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PoliGAF 2016 |OT16| Unpresidented

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This is becoming such a tedious strawman that it's becoming a chore to reply. I am going to give you the credit of assuming I've not explained my case well enough, and I'd like to start again in the hope we might reach a conclusion.

Firstly;

What do you mean by 'coddling' racists? Practically and politically, what does this involve? Why do you think anyone, at all, is advocating it?

Secondly;

If people were iredeemably racist (your position, as I understand it), why would they be moved by protests? If a black man is killed in a protest, and these people are racist, surely they'd cheer? Why did the death of protestors move them if they were iredeemably racist?

You're not being strawmanned, he's just reducing your argument down to its basics, that it's the responsibility of minorities to hash things out with their oppressors. I agree with him, it is not. These people CANNOT be pressured by those outside of their "acceptable" classes of humans, because they already don't give a fuck about them. The pressure has to come from not-racist whites. Expecting minorities to engage in a dialogue that is likely to be a) painful and b) futile is ridiculous.
 

Crocodile

Member
This is becoming such a tedious strawman that it's becoming a chore to reply. I am going to give you the credit of assuming I've not explained my case well enough, and I'd like to start again in the hope we might reach a conclusion.

Firstly;

What do you mean by 'coddling' racists? Practically and politically, what does this involve? Why do you think anyone, at all, is advocating it?

Secondly;

If people were iredeemably racist (your position, as I understand it), why would they be moved by protests? If a black man is killed in a protest, and these people are racist, surely they'd cheer? Why did the death of protestors move them if they were iredeemably racist?

There has been a growing sentiment that we shouldn't call Trump supporters racist at all or that calling them racist pushed them towards their vote. This sentiment denies Trump voters their sense of agency as adults. To an ethnic/religious/gender minority, there is no meaningful, practical difference between someone who voted for Trump due to "economic anxiety" or because they were full blown racist. Our lives are impacted the exact same way. Trump voters CHOSE to vote the way they did and even if at best they just "overlooked" the racism, their vote empowered it. That is not acceptable and they have to own that choice. It can't be swept away.

Furthermore, its the lack of recognition that racism (and other _isms) is a spectrum and not a binary. Someone can be both racist and "redeemable" or have other good attributes and certainly not all Trump voters are "George Wallace"-tier bad. That doesn't excuse their racism however. I think everybody understands that in trying to campaign to these people, you should stress economic issues. That doesn't change the fact that they voted for racism nor does it change the fact that those economic messages may have difficulty reaching them if dog whistles like "MAGA" can work on them.

You also have to understand how infuriating it is to ask the victims to play the role of "bigger man". As if they don't have a lot of shit on their table already or as if they don't just want to live their lives in peace.
 
You're not being strawmanned, he's just reducing your argument down to its basics, that it's the responsibility of minorities to hash things out with their oppressors. I agree with him, it is not. These people CANNOT be pressured by those outside of their "acceptable" classes of humans, because they already don't give a fuck about them. The pressure has to come from not-racist whites. Expecting minorities to engage in a dialogue that is likely to be a) painful and b) futile is ridiculous.

But Crab isn't expecting minorities to engage in dialogue , he's expecting them to not shout "You're all racist/sexist/unreasonable/stupid/evil" at people while he (and people like him who are more likely to be listened to and less likely to be harmed) engage in dialogue.

And yeah, he's getting strawmanned a lot. Some Trump supporters are not fundamentally racist != You (a minority) should attempt to engage in dialogue with Trump supporters who are fundamentally racist and also violent.
 

Atenhaus

Member
I was honestly surprised at the amount of Trump signs that popped up a week before the election in Mill Creek and Bothell. I even saw a group of Trump supporters gathered on a street corner in Everett. It was one my first anecdotal warning signs that the election wasn't going to go as predicted. There wasn't anything like that for Romney iirc.

It brings me some solace that I didn't see a single Trump/Pence sign in Tacoma. Hell, if he would have chosen to hold the rally here, he likely would have been run out of town.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
You're not being strawmanned, he's just reducing your argument down to its basics, that it's the responsibility of minorities to hash things out with their oppressors. I agree with him, it is not. These people CANNOT be pressured by those outside of their "acceptable" classes of humans, because they already don't give a fuck about them. The pressure has to come from not-racist whites. Expecting minorities to engage in a dialogue that is likely to be a) painful and b) futile is ridiculous.

