I know. The depressing part for me wasn't just the return of open racism, but the knowledge that a non-trivial minority of financially-comfortable Americans, faced with the choice of saving a few thousands on taxes or preventing the country from sliding into third-world patterns, decided on Door A.
It's not like the allegedly-conservative fucks doing this can say they don't know because they're avoiding the taint of modern social science. The idea that a democracy needs a large class of people with enough resources to have a stake in the system but not enough resources to dominate the system goes back to the classics they supposedly want everybody to worship.
the taint of modern social science
Metaphorically, this is right now pressed against an office chair somewhere in a Big Ten university.
I've been back in Orange County, CA for Christmas this week (I generally try to avoid admitting I grew up here), and I was surprised and pleased to hear that OC went for the Democratic candidate in 2016 for the first time since the 1930s. Apparently Trump was just too much for the republicans around here.
If only this had happened in places where it would have made a difference.
conflates the intelligentsia with the corrupt, rich minority
Anyone have a working theory on why this strategy always works?
Anyone have a working theory on why this strategy always works?
Because Hillary should have spent more time in Wisconsin.
American voters and the American press assume that no matter what tantrums they respectively throw and enable, no matter what maniacs they vote for and rhetorically pander to, and no matter what those maniacs say they'll do, it's part of the order of nature that (relatively) uncorrupt government according to liberal democratic norms will continue to operate. What they don't get is that even a pretty stable equilibrium has a tipping point, and that there are other equilibria that various societies have found themselves in, which are very hard to dig yourself out of. Liberal democratic government isn't natural or inevitable. We might soon learn this the hard way.
5--Americans don't believe in social class?
Anyone have a working theory on why this strategy always works?
Because it's easy to conflate two groups who are hated others. The intelligentsia are hated more robustly since there's no way to join without changing completely who you are as a red-blooded all-American, while the rich corrupt minority is something anyone can aspire to join. The rich corrupt minority is also one of the ways the intelligentsia are funded, and the intelligentsia in the form of college admissions officials are in some ways the gatekeepers to one of the ways you can join the rich elite. It's easy as hell to conflate the two, especially when there's idiots out there calling for white genocide from behind the security of tenure, f'rex. Hating on the intelligentsia is simply much easier than hating on people you dream of being.
...especially when there's idiots out there calling for white genocide from behind the security of tenure, f'rex.
Have you met white people?
Speaking of white people, somebody opened a candy cane full of Starburst jelly beans and only gave me two despite the fact that not a two hours before I made him a ham and cheese bagel.
But it wasn't the poor that voted for Trump, though. The poor voted for the candidate of the intelligentsia.
5 last:
1: Does it always work? Offhand, I think so, but counterexamples anyone?
2: Guess: in every remotely modern society a majority of people have been to school, but not university, but in OP-type societies only small minorities have any contact with the rich. Thus, sufficient familiarity to breed contempt for the educated but not the rich.
3: Second guess: university is supposed to be a gateway for prosperity. If in fact it isn't, for lack of jobs, the intelligentsia are a handier scapegoat than the ruling class. This is my basic read on the student riots in SA.
Anyone have a working theory on why this strategy always works?
Someone should analyse the mind-set that makes the strategy work and give it a catchy name: ressenti-something.
That's not quite right on SA. University actually is a gateway to prosperity, if you can complete it in a desirable discipline. Hence the huge tensions over who can access the university, and particularly over policies that prevent students from registering for the next semester until they pay fees due from the previous semester. University admins are scapegoated in the sense that they are pressured to do things that they can't actually do, because university budgets are set by the national government. Faculty are caught up in the mess when they voice the opinion that it's not a great idea to shut down the entire university until the government agrees to make higher education free (this opinion is shared by the vast majority of university students as well, but not by the most vocal protesters). But the protests are fundamentally about increasing access to higher ed, not the kind of reactionary hostility to academia that is familiar from the American context. There's also a separate line of debate about the need to decolonise university curricula.
The question isn't just "Why hate the intelligentsia?". Moby pretty much answered that one in 6. The question is "Why substitute hatred of the intelligentsia for hatred of the corrupt rich?" Why not hate both?
14 last is definitely true, but the shift of college education from "opportunity for social mobility" to "massive intergenerational grift by a new class of professional education scammers" is relatively recent, while the strategy of deflecting criticism of the oligarchs onto intellectuals has been around for a long time.
1: Does it always work? Offhand, I think so, but counterexamples anyone?
The Bolsheviks were basically the intelligentsia that got the poor to turn on the rich fucks, for a change.
the classics they supposedly want everybody to worship
Atlas Shrugged?
Aren't the neocons supposed to be be on the classics because of the University of Chicago? Or did that stop after they invaded Iraq?
18: Also Jacobins and Meiji leaders to an extent.
Sovereign/ruler, landed aristocrats/nobles/rentiers, urban merchants/petty bourgeois/intelligentsia, peasants and/or workers are the relevant forces, in combinations or oppositions.
Barrington Moore and Neil Davidson forty years later are recommended on social revolutions. Moore just taught me a lot about India, a political revolution without economic or social revolution.
16 is all true, but 'desirable discipline' is doing a lot of work there. IMLE some years ago many if not most rioters (protest is too generous, IMO*) were in undesirable disciplines, and looking to drop standards as much as fees, exactly because they knew how poor their prospects were. Also, the decolonisation arguments have plenty of anti-(Western) intellectualism to them. And the whole shitshow is absolutely a diversion from the corrupt elite that's actually fucked them over.
(Admittedly haven't been folliwing this very closely.)
*Not to say there aren't any peaceful protesters, but I think the rioting is more germane here.
18/19. But so were the Mensheviks and the SRs and everybody else involved in the February revolution. I think the difference was that there was no myth of upward mobility; the rich fucks were landowners and rentiers and that was that. Of course they largely are in 21st century America too, but everybody pretends otherwise.
The question is "Why substitute hatred of the intelligentsia for hatred of the corrupt rich?" Why not hate both?
Due to the nature of intellectual reflection, a significant proportion* of the intelligentsia will be sceptical about existing social norms, wanting to make improvements. Ordinary people, on the other hand, are usually keen on policing norms. They can in times of obviously improving prosperity sometimes be persuaded to see change as in their interests, but it doesn't come naturally. They see calls for change by the intelligentsia as criticism at best, if not as disingenuous attempts to humiliate them. So the intelligentsia are an obvious enemy. The rich might be picking your pocket, but aren't questioning sacred values. Identity trumps material self-interest.
That might not seem to answer the question: why not hate the intelligentsia for 'attacking' your values, and the rich for attacking your material self-interest? But I think it does answer it, if you take into account that a war can only really have two sides. You have to choose who you hate most and concentrate your energies on them - any people you hate less become de facto allies.
*But not all. There will always be reactionary intellectuals, who are contemptuous of attempts at reform.
Wasn't enough petty bourgeois etc in Russia to support a bourgeois/democratic revolution. Not enough industrial workers either. Kerensky could only ally with the military and left part of ruling classes once Lenin picked off the peasants. But the Bolshies found out soon enough that Intellectuals + peasants can't govern effectively
Same thing in China. Mao militarized everything.
Actually the SRs picked off the peasants. Bolshies picked off the urban poor, and couldn't govern without the peasants, hence the decades spent slaughtering them.
General Tso had already militarized the breaded chicken bits.
And Mao never had a class alliance at all, as he never contested elections. He had an army containing mostly peasants, on account of China containing mostly peasants.
Moby definitely handled that one better.
I've been eating white people food since Christmas Eve and I'm sort of craving authentic Asian food.
28: So 1% ruled with murder 99%? Ridiculous, but that is the bourgeois story. The story of the Russian Revolution is the lack of a industrial class. And again with "poor" and "peasants"
Chiang is an example of intelligentsia picking off urban underclass, mostly by bringing them into the army. And so he lost, largely by numbers.
The Paris Commune is another example of the story you want to tell. Intellectuals + too small working class got slaughtered.
One thing I have learned is that there is not only one kind of "peasant"
Have a little Barrington Moore:
If one looks at a map of Germany showing the distribution of the Nazi vote in the rural areas and compares this map with others showing the distribution of land values, types of cultivation, or of the areas of small, medium, and large farms, the first impression will be that Nazism in the countryside shows no consistent relationship with any of these. However, as one studies the maps more closely, one can discern substantial evidence to the effect that the Nazis succeeded most in their appeal to the peasant whose holding was relatively small and unprofitable for the particular area in which it existed.italics his
And that is how it is done. Understanding or doing social revolution is very very hard, and unless you go pro, you probably need to stay as local and small as possible. Or follow a pro.
