American Politics Discussion Thread

[ipecac]

unfortunately, the US alt-right has become far more than a vague Extremely Online LARP, it's become a very specific, real-life, national-scale LARP.

Both sides blow things out of proportion. The violence by zealots on right or left isn't anywhere close to the multiple bombings per day in the 70s.

'This is it guys, things are getting serious!' lmao just read some history. People used to die regularly in riots, now the average death per clash is <0.1.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Being discriminatory based on ethnicity, race, religion etc is basically universal in human cultures. Liberal westerners think they have transcended all this and become some sort of paragon. Instead hatred tends to be conserved, and their animosity is instead based on class or ideology, e.g. 'redneck', 'parasites', 'deplorable' etc.

Race is the tool of division used to prevent people from realizing they are divided by class far more than race. Any racial construct is created artificially in order to serve a political purpose. Just look at the fluidity of racial constructs in the Spanish colonies over time, and then compare it to that of colonial America.

Maybe read a history book sometime.

Ultimately, you're not a realist, you're someone who can't get over your basic prejudices that someone taught you.

[ipecac]

Race is the tool of division used to prevent people from realizing they are divided by class far more than race. Any racial construct is created artificially in order to serve a political purpose. Just look at the fluidity of racial constructs in the Spanish colonies over time, and then compare it to that of colonial America.

Mongol vs Han is an artificial political construct? Han vs Indian? Chinese vs Korean vs Japanese?

lmao, keep your western theories to western countries.

Maybe read a history book sometime.

Ultimately, you're not a realist, you're someone who can't get over your basic prejudices that mommy or daddy inculcated you with when you were little. Or maybe you were bullied as a child?

All this is like calling Orban neo-Confucian, or Merkel a Maoist. It's not even wrong.

Calling an ethno-nationalist's politics from outside of the US cultural hegemony "alt-right" strikes me as rather provincial

Provincial and imperialist simultaneously, the same type of attitude led to wrecking Iraq and Libya because 'they must want our sort of political system, because we want it and we are obviously right and our western mental models obviously must apply everywhere else'.

[ipecac]

Being discriminatory based on ethnicity, race, religion etc is basically universal in human cultures. Liberal westerners think they have transcended all this and become some sort of paragon. Instead hatred tends to be conserved, and their animosity is instead based on class or ideology, e.g. 'redneck', 'parasites', 'deplorable' etc.

"I don't hate people based on race, so I can hate Trump supporters or people of T-Hawk's political views and I'm still a paragon" lmao. Look at people like Nicolae, downright nasty and hateful but so self-righteous.

Unfortunately there is too much self-righteousness but no self-awareness.

Provincial and imperialist simultaneously, the same type of attitude led to wrecking Iraq and Libya because 'they must want our sort of political system, because we want it and we are obviously right and our western mental models obviously must apply everywhere else'.

Ditto.

[Jowy]

Quite a difference between "hating" someone based on how they choose to act or based on how they were born. One of those is in your own hands, the other is not.

I don't even know where to start with the other crap. Discrimination is good because discrimination exists? This is getting so silly. Not surprising though, that stance isn't really defendable by anything rational.

[ipecac]

Quite a difference between "hating" someone based on how they choose to act or based on how they were born. One of those is in your own hands, the other is not.

There's a lot of hate for rednecks from one side or the 'parasite' class from the other. Hating based on class, but that's usually out of people's control too.

I don't even know where to start with the other crap. Discrimination is good because discrimination exists? This is getting so silly. Not surprising though, that stance isn't really defendable by anything rational.

Discrimination is part of human nature, and simplistic 'solutions' don't work. Hatred tends to be conserved.

[ipecac]

You guys all know Ipecac isn't white or even vaguely US-connected, right? I'm not cheering for every negative thing that happens to the US, but I know the amount of carnage and disruption this country spreads worldwide, I'm not going to blame anyone outside of the US for cheering for our troubles.

I'm not cheering, but there are funny aspects.

All right, something from the heart for those who are open to hearing, something authentically Chinese

western theorists: actually racism is a western political construct, ethnonationalism in other countries is related to far-right western moveme-

chinese: fuck off, we've hated our neighbours long before you had functional civilisation

Waxing and waning, all civilisations do that. A famous chinese saying which the schoolchildren know relates to this in the Chinese context. The CCP knows their days are numbered, maybe they get two centuries if things work out for them. At our best, that's what we have, a long-term perspective, decades and centuries. Decline is inevitable but if all works out well a rise is possible after a few centuries.

But you westerners....your mass suffrage democracies haven't lasted 60 years. That's nothing in historical terms, but you're so confident that they'll last. Insisting that everyone else must want them even as you spend more and more time complaining about the 'idiots on the other side' that vote wrongly, complaining abotu the outcome, getting depressed. A growing moral panic over authoritarians emerging, because your instincts aren't completely dead and you still sense what's about to come. Things are actually going downhill for you guys, and accelerating.

Trump was interesting because he actually recognised the decline, and tried to stop it. It's right there in the slogan, 'MAGA'. That part of the platform resonated with some of the populace, who saw past the spectacle of better gadgets and entertainment. He had moments where he thought beyond the short term of the next election, which makes him exceptional among the US politicians. He was crazy too, most billionaires just buy politicians. How many seek the limelight, enter into the political fray themselves and get other billionaires on their cabinet? But I'm digressing...

Your waning is already here, look at the virus situation. Deny, rage, depress, that doesn't change anything. But maybe you're a bit more aware than it seems. One of your favorite shows has a slogan, 'winter is coming'.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Race is the tool of division used to prevent people from realizing they are divided by class far more than race. Any racial construct is created artificially in order to serve a political purpose. Just look at the fluidity of racial constructs in the Spanish colonies over time, and then compare it to that of colonial America.

