in 2004 was Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and the flip flopper criticism, which turned Kerry's political and military experience (which was superior to Bush's) into a huge liability.

Hillary needed to use the DNC to fix her image, rather than attack Trump. Attacking the troll is feeding the troll, as we internet users know well. You have to ignore the troll to pass over his bridge. So, given the outcome so far, I'd say Trump is coming out ahead in his domination of media attention.

[Shuckle]

Hillary really impressed me tonight. I expressed doubt earlier that she would be able to:

1. fix her image
2. take a moderate stance
3. react to the threat posed by Donald Trump

She has done all three. Hats off to her! She's back in the race, in my mind, and it'll be a treat to watch Clinton and Trump compete for my vote.

I'm a bigger fan of the chess-like political game that Clinton and Trump have been playing, of slogans and proactive defenses and offenses, than of the direct attacks I saw launched tonight. I don't like that Hillary called out Trump by name, or that she made assumptions about his goals and his campaign. I see Trump is a strong unifying figure, and it bothers me that Clinton is trying to present him as a divider. I see him as a man with a strong will and a shrewd political strategy, and it bothers me that she portrayed him as a hothead and an idiot. I think both of them are very similar kinds of people, and I really do like them both. Just liked Trump more up until now ;)

"America is already great" collides harshly with the traditional Democratic message of change and improvement, and you can see how even the highly prepared Clinton struggled to reconcile the two stances. I saw one ad directly after the DNC broadcast that pointed out that the US was #27 in the world on some education metric.

The reason "Make America Great Again" is such genius political strategy is because it requires Democrats to do some pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to oppose it. You saw the Republican candidates utterly fail to come up with a response to why #MAGA wasn't as good as their campaigns. The Democrats have something that works for now: "America has already been great, so let's work together to keep that going." But as they continue to push for progressive reforms and change, they create a weakness for themselves that could cost them the election. Berniecrats could easily ruin the Democratic party by demanding more progressivism, then ditch it out of frustration and vote for Trump anyway.

I love that Clinton is taking a unifying stance. The country has been increasingly polarized over the last few decades. I feel that both Trump and Clinton can work hard to bring the country together under one cause, to make America great. Maybe even great again, if you believe that there was ever a period that America wasn't a pretty fantastic country.

I don't love that Clinton is also taking a divisive stance. Opposing Trump and the Republicans really is divisive, no matter which way you cut it. You can pretend you are intolerant about intolerance. You can pretend you are fearing fear. But fear and intolerance are the same no matter what group you're talking about. It's not magically acceptable. I think Hillary's divisiveness slips under the radar simply because she's talking about Trump, whereas Trump's seems more obvious, but I'd rate Hillary's as more dangerous than Trump's. She talks about opposing the NRA, a group composed of citizens dedicated towards defending a civil right (even though they can be insufferable cunts most of the time). She talks about opposing Republicans, and about opposing Donald Trump. That's divisive. I don't care if you're ready to unify everyone else, it's divisive.

And on the downside for the Democratic Party, it also leaves a massive gaping hole in their defenses: if Trump can prove the negative and have the public declare that he is not divisive, or racist, or dangerous, it's a massive blow to their credibility and a huge victory for Trump.

I'm not absolving Trump of blame here either. His speech was just as bad on that front. Hillary was able to easily slip in references to his speech into hers, taking the opportunity to mention steel and coal industries in her speech after Trump claimed that she would leave those industries to rot. It is weird that she didn't mention the emails though ;o

Sorry for the wall of text and perhaps a few jumbled opinions. It's late and I wanted to get some thoughts out there while they were still fresh.

Loving the persuasion going on in both conventions. Both have very clear goals, both with what they say and what they don't say. On top of the images and presentations used! Just fascinating.

[Mercutio]

I'm truly intrigued as to whether you are an elaborate troll or just plain ignorant of how racist and sexist he is. Perhaps this is what I get for never having been to America.

[Shuckle]

Originally Posted by deoxys

I appreciate you admitting fault but really, not cool man. You're just like every /pol/ and /r/The_Donald user in that sense, and you're better than that. Again, at least you have admitted it was a mistake, so I guess it's over and done with. But please... don't bring ironic support trolling here like it's reddit/4chan.

I just needed this to be said. You've admitted and owned up to it, but man. :/

Do you even know any /pol/ users or read /r/The_Donald? :p

The mistake was not that Clinton or the Democrats could not have turned around and done something like that. They easily could and still have the ability to do that. Send a guy in, whip #BLM into ship shape, put em on the news, and watch as the racial-justice candidate wins the election + race relations improve for a neat little win-win. It's that #BLM is still a shitshow of an organization so nothing of the sort could possibly have happened.