Happily, I suffer neither that problem nor its converse.
OP: Would you say they're Basij bitches?
24: The people who want to decolonise math and science are anti-intellectual. Those who want to decolonise English and political science have a point. The standard joke is that UCT's English department should just rename itself the department of JM Coetzee studies. I teach at a private American university, and our curricula do a much better job of taking the African continent seriously than most of the humanities departments at UCT/Stellenbosch/Wits/Rhodes/UJ.
Politics is not about elections. Elections only confirm the political work that has previously been done.
You are not going to rule Kiev from Moscow, or Michigan from San Francisco. You need locals on the ground.
AFAIK Chiang didn't lose like that at all. His (mostly peasant, etc) army was far larger at the outset and remained so until IIRC the PLA crossed the Yangtze. He lost through general incompetence and high-ranking communist sleepers throwing critical battles.
The people who want to decolonise math and science are anti-intellectual
Ah! This takes me back to the 90s and ye olde Science Wars. Meera Nanda has written good stuff on the intersection of the "decolonise the sciences" movement and various right wing/anti-intellectual agendas, mostly in an Indian context.
21: It turned out that the Greeks were a bunch of perverts.
38: It was not Chiang's fault! Chiang did nothing wrong! Chiang had the love and loyalty of the people!
Gotta love the consistency.
42: If it hadn't been for Comey, Chiang would have won.
Fuck it.
Here is the 2016 Prez Election in a picture
500 UMC white women taking selfies with Clinton.
RandomPoliticalPost from LGM. Count the first person pronouns.
If only women were men, we'd have true socialism (tm).
Trump is going to unleash Chiang.
Unleash Chiang and give Netanyahu enough rope to hang Israel with.
As soon as he's inaugurated, Trump will pull off his rubber mask and reveal that he's been Chiang all along.
If I ever get a dog, Ima name it Chiang. So I can unleash him.
Richard Seymour has been on fire lately, after months of quiet
We Are All Trolls was just fucking brilliant on "fake news," twitter, and Professor George Ciccariello-Maher, who has a name made for cut-and-paste (also looks like a guy with a hyphenated name)
"In our written lives, we were already documenting barbarism; now, we are transcribing the potential annihilation of the species."
Lots of first person pronouns here too, but here it is "we" "us" and "our"
White male privilege? But Seymour stands or falls on our agreement, our identification whereas bspencer at 44 with all the "I feel..."s forces us to choose not agreement/disagreement but like/dislike.
I say collectivism vs neoliberalism. We are as different, in the vast majority of circumstances, as we want to be.
Not unleashed. Like in "Alien", Chiang comes from within.
10 and 26 are both perceptive.
Social dynamics is interesting to think about, but for something like the OP to work well in the US, the security apparatus will have to cooperate with T against his political opponents. T has allies in the NY office of the FBI, which has a long history of acting independently form Washington. Where else? I guess we will learn.
The dynamics of the OP can be fragile and temporary-- the 50s and early 60s were brutal in CZ. The great leap forward didn't last.
How competent are the corrupt people running Iran? Do they fight with each other/ eliminate each other? Who writes well about it?
I've come to believe that hatred for the intelligensia is the genuine primary emotion, and hated for the rich is a passing fancy. It's tragic, because the intelligensia loves the working class so much, but they're just not that into us. I understand now why feudalism lasted so long.
Women who were excited to pose with what they thought would be the first woman president are the true monsters.
I've come to believe that hatred for the intelligensia is the genuine primary emotion, and hated for the rich is a passing fancy.
See grade school.
Have we ever used the word intelligentsia to describe ourselves before this thread?
"Mental whateverness-ia" doesn't roll off the tongue as easily.
Do they fight with each other/ eliminate each other?
Of course there are two competing but overlapping corrupt rich elites in America (and usually elsewhere, each of which has an intelligentsia serving it.
Pareto's Circulation of Elites may be useful here.
"The fox may, by his cunning, escape for a certain length of time, but the day may come when the lion will reach him with a well-aimed cuff, and that will be the end of the argument."
56: A couple of days ago I was thinking about how reluctant people like us are to the label "intellectual" (probably for grade-school-related reasons, like Eggplant suggested). In a weird way, the election has made me less resistant to the label. Trump is an obvious fraud, and 2/3 of non-college-educated whites voted for him. If being an intellectual means you're not taken in by someone with a patter less convincing than a carny, then maybe being an intellectual isn't so bad.
Wiki
"In that time, the Bolsheviks used the Russian word prosloyka (stratum) to negatively define the intelligentsia-status-class as a separating layer without a social function"
Bolshies were wrong! There I said it.
The social function of the intelligentsia is to be the separating layer, to pacify the outs and justify the ins and prevent or mitigate social disorder
It may no longer hold true, but my memory of Scotland is that hatred of the intelligentsia* doesn't really hold true, and the whole Presbyterian thing with education as a desirable good still holds (or held) sway.
* and working class auto-didacts as a thing, used to be pretty common. My Dad left school at 15, but is as well read (or more) as most of my friends with graduate degrees.
bob, unclosed parentheses sometimes indicate poorly framed thoughts. Please revise and resubmit, if possible with citations chosen to be more relevant to your topic.
Ortega y Gassett seems pretty relevant to 53, I would like to read Revolt of the Masses. Any interest in a book group?
Alternately, if I'm following correctly, any interest in the activity of the House Oversight and Government Reform Comittee? That's who would gather facts on the record about about executive conflict of interest/misbehavior. At least Amash among R members is openly critical.
60. I say this is a special case of Americans generally disliking social class as a way to organize thinking. Are you inside the US right now, or elsewhere?
I've been reading Revolt of the Masses lately. I was following up the suggestion Christopher Lasch made in his postumously-published Revolt of the Elites that when he wrote, in the nineties, the characteristics of the masses as Ortega described them seemed to him more applicable to contemporary elites.
65. Nice. Are you finding it insightful, and how relevant do you think it is to 2016?
Ortega y Gasset too right wing, too elitist for my taste.
(Pareto is just weird).
In a similar vein, I recommend again for a reading group. Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, recent, based on Foucault's biopolitics lectures. Or Regulating Aversion, Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire
Coulda been Nancy Fraser, but I am trying to compromise here.
Other names J Sakai, JK Gibson-Graham (two Australian women), Karen Stenner, Arturo Escobar is hot right now, Lauren Berlant, Comaroffs on ethnicity (South Africa), Sherry Turkle could be fun
Seymour, Linked above, just finished Whitney Phillips, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture which is on my list. There are other angrier books available on the subject.
Very insightful. His outlook is far from conventional snobbery: no sooner does he introduce the masses concept than he points out that aristocrats in the Spain of his day were often as illustrative of it as any parvenu.
64: Outside.
62: That makes a lot of sense. Americans seem unusually hostile to the idea.
Found in John Cleese's memoir this morning, on his Cambridge days (early 1960's):
It's also almost impossible to convey the attitude then to the world of business. Businessmen... were regarded as peripheral, half-educated creatures whose academic failures had forced them to earn a living in the dull, second-rate world of commerce. Interestingly, nobody resented their making piles of money [modulo progressive taxation - M], because it was felt that this was the one compensation the world offered them for undertaking such stultifying activities. In my entire three years at Cambridge, I met only one undergraduate who intended to enter the world of business: he was going into soap powder so that he could retire at forty. It was fascinating to see how the aristocratic attitude to "trade" had infected the public schools, and even brainwashed little plebian gits like me.
What did matter at Cambridge was professional reputation. There were the grand jobs--like being a surgeon, or a barrister, or a professor--and there were the more mundane occupations, like being a solicitor or an accountant or a general practitioner. The aim in life was to become very good at whatever category of job you went for, and to earn the respect of your colleagues, and enough money to lead a very comfortable life.
Which doesn't sound a half-bad framework of social aspirations, if you could dispense with the other, more tedious aspects of British culture from that time.
The aim in life was to become very good at whatever category of job you went for, and to earn the respect of your colleagues, and enough money to lead a very comfortable life.
Wait? That's bad?
I sure hope so. Otherwise I'm doing it very wrong.
You're still going for the hearing the lamentations of their women thing?
I think I read Ortega y Gasset twice, once as a kid, and once twenty years later when it was lying around someone's house. I liked it the first time, hated it the second time. Short and easy book, but like Nietzsche something for undergraduates.
And Ortega y Gasset is very definitely a liberal.
Understand and accept that Rothbard, Ropke, Friedman and Hayek do definitely belong right next to Sen, Rorty, Rawls, and JK Galbraith. I would need the text to show what that guy is doing, the elitism and hierarchical mindset that infects all these fucks.