Mongol vs Han is an artificial political construct? Han vs Indian? Chinese vs Korean vs Japanese?

lmao, keep your western theories to western countries.

Maybe read a history book sometime.

Ultimately, you're not a realist, you're someone who can't get over your basic prejudices that mommy or daddy inculcated you with when you were little. Or maybe you were bullied as a child?

All this is like calling Orban neo-Confucian, or Merkel a Maoist. It's not even wrong.

Calling an ethno-nationalist's politics from outside of the US cultural hegemony "alt-right" strikes me as rather provincial

Provincial and imperialist simultaneously, the same type of attitude led to wrecking Iraq and Libya because 'they must want our sort of political system, because we want it and we are obviously right and our western mental models obviously must apply everywhere else'.

The definition of tribe identity in Northern China changed frequently - you can read about the way Qing officials manipulated tribe identity in the wake of the Dzungar genocide. The selection of "56 nationalities" in china is a clear classification of state-approved and non-state-approved nationality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_i...ht_Banners

The history of the Ainu people in Japan is remarkably similar to the western policies regarding native americans, policies that were developed independently.

If you want to talk history, let's talk history. Try me.

Oh, and if you think the invasion of Iraq/Lybia was done to spread western values in some perverted Kulturkampf, you're much more stupid than I thought. Again, you're clearly the political equivalent of a child if you are buying the fact that any of these invasions were done for the purpose of spreading democracy. Destabilization of the middle-east is beneficial to maintain right-wing hegemony at home, and a calculated play by the military-industrial complex. It's what every empire does, and both a political and economic action.

Do you think Hitler's invasions were done out of sheer racial hatred? The German economy was collapsing, and the gold reserves of Austria, and then Czechoslovakia were needed to prevent immediate collapse.

Same for Japan's resources wars, which then had the outwardly and inwardly projected justification of the "co-prosperity sphere" and other thinly-veiled arguments of racial dominance. Motivated by racial theories not unlike the west.

Even the Crusades, for all the religious rhetoric around them, were nothing more than the first crisis of European feudalism.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Trump was interesting because he actually recognised the decline, and tried to stop it. It's right there in the slogan, 'MAGA'. That part of the platform resonated with some of the populace, who saw past the spectacle of better gadgets and entertainment. He had moments where he thought beyond the short term of the next election, which makes him exceptional among the US politicians. He was crazy too, most billionaires just buy politicians. How many seek the limelight, enter into the political fray themselves and get other billionaires on their cabinet? But I'm digressing...

Your waning is already here, look at the virus situation. Deny, rage, depress, that doesn't change anything. But maybe you're a bit more aware than it seems. One of your favorite shows has a slogan, 'winter is coming'.

Again, how can you be so naive as to buy into this pure rhetoric? Trump was a con-artist and narcissist who has done everything for money and fame. A slogan doesn't save a declining empire that's under threat by the weight of capitalism's tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Trump enacted typical, neo-conservative policies throughout his administration. Look at the facts and the legislation.

Your entire argumentation throughout this thread has been to construct an opponent to fight against that doesn't exist. Perhaps some of the self-named "centrists" (you know who you are) here have deluded themselves into thinking that civility or whatever will fix things in the US or Europe, but I think it's plainly obvious to any observer that the US is undergoing decline. Nothing can stop this decline because it is governed by the iron law of economics and history, and not some "cultural degeneration" or whatever other nonsense you propose. Again, consistently confusing cause and effect, base and superstructure. You seem to look entirely at the latter.

[Jowy]

You guys all know Ipecac isn't white or even vaguely US-connected, right? I'm not cheering for every negative thing that happens to the US, but I know the amount of carnage and disruption this country spreads worldwide, I'm not going to blame anyone outside of the US for cheering for our troubles.

I'm not cheering, but there are funny aspects.

All right, something from the heart for those who are open to hearing, something authentically Chinese

western theorists: actually racism is a western political construct, ethnonationalism in other countries is related to far-right western moveme-

chinese: fuck off, we've hated our neighbours long before you had functional civilisation

Waxing and waning, all civilisations do that. A famous chinese saying which the schoolchildren know relates to this in the Chinese context. The CCP knows their days are numbered, maybe they get two centuries if things work out for them. At our best, that's what we have, a long-term perspective, decades and centuries. Decline is inevitable but if all works out well a rise is possible after a few centuries.

But you westerners....your mass suffrage democracies haven't lasted 60 years. That's nothing in historical terms, but you're so confident that they'll last. Insisting that everyone else must want them even as you spend more and more time complaining about the 'idiots on the other side' that vote wrongly, complaining abotu the outcome, getting depressed. A growing moral panic over authoritarians emerging, because your instincts aren't completely dead and you still sense what's about to come. Things are actually going downhill for you guys, and accelerating.

Trump was interesting because he actually recognised the decline, and tried to stop it. It's right there in the slogan, 'MAGA'. That part of the platform resonated with some of the populace, who saw past the spectacle of better gadgets and entertainment. He had moments where he thought beyond the short term of the next election, which makes him exceptional among the US politicians. He was crazy too, most billionaires just buy politicians. How many seek the limelight, enter into the political fray themselves and get other billionaires on their cabinet? But I'm digressing...

Your waning is already here, look at the virus situation. Deny, rage, depress, that doesn't change anything. But maybe you're a bit more aware than it seems. One of your favorite shows has a slogan, 'winter is coming'.

Wait you're Chinese? Are you even allowed to be here?