We're all going to die because the only generally-accepted common good in America is celebrity.
I'm glad that Trump lost, but this election just broke me. He not only made white supremacy respectable again, but he was an incompetent bozo that killed thousands of people. The fact that not only did he get more votes, but got a shift in votes from non-whites, it's not something that I can take in.
Maybe shit like this has something to do with Pilsen?
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-pilsen-historic-landmark-district-dispute-20201016-duaere2hrbbznfuhp5fr63jtbi-story.html
Nationally, I kind of agree with Maciej Ceglowski that establishment dems are not too convincing. I wish I had a recipe for the right kind of change that would let us all get along and point in a direction that helped and was convincing to more people. Less gerontocracy seems like a first step worth taking.
https://zeynep.substack.com/p/is-this-a-coup-introducing-the-counter
AOC was apparently blocked frmo a key committee recently by Henry Cuellar, from TX 28 which is 78% hispanic. AOC supported his primary opponent publicly.
Honestly, I think one thing that's hurting Democrats nationwide is a lot of shitty democratic city government. I don't have a recipe for fixing that either, and yes I understand that white flight and subsequent suburb vs city dysfunction makes running a city harder. But aldermanic privilege in Chicago or Baltimore's government are hard to defend, and doesn't seem like there's much interest from the national party to help improve those.
My guess is that the surge in non-white vote for Trump was fueled by the same unfocused frustration and burn it all down sentiment as a lot of the white vote. Misogyny probably helped some too.
Why do white people vote for Trump?
My Unified Trump Theory is that an aversion to shame is near to the heart of it. Trump tells people persuasively that they must no longer be embarrassed; that America has been nearly ruined by shame, but if we let that go, we can become Great Again.
Are you stupid? It's okay! We love the poorly educated! In fact, you're smarter than those know-it-alls who talk about global warming or the proper methods for conducting an election. Are you a racist? No you're not. You're only a racist if you admit to it; you need not be sheepish about your non-racist opinions about Black inferiority. Are you an asshole? That's okay! It's assholes who do the necessary work of making this country function.
Trump supplies unconditional love, and the only thing he asks in return is reciprocity. Most evangelical Christians understand this -- their Jesus offers a similar quid pro quo -- and they are filled with Christian charity toward the president.
Various minorities and targets of hate have a tough time with this, hence their pro-Biden bias, but many of those folks can be brought around. Trump's message transcends intersectionality: You can be a gay atheist Jew, but if you love Trump, you're okay. And if you hate, say, Muslims, you've got good reason to love Trump.
lw: I agree with your observations that many mainstream Dems are pretty damn weak tea. That snake Richard Neal comes to mind (he of "balance billing uber alles" and "Trump's taxes? what taxes?") but I'm sure each of us has examples that come to mind. Like Fucking Henry Cuellar. And on and on and on.
But the problem that breaks my brain is that the answer from working-class people of color was to vote for the GrOPers? I mean I just can't even. The sorts of policies that people like AOC and The Squad have fought for are what's needed; I just can't reconcile the idea of a vote for The Insult Comedian and his feculent horce, with that of a protest vote against centrist Dems and their cossetting of the rich.
I like "feculent," whose meaning I vaguely understood. But "horce" is a new one both to me and Google, which inquires: "Did you mean: horse."
9. Sure, but this video is real. Lots of immigrants have very clear ideas about collective anything. It'll take someone capable to make the case that land banks are different from forced collectivization and that there's not a slippery slope. Mexicans are familiar with the promises that PRI made. I'm against any R in office now, just making the point that their bad policies are not enough for Dems to win in lots of places, and that racism or stupidity aren't sufficient explanations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17IvumMYBW0
Oh also on the Chicago map in the linked article, in W Rogers Park at least you can spot California Avenue which basically marks the border of the Orthodox neighborhood. The other side is Afghan/Pakistani.
I cannot agree with handwaving away Trump's post-election activities. We only won by one vote in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and that was a Republican who stood fast. We could have easily have lost in the Michigan Supreme Court -- although the margin there is probably enough to withstand confusion. More abstractly, what Trump and his following is doing is doubling and tripling down on white supremacy; ho-hum reactions only serve to normalize this. This time around, it looks like we're going to get away with it, but who knows about the future.
The bigger point, though, is the unspoken assumption that we didn't do as well as we might have done because Pelosi, Hoyer, and Schumer are old, and not radical enough. This is think is really whistling past the graveyard -- I agree that we have a political problem, but it's not that Dem leadership is old and out of touch, but that a whole lot of people want white supremacist authoritarianism. This isn't because they don't think Trump is serious, or it's just for the rubes, or the grown-ups would restrain him, or whatever else people told themselves in 2016. Trumpism was itself on the ballot, in its full naked glory. And got more votes than any candidate ever before. If Trump had actually done infrastructure week, and proposed a health plan that worked (maybe lowering the Medicare age to 50) he might well have been able to win. Hell, if he'd acted like a decent leader on the coronavirus he might well have been able to win. This doesn't have anything to do with Nancy Pelosi, AOC, or Jimmy Dore: as a society we're just about asshole enough to go with Trumpism.
14 to second link in 3. Which is worth clicking through.
I think I'm done with politics. I haven't been this depressed about politics since at least 2004. I mean, I will keep voting the same way I always have every election, but I no longer believe politics is a plausible vehicle for positive change. It just shouldn't be this hard to help people.
