Morning Ed: Politics {2016.03.15.T}
While liberals and anti-Trumpers pat themselves on the back for not being as authoritarian and being scientifically superior to Trumpers, it may be that the cause and correllation between personality and politics may not be what we think it is.
For the record, it’s often said of Republican politicians that they’re probably not personally racist but cater to it anyway, but when it comes to Trump I actually don’t think it’s true. Clinton and Sanders seem reluctant to call Donald Trump a racist. My brain knows that Jay Smooth is probably right here, but ugh.
Morning Joe responds to criticism that it has been subject to criticism for being in the tank for Trump. It’s… especially aggravating to me because Scarborough could have been a positive force in this primary and deliberately chose not to be. He’s not alone.
How Mitt Romney came around to his decision to go to war against Trump.
Ross Douthat argues that The Party Must Decide to tank Trump, while last year Jonathan Rauch argued that democracy is strengthened by hacks, machines, big money, and back-room deals [PDF].
Steven Horwitz writes about the politics of nostalgia, formerly the province of the right but having since infected the left.
A look at data and elections, from Texas.
The FEE article was simply bull and it painted a false picture of what liberals want. We spilled a lot of ink on this in the past but the liberal position so there is no need to reiterate it.
Trump and racism: My guess is that Sanders and Clinton are reluctant to go fully against Trump on this issue because they think it will just play into his hands.Report
So… when this topic comes up here, there isn’t a contingent of left-leaning folks talking about the supposed golden era of post-WW2 U.S. middle class prosperity and economic security?Report
Weren’t both Lee and Saul not-too-long ago waxing nostalgic for these past eras (albeit for different reasons, I believe)?Report
Not quite but a great act of misreading!!Report
You seem to think that writing for an explanation is equal to advocation. This is a strange thing for a teacher to do.
I was writing about why Trump seemingly was getting the support of the white working class base. The answer that I came to (and so did many others) is that Trump’s biggest bases of support comes from the communities hardest hit by globalization. For years, the GOP has taken advance of these votes while offering them nothing in return and possibly secretly convincing themselves that the white working class really favored eliminating the capital gains tax.
At no point in my essays did I advocate or discuss a return to Jim Crow, Segregation, anti-Semitism, open homophobia, etc. I merely noted that there was a community hit hard by various changes, the elites in both parties had no answers for this community (and/or any willingness to admit that elite preferred policies might hurt some communities or groups). This is a far cry from expressing nostalgia for the 1950s.Report
jr, the liberal response would be that there is more to economic health and wealth than having more choices in consumer goods. Many liberals dismiss the increase in choices too much but free market types are too into increased choices and ignore other things like lack of stability. A big part of Trump’s appeal is that many rank and file conservative voters hate the lack of stability brought by free trade among other things and want to add some economic steadiness to their lives even if it might be at the cost of goods.
Not on this blog but on other blogs, right libertarian posters have argued that inequality doesn’t really matter as long you increase absolute wealth because everybody will still be getting more. A liberal response would be that inequality is still an important thing to reduce even with absolute wealth increases because the unequal distribution of wealth would lead to concentrated power and ultimately even less absolute wealth for those not at the top That is what liberals are pointing out.Report
I mean, I still have this silly idealist view from the 50’s that increasing productivity due to technology would lead to greater wealth and more leisure time for everyone instead of the idea among the elite that that’s impossible and the proles should just be ready to work forever including at their 2nd job because God forbid somebody spend too long retired. I mean, a 68 year old blue collar worker might be able to make somebody a profit somewhere!Report
The median retirement age is about 63. It was not lower 60 years ago; it was higher.Report
@saul-degraw, @leeesq, and @jesse-ewiak
I am not trying to debate the relative merits of the post-WW2 economy and the economy of the last thirty years. If you guys feel that we’ve lost something important between then and now, that’s fine. But there’s a word for that and it’s nostalgia.
You don’t get to redefine words just because you don’t like the associations.Report
Liberals and anti authoritarianism. I thought that was funny. Like liberals are anti authority. Explain to me why then they always want gov’t to force me to do something “for my own good”.Report
Neh. Some liberals are anti-authority.