It's too late for Hillary to do it now, of course. With debates approaching, Bernie Bros watching, and Trump attempting to run on "strength of character," she can't let herself resort to sneaky techniques like that. Everything she does from here on out has to be public and overt.

Originally Posted by Jerichi

I think this is something that modern, Internet-capable protests are really going to need to learn. We're going to go through progressive movements weekly if these movements don't start to organize some internal leadership or at least come up with a consistent message. It would be nice if we could see a movement that achieves its goals without exploiting everyone's collective outrage and subsequently spiraling out of control into an extremist nosedive that just crashes and burns and kills all the progressives on board.

Most of it, imo, is because of identity politics which is the worst thing to ever happen to progressivism. If your protest is tied to your identity, you are literally just telling people that you exist. Honestly, #BLM probably found a good goal/message by accident, considering most of theirs are utter shit and all of them are aimed a totally different direction from what they should be pointed.

At least 3rd wave feminists only managed to get people mad at Feminism. You can ditch that label. You can't ditch "Black," and #BLM is inadvertently causing a lot of trouble for people who belong to a "Black" identity. Gays did a good job of keeping their movement away from any specific identity; people still don't like "flaming homos" but the dislike of those people has gone way down in my experience.

Sadly, and ironically, the only "group" (and I use this word as loosely as I possibly can) that I can identify that has even resembled anything close to organized that has affected some kind of reasonable, unriotous change using the Internet as a medium is Anonymous, and it's probably because they're so dispassionate about basically everything that they just deal with whatever annoys them, have their fun/laughs/justice boners and move along. They're definitely not a model to live by (though hacktivism somehow has become a major part of global politics #thankssnowden), but it would be nice if we could find some people who use their outrage to work towards a solution and then all take a few deep breaths and continue with their lives instead of fearmongering. I'm definitely not defending Anonymous, but it would be nice to figure out their secret for doing something meaningful (even if it's not exactly a good thing) and then going on their merry way.

As I understand it:

1. Anonymous' protests are all for reasons, and those reasons are pretty clear. If Anonymous brings down the DOJ website because of SOPA or PIPA, you know from reading about it why they did it.
2. Anonymous does not require internal organization. It is vaguely democratic in that they become effective after attracting a certain number of people, but for the most part "Anonymous" is anyone who cares enough about a problem to do something about it.

I'm sure there are protests you're forgetting about, though. The SOPA/PIPA was not an Anonymous thing, it was a bunch of people rallying behind a point. Because the goal was clearly stated and the thing being opposed was clearly defined, it was easy for people to understand and support the cause.

[Shuckle]

Originally Posted by Mercutio

I'm truly intrigued as to whether you are an elaborate troll or just plain ignorant of how racist and sexist he is. Perhaps this is what I get for never having been to America.

Here is all of the evidence of Donald Trump being a racist:

1. Said "We should ban all Muslims from entering the country."
2. Said "We should deport all illegal immigrants."
3. Had trouble in the 80s with employee and renter discrimination

Muslims are a religious group. There are illegal immigrants in the US of every ethnicity. Neither of these are racism.

Here, I'll move across the aisle. Criminal negligence requires the willful mishandling of sensitive information. What Hillary Clinton did was not a crime.

The employee discrimination can't be easily explained away. I will look into it for you and get back with my opinion. So far what I've read from the WaPo article (HuffPo doesn't count) doesn't look flattering. It's entirely possible that there's evidence of change over time, but the DoJ lawsuit is a pretty severe blight on what I had thought was a decent social-moderate record.

I assume that there is a reason that there is very little awareness of this lawsuit, but I can't know for sure without looking into it further, sorry!

For what it's worth, Trump has positive things to say about minority groups. It's just that he doesn't put much thought into what he says off the cuff, so his statements of affirmation don't come out quite right ("The blacks," "I love Hispanics," etc.).

As for sexist...nothing that'll stick. Not worth thinking about.

[Rangeet]

I'm sure you blow this off as "lol it's a biased subreddit" but frankly I don't care because of the level of wrong you are.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrump..._why_trump_is/

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Rangeet

I'm sure you blow this off as "lol it's a biased subreddit" but frankly I don't care because of the level of wrong you are.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrump..._why_trump_is/

On the one hand, many of the pieces of evidence they raise are not terribly condemning. For instance, re-tweeting a "known racist"? A, what if he simply didn't know? (Is that so hard to believe, in some instances?) B, have you or any of your friends never been guilty of accidentally parroting what someone said on the Internet, only to later find out that the person you parroted was a racist / homophobe / sexual predator / other unsavory type? For another instance, the bedside Hitler speeches? Are we really going to go down the reactionary "ANYTHING TO DO WITH HITLER == YOU'RE A BAD MAN!" rabbit hole when it's common knowledge that Hitler was a great orator and maybe, just maybe, if you're interested in persuasive oration you should give his speeches a look-see?