Favourable Review of Ortega from Intellectual Conservative.com
"Four clear conceptions of Ortega's thinking, as reflected by the book under review, can be found in the writings of Albert Jay Nock, Michael Oakeshott, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard."
Anyway, Ortega was second-rate Nietzsche, softened up for liberal consumption.
Point of this trolling?
I knew I had walt someguy pegged.
"Some Guy"
"Terrific"
I don't get 76. I'm an intellectual fraud, as bob has already surmised.
Just keep reading literature until you are deep.
Start with Tolstoy. I've never read him, but I've heard good things.
500 UMC white women taking selfies with Clinton.
You know, there are maybe 25 people visible in that audience and I count at least 4 men of color. There are several other people who I would guess are not white but there's not quite enough information to be sure. There's not much class information in that picture; if anything, the visible clothes and handbags look pretty cheap to my eye.
Women aren't supposed to want stuff regardless of class or race.
80- Too late. You already are too deep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDl3bdE3YQA
This is delightful: http://rall.com/comic/leftist-vs-liberal
Judging by the Spencer/Whitefish thing, our current American Basij are too cowardly to knock heads. All they can do is say mean things on the internet, and the power of getting their way with that is surely waning.
I'm all for calling the bluffs of shitheads, but maybe "you're too chicken to kill the Jews" isn't what we want to be saying these days.
Still, if they turn out to not be brave enough to even kill all the Jews in a small town in Montana that's a good sign for the rest of us.
Speaking of, my wife is currently making a dumpster fire out of scraps of felt. I didn't realize that this was a thing. Or that we had felt.
Its always nice to keep your dumpster warm.
Ideally you should have a system to recover and use the heat. Waste-to-energy!
Its particularly efficient if your dumpster is made out of cob.
Sure. Not very convenient for the garbage trucks, though.
Not just cowards, but stupid cowards. Opposing people saying mean things to/about the guy's mother, who says she doesn't agree with his views, is almost decent ground to stand. Planning to bus in skinheads from California -- oh, did we forget to tell you it would be single digits that week; you'll probably want a hat -- for an armed march means you give away even a wisp of local support.
White people are evolved to live in the frost.
Numbers, organization, weapons, plans, all of these can help supply needed courage. Though the efforts of liberal are undoubtedly also appreciated.
I'll believe any of that as soon as leftist agitators accomplish anything tangible in this country.
All will be well, so long as we have teofilo to bravely split infinitives where none have been split before.
I will split any infinitive the fascists throw at me.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/article/20161228/ARTICLE/161229859
Well. As up-side as this situation gets: monarchies and dictatorships have typically relied upon the mystique of remoteness to make themselves look invincible. This may well prove to be Cheeto Benito's Achilles Heel. Even his followers -- divided on whether they're more disappointed by discovered he's an actual lunatic, genuinely bent on dismantling Obamacare, or may not actually jail Hillary or feed the Mexicans into a wood-chipper -- are pretty much uniformly disenchanted by his Twitter addiction, which makes him look like just another ignorant fuckhead from around the block. (Even Dubya's fauxlksy guy-you-wanna-have-a-beer-with image was better managed.)
This is a factor no prior dictatorship, from Gadaffi and Duvalier to Putin or Khomeini, has really been compelled to deal with.
An excellent point, though I doubt it'll penetrate the Fox bubble.
Even his followers... are pretty much uniformly disenchanted by his Twitter addiction
That's good news - but what are you basing that conclusion on?
I hope so, but for 18 months he's been weirdly attuned to his base and how to defy all odds with them.
What I'm hoping is that he becomes terribly insecure about his approval ratings and pivots to the center and at least everything grinds to a halt.
108 Sure he'll do that alright. For about 20 minutes until he finds some other crazy outrageous narcissistic petulant thing to say.
One twenty minute period of "having a weasel eat your penis" is all we need.
Is there any social mechanism powerful enough to make a man like this want to take responsibility for what he says, short of the legal consequences that go with signing his name on official documents? Is there any reason to believe he wouldn't make a promise to a foreign head of state over the phone and then just act like he never said it? I'm actually finding myself intrigued at a purely theoretical level.
To be clear, I'm not counting 'being threatened by Moby with having his weasel eat your penis' as a social mechanism of the relevant sort.
Maskirovka !
http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/2016/12/the-big-bear-is-interfering-with-the-little-one.html
112: That's why we have labor camps.
106: I should say "some of his followers." (I'm sure there are still plenty who think he's the great white saviour or at least will not admit otherwise out loud.)
Surely no sentient human being speaks to that man on the phone without first engaging a recording device of some kind.
Not that he's troubled by evidence that he's lying now, was lying then, and will be lying in the future, but . . .
I guess there's no but.
113: Ah, that was interesting. Glad we make division so easy for foreign interlopers to fake!
I've always been blue state exodus curious but I'd not realized it would mean the United States of Canadia would be bordered by a Russian client state.
There are at least two secessionist movements.
Yes! California is the one supported by Russia. Hashtag Calexit.
The California National Party is the homegrown one. Hashtag FreetheBear.
I am all in for the CNP.
I tell you what, though. People are stopping my boyfriend on the street to ask how they can get a Californians for Independence t-shirt like his.
People sometimes ask me for change.
People used to try to buy drugs off me.
Now that you look prosperous they try to sell them to you.
They just give them to me as a networking technique. They know that I know all the top drug addicts.
People walk across the street to avoid me. Sometimes they throw rocks and yell.
Maybe it's a local holiday tradition?
Speaking of odd holiday traditions I saw an incense holder today based on these and apparently I'll see them in real life in a few months. I guess cultural context is an important thing.
Careful what you wish for. Imagine how wingnutty the rump US would be without CA, OR, WA. We're better off trying to moderate the wingnuts by bringing the Canadians in than writing off a large and powerful part of the US to craziness for eternity.
Even just CA leaving makes the US roughly 85% as powerful, but now essentially permanently Republican.
128: The pointiness of hats has a non-linear relationship with white nationalism. I have a paper on it.
"It'll make you look taller!"
"It will not make us look taller. What it will make us look is pointy."
Even just CA leaving makes the US roughly 85% as powerful, but now essentially permanently Republican.
Until the Northeast bails as well, leaving rump Republistan at 40% power.
Most optimistic plausible case: all of the West Coast and everything NE of NY/NJ leaves. That's 30% of the US population, and not very much of its natural resources. Rump US has 70% of the population, most of the energy, most of the military bases.
Or are you proposing that states that actually elected Trump will bail? I mean, until this election you might have believed that PA and the midwest might join, but not anymore.
I don't know how California secession would work out, but I do know it would be revolutionary.
I advocate it, encourage it, and approve, but there is nothing more foundational to the interpreted US Constitution than the right of the Federal Gov't to determine citizenship and rights for US citizens within the separate states. The states may not abrogate or obstruct the exercise of US citizenship rights within their borders. Millions of people lost their lives defending that principle, encoded in the 13th an 14th amendments, even though of course that war had nothing at all to do with the relationship between the Federal gov't, states, and their shared citizens, nothing at all, cause it was all and only about slavvvvvvery and racism, nothing else at all. Excuse me.
As a Texan, I might demand a war. Cause me. And then run to Cali to fight for the traitors. Or cause if California can deny and end the US citizenship rights of Californians, how can I have confidence that the Feds will protect me from Texas?
Treacherous PA would probably stay behind, but MD would bail. Also DC and maybe VA.
DE would be reabsorbed into MD, of course.
If there was one, just one, person in Virginia in 1861 who wished to remain a US citizen, certainly the US Gov't should not demand she move, lose her freedom to travel or not, just because some majority of Virginians chose to secede. And there were such people. Like it or not, the Gov't is committed to protecting her, to the point of horrendous war. Preferably at a lesser cost.
Every single fucking right an American has depends on that principle and protection. I suspect the majority of cases before SCOTUS revolve around that principle.
But to many younguns, it is not important at all, the Civil War was only about slavery and racism (which is a subset of above, but only a subset), not about states rights vs US citizenship. Cause something some slavers said or something.
Personally I'd prefer Czechoslovakia 1993 to Manassas 1861.
If New York secedes, does that affect Trump's eligibility to be president?
I guess not, based on the precedent of Andrew Johnson.
138: Based on 136.2 it sounds like you'd prefer Czechoslovakia 1918 to either.
I don't mind really. I'll just have whatever you guys are having.
All I want is for Maryland to be restored to its historical borders.
You can't secede you guys, that was established 150 years ago. What wasn't established, however, is whether you can be kicked out. I'm looking at you, Alabama.