I’m not sure anyone likes the military being weaker than private corporations…
(no, not in America, i hope)Report
So where is the bright line between Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and military air superiority.
20 points if you can remember Kerry dancing with Raytheon.Report
I can’t. didn’t have a TV that year.
Was speaking of Japan, and Sony’s tank collection.
(No, I don’t know why they have one, just that they do — maybe for testdriving?).Report
Is that collection VR, or are there pictures, or is this a meta thing?Report
Real Life, believe it or not.
There are pictures, but I don’t have the pictures.
(I suggest searching the Japanese net might get you them quicker than asking /b/).Report
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_10
see a type 10, that one is Mitsubishi though, only about 80 of themReport
Steve Horowitz also came out with this lovely slatepitch:
http://fee.org/articles/why-is-the-middle-class-shrinking/
Now part of this is because the middle class is a vague and meaningless term but I find the libertarian and sometimes neo-liberal argument to argue for absolute wealth to be maddening. There is clear evidence that wages have been stagnant for decades. Many millennials are feeling the pinch of lower standards of living but no one can quite admit it yet. My theory is that Boomers and really early Generation Xers (people born pre-1970) took a lot of the low-hanging fruits and are holding on for dear life until they die. Lot of industries are still suffering from the Recession/Fiscal Crisis and hiring and wages are not back at previous levels.Report
There is clear evidence that wages have been stagnant for decades.
There is clear evidence that people do not examine production and income statistics, and say things like this.Report
Trump and Chinese Propaganda against Democracy:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/china-uses-trump-in-anti-democracy-propaganda.htmlReport
Hmm, whatever. East Asian democracies routinely have fistfights in their parliaments that make Sumner-Brooks look like the Lincoln-Douglas debates.Report
HRC spent most of her weekend alienating liberals:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/hillary-clintons-no-good-very-bad-weekend.htmlReport
On personality and politics… its not real science if there isn’t a pie chart that tells me what the answer is; I’ve been proper trained.Report
Morning Joe, being overtly a show about poltics on a network about poltics, should get a lot less gruff than the Today show.
Our home’s morning routine is to have on the last 20 minutes of the local morning news then the first 10 minutes of the today show during morning prep before heading out for work and stuff. I imagine lots have a similar routine.
At least 3 times a week for the last 2-3 months, Lauer or Guthrie do a mostly softball, often phone only interview with Trump during their first segment.Report
Will:
When you say
What does this mean?Report
I’m going to agree with rejecting the premise that Joe could be a force for good in this process, in that he’s long been on the outs with both the ideological base and what we see now as the other Trumpian Jacksonian base of the GOP.
Giving Trump quarter may have helped Trump, but being against Trump would have had, at best, a negligible effect, and more likely seen as just another Big City RINO (on the Obama News Network!) trying to be Establishing, and thus rebound for Trump.Report
The Trump events in Illinois the last few days have surprised me in the revelation of how little campaign apparatus he has, and yet he will probably win the state primary today.
Putting aside events in Chicago, Politico reported that Trump’s state campaign manager had been fired or sidelined (which is disputed by the campaign manager). Trump was unable to find any state/federal Republican politicians willing to help coordinate his campaign, so he hired a lawyer that specializes in ballot access issues to be the campaign manager. Probably helped him get on the ballot across the state, but he otherwise has a record of losing campaigns for local office and a failure to pay or file state and federal income taxes for five years. I assumed by now someone with more event planning experience would have been brought in.
And two nights ago, the campaign stopped in Bloomington at the airport, and people parked across a road in a graveyard, damaging headstones. A lot of fingers being pointed, but it seems to me that the campaign is being run by a very small number of people flying around in his jet, picking locations for a flyby and relying upon local volunteers and law enforcement to manage things the best they can.Report
How did we forget the 10th anniversary of the Duke Lacrosse allegations?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/duke-lacrosse-rape-espn-30-for-30_us_56e07e33e4b065e2e3d486f7?ir=Sports§ion=us_sports&utm_hp_ref=sportsReport
Well, there are primaries today.
The Hot Take that left me most depressed was someone (Ruffini, I think) pointing out that sure, Trump might win Florida, but Cruz was going to win Missouri!
