Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Mardoc]

It seems (in Section 16) to be arguing that Trump isn't racist (in that he doesn't attack non-white people specifically because of their race)

As a tangent...why 'non-white' here?

[T-hawk]

@Ipecac as I said I have no problem with right wing economic policy, I just disagree with it since it doesn't work.

What is "work" here?

Conservatives expect economic policy to work in advancing society. To enable companies to innovate and produce technology and economies of scale, without being stifled by taxes and regulations. Grow the pie.

Liberals expect economic policy to work in giving the hierarchy-of-needs. To supply food and shelter and an ever-increasing list of things like health care, regardless of your actual productivity or contribution. Divide the pie.

It's all self-interest on both sides. If you have your slice, you want to grow the pie. If you don't, you want to demand one.

[Japper007]

Trump is provably a racist

If it's so provable, then prove it.  Hint: Islam is not a race.  Illegal immigrant is not a race.  Even "shithole countries" isn't a race.

That those categories correlate with race does not make opinions about those categories racial opinions.

1. His favorite chant "America First" has been a Ku Klux Klan chant for decades. Now it's possible he is just a buffoon and thinks he came up with that first himself (I'm right there with you in thinking Trump is a buffoon, and wouldn't put it past him), but it still means that no-one in the GOP tapped Trump on the shoulder and said "Um Donnie maybe not run with the White Supremacists slogan" ergo they are complicit.

2. After a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, where white supremacists murdered a counterprotester and attempted multiple homicide by car (luckily white supremacists are even bad at committing murder), Trump declared that there where good and bad people on both sides and that both sides where to blame. There are no good people on the white supremacist side, the very fact that they are white supremacists means they are incapable of being good people. Here he is not only condoning racism by not condemning it (and yes not condemning racism IS condoning it), he is even condoning racially motivated terrorism.

3. called a black woman a "dog" and has on several occasions reffered to people as "animals", by some miracle none of them where white. Who would believe it right?

4. During his campaign, received open endorsement from the KKK and didn't try to denounce it. He did later do a sort of backpedal, but has never formally come out and just said: the KKK is wrong, they are not what I represent Even though it would have been easy to do this. 

See how absurd this sounds: Trump attacks Rosie O'Donnell, therefore he is racist against white people.  But that's the same argument being advanced for any of those other categories.

Of course it sounds absurd, as in this instance he wasn't racist, just because he is a bastard to white people as well doesn't mean he automatically isn't a racist.

[Japper007]

@Ipecac as I said I have no problem with right wing economic policy, I just disagree with it since it doesn't work.

What is "work" here?

Conservatives expect economic policy to work in advancing society.  To enable companies to innovate and produce technology and economies of scale, without being stifled by taxes and regulations.  Grow the pie.

Liberals expect economic policy to work in giving the hierarchy-of-needs.  To supply food and shelter and an ever-increasing list of things like health care, regardless of your actual productivity or contribution.  Divide the pie.

It's all self-interest on both sides.  If you have your slice, you want to grow the pie.  If you don't, you want to demand one.

When you put it that way, sure, but the actual right wing way of economics is that you are baking a different pie and keeping all of it for yourself. 

It's also not even how it works, I pretty much grew up with a silver spoon (literal "blue blood", and two parents with above average paying jobs). So did my parents and there parents before them. All of them are also staunch socialists. We have had our fill of the pie and we demand the staff gets a slice of ours because it's so good and they'll probably like it as well. Socialist reform also came about because of the rich, as the poor couldn't even vote and had to be enfranchised by allies in the bourgeoisie. Not everyone acts solely out of naked self-interest like you. Thank fuck for that.

[MJW (ya that one)]

[ipecac]

3. called a black woman a "dog" and has on several occasions reffered to people as "animals", by some miracle none of them where white. Who would believe it right?

He's also called Arianna Huffington a 'dog' and Rosie O'Donnell a 'pig'. So he has called both a black and a white woman 'dog'.

So another of your arguments is a complete dud. Try getting better sources of information, it's clear you "don't know shit" about much you opine so strongly about.

It seems (in Section 16) to be arguing that Trump isn't racist (in that he doesn't attack non-white people specifically because of their race)

As a tangent...why 'non-white' here?

They reason that "when Trump attacks non-whites, it's because of their race, but when he uses the same attacks on whites it's just because he's a bastard".

[ipecac]

But why waste time on the lunatics, let's do some political analysis and try to usefully predict something:

Clearly, the youth vote had shifted toward the right, particularly in some of the most critical states.

It is highly unlikely that such significant declines in the Democratic margin of victory for the youth vote were simply due to the more liberal Millennial Generation changing their minds from one election to the next. It is much more likely that the precipitous drops were due to the more conservative Generation Z being able, for the first time, to express their political inclinations, especially in economically hard-hit swing states.

We have two big changes happening almost simultaneously. One is the rise of Trump, which has almost single-handedly shifted the political center of the USA rightwards. The other is that this new conservative generation is just starting to vote, some in 2016 and a lot more can do so in 2020.

Together these two changes should combine to make an even big shift rightwards than has already occurred.

[AdrienIer]

You're in for a worst surprise than when the democrats believed that the demographics had shifted enough to make their victory certain. The swing towards the Sanders side of the democratic party will hit you hard I'm afraid

[TheArchduke]

We have two big changes happening almost simultaneously. One is the rise of Trump, which has almost single-handedly shifted the political center of the USA rightwards. The other is that this new conservative generation is just starting to vote, some in 2016 and a lot more can do so in 2020.

Together these two changes should combine to make an even big shift rightwards than has already occurred.

I think that the shift rightwards is a basic tectonic change of the political landscape as the '68 Generation is slowly loosing their grip on power.

The pendulum is swinging back hard augmented by things like the refuggee crisis in '15.

I would imagine it is the same in America. After quite some years where the left had quite the political and opinion supremacy the pendulum swings back the other way.

I think you are right on the second change, Trump is just a symptom. Check Sanders for what nearly happened to the Democrats.

[Huinesoron]

It seems (in Section 16) to be arguing that Trump isn't racist (in that he doesn't attack non-white people specifically because of their race)

As a tangent...why 'non-white' here?

Because I don't care to dig into several years of reports on things Trump has been accused of racism over, and the only group I know he hasn't been claimed to hate for their race is the group commonly referred to as "white".

If you're trying to say that there's some term I should have used instead, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of it; this isn't a topic I normally have cause to discuss.

As a tangent...why 'non-white' here?

They reason that "when Trump attacks non-whites, it's because of their race, but when he uses the same attacks on whites it's just because he's a bastard".

This is a good summary of what the article says the people it's addressing does, yes. The words it actually uses are:

If you insist that Trump would have to be racist to say or do whatever awful thing he just said or did, you are giving him too much credit. Trump is just randomly and bizarrely terrible. Sometimes his random and bizarre terribleness is about white people, and then we laugh it off. Sometimes it’s about minorities, and then we interpret it as racism.

'Minorities' seems to be incorrect here, because people have previously cited Trump's comments or actions towards entire countries, which are (obviously?) their own majorities.

hS