On the other hand, I don't even care about the implied racism here -- this piece of evidence alone condemns Trump as a terrible person, PERIOD:

When asked for comments on two of his supporters who brutally beat and urinated on a Hispanic homeless man while yelling Pro-Trump Slogans, Trump responds by defending the men as just being "passionate".

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-hispanic-man/
• http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/donald-trum...ionate-1516392
• https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...9TN/story.html

Like, holy shit. Delete the rest of the list. Delete aaaaaaaaaaall of the weak sauce evidence that allows Trump supporters to fortify their position that the liberal Left is just conspiring to tear down this great man. Delete all of that crap and just leave behind this one piece of evidence. Done. Case closed. Go home. He's an awful, awful person.

[deoxys]

Don't forget

'throw them out into the cold... and take their coats'

'some of these people deserve to be roughed up'

'I’ve got black accountants at the Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. Those are the kind of people I want counting my money. '

and literally every single thing he has ever said about Megyn Kelley, from calling her a bimbo to blaming her 'attitude' on menstruation

[Stealthy]

Shuckle, of course Trump is a racist and commits related forms of offensive bigotry. That's why so many of his supporters like him.

[Shuckle]

Originally Posted by Rangeet

I'm sure you blow this off as "lol it's a biased subreddit" but frankly I don't care because of the level of wrong you are.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrump..._why_trump_is/

While yes, it is a biased subreddit (which would pretty much ensure that I would not have happened across this post while doing my own research - I attempt to avoid biased sources wherever possible), there are several points which were well backed up and overall this is good information and a solid case against Trump. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

A lot of my personal research actually turned up some of these before, but there are a few that digging probably would have turned up eventually - the casino in the majority-black city is kind of a more obscure case and I doubt I would have seen it.

Back when I originally began supporting Trump over Hillary, the only accusations of racism that were flying around were the first two that I mentioned. Because I have not been following the electoral race very closely (nor do I google "Donald Trump racist" on more than a monthly basis because that would be absolutely stupid), I missed the additional evidence that surfaced.

I had a little bit more to say about how you guys were kinda yelling at me but it was literally just Rangeet being a cheeky cunt, again. I guess I can't complain about "triumphant emotions" from the other two responses. You got me. Congrats? I like being correct. Not as big a fan of people gloating that they managed to convince me. I'm not hard to convince. Give me some real evidence and/or solid analysis and I'm happy to change my position.

This does, however, raise the question of how he'll defend himself come fall. Trump, despite being racist and having no apparent ability to fact check, is not an idiot. He's done fantastic so far in debates and we'll see how things go against Hillary whose main strength is unquestionably her team rather than her own debate/image skills. As Hillary herself mentioned last night, she's "always been more about the 'service' part than the 'public' part." (probably paraphrased bc my memory is a goof sometimes).

In order to get back in the game, in my view, Trump would have to work to bolster his image. To be more broadly appealing. In a political climate where people are already saying they will "hold their nose and vote for Hillary," Trump has to fix the cracks in his facade or risk having people hold their nose and trample on his dreams.

I don't think that's gonna happen though. We're most likely gonna see Trump tear Hillary to ribbons on the debate floor and then Hillary tear Trump a new asshole in the voting booths. That's just how Trump operates, and it's not gonna work on the national stage where Hillary has already tossed out all of the attacks she'll ever need to defeat Trump in his current state. Dangerous, stupid, divisive (which is also code for racist without tossing the attack directly - very clever politics): if Trump cannot address these points, he's sunk even if he makes Hillary out to be literally Joseph Stalin. People will vote for her just to get a Democrat in the White House.

Maybe he knows this. Maybe he is the secret Hillary supporter we thought he was last year. Who can say for sure?

Anyway I feel gross now because I actually defended this man - although the evidence for racism at the time pointed towards a hard "No," it's pretty clear by now that the man has some real issues when it comes to race relations. America would not be great with him as president, it would be fucking trash.

The only thing that could possibly have saved him from this would have been to take Carson on as VP. Instead he went as white bread as possible. Not looking good for him right now.

About the only positive thing I have to say about Trump right now is that "Make America Great Again" is a genius piece of strategy that has forced the Democrats to play on his terms. Half of Hillary's speech was literally dedicated to stamping out that phrase.

The entire convention turned out with giant USA posters and chanted USA! USA! USA! A Marine showed up and gave a touching speech. Name that party, guys.

[Snorby]

Originally Posted by Shuckle

literally Joseph Stalin

You rang? :^}

[Slash]

Snorby for President