I think everyone agrees that Florida is in the bag for Trump and the only question is whether Ohio is, given that Trump polls a little bit higher than he comes in on the actual day of the primary/caucus (and he’s polling neck and neck with Kasich, last I heard).
Yesterday, while driving home, NPR had some audio of Trump saying that after he gets the nomination in the bag, he can start taking it to Hillary instead of taking it to the other Republicans.
How many of the #nevertrump folks will soften to #okaymaybetrump once Trump spends more time attacking Hillary than Cruz/Rubio/Kasich/Jeb?Report
As you’ve pointed out, #NeverTrump only applies to the primary. 🙂
My guess is that lots of big players come into the fold along a couple of measures: they’ll rally around him (with some leveraged concessions from The Big Man) to preserve the GOP; they’ll align with Trump to keep Hillary outa the White House (their agenda as well as SC appointments require it); and outa individual self-interest (since being shut outa Power isn’t what anyone gets into politics for – except maybe Sen. Sasse).
Part of that process will require Trump to pivot towards the GOP, both publicly as well as privately, of course. But being that close to the Oval Office will bring the deal-maker outa him quicker than declaring bankruptcy to clear his debt.Report
That sounds about right so long as Trump gets an unassailable lock on the nod. It hinges on the convention, the odds still are that Trump can’t get the necessary number of bound delegates so things get really jiggy. If the establishment tries to give the nomination to someone else when Trump has the most delegates that might really screw up this scenario.Report
Big news of the day is that Trump finally has a majority in a primary: with 471 votes cast, he won over 70% of the vote in the Northern Marianas.Report
But in the Southern Marianas, which lie across the Rivera, it was closer.Report
And, far to the east across the barren flat-lands they call Josephs Table (or as the locals say, Jose Mesa) it was a non starter.Report
The people there as well be on the Moon. (I.e. they’re lunatics.)Report
If you want more proof that contemporary liberalism is nothing more than snobbery read this comment from LGM:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/03/donald-trump-is-unfit-to-be-president/comment-page-1#comment-1918162
These people push me more towards Trump every day. Why do they care how they people eat their food? These people need to be taken down.Report
There are threads on Republican blogs that are supposed to be humorous but leave me cold, usually they revolve around guns and killing other humans.Report
I find people who go dumpster diving in comments looking for things to be offended about sad, but funny.
Heck, I know a guy on another forum that I think actually follows a number of twitter accounts and blogs entirely so he can be introduced to things to get angry about.
Which is ironic, because what he hates are feminists and SJW and what he NEEDS is frankly a nice safe space for a lie-down, and maybe to have someone put some trigger warnings up. 🙂
But I don’t really taking people saying “Look, a random stranger in a comment section of a blog said THIS. I’m SO OFFENDED I’m going to X”.
Where X is literally anything, because bluntly a total stranger who you wouldn’t recognize if he walked up to you and kissed your wife then punched you in the face, said something you didn’t like. The response to that is, at most, to say “Yeah, you’re wrong” (if you’re interested in conversing) or to simply go on with your life without thinking of said idiot again.
What’s the point of going through life deliberately looking to be angry and offended? Isn’t there enough actual REAL things, happening right to your face, for that? What sort of weird masochism requires dumpster diving for more.Report
Fortunately, LGM commenters don’t have any power. It really is a far-out echo chamber over there. They consider *me* a right-winger. (And, don’t tell anyone, but I prefer my steak medium-well.)Report
Food snobs do have power:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/28/business/la-fi-happy-meals-20100428Report
Are they trying to take ketchup away from kids?Report
They are trying to repeal No Child Left Behind.Report
“Why do they care how they people eat their food? They shouldn’t have any power.”
Because those people are elitist tools that think only sensible “correct thinking people” think like they do and anyone who doesn’t, is retrograde, racist, homophobic, evil, living in fly over land, destroying the earth, etc., and must be made to think and do like the “correct thinking people” for THEIR OWN DAMN GOOD. I’m surprised the guy didn’t use the term “ammosexual” as well.Report
Um.
They’re pointing out how ridiculous it is for political commentary to revolve around what someone eats. Yes, they express their own tastes – but they’re not the ones suggesting that liking sweet food rather than spicy makes one unfit to govern, as the weirdos on the right seem to think liking spicy food rather than sweet does.Report
I detect a bucket load of snobbery in the comment thread.Report
There may well be plenty in there, I didn’t read the whole thread.