Except I am, because my argument is not that it is the responsibility of minorities. I think it is literally everyone's responsibility, to a greater degree the more you are in a position where you have the power to make change. That means non-racist whites bear much more responsibility, yes, especially non-racist working class whites. I posted that in this thread at 5:11 PM, over an hour ago, and you have become the third poster to magically overlook that in a stunning display of poor reading comprehension. However, while I don't think as much of the responsibility falls on minorities because bluntly there is much less they can do about it at the point they're distrusted from the start, a good position might not be saying "Fuck absolutely everyone who voted Trump".
 
Secondly;

If people were iredeemably racist (your position, as I understand it), why would they be moved by protests? If a black man is killed in a protest, and these people are racist, surely they'd cheer? Why did the death of protestors move them if they were iredeemably racist?
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People were still irredeemably racist. MLK convinced enough right people in federal government, and Gandhi through boycott, that givng rights to the subjugated is the only way forward. They did that through being antagonistic towards people who resented them. If the federal government hadnt intervened, do you think the racists in south would have realized gee, we are not a nice bunch?

Now I'm not saying we have a civil rights battle on our hands and I'm not demeaning MLK's fight for freedom. There may be soft Trump supporters, ie they are not gung ho about building a wall, deportation or internment. I dont think they would support these draconian policies in the first place, and wouldn't get repelled if I called their fellow voters who actually support these policies racists.
 

Blader

Member
To steal what someone else wrote in the Jon Stewart thread: not all Trump voters are bigots, but every single Trump voter accepted bigotry as a compromise for getting what they want.
 

studyguy

Member
Honestly I'd rather engage harder in what I did to help drive minority votes in my own community for Spanish speakers that are harder to canvass. That overall seems more a productive use of my time at least in my already hard blue state in adding to the voter pool instead of flipping votes. Like I don't realistically have any method of pushing out to disaffected white voters outside of CA.

Again it gets back to my point that minorities in rural parts of the country apparently have a heavy, metric shit-ton of a burden where they're likely outnumbered severely and likely have little rapport with homogenous white communities. I don't see this idea of flipping opinions happening in any meaningful way other than appealing to white rural worker's pocketbooks and at the same time boosting minority voter turnout.
 
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I don't think this is the result of people having their minds changed by personal conversations. This is just the slow inexorable grind of cultural change and population changes.
 

Crocodile

Member
Jon Stewart is right on the money. Don't look at a group as a monolith. There is definite hypocrisy from the left on this issue. To be fair, there's hypocrisy from both sides on this issue.

Trump supporters CHOSE to support Trump. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, LGBT, Women, etc. didn't choose to be the way that they are. Judaism and Islam are religious choices but they are strongly tied with heredity and often treated as such (how many people have gotten harassed for "looking" Muslim even if they didn't practice Islam or shit on from having Jewish sounding names or features?). This is to say nothing of how fundamental the concept of religious freedom is in our country and its founding. There is also the fact the difference in overall power dynamics. Ethnic/Religious/Gender minorities are the oppressed in the country, not the oppressors.
 
bb8ic2qate-wa_cbgc2ifg.png


I don't think this is the result of people having their minds by personal conversations. This is just the slow inexorable grind of cultural change and population changes.

Cultural change is nothing but people having their minds changed and passing it on to the next generation (be it via education, religion, family/friends example and opinions). That's literally what culture is, the shared ideas, customs and social behaviours of a group.
 
Except I am, because my argument is not that it is the responsibility of minorities. I think it is literally everyone's responsibility, to a greater degree the more you are in a position where you have the power to make change. That means non-racist whites bear much more responsibility, yes, especially non-racist working class whites. I posted that in this thread at 5:11 PM, over an hour ago, and you have become the third poster to magically overlook that in a stunning display of poor reading comprehension. However, while I don't think as much of the responsibility falls on minorities because bluntly there is much less they can do about it at the point they're distrusted from the start, a good position might not be saying "Fuck absolutely everyone who voted Trump".

Saying that it's the responsibility of minorities doesn't mean that it's not ALSO the responsibility of other people, but you're still laying it on them as well, which I feel is unreasonable for the above reasons. You cannot expect people to bite their tongue or give undue respect and civility to people that hate them.
 
bb8ic2qate-wa_cbgc2ifg.png


I don't think this is the result of people having their minds by personal conversations. This is just the slow inexorable grind of cultural change and population changes.
Also, for reference, for our non-American friends who might not be familiar and to add a bit more context to this: Loving v Virginia, the Supreme Court case which found anti-miscegenation (anti-interracial marriage) laws unconstitutional, occurred in 1967, right at the left end of that graph.
 