I don't see why, with every other norm of American democracy breaking down, the norm about not seceding would stay in place.
Moreover, I don't see why it can't be mutually amicable. Like, Rump Republistan won't be able to completely achieve their bigot utopia if California and New York are still a part of the decision-making process; they ought to be happy if liberals head for the door. And, maybe, with the red states out of the picture, the rest of us can finally have Nice Things.
It's not as simple as red states/blue states in terms of having Nice Things, though. Look at New Jersey.
I'm not saying I'd live there, but it appeared habitable.
New Jersey's got its share of red in it, though.
That's the trouble with the plan - they all do. What becomes of red areas in blue states and blue areas in red states? Do the current state configurations even make sense as a way of dividing things up or could it be done at, say, a county or regional level?
I mean, states are clearly the worst of the three levels of government anyway, right?
What becomes of red areas in blue states and blue areas in red states?
The obvious answer is partition and house-to-house ethnic cleansing. With possession of stand-mixers and willingness to eat kale as shibboleths.
Yeah, that seems like a sub-optimal outcome here.
Yeah, that seems like a sub-optimal outcome here.
I hope it was clear that I was taking that as read. Ethnic cleansing, even of annoying people, is bad. #iaintnocicca/riello-ma/her
It's almost as if trying to create ideologically pure communities through secession is a fundamentally flawed idea.
Modern equivalent of the Hanseatic League. A reason to proceed with the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel (and similar constructs).
Ethnic cleansing is bad. Its also really a potential concern, not to be discounted. In the context of a Big Split, how could such a thing be prevented?
I mean, obviously take everyone's guns away, first thing. What else?
Mutual i/emmigration agreements among the successor states. This has the bonus of bleeding Redstatia to death in the long run, DDR-style.
Of course, nothing in today's America is as likely to get you ethnically cleansed as trying to take away some rightwinger's guns.
Free movement of labor? Reciprocal citizenship?
Since we're in a Czechoslovak fantasyland where rational policies are possible.
158, 160: Those sound a lot like just being part of the same country. And I'm not seeing what Redstatia's incentive to sign any of those agreements would be.
If you had reciprocal citizenship you'd reproduce the US.
"The Hanseatic League... was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. "
The confederation of market towns has a certain appeal.
Ethnic cleansing is bad.
Will that be on the test?
If you had reciprocal citizenship you'd reproduce the US.
Well, presumably we would have our budget/laws/regulatory apparatus, and they'd have theirs.
I guess there would be tax implications to reciprocal citizenship.
If the future is actually a Neal Stephenson novel I think I'll just quit.
And I'm not seeing what Redstatia's incentive to sign any of those agreements would be.
They get a country without liberals, to fuck up as they please.
This is starting to sound a lot like the discourse around Brexit.
Citizenship traditionally involves voting rights, yes?
How are Britain and the EU working out the citizenship thing?
Since we're in a Czechoslovak fantasyland where rational policies are possible.
If I've told you once I've told you a million times - no throwing people out of windows! I mean it!
Czechoslovak fantasyland also has great beer.
169: I think they prefer having the liberals around. Pissing off liberals is most of the fun of fucking up a country for a lot of them.
Anyway, they've already got a whole country to fuck up as they please.
175: True - what's the point of rolling coal if it doesn't get in a liberal's face?
Yeah, but if they truly fuck it up, California's going to bail, and if California bails, we can all bail.
Its important to keep that scenario on the table, as incentive for them to maybe show a little restraint on fucking it up. If you keep the threat of secession hanging in the air, maybe it will help prevent things like Justice Department raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.
What's it to them if California bails?
True - what's the point of rolling coal if it doesn't get in a liberal's face?
Yeah, one of my primary concerns with this plan is that the Northeast would still be downwind of these fuckers, and god knows what they will be pouring into the atmosphere.
The California National Party is the homegrown one. Hashtag FreetheBear.
I am all in for the CNP.
Googling them one of the top resuits was this recent Daily Kos thread which is fascinating.
It certainly doesn't give the impression that the CNP is highly-organized, but I'd also be curious to see what they do next.
They had a soft landing in the moat, they were quite all right. Austrians have no sense of humor.
What's interesting is that from the right-wing point of view, they're only reacting to liberals' refusal to get out of their faces - shaming them for speech and behaviour that seemed unexceptionable five minutes ago, making them pay higher taxes, etc. That that speech and behaviour was often genuinely oppressive and that taxation isn't theft doesn't really cut any ice with them.
What's it to them if California bails?
I think they actively want it. I've felt the same way about Texas.
But if California bails, all the other blue states are going to bail too - at least the contiguous ones. After losing their most populous and powerful member, they won't choose to be stuck in Republistan if they don't have to.
I can't see Trump letting New York go peacefully. Not sure about California.
Further to 181, the more I read of that thread the less supportive I feel of the representative of the CNP who's commenting. But that's volunteer organizations for you . . .
183: There's that, but I think a lot of them mostly just enjoy the trolling aspect of it.
teo and nicks - many many thanks for the book recs, the indo European tome (weighs appx 3 kilos or what?!??) & schools of linguistics are big hits! I suspect we'll end up having a cool 35% of the indo euro book read aloud to us, all the "really fascinating" bits.
The kid is CNP curious so I feel obliged to follow them on twitter to keep an eye on things, my god they are a bit one note. I know, predictable, but wow taxing my parental fortitude.
I can't see Trump letting New York go peacefully.
Pence will probably have effected his coup by then.
What proportion of R Congressional seats are in putative Bluestatia? I have trouble seeing those constituents voting for their own displacement or permanent oppression by Ds.
OTOH, you know, Trump, Brexit.
In this analogy, is California the sloth, the tree, or the poop?
Having grown up with Little Rock and the integration of UMiss at gunpoint, and caring about things like a national right to abortion and Federal right to gay marriage, I find the attempt to obfuscate the true cause of the Civil War very disturbing.
It was perfectly clear and front and center, Lincoln said
there are blue dots (forts) in Dixie that will remain part of the Union, and we will defend them with force
This of course made secession impossible, and so was tantamount to a declaration of war. So Lincoln started the war, over secession and Union, and God Bless him for it.
Why some modern historians seem to hang on every word the slave traitors in Virginia and South Carolina said, which of course was largely to motivate their internal populations, who gives a flying fuck what slavers say, well, let's be generous and call it inexplicable.
For a crazy counterfactual, let us imagine that the South freed the slaves in 1860, all the blacks emigrated in 1861 so there were no residual problems, and then the South attempted to secede, would these modern historians then oppose a war? It is clear to me that Lincoln would still have gone to war, and very frightening that modern historians are unclear about that.
PS: This does not in any way make the secession of California impossible as said above, as if law and precedent were physical laws rather than contingent appurtenances mere filigree on the body politic.
They just should prepare to get the armories and military resources immediately* as they will likely need them. Perhaps Trump and Redstatia will then negotiate as said above.
*Probably best to remain quiet in public about such plans and intentions.
Someone might say, well, then, but why did the South secede? That is what is important.
No, it's not. It is irrelevant. It is critically important that it be irrelevant.
Only a certain empathy for the secessionists could possibly generate any interest in what kind of evil bullshit they were spewing, as if we thought that what Hitler said was important to why Britain and the US went to war.
Having said that, we do have empathy toward reasons California might secede, the protection of Latinos and Muslims from fucking Jefferson Sessions, the retention of generous health care and other necessary services, and the encouragement of stoners.
I forgot California's protection of the environment and clean energy, and probably the retention of stuff like Yosemite as a common and not an asset to be sold to Dixie.
Secession is treason, has all the problems of internal populations mentioned above, and probably means war, but is in my mind justified under the circumstances.
Not my decision, but they are in my thoughts.
You cut NY along the Hudson. Christie was thinking strategically when he canceled the rail tunnel.
Secessionist talk is the liberal/progressive equivalent of the libertarian "fuck you, I've got mine" sentiment and they can both go fuck right the fuck off.
199: Yep. Not very cheering to those of us in red states.
What's the alternative, though? The legitimacy of American political institutions is in a state of collapse. Donald Trump is going to be the President through the assistance of a hostile foreign power and because 100,000 voters in the rust belt count for more than millions in California. The Supreme Court is going to be conservative for another generation because black Presidents don't get to nominate justices in an election year. Congress is gerrymandered such that the majority of votes don't win the majority of seats. At the state level, North Carolina isn't even considered a democracy any more. And I'm not optimistic about how the Rule of Law is going to fare these next four years.
The alternative is organizing to resist Trump and the GOP through what's left of our existing institutions, which is more than a lot of people seem to think.