It’s just pretty hilarious that you chose to say “See, this is the snobbery that is driving me toward Trump” by pointing out a thread in which some folks – quite possibly displaying snobbery themselves – decry snobbery coming from the opposite direction.
OK, so BSDI is frowned on here. And yet.
And yet. Why does the snobbery of those in Obama’s corner, mocking ketchup-eaters, drive you toward Trump, while the equal and opposite snobbery of those in Trump’s corner, who mock mustard-eaters, doesn’t drive you away from him with the same force, such that you stay immobile while the snob-pressure from both sides makes your eyeballs bulge?
Could it be the snob pressure is applied to the back of a semi-permeable membrane? So, snobbery against mustard-eaters compresses mustard-eaters, while ketchup-eaters pass through it with little resistance and find themselves among those applying the pressure?Report
(Ran out of time to edit the above)
… and snobbery against ketchup-eaters works the same way, so ketchup-eaters are compressed and mustard-eaters find themselves passing through the membrane and standing among the mustard-favouring snobs without doing anything?
Actually, the two snobberies aren’t equal, really, are they?
At least from what I can tell, it looks like one’s in a comment thread on a blog, and the other’s on the set of a show broadcast across the country.Report
It’s just pretty hilarious that you chose to say “See, this is the snobbery that is driving me toward Trump” by pointing out a thread in which some folks – quite possibly displaying snobbery themselves – decry snobbery coming from the opposite direction.
The people criticizing Obama were saying he is being elitist, that’s not snobbery that’s anti-snobbery.Report
The conservatives on Fox were saying he likes the wrong thing on his hamburger, and proper men like something else on their hamburger. Anti-snobbery, check.
Meanwhile, the liberals on the LGM thread were criticizing people for liking the wrong thing on their hamburger, where proper men like something else on their hamburger. Snobbery, got it.
The difference is crystal clear, how could I have missed it?Report
They came across as snobs, are you denying that. That they had called Trump an elitist I wouldn’t have objected but instead the entire thread came across like a bunch of foodies ragging on the tastes of average Americans.Report
Dude, the point of hate-reading comments on a blog whose values you don’t share is to get some perspective on other people’s points of view, not to re-enforce your own self-righteousness.
hmm, let me rephrase. If you are hate-reading blog comments solely to reinforce your self-righteousness, that’s really pretty pathetic. LGM is actually relatively intellectual. So is Crooked Timber. If you want real liberal tribalism, try Balloon Juice, or Atrios, or Daily Kos. That should get your mojo working.
or, you could park the attitude, invoke the principal of charity, and listen to people who (a) disagree with certain of your values, (b) may actually not be irredeemably horrible human beings.
I read Dreher daily. I think he’s wrong about many things and I think many of his commenters are far worse. But I do it because listening only to an echo chamber of people who agree with you is nothing more than mental masturbation, and because I like being challenged in my values.
But to have my personal values shaped by opposing what Dreher’s group supports, now that’s just weird.
So vote for Trump if you want. You can pick any reason you want or none at all. But picking Trump because people you don’t like don’t like him is a really bad reason. You’re depriving yourself of your own agency. (Hence the joke around liberal blogs that Obama should forcefully remind conservative parents of the dangers of drinking bleach.)Report
@dand
Serious questions-
1. Is it the Fox crowd mocking Obama use of mustard, or LGMS mockery of Fox that pushes you towards Trump?
2. Does your resentment of elitism revolve around cultural issues, economic issues, or both?
3. And does it push you towards Trump and not Sanders?Report
1. Is it the Fox crowd mocking Obama use of mustard, or LGMS mockery of Fox that pushes you towards Trump?
The foodie sneering the way middle class America eats is what’s bothers me, that comment thread was full of it.
2. Does your resentment of elitism revolve around cultural issues, economic issues, or both?
Both but I have to put u; with the cultural snobs more (I don’t have enough money to be around the economic snobs).