14. Fair points, but I think not mutually exclusive with an unfocused D agenda and mediocre candidates. I personally don't think "not radical enough" is a useful criticism of pretty much any D candidate or officeholder-- OK maybe Lieberman. Would we rather Manchin or Cuellar switched parties? not me.
Don't think the reasoning in 14 explains Pilsen's vote shift (solid middle class Mexican neighborhood in Chicago near much worse neighborhoods of varying ethnic complections, with some lovely old buildings, mostly well-preserved and cared for).
Just to throw a question out there- no matter how much Trump fucked up his numbers never moved. But everyone says that if he'd just managed COVID better or passed a decent health care plan or gotten stimulus checks in October he would have won. Is there any reason to think the needle would have moved in the other direction when it was so impervious to events that should have hurt him? Is the assumption that his base can't possibly be moved but that people who voted against him are persuadable, and if so why assume that?
14: I agree the inherent authoritarianism of a lot of Americans is a major driver, but I'm not ready to move Democratic choices and habits out of the analytic frame. The latter we have more control over, even if the former has more impact.
18: Obviously it's very hard to quantify, but some concrete evidence for the counterfactual is that Trump's average net approval rating did climb noticeably over March, from -9 at the beginning of the month to -4 at the end (the peak, after which it fell). On election day it was -7.5. Seems to me like the traditional rally-round-the-flag effect, if obviously more attenuated than in prior decades.
(The last time his net approval as president had been that high was the post-inauguration honeymoon - March 2017.)
18 I say that because the margins in WI, AZ, GA were just noise, and a small bump makes the difference. PA was a bigger margin, but I think he might have done just well enough there too. He didn't need much of a move of the national needle to win this thing. And he did had a brief bump in the spring during the 3 days or whatever that he took the pandemic seriously.
He could lose his base by fucking up, but what's to say he couldn't win, I don't know, a slightly larger portion of suburban women with long histories of voting Republican, by giving them even just a smallish reason? I don't know, but I would not be surprised at all if there were enough Romney/Biden voters to have won him enough states to have won the thing.
I agree that this does not answer the OP. I'd love to know what non-Cuban Latinos see in the guy.
Every minority group in this country --- including Black & Native folks! --- has some subculture that believes *they* are the next group that will be integrated into American nationalist right-wing whiteness, if they just play their cards right, and the rest of the minority groups lose. They get pleasure from white supremacists put downs of other groups; they engage principally with that facet of the white right wing that is most okay with their ethnicity and are selectively deaf or rationalizing about Trump's insults to their own ethnic group; they particularly despise the (poorer/low status/ low caste/whatever) liberal complement of their own group for fucking things up and "making us look bad". Islamaphobic, casteist Hindutva Desis (not even just Indian anymore!) get to indulge in Sinophobia and Anti-Blackness while clinging to HHS's Cruella Deville; Indophobic Chinese Americans get to indulge in Indophobia, Islamaphobia, and anti-Blackness while clinging to Elaine Chao; AntiBlack, anti-Indigenousness, AntiAsian mostly white LatinX while clinging to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio; Xenophobic Conservative Blacks cling to Candace Owens; etc. etc. etc. The Democrats have been building a big multicultural tent of solidarity and cross-group empathy, and the Republicans have taken advantage of targeted media to build one of disdain.
It's particularly bad among groups that have been historically dominated by Cold-War refugees: Vietnamese, Central Asian, Taiwanese, El Salvador. There are baby boomers in those groups who have deeply internalized anti-Blackness and associate Black radicalism with communism. They associated HRC with Bill Clinton being tough on crime and good for the economy. And they bought the (to us crazy) line that Biden (*and Harris!*) will defund the police.
Obviously I have no hard data backing this up. Based mostly on FB lurking and commiserating with friend from various backgrounds bemoaning run-ins with these subcultures, especially among parents and aunts and uncles.
The important thing, however, is that they *are* subcultures.( I think Vietnamese Americans are the only minority ethnic group that ever polled majority for Trump. ) And they are older subculture. A lot of them never even cared to vote before, but they are really angry at Newsom and Cuomo for shutting down business. And there is tremendous awareness in all the communities. So we all know we have work to do now. Either change their minds or figure out better ways of campaigning so we don't accidentally spend resources on getting out their vote.
A comic on one person's experience, significantly in line with 23.
23 should have in the mix misogyny too though, presumably. A concrete benefit for non-white men of moderate means.
9: On the whole, I don't think these are working class people of color. Except maybe plumbers. I don't know what it is about plumbing. I think it is often UMC business owners: families on the low end of the highest tax bracket. Landlords, chain-store owners, private practice doctors. And I totally agree with me in #4: liberals are far too negligent of local politics.
25: Oh absolutely. Including misogyny from *women*. Whether it's slut-shaming couched as abortion-repulsion, poor-shaming couched as TigerMom-ing, or class-shaming couched as celebrating stay-at-home-Mom-ing, so so so much.
I cannot get over how many people have told me, with a straight face, that Kamala Harris isn't a real woman because she hasn't birthed a baby. (Neither have I. Or my sister. They know this )
liberals are far too negligent of local politics
I've heard this a lot, but really don't know exactly what the criticism is. Everywhere I've lived in the last 40 years has a happening local political scene. Now it's true that the New York Times isn't going to have a story about out mayoral race here next year -- and Rachel Maddow isn't likely to weigh in -- but everyone I know is going to pay attention, at some level, our local party organization will host candidate forums, out local media will host the candidates, etc.