The alternative is putting in the hard work at the local political level like teo and CC and others here talk about and do. Secessionist efforts are little better than working for Jill Stein here. Seriously. I know it's easy to despair. And I'm very fearful for the country and the rule of law. But if that's all too much you'd be better off checking out and watching TV, going to museums, hiking, whatever life affirming activities give you joy than giving in to utter waste of time and effort that is secessionist politics.
Pwned by 202. Resist.
But if you need to check out for self-care reasons then check out for art and love. Not an illusion.
When I lived in Texas, a lot of Texans told me Texas was allowed to secede, that it was written into the state constitution. It was a terribly stupid thing to think (we fought a war over that, and no, you can't, is what I always wanted to say), but very widespread. I have no doubt CA would make a nice nation now (or better, sixty years ago), but good luck negotiating water rights. Or building desalinization plants. What about Chicago, Detroit, etc.? I'd be happy to go back to a blue state on a coast, but I can't imagine what Redstatia would look like. Kansas? Mississippi? Far worse?
I was talking to some 20-something Israelis here and they were saying they'd actually been really impressed by how galvanized and committed their U.S. peers were after the election, that in Israel young people's response to things getting shittier and shittier is "fuck this we're moving to Berlin." I dunno what to do with that.
They also showed me apps where you can see what land, exactly, could be laid to waste by various nuclear warheads, and were like "oh this is how we pass our time instead of swiping on Tinder."
Alex Wellerstein's NukeMap is great good fun. Coincidentally I was nuking some locations nearby just the other day:
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
The alternative is organizing to resist Trump and the GOP through what's left of our existing institutions, which is more than a lot of people seem to think.
Absolutely. But what I'm saying is, that's not necessarily going to work. Whats the plan in the event that it doesn't?
208, well how about that, the US's smallest nuclear warhead has the same name as my dog.
The other great thing about Trump is that, for the first time since adulthood, I'm worried about nuclear war. I'm not a great believer in the stability of relying on threats of destruction in order to enforce peace, but it's definitely more stable than the situation where American security guarantees used to be credible, and then stop being so.
"I expect you to die Mr Bond."
I'm coming around to Teofilo's point of view on what to do next. I think I'll try pitching in with the local Democratic establishment a bit more. I give money but I don't like phone banking or pretty much anything that requires interacting with strangers, so maybe I'll just stuff envelopes. I'm in a very purple state so I think there's room to do some real good.
I don't think Trump is going to be all that bad, at least not in comparison to Dubya. He'll do real damage on the Supreme Court and he'll harm the interests of our allies in Europe by going soft on Putin, he'll blow up the deficit and aggravate wealth inequality, he'll try but fail to throw 20 million people off healthcare, and he'll also fail at efforts to gut Social Security and Medicare. I don't think he'll get us into any major wars, the whole muslim registry thing will never happen, neither will a wall or even serious attempts to expel 11 million illegal immigrants. The president simply isn't all that powerful, and despite the fervor of a few lunatics in the House, most of the more radical right wing ideas that might appeal to him aren't that popular even on the right. The people who are really going to suffer are the usual suspects: The poor and people of color. Welfare will be gutted and programs aimed at helping the poor will be shut down. Any hope of progress on the BLM agenda has evaporated for the next 4 years. In the big picture it's awful, but it's not apocalyptic. There's no reason to run out and buy a gun and tricorne hat. Maybe a tricorne hat and a bugle, though.
214- So far people have an unbroken record of underestimating Trump. I wish that would change.
I think there is probably a 75% chance that 214 is correct. And that's bad enough. But its the 25% that really worries me.
214 You and I clearly work with different definitions of "all that bad".
I really wish hats would come back into fashion for men. Not necessarily tricorne ones, but why not?
214: Are there things you can do on the very local level? I am still hesitant to throw my lot in with Democrats here, but I think a lot of the purpling or blueing happens through personal connection and lots of little pushes.
Teo is, of course, right. It's fun to daydream that maybe secession could allow desperately needed progress on global warming and the like, but even if it were somehow possible it would mean creating a failing, heavily armed, and militaristic nation next door. Not remotely stable.
My daughters wear tricorn hats a lot, Mobes, but I think that reads differently on them than on you. Maybe there will be a Hamilton but for white people under the new administration, though! (I have also been experimenting with hats, though not for public consumption.)
Are there things you can do on the very local level?
I plan on mocking anyone I know who voted Republican. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to do my part in the WoC by responding to any aggressive "Merry Christmas" wishes with a cheery "Happy Holidays".
"I will eat my hat in private" doesn't quite sound as bold.
The faaaabulous guy scheduling me at the orthopedist gave me a cheery "Enjoy your... season!" and "Happy Holidays" were the norm. Maybe I pass less well than I assume I do.
We're not supposed to mock them; their certainty that we mock them behind their backs is apparently why we lost.
Issue advocacy groups seem to me to be a fair alternative to your local Democratic party organization. At the individual level. Community-wide, both kinds of outfit need to be strong and well funded.
AIMLW, we've had something of s stroke of luck with Trump picking our congressman for the cabinet: the special election presents an opportunity for folks to actually be doing something, and if Trump seems to be blowing it 'bigly' in his first month or two, then maybe we can even win the seat. (Spencer floated the idea of running, so now we all get to call him a coward and a loser, because he was never actually going to try for it.)
"Mock Nazis" scans with "Rock Lobster". In case the B-52s want to do something.
My children are also super into "Rock Lobster." At my brother's wedding, four-year-old Selah marched up to the dj and requested it as the second song and got the whole place dancing. Perhaps children are indeed our future, which would be sort of terrifying given some of the other things they do.
Also Ryan will have shown his cards on Medicare by then.
We're not supposed to mock them; their certainty that we mock them behind their backs is apparently why we lost.
I don't plan on doing it behind their backs. More specifically, I will make anyone publicly repeating any Fox News absurdity feel foolish. I still regret, after my initial derisive response to a friend's endorsement of Clinton death list nonsense, offering as conciliation a few of my own conspiratorial beliefs.
I grant Teo's path will be more productive but we can't all be people persons.
(I know teo isn't any more extroverted than I am, which makes me admire his work all the more.)
199, 200:
The reciprocal view is that people in red states don't seem concerned enough about the fact that Californian votes don't count for electing presidents. I am hearing "well, we have this old procedure that is admittedly shitty, and we'll fix it in a generation or so but until then, almost 3 million Californian votes are somehow less than real votes, and forget about a president ever pandering to you."
So, 'stick around for the sake of red states' sounds more and more like, 'we want to exploit Californian wealth and freeride on their liberalism, science and innovation, but not let their votes matter.'
I think anyone who isn't here is overlooking how intensely destaiblizing this EC/NPV split is, and how much we resent it. It is only, like, the fourth or fifth wrong thing about this election, but it is still enough to be disqualifying all by itself.
Anyway, if you don't start every sentence with 'this election should be decided by popular vote, and also CA shouldn't go', then all I hear is that you'd like to keep your colony.
And why no westerners on the Supreme Court? CA has genuine grievances that don't get acknowledged much.
And why no westerners on the Supreme Court? CA has genuine grievances that don't get acknowledged much.
California's grievance is totally legit. There was some derp going around that other place recently saying, "ha ha, if you don't count the votes in California, Trump actually WON the popular vote, you stupid liberals," together with a map showing all the states except California.
This is what makes me think maybe they really would prefer it if you left. But if you leave, I don't want to stick around.
Californians who are upset about the electoral college should maybe be focused on getting rid of the electoral college rather than seceding.
They wouldn't get any argument from the red states, which are also disenfranchised by the EC. The only states that benefit are the small number of actually competitive ones, which as this election showed are increasingly unrepresentative of the country as a whole.
203: Does anyone have ideas for small things one can do? I don't really feel that getting involved in my local Democratic Party would be all that useful.
Local nonprofits serving vulnerable populations?
As a whole, the EC does benefit purple states more than any others, but it still benefits red more than blue on average these days, just by the 2-votes-per-state rule. If you recalculate with each state having EVs equal to its congressional representation, Trump's margin would drop from 74 to 56.
After looking at this calculation of the election with different hypothetical state boundaries mapped under a wide range of concepts, I still want to get rid of the EC, but I'm further struck by how the density problem means that winner-take-all with geographic districts is still fundamentally flawed as representation, and will persist in the House regardless of EC reform. In 2 of the 5 maps, Trump still won (the two with the greatest number of states), and in another, Clinton only won by a whisker.
Californians who are upset about the electoral college should maybe be focused on getting rid of the electoral college rather than seceding.
The thing is, without the threat of secession as a genuine possibility, the EC is never going to be changed. Secession is California's leverage.