3. And does it push you towards Trump and not Sanders?
It pushes me towards both, I’ll be voting for Sanders in the primary when I go out in a few hours but I’m tempted to vote for Trump in the General against Hilary.Report
It pushes me towards both,
I spent some time a few weeks ago at Balloon Juice reading up on the Sanders v Clinton dividing lines and one very prominent (because it was so frequently repeated) reason people gave for switching their support to Clinton was that they couldn’t take obnoxious BernieBros yammering at them anymore. Now, maybe that was just the expressed (rather than real) reason for tilting towards Clinton, but even then I couldn’t help but be stunned by the reasoning. Somehow, the logic was either that supporting Hillary over Sanders was a deserved punishment inflicted on BernieBros (which makes no sense except according to a really juvenile theory of punition) or that they identified on the “not-an-obnoxious-yammerer-so-therefore-Clinton-backer” side of of the divide. Either way, tho, the interesting thing was that they each rejected their preferred politics in favor of a decision-calculus based on non-candidate’s behavior.
Now, I don’t presume to understand the logic employed here any better than I just expressed it, but it certainly supports a more cynical analysis of what the act of voting means to some (many?) people: that it’s primarily about signalling and symbolism. Which isn’t a new or novel idea, of course. It’s just that I’ve never heard actual voters baldly confirm that theory by expressing the patently trivial reasons for their voting choices.Report
I suspect it’s human nature. If the guy trying to sell you X is an a**hole, you start discounting the value of X.
Because why would you want to be like that guy? Why would you want to buy from him? Deal with him at all?
I don’t think it matters if it’s cars, or politicians.Report
Yes. This.Report
There’s probably a dozen papers and a lengthy term for it. But good lord, the fun things you could name papers.Report
I think there is an important point here, about how the personal becomes political.
Having a bunch of snobby educated people sneer at our culture may seem petty and trivial, but its not.
Its the equivalent of separate drinking fountains and entrances, where a group of people are told they are not as good, lesser beings.
And its the sort of thing that leads to actual bloodshed, seriously.
Yet it is almost ineradicable, featured in every party and governing coalition. The New Deal harbored both black people and Klansmen. The Reagan coalition held both Wall Street plutocrats and garbagemen.
So a better question for today might be, is it possible for different cultural classes to forge a common aspiration and reach a truce?
Its really a question directed at Both Sides, yes Both Sides.
If we as liberals can grasp the indignity of The Redskins, we should be able to sense the rage felt by blue collar Christians seeing the government give its stamp of approval to Piss Christ.
And if those same blue collar folk are enraged by Kevin Williamson portrayal of rural Appalachia, maybe they can appreciate immigrants being described as rapists and drug mules.
In some way it reminds me of how most people have experienced bullying, being cruelly oppressed by forces larger than ourselves, at feeling that the entire world is somehow tilted against us.
Yet not everyone reacts the same way. Some people develop a keener appreciation for other victims, while some people are filled with a burning desire to be the bully.
IMO, Sanders seems like an example of the first, and Trump seems like an example of the second.Report
I’ll bet your just as affronted by national review then.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432796/working-class-whites-have-moral-responsibilities-defense-kevin-williamsonReport
I expressed my outrage about it yesterday.Report
In the past two days Paul Campos at LGM has written about the plight of the most oppressed people in the world, people who attend Ivy League law schools then get six figure jobs at white shoe law firms.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/03/the-game-is-the-game
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/03/since-2012-harvard-law-school-has-raised-tuition-502-faster-than-the-inflation-rate
Because no one is more oppressed than people with six figure incomes.Report
That’s a bit unfair to Campos. He’s also done a lot of good work writing about lower-tier law firms, many of whose graduates wind up with massive (like, six-figure) student load debt and no prospect of a legal job.Report
Paul’s point it that when even the well to do find no path forward at work maybe the ladder really is broken.Report
So, the “proof” that a political/ideological orientation embraced by scores of millions of people is “nothing more than snobbery” is found in a 50 word on-line comment about eating? One that explicitly refers to the folks on the right sneering at Obama’s food choices 8 years ago?
Man, you really need to take a critical thinking class at a reputable (ideally, private) university. 🙂Report
1) I hear this type of sneering all the time.
2) Like democrats didn’t go after Romney on a class basis.