I was less involved in Montgomery County MD, but lots of people were, and I don't think there was neglect in any sort of harmful way.
What should we be doing that we are not doing?
Curious: where are the places you've lived?
East Bay has an active political scene, but that doesn't mean it's good. People were out in the streets protesting police brutality in 2014 and 2015, and almost all the relevant city commission and council meetings were basically empty, getting minimal press coverage. Local political journalism has completely withered. School districts that are clearly badly run pay lipservice to the basics of liberal diversity platitudes, and end up doing damage to them in the long run by association.
To go back to 4, what is it that you imagine a *party* can do about this? Parties don't have power. They schedule the fundraising picnic. They serve as a venue for people to get to know each other. Office holders don't serve at the sufferance of party people, but because they are elected. Yes, a Schumer has the authority to tell a Feinstean that he's not going to let her chair an important committee but (a) this isn't 'the party' its the exercise of pawer he has from other members and (b) neither he nor anyone else can make her retire.
No one in the national party can tell the mayor of Baltimore anything.
s/feculent horce/feculent horde/
off-by-one in the up-down axis (on the keyboard).
30 I lived in Berkeley briefly in the late 70s -- there was some kind of local politics thing I took part in, but I honestly don't remember what it was. I was more interested in being a teenager. Since then I lived in various places in Montana in the 80s, MontCo MD in the 90s and 00s, and here in Missoula Montana since 2009.
30 I don't understand why you wouldn't want to get city/county government involved on police brutality. They're the one who have to make the change, not ransom passers-by in the streets. Demonstrations are great, but don't they only work if there's an ask of some kind? And isn't the ask a change in municipal policy?
23 is right. Everywhere but the US until now, in-group ethnicity is a continuum, and moving up a step matters. Even in the US, the legacy of slavery in practice means not-black and not-native is the relevant ethnicity, whic until recently has been pretty synonymous with white. Maybe being Mexican in places the US conquered in 1848 is a special case that deserves its own treatment.
29, 31. I don't know what the national party can do to fix Baltimore, but shitty local politics explains Pilsen in my opinion, which is the OP.
off the top of my head-- Leak the finances of especially shitty actors or encourage prosecution after a quiet warning to go away? Weigh in on primaries less hamhandedly than AOC did? Obvs not by current senior dems.
Part of the answer to "Why Trump?" has to answer the question "Why Trump and not Cruz or Rubio or Christie or Romney or McCain or Jeb?"
Some folks say that, as with all failed presidential candidates and former presidents, Trump will fade away. I don't believe it. His age and health may well become issues, but he (or his assigned heirs) will be kingmakers in the Republican Party for the foreseeable future (which admittedly isn't that far into the future). Romney, McCain, Dole and HW Bush are not proper precedents, nor were W Bush or Clinton or Obama. Trump has always been doing something different.
Trump tells the Hispanics who regard other Hispanics with contempt: "It's okay to feel that way," and he wins people over who were embarrassed about that feeling in 2016. Normal inhibitions get loosened for everybody in an environment like this. The Overton Window moves.
Ever see the Sayles movie Lone Star? If memory serves, it explores the contempt that established immigrants along the Texas border (or their descendants) have for more recent arrivals. Trump did much better converting Hispanics along the Texas border than he did elsewhere, I hear.
I think maybe McCain might be dead, but still I'd prefer him to Cruz.
1 is sort of grimly right, 4 is right, Ile is super duper right, and Walt, I feel you at 16 too. A couple of things: a) remember that Trump did indeed preside over a period of economic growth which ended in a way that he could plausibly spin as an act of god, and people from all walks of life, particularly from not-terribly-democratic countries, are pragmatic about leadership; b) there really was tons of targeted misinformation in Spanish-language media in particular during the election. I think there is also the Republican businessmen-and-generals branding that gives them a halo of relatable, manly competence.
The country is very divided.
I don't know about generals, but whatever the capitalism enthusiasts of the internet have to say about socialism, the people running actual businesses seem to like me just fine.
Well, of course they like you, Moby. We all do.
And I like you. But there's no getting around the fact that big business is paying me way more than big liberalism did at the university.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGz0vOdTTg0
Hey Charley, speaking of the WI Supreme Court, Shirley Abrahamson just passed away. What a year.
Various East Asian groups who dislike PRC leadership reflexively like Trump because he's 'tough on China'. I'm thinking principally of anti-KMT Taiwanese and pro-democracy Hongkongers. This is obviously a separate phenomenon from the attitudes of Cubans, Vietnamese, etc. mentioned by Ile, which makes me unsure that a unified explanation is forthcoming. I do think the aspiration to whiteness is a real thing that makes some from these groups discount the danger of white supremacy.
I don't get it. Trump hasn't done shit to be tough on China.
I'm not doubting you that they believe it, but Trump has done so little for Hong Kong it's going to be permanent stain on our credibility in Asia.
Trump's trade protectionism has been severe and has had a meaningful impact on China, particularly. The TikTok thing, which also involves other Chinese companies, is being done on "national security" grounds, and also sucks for China.