242: I'm sure it does slightly benefit red states overall, but it certainly doesn't benefit blue voters in red states, whose votes essentially don't count at all.
California's grievance is totally legit.
Everybody has legitimate grievances. I'd think, for example, that the "statehood for DC" people have an even stronger case.
But I just looked up the population of CA and had forgotten just how much larger they are than any other state. So they are going to be most disadvantaged by the construction of the Senate (and, by extension, the EC, but I'd think the Senate is a far greater loss of relative power).
That said, I had the feeling that, even with that disadvantage, CA doesn't do badly in terms of federal policy. Obviously it pays more money in taxes than it receives in spending (and, as CA becomes more liberal it is likely to have more conflicts with the Feds) but the government was very supportive of at least three separate major elements of CA wealth (post WWII housing development, cold war aerospace industry, and internet/high-tech industries through the present).
why no westerners on the Supreme Court?
Because people can't move anywhere East from California without having major reservations about it, and even when they do decide to move, they immediately come back.
I can't find the data said to be underlying it, or even the numbers themselves, but this chart suggests California only gets 4-6% less in federal revenue than it pays in taxes. Of course, the median state gets about 30% more, because of the concentration of wealth, so that still puts California #14 out of 51 in contributions; but New York, Illinois, and surprisingly Ohio "donate" much, much more as a percentage. It makes some sense, in that California has a lot of rich people compared to the average state, but also more people in poverty than the average blue state.
238 and 244 are both ideas for a country where people negotiate mutually acceptable policies in a constructive fashion. But in fact you live in a country where half the people disagree with the other half on essentially everything, and elevate that disagreement into their cardinal virtue. And this happened not by accident but through decades of deliberate work to create a population that believes lies and largely lacks the ability to see through them. The attention has gone to the media and social networks, but under that there's an entire schooling system built by the religious right*. The gap between between the body politic you need and the one you have is so vast I don't see it being bridged through anything resembling normal politics**.
*And the private schools created by white flight. IDK where their curricula are ideologically, if anywhere.
**I'm thinking here of something like the FDR administration as being abnormal politics.
249 maybe sounds hostile. It isn't intended that way, and I realize it doesn't offer anything constructive.
re: 228
xelA is semi-obsessed by Pink Elephants on Parade, which is, thankfully, totally great. He dances around doing stomping steps, and elephant moves and the like.
The segment from the film is also evidence that Disney animators were on good drugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZtLswP69LQ
The Sun Ra versions is also pretty great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfLpnXQpjvw
The Sun Ra versions is also pretty great:
When I saw the Arkestra (led by Marshall Allen) several years ago, they did a few Disney tunes and absolutely killed them.
Americans who want CA to stay should change the EC. Americans who believe in voting should change it to be consistent with their own democratic values. It isn't up to CA to make it work; we voted just fine.
This city appears to have a serious tagger who goes by Xela, I've seen it spray painted in at least a dozen places.
Megan you need to fuck right off.
I'm not normally one to nitpick about the fact that "Americans" can describe everyone living in North and South America, but it makes 253 sound like Megan wants CA to leave the continent.
Sun Ra is all kinds of awesome, as is his great nephew, all time New England Patriots rushing touchdown leader Legarrette Blount. We cannot be stopped with the forces of Saturn on our side.
I'll be on your side of the barricades, Megan, fighting Barry and Walt on the other side shooting at California gays, stoners, and Latinos, helping the Republicans sustain the United States of Trump
Which reminds me, one necessary preparation will probably be stocking up food and medical supplies, finding housing for the millions who will rush to California once they realize there is a place that gives a shit.
252 sounds like a truly ace night out.
I do not at all understand the hostility in 255, seriously underpowered by persuasiveness.
I am conflicted on the CA secession issue because how awesome would it be to have "California Über Alles" as the national anthem.
I guess soon Jerry Brown really will be president.
I do not at all understand the failure of imagination in 260, seriously underpowered as it is by even a shred of empathy for people living in red states -- or, really, for people living anywhere that isn't California. California secession is both a pipe dream and a nasty way of splitting progressives. I'm taken aback to see Megan so captivated by such arrant nonsense -- if you want to gauge how profoundly stupid and retrograde the idea is, all you need to know is that Bob supports it unequivocally -- but I'm not the slightest bit surprised to see other commenters reacting negatively to her embrace of the politics of grievance (and a likely civil war).
Post-election is shaking out quite nicely.
It of course can't be trusted, but there is a thread at LGM on the Ellison-Perez competition for DNC chair.
Apparently will be Perez*, because Obama has decided to stick it to Sanders and Warren out of sheer fucking spite and revenge. Fuck that party, it will always be the Washington Generals by fucking choice.
*Which means that the person recruiting candidates and handing out checks will be a flunky for the Clinton-Obama oligarchy. There is no hope for 2018 or 2020.
Devolution is not retrograde, but quite advanced. I guess no empathy round here for Barcelona or Scotland?
Future may be in city-states, radically networked.
And yeah, Scotland totally fucked that sellout neoliberal party in England. You go with Blair, Clintons, or Obama, the party elites deserve to get fucked.
Don't listen to them when they claim to care about the poor and desperate. Neoliberal parties are about cashing in.
May the Democrats suffer like Labour.
Personally I think the idea of CA independence is absurd, but I'm inclined to think of it as an interesting/absurd idea and to wish well to the people interested in it rather than a dangerous/absurd idea.
I was thinking recently about marijuana legalization, and that I have to give some credit to the people who have been committed to that as a goal for 40(?) years, who never attracted a lot of mainstream support or attention but did spend a lot of time documenting reasons why marijuana isn't dangerous and then, public opinion shifted fairly quickly on the issue, and they won. I have no idea how much impact the die-hard legalization advocates had on the eventual process of legalization, but I'm inclined to give them some credit and think they deserve to feel good about themselves right now. There is something to be said for quixotic goals.
Of course, you can't guarantee success. Something that I don't see Megan acknowledging is that there have been people actively campaigning for the National Popular Vote Compact since 2001 (and gotten 11 states -- all "blue" states) to sign on. "Fixing the EC" isn't a new idea, and there are people who have already spent years working on it, and it's unclear what it would take to succeed. But it's a good project and I'm glad people are working on it.
So, for example, in the Daily Kos thread that I linked above, the representative of the CNP says,
I consider [California Independence] a long term goal. For example the Scottish National Party was founded in the 1930's with the goal of Independence for Scotland. They are still working on it...
So Megan is taking a significantly stronger position than the "elected head" of the CNP.
I also think that, rhetorically, 253 (and 234.last) is fairly unpleasant in that it implies both that CA is not part of America, but also that it's incumbent on everybody else to provide reasons why CA should want to stay, as opposed to CA needing to give reasons to leave. I'd think the obvious reason why it's going to be difficult for CA to leave is that there isn't any obvious mechanism to do so. So it seems odd to open with demands and ultimatums.
If a CNP started to win elections Califonia probably could get a bunch of concessions like Scotland has.
Megan has demonstrated in the past a complete lack of caring about people outside California, so this doesn't seem like a surprise. (Seems like a weird level of government to latch onto. I'm not sure what decision process makes one think California is a coherent entity but that the USA isn't).
Two options: (1) blue state secession and (2) standard political engagement in existing institutions.
Both are extremely unlikely to succeed, but 2 is a lot less unlikely than 1. Let's say 1 in 100 chance of 2, 1 in 1,000 chance of 1.
2 legitimizes those institutions. 1 legitimizes red state secession. I realize neither option sounds good but on balance I'd say 1 is worse.
2 is boring, complicated, and slow, even if you assume success. 1 is exciting and transgressive. Rebels are always cool, right?
2, if it somehow succeeds, would have almost no disadvantages besides the above. 1, if it somehow succeeds, would be very bad for liberals and minorities in the rest of the country and would lead to an actual war.
Did I miss anything?
I don't know if secession is the appropriate form for it or not, but it does seem like the country is in need of a fairly substantial Constitutional reform. What we have is breaking down and that is leading us toward instability.
BTW, how did your interview go, Spike?
One thing I have heard literally no one mention since the election is that California reäffirmed its enthusiasm for the death penalty. When will people admit that California is not liberal or progressive libertarian?
togolosh: "I don't think Trump is going to be all that bad, at least not in comparison to Dubya."
Are you kidding me? Trump is Dubya on steroids: even more dedicated to a fantasy-based view of politics, with less restraint, openly corrupt and beholden to a foreign power and with no real expectation of checks on his power. A dedicated authoritarian with no compunction about getting what he wants with intimidation and bullying can break and remake the American system in ways that are as yet unimagined but will become all too real over the next few years. He has it in his hands to fuck not with the just the Supreme Court, but with a vast number of federal judicial appointments by nominating people who support his authoritarianism and are gagging to profit from the Trump corruption gravy train.
