Turning Purple

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am saying that the stick is going to be a necessary component of how we get laws that both reverse voter suppression and end gerrymandering. Things are going to get worse and scarier before they get better.

I think you are very correct in this. The "peace is the only way, riots don't solve anything!" pap is sounding less and less true to me every day.

A lot of people are going to get hurt, it seems. But if "lesser of two evils" really is the only path to progress in this society, then a greater evil must be presented as the alternative to the lesser "evil" of treating Those People as humans.

(In case the FBI is listening, this hurts my White Male Feelings and I'm against it, for the record. Also, well played, pigs.)

I think that we also have to remember, and embrace, that these protests go way, way beyond race; they also involve immigration, LGBTQ+, women's equality, and access to resources like food and basic healthcare for those in poverty, most of whom are white and most of whom did not vote for Trump.

These protests are, essentially, for absolutely every marginalized and underrepresented group in the United States. This is something that we MUST not forget; we MUST not let it become boiled down to black vs. white or immigrant vs. natural born citizen or Muslim vs. Christian. Intersectionality, a word most of us didn't know eight years ago, is a necessary, inescapable core of these protests, and of the issues we face as a society now.

[maphdet]

Also economic division...but that's not what im here to say now...

It's all a cesspool of shit...every last bit of it. Sorry, Shit is such a big cluster of insanity-of an insanity that cannot even be explained its so fucked up. I do not honestly think there will be any solution any time soon or ever...or maybe there will be I don't know...the politics that we have known and used is not, has not, and probably will not ever work. No, I do not have any alternative to the current way politics work nor could i ever claim a solution could be put in place.
It sounds dim and whatnot but maybe it's just that way-dim. *throws arms up in the air* Through all of this the only hope we have is the generation that is younger than us....what i mean is---whatever age you are, we hope the one younger than us can "make things better"...sure sounds good. but that's just procrastinating and not dealing with anything for the now...but even so...my kid said something to me that somehow gave me a glimmer of hope in the younger generation (see what I am doing there- putting it on the younger generation again) anyway....shes asks me the day after the election when Race was the discussion going on all over most of the world (assuming)....she says "mom, why do we call it racism when someone is mean to someone who is not from where they are from? Why dont we just say that person is being mean?" I honestly did not have an answer...all i had for her was shit, that's a good question.

Sorry for derailing if that what my post is doing, not sure i am on topic here anymore in the thread...I just had to post a little something here for whatever reason.

Oh and a peaceful protest gets no shit done...just saying (they made sure that ppl were desensitized to protests, the occupy movement was the topper there)

[LMNO]

King needed  X... X needed King.

[whenhellfreezes]

Lots of people don't vote because they don't feel like its very effective, and they are right to feel that. Those who are very adamant or radical are more likely to vote in this system. This causes racists and others at the margins to be over represented. That's not particularly great.

At the same time there is the notion that real change happens from the bottom up. If you make something genuinely be the opinion of society then eventually it will be law. I like the knowing vs being told comment earlier. It might be the barrier in communication.

Unfortunately with the current voting system we may have to get to the point where the racists aren't just a minority but a vanishingly small minority to overcome the over representation.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Lots of people don't vote because they don't feel like its very effective, and they are right to feel that.

And that's how they get the government they deserve.   

[whenhellfreezes]

Lots of people don't vote because they don't feel like its very effective, and they are right to feel that.

And that's how they get the government they deserve.   

Now I feel a bit foolish. Of course taking the ~20 minutes to vote is worth it. It is more effective than other things you could do in that time. I should have just said that they don't feel like its effective but not said they were right to feel so. I guess I am prone to defeatism.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Lots of people don't vote because they don't feel like its very effective, and they are right to feel that.

And that's how they get the government they deserve.   

Now I feel a bit foolish. Of course taking the ~20 minutes to vote is worth it. It is more effective than other things you could do in that time. I should have just said that they don't feel like its effective but not said they were right to feel so. I guess I am prone to defeatism.

It doesn't really matter.  The right is in lockstep (or goose-step, take your pick), and the left all hate each other...So under our system, the right will gain more and more power, until they don't feel the need to continue our system.  There is no good ending to this.  It's irreversible.  We doktors know a hopeless case when we see one.

[whenhellfreezes]

Lots of people don't vote because they don't feel like its very effective, and they are right to feel that.

And that's how they get the government they deserve.   

Now I feel a bit foolish. Of course taking the ~20 minutes to vote is worth it. It is more effective than other things you could do in that time. I should have just said that they don't feel like its effective but not said they were right to feel so. I guess I am prone to defeatism.

It doesn't really matter.  The right is in lockstep (or goose-step, take your pick), and the left all hate each other...So under our system, the right will gain more and more power, until they don't feel the need to continue our system.  There is no good ending to this.  It's irreversible.  We doktors know a hopeless case when we see one.

Follow question is what conditions are necessary for the left to actually band together? Might also be worth asking where to put classical liberals on the binary spectrum.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Follow question is what conditions are necessary for the left to actually band together? Might also be worth asking where to put classical liberals on the binary spectrum.

1.  I can't think of any, to be perfectly honest.  At least not until it's way too late.

2.  Doesn't matter.

[Cramulus]

Another problem I'm having.

There's a narrative that "the GOP gave the voters a solution to their problems, and the DNC didn't".