Some percentage of Taiwan voters are going to endorse more-or-less random cruelty to China, regardless of how folks in Hong Kong are treated, because the issue for them is guilt-free contempt, not communism or tyranny or whatever. I've got some personal experience observing Cuban anti-Hispanic racism ("I can say that because I'm Hispanic."). Exile from Cuba certainly selected for anti-Communists, sure, but probably also for people with some pretty unsavory knock-on attitudes. Trump isn't really much on anti-Communism, but he's big on loathing for one's inferiors. People can relate to that.
There is the whole Epoch Times thing too, speaking of misinformation. I will never find this reference now, but I remember reading a conversation on Twitter about how it's had a Fox-like effect on the interlocutors' older Chinese-American parents.
I think Elke's "his parents voted for Trump!!!!" classmate was a member of the Tibetan diaspora in the East Bay.
I don't think it's uncharitable to assume that when people want a president to "get tough" on a particular country, they mostly mean him slagging them off rather than doing anything concrete.
Re: Hong Kong
I have a friend who's a Hong Konger: as in, grew up there, parents still live there, ditto extended family. He tells me that when he talks with his friends & fam back home, it's really clear that they love Trump, and that they love him b/c they think he stands up for HK against the PRC. He is regularly excoriated for being a sellout, b/c ... well, he doesn't support Trump. I know: surreal. We've discussed it at length, and my conclusion (I think it's his, too) is that HK has so few friends, so few people sticking up for them, and they're in such extremis, that anybody who does anything for them, is greeted as a saviour. He told me that he'd been interviewed for a program about HKers living abroad, and the interviewer was *brutal* towards him, b/c he didn't support Trump (needless to say, the interviewer did). And this seems very common on the informal digital media in HK -- it's not merely coming from officialdom.
Moby, I'm certainly not disagreeing with you: just passing along what my friend told me. Certainly, we've got a black mark, and we need to do what we can for the people of HK. Me, I imagine a massive sealift to get them all over here. Because I can't see the PRC backing down. Really can't see it.
One thing that bugs me about these kind of articles is the presumption that the minority vote is obviously left, and that any deviation must be explained (e.g., the nyt citing machismo as a reason some Hispanics planned to vote for Trump.). But if you set race to the side for a moment, and slice the demographics by "small business owner" or "some college, didn't finish" or "college graduate" it looks more like Republicans underperform with suburban Asians (e.g.) relative to similarly placed whites. That's a different sort of article.
34: Sorry I left. I got kind of sick and missed JM's memorial. :(
It's not the party so much as the people in the party. MC to UMC liberals who have a decent idea of what the problems are and what should be done, but don't have time and haven't prioritized being the busybody citizens to push and make it happen. My point is that even if the demonstrators have a specific ask, there's a break down in the communication between them and the bulk of the influential and potentially influencable citizenry because there's no coverage of the systems being discussed and the latter have abdicated all interest in and participation in them.
if you set race to the side for a moment
This feels simultaneously like a great point and not quite right: it's hard to set it aside because the candidate in question made such a thing of it. But like Ile says, maybe Mexicans voting for Trump is Chris Rock hating on ni**ers, so determinedly ignoring race is a way to signal (to yourself, if to no one else) that he doesn't mean you.
Mostly, I want more polls and data about this, because it feels like there are a dozen different groups that like Trump with three dozens reasons between them, and I'm so tired of the Twitter "it's a racial backlash and if you say otherwise you're the real racist" vs. "it's economic anxiety and you're a wokescold!" arguments.
Surely, any discussion of Trump overperforming with some group has to consider what impact literally sending them cheques signed in his name might have had. I was honestly surprised how unpopular he managed to remain despite the cheques! People talk about low-information voters, but if you want a message that will cut through with people who aren't paying attention to politics...
[further development of this idea is left as an exercise to the reader, but honestly, the Ds need more than anything else to demonstrate a clear link between voting and improvement, and putting Biden and Pelosi's faces on the new round of cheques would be nothing but a good start.]
To think I used to make fun of Byrd for sticking his name on every building in West Virginia over 10,000 square feet in size. But it worked.
Mostly, I want more polls and data about this,
There is plenty of data out there, but its value is limited. There is certainly no shortage of evidence that racism, sexism and xenophobia are important components of Trump's appeal.
Jonathan Haidt, after a rigorous examination of data, found that conservatives aren't so much motivated by racial animus or other base motives, if you ask conservatives. I'm sure that finding still holds up brilliantly, but I find it unsatisfying.
The question we're asking here is: What do Trumpists get out of Trumpism? Folks who emphasize Trump's racism are focusing on the impact of Trumpism -- on its victims -- rather than the motives of its adherents.
And why not? Fuck the Trumpists. Who wants to wade in the sewage in their heads?
I do! What Trumpists get out of Trumpism is freedom. Freedom from shame, as I said above, but you could also express that as freedom from responsibility. Freedom from judgment.
Most folks -- even most committed Trumpists -- don't want all the freedom that Trump gives them. But the underlying principle of Trumpists is that they ought not be judged for transgressions against factuality and decency. It's up to them to decide what's right and wrong, using whatever criteria they'd like to use. Freedom of conscience sometimes means freedom from conscience. Trump gives them that.
57: This is all very convincing, and then it occurs to me that for many conservatives the appeal of liberalism/leftism is understood to be that it gives people the freedom to disobey the Word of God.
That's certainly the history of it. Not necessarily wanting to ignore God, but wanting to ignore what the political leaders think God wants.
57: Correct. Somewhere I saw it as finally freeing Christians from the lingering guilt of the Sermon on the Mount.