To steal what someone else wrote in the Jon Stewart thread: not all Trump voters are bigots, but every single Trump voter accepted bigotry as a compromise for getting what they want.

The Trump voters that didn't vote for Trump because of the bigotry are all either marks or hated Hillary and decided that sending emails was worse than endorsing murdering Muslim children.

They're not innocent, they're no angels.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
There has been a growing sentiment that we shouldn't call Trump supporters racist at all or that calling them racist pushed them towards their vote. This sentiment denies Trump voters their sense of agency as adults. To an ethnic/religious/gender minority, there is no meaningful, practical difference between someone who voted for Trump due to "economic anxiety" or because they were full blown racist. Our lives are impacted the exact same way. Trump voters CHOSE to vote the way they did and even if at best they just "overlooked" the racism, their vote empowered it. That is not acceptable and they have to own that choice. It can't be swept away.

I agree with all of this. I have never once argued that Trump voters are not racist. I've pointed it out several times, and you'll have to excuse me some frustration at having people attribute this to me repeatedly.

Furthermore, its the lack of recognition that racism (and other _isms) is a spectrum and not a binary. Someone can be both racist and "redeemable" or have other good attributes and certainly not all Trump voters are "George Wallace"-tier bad. That doesn't excuse their racism however. I think everybody understands that in trying to campaign to these people, you should stress economic issues. That doesn't change the fact that they voted for racism nor does it change the fact that those economic messages may have difficulty reaching them if dog whistles like "MAGA" can work on them.

I agree with all of this, entirely. Every single Trump voter either was racist, believed that racism was the answer to economic problems, just didn't care that he was racist, or couldn't be bothered to determine whether he was racist or not. That makes them all complicit in his bigotry. That's just the truth.

You also have to understand how infuriating it is to ask the victims to play the role of "bigger man". As if they don't have a lot of shit on their table already or as if they don't just want to live their lives in peace.

I also agree with this. Unfortunately, I don't see any other way around. Suppose I were to say: "Actually, let's just call all Donald Trump supporters fucking racist arseholes who ought to drown in that fucking swamp they want to drain so much". In my darker moments, that's probably not too far an exaggeration. But what happens as a result of this? Well, come 2020, we still don't have anything to offer these voters. And so they'll vote Trump again. And that means more police shootings. More black economic disenfranchisement. More restrictions on abortion access. So what good did it do? In fact, I'll go further - what harm did it do? Well, probably a lot.

I get that it's infuriating and demeaning. But it still has to be done, because the alternative is even worse.
 
maxresdefault.jpg


People were still irredeemably racist. MLK convinced enough right people in federal government, and Gandhi through boycott, that givng rights to the subjugated is the only way forward. They did that through being antagonistic towards people who resented them. If the federal government hadnt intervened, do you think the racists in south would have realized gee, we are not a nice bunch?

Now I'm not saying we have a civil rights battle on our hands and I'm not demeaning MLK's fight for freedom. There may be soft Trump supporters, ie they are not gung ho about building a wall, deportation or internment. I dont think they would support these draconian policies in the first place, and wouldn't get repelled if I called their fellow voters who actually support these policies racists.
MLK partnering with LBJ is one of the greatest moments in US history.

LBJ was brought up racist and still racist had thoughts but in the end he knew that doing the right thing was more important than the thoughts that remained in the back of mind.
Justice was more important
 

thefro

Member
But Crab isn't expecting minorities to engage in dialogue , he's expecting them to not shout "You're all racist/sexist/unreasonable/stupid/evil" at people while he (and people like him who are more likely to be listened to and less likely to be harmed) engage in dialogue.

A lot of people from these rural areas simply don't really know African-Americans or Latinos or Muslims or openly LBGT folks, so minds can be changed simply by being a good person and being friendly.

Not saying people shouldn't defend themselves if they get attacked, but minorities sadly have to be the better person in the exchange. It's not fair, but it's how the world is.

People getting shot by cops for no reason or getting physically attacked is obviously unacceptable and I'm not talking about stuff like that. But people shouldn't freak out over an off-color comment or someone supporting Trump.
 
I like how dumbfuck Communists on Twitter who spent the last 15 months talking about Hillary's emails are still complaining about Matt Yglesias and Jamelle Bouie for saying "no, the Communist Revolution will not attract the white working class."

33% of Trump voters cared about inequality, Communists need to join the real world.
 
Change is going to happen at the pace it's going to happen largely irrespective of what we do. The graph I posted shows the mind-share on interracial marriage never really had its rate of change vary that much. It was just steadily but slowly increasing for over half a century. It didn't jump way up during the civil rights movement or slow down. It just kept plodding along.