There's something wrong with that assessment, and one that was a main part of the election season.  The GOP's solutions were bullshit.  Debunked, disproven, shown to be faulty, and damaging.  The Democrats repeated this, the media repeated this, the speeches repeated this.  The Trump voters didn't care.  They apparently preferred to be lied to, to be comforted, to be pacified, to be pandered to.

Repeatedly, fingers pointed to basic math, simple global politics, elementary science, and the voters decided that irrationality was more comfortable.

"Trump offered a solution" is not the truth. Trump offered comfortable lies.  The Democrats offered a solution, but all people could talk about were bullshit email servers.  Their solution wasn't great, but it was plausible. 

There's a story being developed now, heading towards "lying to the public is the best way to win elections."

We are living in the aftermath of the Perfect Storm. Its winds were the intersection of politics and entertainment. Its clouds were self serving media and poor media literacy. I think the current hydra has numerous heads, and there will be no simple approach - they have to be combatted individually.

I'm a pragmatist. I am mostly concerned with figuring out what specific actions will push the pendulum back to the left.


Since the election I've been keeping an eye on 4chan's /pol/ subforum (which is a disgusting place, don't go there) because I like to understand the shitbag's thinking in their own terms. It has highlighted, to me, how useless it is to appeal to some of these people in moral terms.



Aside from them -- I think that some victories can be won by appealing to people's better nature, ie, encouraging them to resist these racist trends.

But meanwhile - for many of the people who didn't vote blue (whether they voted Trump or just abstained),  that approach has not been working. In some ways it's made the problem worse. I saw Facebook FLOODED with these posts: "If you are voting for trump, you are a racist, unfriend me". And I talked to some Trump voters who said that kind of energy, over time, made them disengage. It didn't persuade them, it just made them tuck in and wait for it to blow over. And for those people, I think a different approach is needed.

I think about my Dad... He was a Sanders supporter. And then his property tax got jacked up by almost 30% in one quarter. Suddenly, his house was underwater. Once year after retirement, he had to sell his house and auction off most of his belongings. At that moment, he was reborn as a single issue voter: Taxes. And I can engage him about racism and he largely agrees, but that's not what he's basing his decision on.

So I'm not saying we have to abandon progressive principles and values... But I am saying that in the service of those principles we need better techniques, more tools in the kit.

I don't think that there's a single approach that will win working-class people back left. I think we'll need a mix of education, pointing out Trump's failures, and a healthy feel-good dose of Shaming.

Also, I think there is a lot of shitty liberal behavior out there, and that's become a narrative weapon against liberals. Though pinpointing that and addressing it will probably only further splinter the left.


I am also trying to imagine a news source which doesn't feed into the bubble-phenomenon of delivering the exact narrative people want to hear... Could one exist?

Because if a news source was CAPABLE of attracting both liberals and conservatives, it would beat out the partisan sources.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Lots of people don't vote because they don't feel like its very effective, and they are right to feel that.

And that's how they get the government they deserve.   

Now I feel a bit foolish. Of course taking the ~20 minutes to vote is worth it. It is more effective than other things you could do in that time. I should have just said that they don't feel like its effective but not said they were right to feel so. I guess I am prone to defeatism.

There were areas where it was five to seven hours. Basically, places where people had to miss a full day of work, if they even had the option, in order to vote.

I know I keep playing this fiddle, but THIS WASN'T ACCIDENTAL. This was orchestrated. Since the 2004 election, Republicans have been working furiously at local levels to close polls in poor and black areas, and to institute voter ID laws and other measures, like registration purges, to block poor and black voters, who trend strongly Democrat, from voting.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Mind you, nonetheless, more than half of the people who did vote -- and it was not a small turnout by historic figures, at all, DESPITE voter suppression -- voted for Hillary Clinton DESPITE THE FACT THAT MANY OF THEM DIDN'T PARTICULARLY LIKE HER. Despite the fact that she's a woman. That's some pretty fucking impressive unity.

[hirley0]

20161201 12:34:56.789  { jOKe

[xXRon_Paul_42016Xxx(weed)]

Since the election I've been keeping an eye on 4chan's /pol/ subforum (which is a disgusting place, don't go there) because I like to understand the shitbag's thinking in their own terms. It has highlighted, to me, how useless it is to appeal to some of these people in moral terms.

4chan /pol/ is surface level stuff. You need to watch 8chan/pol/ /leftypol/ and far right Twitter. Especially twitter. Thats where the magic happens.

[xXRon_Paul_42016Xxx(weed)]

Lots of people don't vote because they don't feel like its very effective, and they are right to feel that.

And that's how they get the government they deserve.   

Now I feel a bit foolish. Of course taking the ~20 minutes to vote is worth it. It is more effective than other things you could do in that time. I should have just said that they don't feel like its effective but not said they were right to feel so. I guess I am prone to defeatism.

There were areas where it was five to seven hours. Basically, places where people had to miss a full day of work, if they even had the option, in order to vote.

I know I keep playing this fiddle, but THIS WASN'T ACCIDENTAL. This was orchestrated. Since the 2004 election, Republicans have been working furiously at local levels to close polls in poor and black areas, and to institute voter ID laws and other measures, like registration purges, to block poor and black voters, who trend strongly Democrat, from voting.

So without these laws rural/rust belt America would have voted Democrat? Do you still not understand what the electoral college is? Keep in mind, rural/rust belt America did vote Democrat for Obama twice. Very interested in your theory of how Obama won the raging white supremacist vote.