Think the GOP is going to stop him? GOP opposition isn't going to last long: they're nakedly terrified of his supporters -- that's how he became the nominee in the first place -- and value their partisan positioning over the well-being of their country as a whole, which they have done for decades. Right now he's pretty much like Marc Antony in "Rome": they have all the "men of quality," such as they are in the GOP context, and he has an angry mob that will roast and eat their men of quality in the ashes of the Senate house. Parts of his voter base are turning on him in the short term, but tellingly, a great many of those are doing so *because they think he might going soft on the authoritarianism and racism.* He can win them back in a heartbeat by doubling down on either or both (for instance if he chooses to start acting like America's Duterte, which you can count on him to do), and they in turn can intimidate and bully anyone who disagrees with him, including at the polls. Who exactly is going to stop them? McCain? Marco Rubio? Rience "we have a new King" Priebus? Please.
Acquiring assholes like this is orders of magnitude easier than getting rid of them. If he plays his cards right he can capture the courts and any other institution he needs to and keep himself and his progeny in power not just for four years, but for *decades* if something radical does not take place. Why not? Even the supposedly progressive wings of his natural voter base are people like freaking mcmanus up there.
(Above was me, if my contempt for mcmanus didn't already make it clear.)
278.last- Trump as a political system STD- not a bad excuse to violate the analogy ban. We caught him from the stupid Brexiters.
280: The only issue might be that the Brexiteers voted for xenophobia, which is distinct from the outright proto-fascism that Trumpanzees voted for.
ExxonMobil saw itself as an independent, transnational corporate sovereign in the world, a power independent of the American government, one devoted firmly to shareholder interests and possessed of its own foreign policy. Exxon's foreign policy sometimes had more impact on the countries where it operated than did the State Department.
Trump may turn out to be not as bad as Dubya, but he's more dangerous than Dubya ever was, for the reasons given by 278. He is completely unrestrained by our political institutions, since they are either directly beholden to him or powerless to stop him. The only way he doesn't wreck everything is if he doesn't want to, or if he's incapable of the level of effort or focus necessary to wreck everything.
On foreign policy at least it's looking like a total crapshoot. Silver-liningly, if Tillerson and Mattis are confirmed both State and Defense will be headed by people who aren't exactly warmongers. From 282:
Tillerson has favored doing business in countries that offer political stability, even if this stability was achieved through authoritarian rule. As he once put it, "We're really thinking about, well, what is it going to be fifteen, twenty years from now, and so what are the conditions in some of these countries likely to be?" The corporation maintains a political-intelligence and analysis department at its headquarters in Irving, Texas, staffed by former government officials, which tries to predict the stability of countries many years into the future by analyzing demographics, employment, political control, and other "fundamentals."
Country-level sabremetrics? Do they have stat for WAR (wars above replacement country)?
They calls em like they sees em.
For example the Scottish National Party was founded in the 1930's with the goal of Independence for Scotland.
And for much of that time was overtly fascist.
The 1939 meeting was probably a bit awkward.
Above was me, if my contempt for mcmanus didn't already make it clear.
Insufficiently distinctive for identification
288: the SNP would probably rather you didnt talk about their wartime history.
BTW, how did your interview go, Spike?
It seem to go pretty well, thanks, although I won't know at the end of January. Its a college library job that sounds like a really nice place to work, though I'm not sure how interesting the work itself would be. I'm still hoping to come to an agreement with the startup that is my first choice. They want me, but that seems to be contingent on raising more capital.
283The only way he doesn't wreck everything is if he doesn't want to, or if he's incapable of the level of effort or focus necessary to wreck everything.
I think it's very likely that he lacks the kind of focus to wreck everything. The real issue is that his immediate underlings seem to have no such limitation, and he listens to those halfwits. He'll be horrible, but compared to a body count in the seven digits and near collapse of the global economy I think he'll be only moderately disastrous. Recoverably disastrous, I guess. This is a major setback for progressivism, but it isn't the beginning of a generation of slouching towards Gilead. We're still just one major election away from having somebody not crazy in the White House, and there are plenty of concrete things do do on the local scale that will help mitigate the awfulness of the Cheeto Benito.
I was going to quote the final paragraphs of the Barrington Moore, but fuck it. A stone classic, stands with Weber and Durkheim, and contra Parsons. Strongly anti-Stalinist, I would say anti-communist but that would be going too far, but it is sayable. Moore ends his book by condemning incrementalism and praising revolutionary violence from a centrist perspective. Tilly, Skocpol, Perry Anderson, Michael Mann, a whole generation of scholars were liberated by Moore's work.
...
2016 has changed the world, even more than 1980. We are not getting back the glory days of peace and universal prosperity that have been the Obama years. That politics is over, that polity has died, even though the grifters will continue to use the Democratic Party as a cash cow, as long as they are secure in an unshakeable base.
We need to look for radical alternatives for a radical reconstruction after Trump. Of course it is hard to know what the country will look like, because of the possibility of catastrophe like foreign war or domestic ethnic cleansing, but things like state devolution and secession, regional splitting, or de facto city-state autonomy are not choices, but inevitabilities. Whatever happens, one thing we do know: it will not be national. The red-blue split is irrevocable and determinative.
"Resistance" is conservative and a loser. Progressives need to offer a positive alternative that that extends way past the next neoliberal banker's bully. Obama-Clinton-Podesta-Kaine are the, intentional I think, death of hope.
California should secede to be a refuge (we need more), and I expect when Trump and Sessions get going on immigrants, there will be no other moral choice.
Irrelevant? but interesting link
Richard Spencer and the Elite Roots of Racism ...a little history of racism in Dallas. I came down in the late 70s, so not my fault. Smoked a lot of dope under that statue of Robert E.
I can't help myself.
"Fairness demands recognition of the fact that the way nearly all history has been written imposes an overwhelming bias against revolutionary violence. Indeed the bias becomes horrifying as one
comes to realize its depth. To equate the violence of those who resist oppression with the violence of the oppressors would be misleading enough. But there is a great deal more. From the days of
Spartacus through Robespierre down to the present day, the use of .force by the oppressed against their former masters has been the object of nearly universal condemnation. Meanwhile the day-today repression of "normal" society hovers dimly in the background of most history books. " ...B Moore
278 said more or less exactly what I wanted to say. I'm hoping that 294 is closer to what actually happens, but underestimating the magnitude of Trumpian outcomes hasn't worked out so well thus far. Emergencies, enabling acts, one-man-one-vote-one-time scenarios, etc. don't seem to me at all out of the bounds of possibility. The response of the Democrats always seems to be: I'll just act as though things are normal and hope that providence hands me the future on a plate. Like their mothers never told them that God helps those who help themselves. Remember, Trump was high-energy and focused enough to win an election, and he hasn't even been inaugurated yet.
Repeat the obvious
National Politics has become impossible. Megan is wiser than y'all.
Deal with it.
297: I'm beginning to think you just like violence for its own sake.
If California had built adequate new housing supply and the UCs had grown accordingly in size and number, I would live in California and vote CNP if it existed. But ya'll didn't want me there. Maybe I'll move to Scotland instead.
California's NIMBY policies are probably the only reason there aren't 49 red states.
I'll answer 298 with a sentence from the Moore snippet.
"From the days of Spartacus through Robespierre down to the present day, the use of .force by the oppressed against their former masters has been the object of nearly universal condemnation. Meanwhile the day-today repression of "normal" society hovers dimly in the background of most history books"
Not that I am oppressed, nor am I violent. But I won't judge the oppressed that choose political violence, even as expression. Caring about them means respecting and assisting their choices.
...
Loomis Reading List 2016 97 books
Why I am nowhere near erudite with 75 a year.
But so terribly parochial. Like languages, if you only know one country, you don't know any. I suspect keeping up in a specific field leaves one generally ignorant.
I'm on board with the notion that the most important limit on the damage Trump will do is his own ambition. The signs right now are that his tastes are somewhat petty. We'll see.
He seems a lot more interested, since the election, in talking up how great things already are, because he won, rather than how bad they are, and how much further action is required. I expect a lot more molehills claimed as mountains, than actual damage to the institutions. PR smokescreen to cover looting.
A serious attempt at secession would, imo, drive Trump to be the worst he can be.
I'm going to violate my rule against commenting on I/P with this: we're going to find out if US policy has had any effect in restraining the worst ideas within Israel for resolving I/P. There isn't going to be any pushback at all under Trump, and I wouldn't be surprised if our unofficial policy ends up being support of Removal.