A further step in the ongoing evolution of Christianity The Good Parts if you are a selfish nihilistic fuckwad.
For the shifts, I do think the power of the incumbency in general (checks are a specific example) in what for the most part was a continuing economic expansion.
I do think the checks likely did something, but I'm not sure how one gets hard data supporting that counterfactual.
It's also the same thing we said about the 2016 result - with everything so close, half a dozen factors could have shifted results enough in key states to swing the election one way, and half a dozen could have done the other way, all at once, for a total dozen (or whatever, 2X) factors all decisive.
I've now read the piece and it's astonishing that the NYT doesn't mention checks, superdole, or any theory of material causation whatsoever. A Sanders organizer is quoted at the very end mentioning Trump spending money but it's not clear whether he means checks or campaign spending.
Like, really? I mean, if you're steeped in American political culture you might go "huh, a $600 check from that guy? I'll cash it and vote against the bastard with the greenbacks still in my pocket", but if you don't know you're not meant to vote for the Rs because you're a recent immigrant and you don't pay lots of attention to politics....
||
I know I've mentioned before that Sen. Daines (R) had, in a pretty smart political play, introduced a bill earlier this year ratifying the CSKT/Montana water compact, and returning the National Bison Range, stolen in 1908, to CSKT. White supremacists in the area are strongly opposed to both measures.
Well, what do you know: Daines and Tester were able to get the bill included in the omnibus spending measure passed by Congress last night and sent to the President for signature.
We're frequent visitors to the Bison Range -- I suppose what this will mean for us, in the medium term, is that we'll be getting in based on our CSKT passes rather than our US interagency passes.
Folks who are in the area should definitely stop in there. But don't tell anyone.
|>
superdole
the action hero who refers to himself in the third person
58: I take your point. A lot of liberals want to be freed from certain kinds of judgment, and they (we) elevate that to a matter of principle. You should be respectful of LGBTQ folks, for instance.
But Trumpists aren't interested in absolute principles except one: Everything about morality is negotiable. Evangelical Christians will tell us about the clear, inviolable instructions contained in the Word of God -- about sexual propriety, for instance -- then vote for a thrice-married notorious liar and business cheat who brags about grabbing pussy, has sex with a porn actress and and has an affair while his wife is pregnant. Liberals perceive a contradiction here, but there is none. It is literally the God-given right of Trumpists to make up whatever story they want. Trump can be an instrument of God, if that story is convenient.
And Trumpism is a big tent. If you're onboard with the program, it matters surprisingly little whether you are black or gay or whatever. Ben Carson is genuinely beloved by a lot of Trumpists, but that will end the instant he gets angry about Trump making common cause with the tiki-torch crowd -- the minute he starts imposing moral judgments on other people. Trump remembers Roy M. Cohn fondly, and there is nothing inconsistent or surprising about this.
Liberals are the ones who make inflexible moral pronouncements. Roy Moore gained the votes of the vast majority of Republicans in Georgia, but Al Franken was cast out of office. Who are the prudes?
Personal accountability is liberal. You think people should wear masks in a pandemic? You are politically correct. When Trump talked about being able to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, he was laying out a fundamental principle of Trumpism.
I'm no theologian, but isn't that just Calvinism for assholes.
Is Norman Vincent Peale's denomination, RCA, technically Calvinist? It might be just based on its lineage from the Dutch Reformed Church.
You aren't supposed to past the Dutch Reformed Church on the left hand side.
Their theology still looks pretty Calvinist, especially the part about unconditional election and salvation through grace alone.
51 closely tracks with a good friend's partner. Hong Konger, family still there, gay, well-educated and well-employed, recently naturalized and cast his first presidential vote for Trump because he's broken up over what's going on in Hong Kong and thinks Trump is tough on China.
Trump is tough on China. Not regarding Hong Kong, but if you resent China and want to see it smacked around, Trump is your guy.
He hasn't done anything on the trade deficit with China. He's cut their exports, but they cut our imports by just as much.
I didn't say it makes sense. But it is an actual thing.
China wants to do business, and Trump is fucking with that. Is he hurting the US more than China? I don't know, but if I were in Hong Kong and thought that Trump was motivated by animus and not economics, I might like him for that.
A Hong Kong resident has more good reasons to hate China than I have to despise Trump -- and I have plenty of good reasons to hate Trump. Honestly, China's animosity for Trump makes me look at that country more favorably, and in the 2020 US presidential election, I was totally rooting for China to beat Russia.
You don't have enough exposure to soy bean producers.
Also, I don't think China has much animosity for Trump. I think they did things like they did in Hong Kong because they figured it would be safer to do so when Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the NATO alliance.
China likes order too much to like Trump, but they wrecked Hong Kong because they wanted to and they could.
Yes. They knew there would be no coordinated international response because of Trump.
2020 may have sucked for most of us, but some of the world's worst people had a pretty good year.
And now Trump's threatening to veto the stimulus bill because the checks are too small. He does have a certain intuitive sense for what ordinary people really care about.
Though he has no sense at all for how to govern effectively.
The House should change the 600 to 2000 and pass a bill. No other changes. Turn it into a showdown between Trump and McConnell.
Much as 45 has been a China trade warrior, he's always approved of China's approach to civil liberties and civil rights. When the Chinese government cracjed down in Hing Kong hus5 admin pulled HK favored trading position. The admin has made very few statements in dupport if HK people and even fewer actions. So it does leave me wondering how HK people conclude he's on their side. On this, he supports the Chinese government.