Why does the contemporary left get so defensive when their candidates are subject to populist criticism.Report
Dand, It goes both ways. All ways, in fact. Conservatives sneer at liberals as a matter of course, as well. As far as I can tell, sneering is a bare fact of the the overly-politicized world we live in. So as far as the “sneering calculus” goes for evaluating an ideology (including the above the fray ideologies!!), they’re all square.
The part that’s a bit mystifying to me is that you continue to think that sneering is a domain which only liberals operate in. The other mystifying thing is that if you view liberalism as defined by sneering at working-class folk while some other ideology speaks to their interests (conservatism, say) then reject liberalism for conservatism. If you do, you’ll find lots of fellow travelers, on talk radio and elsewhere, who also view liberalism as entirely inhabited by condescending assholes.Report
Dand, It goes both ways. All ways, in fact. Conservatives sneer at liberals as a matter of course, as well.
I never said anything about conservatives, I was complaining about the high SES liberals at LGM sneering at working class Americans. Why is it that whenever I bring the snobbery of high SES liberals people always try to change it to something about conservatives?
The part that’s a bit mystifying to me is that you continue to think that sneering is a domain which only liberals operate in.
I’m not around conservatives very often; I don’t know how they think.Report
Why is it that whenever I bring the snobbery of high SES liberals people always try to change it to something about conservatives?
Because, in short, I think you protest too much. If it’s the case that all ideological orientations share the same amount of outgroup-sneering, then your thesis here is best explained by a personal grudge against liberals (since they’re effectively no different than any other group).
And what I’m suggesting is that conservatives, libertarians, neoreactionaries, socialists, etc., all sneer at their political opponents in equal measure.
It’s one thing to argue for the fact that liberals engage in sneering. It’s another to hammer on liberals for sneering when they’re not unique in doing so. It makes me wonder what the goal of all that hammering is.Report
Because, in short, I think you protest too much. If it’s the case that all ideological orientations share the same amount of outgroup-sneering, then your thesis here is best explained by a personal grudge against
Perhaps, but I don’t have to personally put up with it.
And what I’m suggesting is that conservatives, libertarians, neoreactionaries, socialists, etc., all sneer at their political opponents in equal measure.
I’m not objecting to ideological sneering, I’m objecting to class based sneering. Liberals can sneer at George Will all they want and won’t object. That comment thread was full of people sneering at working and middle class Americans for not being foodies that’s what bothered me.
It’s one thing to argue for the fact that liberals engage in sneering. It’s another to hammer on liberals for sneering when they’re not unique in doing so. It makes me wonder what the goal of all that hammering is.
1) I’m around liberals all the time
2) To I don’t like the way that liberals hide their snobbery behind egalitarian masks such as anti-racism. When conservatives are snobs at least their honest about it.Report
Dude. I have worked in the grocery industry for the past nine years. I’ll let you in on a secret: working and middle class Americans are foodies–at least some of them are. People on food stamps people buy quinoa and artisan lettuce, when it’s cheap enough. Doctors and Lawyers buy ketchup and microwave chicken nuggets.
The people on that thread aren’t sneering at middle Americans, they’re sneering at the conservative media elite whose picture of middle Americans comes from a movie they saw once. The people who pretend that the first thing your average Iowan does when they wake up is to go out to the barn and milk Bessie and Clairabelle. Who suppose that real Americans disdain brown mustard. Those who turn people’s entertainment and gastronomic preferences into tribal signifiers.
We live in the goddamn 21st century. People, even rural people, even poor people, are tapped into a network of commercial and informational exchange that spans the globe. They are not stuck living in some fake-ass version of the world in which ketchup is the only condiment. People in Oklahoma can put avocado on their hamburgers, even if they have to pay more than people in California for the pleasure. Likewise, people in California can eat pizza that isn’t gluten-free and topped with spinach. What a magical world.Report
Exactly. Every group Others. Every group has shibboleths and status markers. Every group has in-jokes and dog whistles. Every night there are auditoriums with Seinfeld wannabees peering down over their glasses at Flyover Country… and others with Larry the Cable Guy wannabees talking about how alien the coasts are.
Using “Group X insults other groups” as a reason not to vote for them is null, because ASDI.