In this area, just as with the understanding that victory (really, just non-defeat) in our wars in the Middle East has always depended heavily on maintaining the division between Islam as a whole and the small minority pursuing extremist Islamism, Trump will be much worse than Bush.
.. how great things already are, because he won...
Not noticing that Obama is still President. As a sign of his ability to see the big picture, not good.
There's no reason for the people who think crime has gotten a lot worse in the last 8 years to be restrained by facts like DJT's current status.
I suspect he's actually going to try to build the wall.
A serious attempt at secession would, imo, drive Trump to be the worst he can be.
And deport a bunch of people.
Great, Democrats and liberals are going to spend four years trying to keep Trump from getting mad at them, at other less fortunate people's expense.
Not at all unexpected.
My guess is that if Trump really tries to ethnic cleanse California, there will be little internal political choice, and de facto separation might be the least violent alternative.
It's noticeable that he's been allowing his hair to fade a bit in the last few weeks, presumably to match his idea of looking statesmanlike.
IOW, if I wasn't clear, what happens in Los Angeles when Trump and Sessions goons start a mass roundup of Latinos or Muslims? How should local authorities respond if those targeted resist violently?? Should they help the Federal Gov't follow the law? There are too many to hide in your attic, and that is unacceptable anyway.
The relevant authorities have pre-committed to remaining Sanctuary Cities, and Trump has threatened to cut off all Federal Funds.
What does local sentiment look like after the Federal Funding stops?
Y'all are just cowering, not imagining or planning. I have confidence there are others being more responsible right now.
Y'all are just cowering, not imagining or planning. I have confidence there are others being more responsible right now.
Suppose everybody here was planning seriously, do you think they'd share information on a public website with a reputation for vaguely left of centre politics? Don't be silly; that isn't even good trolling.
I don't find cowering and imagining to be at all rivalrous.
I'm personally in agreement with Cyrus in 272 on all points, as I've expressed here before. I find the personal vitriol directed at Megan both jarring and unhelpful. My reaction likely influenced by having a cnp-curious teenager who I'm pretty invested in keeping on an even keel so unpersuasive personal vitriol not really a viable option. But clearly whatever makes you feel good reigns.
On a lighter note, the kid's accordion teacher gave him this as a present: http://www.taralinda.com/accordionbabescalendar.html
With cd!
What does local sentiment look like after the Federal Funding stops?
Assuming that defunding happens it will be followed by several rounds of court cases, and the cities seem fairly confident in their position. It's true that if it ultimately resulted in a supreme court decision which affirmed the ability of the federal government to de-fund cities which thumb their noses as the Feds that would be a terrible outcome.
But that seems unlikely and far enough away that, to assume in advance that the administration has the power to make funding stiop grants them unnecessary power -- don't just buy their claims, make them work for it.
315: Lawyering will fix it. Ok. New Scotus justice in 90 days? Meanwhile...
My idea for the terrible outcome, among many other things, like Sessions going after pot.
1) Federal Funds cut off for half Cal's population.
2) California finds a way to survive without it. The local politics of caving can be discussed. Megan, in waterworks, is probably analyzing the details with horror, but determination.
3) Californians ask each other, why are we in this fucking bigoted pit of a country anyway?
4) Dixiefucks decide whether to start a war, or since California is no longer costing them money and is nothing but a political problem, just leave them the fuck alone, and even let them secede, leaving Republicans with absolute power in the rest of America forever.
315: Lawyering will fix it.
I explicitly didn't say that. What I did say was that there's a good chance that the administration is bluffing and given that, as you noted, mayors seem interested in calling the bluff, it seems odd that you would be on the side of, "assume they're not bluffing."
Perhaps it's not surprising. I just assume that you would agree with the statement, "most people are bluffing most of the time" but, perhaps in this case you're giving more weight to, "the Trump campaign has demonstrated more power than expected, so far."
I'm just saying, given how cautious politicians tend to be, if they think this a good fight to have, I'm willing to bet that they have good reason to think that.
Why the fuck would Republicans want to keep California anyway?
They can read maps too, as in "Without California, Trump won the popular vote easily"
The only constant with bob is that he he'll heave his plastic and try to prove that our conclusions should be more drastic.
Megan, I think, is still in the early stages of her grief, and should be treated with sympathy.
314: unpersuasive personal vitriol not really a viable option.
Dairy Queen, I'm curious whether you find NickS's 269, especially 269.last, any more persuasive -- in the sense of giving reasons for, erm, vitriol strong resistance.
And the Pennsylvanian tells Cal, Please, please think of the state that went for Trump.
Trump will do several insane things in the first 90 days, in part to totally confuse and depress the opposition, in part to reward and energize his base.
Things liberals and moderates will cry "But that's impossible!"
The only constant with bob is that he he'll heave his plastic and try to prove that our conclusions should be more drastic.
No, I just believe via history that radical and unexpected events happen on a regular basis, events moderates and liberals are self-disequipped to handle.
Want a recent list?
I expect Sen. Sessions to be asked about whether he intends to enforce the law with respect to marijuana. I may have missed something from Trump to the contrary, but unless the boss has staked out something, I expect Sessions to say that a change in marijuana law is a matter for the Congress and that as the nation's highest ranking law enforcement officer, his job is to enforce the nation's laws as they exist on the books.
And then the FBI will selectively enforce said laws, usually leading with the tax and firearm violations that I think everyone presumes to be epidemic in the "legal" marijuana industry.
No sanctuary will save people from prosecution for tax evasion.
I'm just saying, given how cautious politicians tend to be, if they think this a good fight to have, I'm willing to bet that they have good reason to think that.
And I am saying, that given the political realities and demographics of their local constituencies, they have not got all that much choice if they want to get re-elected or not become pariahs.
And if Trump is bluffing, Bannon and fucking Sessions are not. Sanctuary Cities have a history in the Republican congress, look it up, and there is plenty of evidence that Republicans are serious and will move fast.
I have not heard yet anyone answer as to what Cali should do when the mass roundups start. Human shields? Think prettily.
322: in other words, cower and cave, and count on the voters to gain confidence in your party while watching that.
I don't expect massive city defunding -- it's not impossible, but the collateral damage to people like landlords, developers, hospital-owning corporations and the like is enough to keep it down to symbolic levels. Grants for militarizing local police forces, that sort of thing.
Yes, I don't expect anyone to go to the barricades over tax evasion prosecutions of people who are actually evading taxes.
You can, I guess.
325:I don't expect massive city defunding
The faith Democrats have in Trump and Republicans to remain rational and moderate is just heartwarming.
Just leave these people, Megan. It is looking like 1933. They won't fight for you.
Yes, and surly Trump will be getting only the best advice on urban affairs from his HUD secretary, Ben Carson.
Faith in the ownership class' ability to advocate for its interests isn't exactly the most hopelessly naive concept even just in this conversation.
On the city defunding front, I wonder who would win a real fight between NYC and Trump. Like Trump cuts off all funding to NYC and then NYC responds with... no cooperation with Trump travel (effectively stopping him from entering New York) or condemning Trump tower? I guess a lot comes down to what sides the NYPD and port authority take.
It's now official here: Happy New Year to all!
Hope everyone has a much better year than the last. And hoping the best for the coming Trumpocalypse.
Happy New Year, Barry! I hope things get better for you.
For me, the personal vitriol is because of two things. One is the pompous "California did this, California did that." California didn't do shit. States don't do things. (And California is the state that gave us Nixon and Reagan. If Reagan loses to Bush in 1980, we never end up where we are.) What happened since 1980 is that the dumb assholes moved away from California, and next to the rest of us. If I could make them move to someplace else I would.
The other is the quitting. Her attitude is (as someone I think said up-thread) "I got mine, fuck you." She's the first rat off the sinking ship. Start bailing out the ship, or shut the fuck up.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Republicans will definitely want news big enough to get the cameras off Congress for the 100 days, big enough that no one will be paying attention to SCOTUS hearings and the murder of entitlements.
Work a little, try to come up with what they will do, if not defunding and the social media horror stories of schools and hospitals shutting down, and immigration riots in cosmopolitan cities. (They can always re-fund in June)
Pot not big enough, and too early for war with China.
Ist new year with new dogs, will find out how they react to fireworks, the claustrophobic one is already on nightly melatonin.
What happened since 1980 is that the dumb assholes moved away from California
A little bit, Bishops Big Sort has the numbers to show that as expected young educated blues are more likely to move interstate than old ignorant Reds; and because of the kinds of jobs created.
California has become more Blue than Texas has become Red actually Texas has become more Blue also.
I suppose the racists are moving to Montana.