People mostly don't have the moral principles, or lack thereof, that PFD attributes to them in 67, imo, whenever they go to vote.
People are tribal. Catholic versus Protestant; Irish versus English; Canuck versus Yankee, and etc. Most people vote along tribal lines, without ever giving it another thought.
I just want to stop the shitheads from claiming my various tribal identifications/markers.
Not so much concerned about that one.
78-79 An international system with Chinese characteristics, if I may borrow a quote from myself.
86: I don't think the fact of tribal voting contradicts my point in 67. I was attempting to answer the question: What are the essential attributes of this tribe, and why do people join when they are not obvious candidates for membership? I was trying to answer the titular question: What's The Matter With Pilsen?*
*Which, by the way, is a great way to articulate the central issue. It really is the same question Thomas Frank was asking.
I suppose there are worse choices than naming your residents after a beer. I have relatives who live in Hamburg, NY, for instance.
The fucking government stole the terminal 'h' from everyone, but Pittsburgh for its back by beating up Pinkerton goons.
85 baffles me as well, and my only explanation is that most people make one judgment, generally hasty and ill-considered, on any political matter and never update their priors.
I think of Trump's whole thing with China is getting them to buy more US product.
His rabid following has convinced itself, though, that Biden is a catspaw for the Chinese Communist Party. I'm sure there's a psychological term for forming a fantasy belief to misdirect one's conscience from a strongly negative character trait, but imo anyone who believes that Biden is a Communist, in thrall to China or otherwise, is a borderline-psychotic racist.
Nobody "believes" that Biden is a Communist, except in the sense that they "believe" he is a motherfucker. These imprecations aren't meant as a literal description of ideology or sexual proclivity. (See also: Obama is a Kenyan Muslim.)
And if Trump wants China to buy more US products, he's going about it the exact wrong way. Trump's underlying motivation* is xenophobia, especially toward non-white folks. Trump is, as you say, a "borderline-psychotic racist." Luckily for everybody, Trump's racism has led him to disengage from the rest of the world. He might just as easily have decided to go kill brown foreigners.
*Any inquiry into motivations is impeded by the fact that you can't figure out what these people think by asking them. Gibberish and lies are at the core of their actual belief system.
I find it hard to understand what they do and don't believe. I'm not sure any of us have a clear handle on it. Some of it is performative, and some of it is the nature of the authoritarian follower to believe what their master tells them.
95. !!!!! The beer is named after a fucking place, it's quite nice. The houses in that neighborhood were built by people who came from there, are a nice reflection of the architectural styles they knew. It (Plzen, not the Chicago neighborhood) was liberated by the Americans before they were told to pull out, people there still remember that the crews of the tanks that parked in the square cleaned up after themselves.
I am still procrastinating.
99 I think you underestimate the power of self-delusion.
Trump's a racist, yes, but he doesn't have to kill people to get off.* If the Chicoms bought more stuff -- if he self-evidently made a better deal than Obama could -- that would have been victory enough.
* He does get off on killing, no question. Domination short of death is nonetheless sufficient.
Original:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plze%C5%88_Region#/media/File:Fountian_in_Main_Square_Plzen.jpg
remix:
https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/5/17/18628677/chicago-city-council-pilsen-historic-district
The political problem I linked in 3 covers the rules governing repairs and awnings for the Chicago buildings, which are mostly now owned by ethnic Mexicans who don't shop at Restoration Hardware, but people who do shop there would now like to buy in. I claim that conflict is material for the OP phenomenon.
The beer name is because brewers there worked out cold-fermented beer early, technically challenging before effective thermometers were available, also had good taste in where to get their hops.
I think a big part of this is that lying is incredibly popular and always have been. There's a reason politicians have a reputation as liars. But the Democratic party has moved really far away from lying, like they care more about whether they pass a factcheck than about whether what they're saying is popular. When people, especially people with less education, say they want politicians to be more honest what they mean is that they want them to just lie directly, rather than trying to say complicated true things. Just lie about how tough you are on China, just lie about how much you love Black people, that's how politics works.
99 I think you underestimate the power of self-delusion.
I think I'm mostly just tangled up in language. I want a new word for "belief" that covers beliefs that are manufactured out of nothing. I do understand how powerful that sort of belief is, but I think people get tripped up sometimes when they describe both sorts of belief as being the same phenomenon.
96: The fucking government stole the terminal 'h' from everyone, but Pittsburgh for its back by beating up Pinkerton goons.
They tried but it did not stick. Various things were Pittsburg for a bit. my favorite is the name spelled out as "Pittsburg" on the floor as you go in the old Penn Terminal (now offices and apartments).
All the other h's are still locked away by the government, stored in the basement of the New York Fed.
Anyway, if that's what they used to call the building where the Amtrak station is, I used to live there.
It's good to have to fear only the second worst.
Looks like Nancy Pelosi let the Republicans off the hook on the $2000 payments. She let them block it by unanimous consent instead of making them vote on it.
I wish I understood the House rules on that. My unsophisticated understanding is that the Republicans wouldn't be able to block an action supported by a near-unanimous Democratic majority. Were the Democrats not near-unanimous? Or am I missing something else.