I mean, it's hard to remember but a majority of the country disapproved of interracial marriage as late as the 90s.
 
I said culture change right in my post. But not a good track record for the power of conversation if it takes 40 years to even break past 50%.

You'll note there's a huge bounce where it "should" cross 50 though. Going from very low % is hard (fewer persuaders, far stronger cultural pressure against). So you're already in the "good" zone for this.
 

Maledict

Member
Change is going to happen at the pace it's going to happen largely irrespective of what we do. The graph I posted shows the mind-share on interracial marriage never really had its rate of change vary that much. It was just steadily but slowly increasing for over half a century. It didn't jump way up during the civil rights movement or slow down. It just kept plodding along.

The counterpoint I guess could be gay marriage. Opinions shifted *incredibly* fast on that one, which cannot be explained away by generational change.Admittedly, some of that will be important people speaking out (see Obama's speech on it result in a significant rise in support in the black community), but ultimately a lot of that came from people meeting gay people in their lives and realising we weren't that evil.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
People were still irredeemably racist. MLK convinced enough right people in federal government, and Gandhi through boycott, that givng rights to the subjugated is the only way forward. They did that through being antagonistic towards people who resented them. If the federal government hadnt intervened, do you think the racists in south would have realized gee, we are not a nice bunch?

You can't even find an answer to that without having to use the word convinced in there! America isn't quite a democracy - you can get things done by winning over federal officials and persuading them to go against their constituents, or persuading supreme court judges to vote differently to the way they might have done in the past. So sometimes you don't need to change the minds of 50%+1 of the people - in a pinch you can get away with 50%+1 of congressional members or 50%+1 of supreme court judges. But you still need to change their minds.
 
Jon Stewart is right on the money. Don't look at a group as a monolith. There is definite hypocrisy from the left on this issue. To be fair, there's hypocrisy from both sides on this issue.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=223228871&postcount=18532

It doesn't seem in line with your pre-election thoughts. If anything this lends credence to the view that you thought Trump supporters were a monolith pre-election and you wanted undecided voters to decide if they wanted to be counted in that monolith.
 
The counterpoint I guess could be gay marriage. Opinions shifted *incredibly* fast on that one, which cannot be explained away by generational change.Admittedly, some of that will be important people speaking out (see Obama's speech on it result in a significant rise in support in the black community), but ultimately a lot of that came from people meeting gay people in their lives and realising we weren't that evil.

I think that's fair to bring up but I'm not sure how applicable it is to the racial context. The key was that people were already friends and family of gay people but they just didn't know it. Conversely, there are no minorities 'hiding in plain sight', there's never going to be a "I never knew Bob was black this whole time" coming out moment.

And I think culturally, particularly in the entertainment media, the swing towards normalizing positive gay depictions was way more strong and fast than positive minority representation. Well-known celebrities that people already liked and trusted coming out made a big difference.
 
I'm fine with this if Romney won't be a lackey and sycophant to Trump.

But ha ha ha ha ha ha Romney not being a lackey ha ha ha ha ha
We need the "You must be truly to desperate to come to me" but with Romney's face photoshopped on. It would've worked pretty well when he came out to try and get the Never Trump movement to work.
 
The counterpoint I guess could be gay marriage. Opinions shifted *incredibly* fast on that one, which cannot be explained away by generational change.Admittedly, some of that will be important people speaking out (see Obama's speech on it result in a significant rise in support in the black community), but ultimately a lot of that came from people meeting gay people in their lives and realising we weren't that evil.
A big factor there is that anyone, of any race and of either sex can be gay. Thus, despite homosexuals being a smaller part of the population, the fact that anyone you know could turn out to be gay and the fact that you have no way of knowing this until they come out to you increases the likeliness that people would come into contact with and likely know and be good friends with someone with gay prior to finding out that their gay. Racial and ethnic minorities don't have this advantage, since it's quite easy to exclude such individuals from one's social groups consciously or unconsciously since there's a visual indicator, preventing those conversations from happening to begin with. With gays, can't do the same and the fact that it can't be done is a huge difference to why one got accepted relatively quickly and the other didn't: racial and ethnic minorities can easily be excluded from one's social groups from the get-go, while it's easier for gays to blend and thus for people to have built up good friendships with people before even realizing they're gay and that being the case forcing them to struggle with the idea on a personal level that was never really the case for issues of race.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
I think that's fair to bring up but I'm not sure how applicable it is to the racial context. The key was that people were already friends and family of gay people but they just didn't know it. Conversely, there are no minorities 'hiding in plain sight', there's never going to be a "I never knew Bob was black this whole time" coming out moment.