Using “Group X insults this group that I’m a part of” isn’t much better as a reason not to vote for them – you’re really not voting for them because they’re not a group you’re part of. And you’re perfectly fine with what your group says about the lousy Xers, aren’t you. I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.Report
So it’s ok for white people to tell n—-r jokes?Report
I wrote… quite a number of words. They were intended to convey meaning. They apparently did not, because what you apparently got out of it was almost, but not quite exactly unlike what I had intended to mean.
For one thing, I didn’t say anything about right or wrong. Just about what is. Iago made jokes about Othello, and race as a social construct didn’t even exist then.
However, if you tell n—-r jokes, and are not Mel Brooks, and are at the same time offended when someone suggests what you might be if you own a home that’s mobile and five cars that aren’t? Like Chip says, rather than taking it out in anger, maybe consider that how you’re feeling now is how n—-rs feel at your jokes?
One of the big waypoints on my personal road to Damascus was some online discussion a couple of years ago – it might have even been on this site. There was someone I otherwise respected out of the blue slagging off (ex-) libertarians, or atheists, or coastal elites – some class I belonged to. I swelled with injured pride and righteous fury and prepared to vent my wrath on the hated foe.
Then I had an epiphany. Some people feel like that all the time. And that’s what Othering does.Report
Saul answers this question frequently. What many on the Right have done was to make people elitist for their cultural choices but not their wealth or power. Its a brilliant political strategy for them. A adjunct professor that like craft beer an theater is elite while a billionaire is not elite because he prefers NASCAR to opera.Report
I don’t think any billionaires are Nascar fans except for Roger Penske himself.Report
They might not be actual NASCAR fans but the present themselves as more down to earth for political purposes.Report
The problem with Saul’s account of the dynamic is that in practice he rejects it, since he has a history of doing the very thing Dand is griping about. It seems to me incoherent to say that sneering is defined by artificially constructed class-markers and then act as if your markers, unlike theirs, really do justify the sneering.Report
For better or for worse, I never denied being a snob. That being said the modern populist right seems filled with eggshells who think all of Brooklyn, San Francisco, Portland, etc. are laughing at them.
There is something in Dand that frequently dislikes even the idea of upper-middle class people on the left. I find this perplexing.Report
For better or for worse, I never denied being a snob.
IOW, you think your class-identification markers justify your own sneering.
That being said the modern populist right seems filled with eggshells who think all of Brooklyn, San Francisco, Portland, etc. are laughing at them.
It’s hard to square this with the earlier comment, Saul: if you admit to being a snob, and the urban folk you’re aligning with here feel the same way, then you actually are laughing at the working class.
Ooops, you switched the target a bit to “populist right”. I’ll roll with it: you actually are laughing at the populist right!
You can’t have it both ways, Saul, seems to me. You can’t admit you’re a snob then criticize the targets of your snobbery for finding it offensive when the intention of the snobbery is to reinforce class markers which think are objectively better.Report
A snob is not an elite. A barista making $30,000 a year in Portland is not an elite, no matter how many jokes she makes about rednecks.
OTOH, Dubya is a member of elite, no matter how much brush he cuts on his farm.Report
Saul answers this question frequently. What many on the Right have done was to make people elitist for their cultural choices but not their wealth or power. Its a brilliant political strategy for them. A adjunct professor that like craft beer an theater is elite while a billionaire is not elite because he prefers NASCAR to opera.
What’s wrong with disliking all elites be they in Wall Street, Hollywood or academia? The contemporary left may not like economic elites but they believe in power to professors not power the people.Report
Yup, professor have so much power they’re being replaced wholesale by adjuncts in policies pushed by the actual elite – billionaires who gain control of various universities via their boards and Presidencies.Report
It’s the whole “respect for the knowledge of people who have spent their whole careers advancing the state of their and the world at large’s knowledge” thing – clearly elitism on par with standing astride the world’s markets.
If I am denied access to prime river valley land that by rights ought to be a public park, because it’s been turned into a golf course that charges $10,000 a year membership, then those who hold memberships are elites who deserve to be toppled.
If my opinion on 18th C. French literature (gleaned from having read Candide and a Moliere play, I forget which one, in translation years ago) is denied the respect granted to that of a professor who has spent their whole career studying the topic, then that professor is likewise an elite who deserves to be toppled.