112: I don't think so.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement after her party's measure failed that she would hold a full recorded vote on the proposal for $2,000 payments on Monday.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/24/house-votes-on-2000-stimulus-checks-after-trump-supports-them.html
You mean someone is uncritically repeating spin designed to make the Democrats look bad? What a surprising and unexpected development.
113: I believe this because it was "pro forma session" -
The House tried to pass the $2,000 payments during a pro forma session on Christmas Eve day, a brief meeting of the chamber where typically only a few members attend. Democrats aimed to approve the measure by unanimous consent, which means any one lawmaker can block it.
You mean someone is uncritically repeating spin designed to make the Democrats look bad? What a surprising and unexpected development.
I apologize that, based on prior performance, I have grown accustomed to expecting the weakest possible resistance to Trumpism on the part of House Leadership.
I hadn't seen the link in 114 which came out six minutes before I posted. The article I had read previously just said it was dead in the water and didn't say anything about another vote.
Nancy could do a better job of telegraphing her game plan here. I'm not really clear on the purpose of her call for unanimous consent - that was never going to work.
114: Thanks. I think that answers my question, too.
I'm not really clear on the purpose of her call for unanimous consent - that was never going to work.
Trying to make it clear that it was the Republican that were blocking it. But nothing can be made clear in this media environment.
But nothing can be made clear in this media environment.
And on the day before Christmas? It seems like she just created a bunch of confusion. I was confused. It will be clear who favors it and who is against it when there is a vote.
19 WaPo headline: House GOP blocks Democrats' effort to advance $2,000 stimulus checks pushed by Trump
120 You were confused because the author of the article you read seems not to have understood that this was always what was going to happen today, and that the full House was going to vote on this next week. Or maybe the author understood but the editor thought it too difficult for readers. Or not incendiary enough to get clicks.
That headline was being interpreted in my Facebook feed as "oh well, we tried, now we get nothing."
I'm not really clear on the purpose of her call for unanimous consent - that was never going to work.
The standard Stupid-Left line is that Pelosi refuses to stand up in big, public, symbolic ways merely because legislative failure is inevitable. (You want me to find a recent example from the archives?)
Those leftists are right that symbolic media plays can be a good move, but inevitably fail to acknowledge that Pelosi is happy to take her shots when she can send out an unambiguous message. That's obviously what this is. She advocates for a popular program whose failure is attributed to Republicans -- and in the headlines, not in paragraph 10.
CNBC (from 114): GOP blocks House Democrats' attempt to pass $2,000 stimulus checks
NYT: Democrats Push Higher Stimulus Payments, Citing Trump; GOP Blocks Bill
WaPo: House GOP blocks Democrats' effort to advance $2,000 stimulus checks pushed by Trump
ESPN: Dan Snyder says he's being extorted by minority owner of Washington Football Team
Oh, wait, that last one was a different headline that I enjoyed today.
Why does he always blame minorities?
inevitably fail to acknowledge that Pelosi is happy to take her shots when she can send out an unambiguous message.
I'm happy when she takes a shot, but my contention here is that she fucked up and sent an ambiguous message.
123: Here we again see the proudly stupid Left. Pelosi sends a message so unambiguous that she is essentially dictating headlines to journalists, but it's her fault that nitwits read those headlines in bad faith.
126: I'm sorry, but it's clear that she can't do anything right in your eyes.
109: Ah. I've always thought about it as an interesting place to live. Was it? (and I see that it's formal name was Union Station, but informally known as Penn Station since it served the Pennsylvania RR.) The current Amtrak station was just a small extension of the original station. (Pittsburgh had 4 primary RR stations in the heyday of railroads; that one, the one that is now the Grand Concourse at Station Square and one on the north side of the Mon right across from the Wabash Tunnel which the buses still use and another for the B &O RR on that side of the Mon.
96, 106, 107: It was the Post Office who were the name Nazis. Found a listing of the 1891 Reg that enumerated the standards; (I find them somewhat interesting.)
1) Retain euphonious (harmonious-sounding) and suitable names of Indian, Spanish, or French origin.
2) Rarely apply names of living persons; only those of great eminence should be so honored.
3) Avoid long and clumsily constructed names and those of two or more words.
4) Adopt spelling and pronunciation sanctioned by local usage.
5) Do not restore the original form of changed or corrupted names.
6) Use the most appropriate and euphonious name sanctioned by local usage when there is a choice of two or more names for the same place.
7) Avoid the possessive unless its omission destroys the euphony of the name or changes its descriptive application.
8) Drop the "h" in "burgh."
9) Use the word "center," not "centre," as part of the name unless local usage or legal documents require the latter.
10) Do no use hyphens in connecting parts of names.
11) Omit the letters "C.H." (courthouse) appended to names of county seats.
12) Avoid the use of the words "city" and "town" as parts of names.
You can call us stupid or maybe you could contend with the problem that a large section of the party lacks faith in the Speaker. You could call that bad faith, but I think of it as lost faith.
110: There's a guardian article or two up about it. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/24/the-guardian-view-on-a-brexit-deal-relief-that-leaves-a-bitter-taste
Parliament will be recalled, but hundreds of pages of technical agreement cannot be digested before the end of next week. The truncated timetable leaves little room for judgment between the options of rejection and rubber-stamp approval. The former would be disastrous; the latter relinquishes democratic accountability. But that is no surprise. It is how Mr Johnson does business. Contempt for dissenting opinion and fear of scrutiny are core to his political method.
"Euphonious" is nicely autological.