And I think culturally, particularly in the entertainment media, the swing towards normalizing positive gay depictions was way more strong and fast than positive minority representation. Well-known celebrities that people already liked and trusted coming out made a big difference.

I agree. I think the LGBT movement had an advantage in that non-heterosexuality can emerge in any group - even rural America has gay children. So there's more chance that your friend, your cousin, your role model reveals themselves as gay when they were already in a position of trust. You can't come out as black. It's going to be much, much harder to do the same for minorities. At least in the short-run, though, we might not need to do that. In the short-run, we can win back those who are apathetic about racism back into our coalition by offering them economic stuff they want, even if we can't persuade them to care about racism. It's a stop-gap, but what other choice is there?
 
Ted Cruz just claimed Trump won a "resounding mandate" by an 'overwhelming majority of Americans".. losing the popular vote is now defined as a fucking "resounding mandate"?

He also called protestors idiots and hypocrites.

Isn't Ted Cruz the very definition of a "cuck"?
 
Ted Cruz just claimed Trump won a "resounding mandate" by an 'overwhelming majority of Americans".. losing the popular vote is now defined as a fucking "resounding mandate"?

He also called protestors idiots and hypocrites.

Isn't Ted Cruz the very definition of a "cuck"?

I'm pretty sure Heidi Cruz has too much self-respect to let Trump fuck her.

Heidi Cruz should be fucking other dudes behind Ted's back though because he's a fugly looking motherfucker and probably has a small dick.
 

Wilsongt

Member
Ted Cruz just claimed Trump won a "resounding mandate" by an 'overwhelming majority of Americans".. losing the popular vote is now defined as a fucking "resounding mandate"?

He also called protestors idiots and hypocrites.

Isn't Ted Cruz the very definition of a "cuck"?

They always call it mandate from the American people when the GOP wins a lot. Ignore the troll
 

Maledict

Member
Ted Cruz just claimed Trump won a "resounding mandate" by an 'overwhelming majority of Americans".. losing the popular vote is now defined as a fucking "resounding mandate"?

He also called protestors idiots and hypocrites.

Isn't Ted Cruz the very definition of a "cuck"?

Corwindoszy claimed Trump won the by the biggest margins since Reagon earlier. These people have literally no grasp on reality, nor any shame.
 

Blader

Member
I'm sure Cruz would have definitely thought the same of anti-Hillary protesters if she had won, and definitely wouldn't hold them up as true American patriots exercising their constitutional rights.
 
Ted Cruz just claimed Trump won a "resounding mandate" by an 'overwhelming majority of Americans".. losing the popular vote is now defined as a fucking "resounding mandate"?

He also called protestors idiots and hypocrites.

Isn't Ted Cruz the very definition of a "cuck"?

Ted Cruz reminds me that it could have been much worse than Donald Trump.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Trump supporters CHOSE to support Trump. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, LGBT, Women, etc. didn't choose to be the way that they are. Judaism and Islam are religious choices but they are strongly tied with heredity and often treated as such (how many people have gotten harassed for "looking" Muslim even if they didn't practice Islam or shit on from having Jewish sounding names or features?). This is to say nothing of how fundamental the concept of religious freedom is in our country and its founding. There is also the fact the difference in overall power dynamics. Ethnic/Religious/Gender minorities are the oppressed in the country, not the oppressors.

But they aren't all racists. That's the point. They supported somebody who was, and are responsible for any racism that occurs under his watch. That I agree with 100%.

That still doesn't make calling them all racists correct.
 
What a bunch of nasty fucks. For women to smear Clinton based on looks is another level of loathsome.

And wasn't Dinesh ordered to be institutionalized again as he hasn't proven that he isn't still insane to his therapist? I guess the right wing takes whatever champions they can get.

Screen_Shot_2016_11_17_at_2_02_26_PM.jpg


Screen_Shot_2016_11_17_at_2_03_42_PM.jpg
 
My friend just sent me a CNN tweet (@PrestonCNN) that Mitt is meeting w/ Trump this weekend to talk about governing and a possible cabinet position.

edit: here... https://twitter.com/deirdrewalshcnn/status/799317192747745280

Someone actually qualified for a position in the White House?

Obviously fake

I'm sure Cruz would have definitely thought the same of anti-Hillary protesters if she had won, and definitely wouldn't hold them up as true American patriots exercising their constitutional rights.

To be fair, we would have ridiculed the pro-Trump protesters.
 
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