The parallels are obvious, no?Report
I just think it’s amazing that for the first time in my political memory, class warfare is the dominant theme of the election.
Just disconcerting that I keep hearing commentsthat read like some lefty rant from 1968, that ends with “…so I’m voting for Trump!”Report
Trump Brand is everything to everyone. It will be so wonderful it will make your head spin.
Just the other day, I was reading comments at another site from people that are worried that Trump is a dangerous fascist dictator in the making, so who are they voting for in the primaries? Trump Brand, because they think Trump Brand will help the Democrats in November. Everybody should get some Trump Brand!Report
Rubio drops out. That’s a bunch of votes up for grabs in upcoming primaries and 163 delegates (plus a few from North Carolina) thrown into the “uncommitted” pile.Report
Just today Rubio said he’s not dropping out even if he loses Florida. Which I interpret as him saying he’s not dropping out full stop.Report
Nevertheless, he didReport
Wowza. I didn’t see that coming. I thought he was going to be in it for the long haul, and not simply because of what he said earlier today.Report
When you’re in a distant third and lose your home state by 20, it’s hard to justify staying in. Looks like Kasich has Ohio, so the #NeverTrumpers seem to have a prayer of succeeding in their delegate denial strategy. If I have to suffer through a competitive Presidential primary in California, I am going to personally write angry things about it on the internet.Report
Florida is winner take all for the GOP, Trump’s win there is gonna leave a mark.Report
That was baked in to most assessments I’ve read (which show that 1237 is quite possible but not given). Eyes right now on Illinois. If he does as well there as it looks like, it’s a bad day for Anti-Trump folks.Report
Yeah it’s doable for Trump, but not easy. Hillary- for her part, really wants as close to a blowout as she can get since the next run of states are less favorable terrain.Report
She got it. Bernie might win the remaining two (kinda looks like just the one though), but the margin will be razor thin.
He’s gonna be what, 350 down tonight?
That pretty much demands a good win in NY and PA, in addition to a 20+ point blowout in California. I caught part of Clinton’s speech — she’s clearly already moved on. She has twice the lead on Bernie that Obama ever had on her.
The GOP primary has some fight left in it, the Democratic one is all over but the crying.Report
Trump doing very well in Chicagoland, and Illinois distributes most of delegates by Congressional district, so Trump is going to rack up a big delegate count in the metro area. Post-mortem in Illinois likely to wonder what dynamic if Rubio had dropped out earlier.Report
RCP has Trump currently at 619 delegates, though they haven’t yet counted any from Missouri or a good chunk from Illinois. There are only about 600 pledged delegates available between now and California, and Cruz is likely to take a chunk of those in western states, even if he gets traction nowhere else, so it looks like California’s 172 could well decide whether Trump gets the nomination.Report
Goodbye Rubio, I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong.
And on top of that, that’s the last of the establishment trinity down too. So now the GOP must choose between Trump- the nightmare, Cruz- the despised or Kasich- the maverick.Report
Alvarez (cook county states attorney) looks like she’s toast.Report
Activists have tasted blood. She won’t be the last.Report
We’ll see how much a person that’s still essentially part of the machine, albeit a different principal component of that machine, can do.Report
I just hope she sees this as a mandate to make certain changes. And I hope the community holds her to them.Report
My education on this is pretty much limited to Wikipedia in the past half hour, but her and Preckwinkle do seem to be the leaders of a reformist bloc. Tho unless Rahm resigns, Prekwinkle (and everyone else) can’t run for Mayor until 2019. Which is a *long* time for a poltical movement these days.Report
Trump just explained the lecture he gives to people who criticize him for failing to get 50% of the vote for not understanding “physics, math, whatever you want to call it.”Report
What does it tell us when Trump gets the words wrong more often than not and he’s still the most effective communicator in the field? And he is, I would argue, a more effective communicator than almost all of the punditocracy,Report
Agreed. Even the “math, physics” thing worked to his advantage. He massaged it into the view that anyone who gets hung up on the the werdz is a pinhead anyway.Report
Would an episode this season where Elizabeth & Philip Jennings meet a 30 something year old Trump be the most awesome thing ever, or would it jump the shark?Report