The official name of new York City is compliant with 12 although I assume that predates the guidance. (There are also a fair number of exceptions, although generally not for real cities: KC9s), Jersey City and Slat Lake City being the most significant.)
130: That is a problem, and I kind of wish that she would step down. But I'm not sure any of her likely replacements would be better.
OK, well, here's a woman singing a Xmas song in the Cree language. Enjoy!
134: Are you teasing us or did you just forget the link?
And this is my favorite Xmas song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5fLLmwN7Fs
135 Dammit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4rrLjA5TvM
129.1: It was a weird time because my wife was really living there and I was commuting on weekends so I could work at Duke, so I'm probably not seeing it in the full glory. Anyway, the units are nice (like 14' ceilings with most of that being windows. However, the kitchen was crap and aside from that one wall of windows it was just a basic apartment. Also, we had whole piles of boxes because we were moving from a house and getting ready to buy another house as soon as I found local work. The trick is to get in the two-story luxury units on the top two floors. And also to avoid getting a unit that has I-567 two feet from your window. I suppose they've probably redone the kitchens since 2002.
130: The form of that argument is interesting to me. Rightwingers no longer find it useful to structure arguments that way -- they no longer have to pretend to be interested in factuality -- but at one time, a conservative who cared about respectability would say things like: "Well, no, Bill Clinton didn't kill Vince Foster -- obviously! -- but the fact that this accusation seems plausible to people tells you something about what kind of person Bill Clinton is."
No, it doesn't. It tells you what kind of people Clinton's rightwing critics were.
I have lost faith in a large section of the party. I've heard so many "The Democrats betrayed us!" stories that turned out to be bullshit that I just reflexively assume they're false. I'm just so tired of American politics. It's stupid, and tawdry, and no one ever learns anything, and everyone in the audience plays their part cheering and booing at the two-bit melodrama that they imagine they're watching. The Democratic party base are better people than the Republican party base, with better values, but they're not any less stupid or misinformed.
Democratic politicians are a bunch of technocratic centrists try-hards who endlessly tinker with the machinery of state, when we need a more thorough overhaul. But I swear to God, they are the only people in the country who at least take the goddamn responsibility of running the country seriously, when what most voters want is a reality show with drama! and conflict! We deserve Trump. Every single one of us.
16: If you hate religion you can be the antichrist, if you're tired of politics you can be an anarchist.
(All answers may be found in the annals of Crass)
Police Navidad, everybody!
Moloch is the reason for the season.
Merry Christmas!
Saying it one last time before Biden and Harris make it illegal.
Huh: https://mobile.twitter.com/MattGrossmann/status/1342170829359083521
Both district policy opinion & symbolic ideology influence how lawmakers cast roll call votes; the operational-symbolic divide in public opinion explains why Republican lawmakers vote more inconsistently with district policy opinion.
Democrats approve of their representative more when the member votes on bills in alignment with their policy preferences; Republicans approve more when they their representative votes in alignment with their ideology (even if their policy-specific views are unaligned).
Republican districts differ only a bit on policy preferences from Democratic districts but a lot on symbolic ideology. Republican representatives vote more in alignment with their district's ideology, Democrats more in alignment with their district's policy-specific preferences.
That makes sense.
146: That looks interesting, but I'd like to understand the difference between "policy preferences" and "ideology."
The abstract doesn't really help.
NY Times gonna NY Times:
Answering Trump, Democrats Try and Fail to Jam $2,000 Payments Through House
In a brief bit of political theater, the House majority leader requested unanimous consent to accede to President Trump's request for larger checks.
The Christmas Eve gambit was never meant to pass, but the party's leaders hoped to make Republicans choose between the president's wishes and their own.
Is Baby Yoda going to eat all the baby frogs?
Ice eggs seem like a nice substitute.
I feel like an unreasonable number of people keep trying to kill this Baby Yoda thing.
How many shadowy, jet-pack-based cults are there?
Honestly, I were was wondering what Carl Weathers was up to.
Carl Weathers is 72? I hope I look half that good.
And that I get a role in Predator.
It's the Spinx-Jedi from the cartoon.
It's the Spinx-Jedi from the cartoon.
This is just good film making. The plot is transparently stupid, but it's great.
It's good to know the empire has tiny shackles on hand.
I'm not sure if it's live blogging when the episodes came out four weeks ago.
Does he get paid more now that you can see if his head?
Anyway, I didn't have time to get drunk and watch the TV four weeks ago.
If you show a beskar spear in act 1 you better jam out into a a super robot killer in act 3.
I guess the modern version is thinking you can stream Disney+ through your dental fillings.
The mcgiffin saber is the Elder Wand.
It's the guy from Corvette Sumner.
136, 137 those are beautiful, Charley.
I hope they tie it all together by revealing that Luke started his Jedi school as a result of this storyline and Grogu grew up to be Kylo Ren and no one noticed because he uses the force to look human. Han and Leia adopted him to keep it a secret.
Darth Emo probably stabbed him before he could grow up.
Anyway, my son said Kylo killed all the Jedi-trainees and given how long it takes a Yoda to grow up, he probably died in that.
Sure, that's what Grogu wants you to think. Why are you waving your hand at me like that?
The whole plot was a series of poorly constructed set ups to connect and motivate various action sequences and emotional triggers for people born before 1980. It was just a great movie.
Ogged: What is the matter with Pilsen?
Pilsen: This is the way.
