The General American Politics Thread

[Tornado]

10 hours ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I frankly think that even if Trump isn't capable of being a dictator (I'm personally ambiguous about that), it doesn't really change the fact that people did vote him in, which really says quite a lot about the type of people in the country

"We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" was a drastic, drastic soundbite that she couldn't really walk away from because no one believed she misspoke when she first said it. It dogged her in rust belt states from the time she said it to when the votes started coming in; and as we've since found out the Clinton campaign/DNC was so arrogant that they had the area locked up anyway that they didn't bother campaigning there even in favor of pumping money into Senate races. Any time CNN or NBC or whoever sent a reporter to one of those states they'd find someone who was voting Trump it was related to that quote, even if they were unsure how much Trump could actually help or didn't believe in all of the things he was saying or were uncomfortable with things he was saying. It didn't matter that in context she followed it up with looking out for those people. She was effectively threatening what are fairly high paying jobs in areas that don't have many left anymore, and offering what were (rightly) seen as platitudes to try and cover her bases on it. Trump in comparison was all jobs all the time in that area. If it wasn't protecting existing jobs, it was bringing more jobs back through aggressive trade negotiations. If it wasn't private jobs, it was paying people for infrastructure improvement.

 

Then you have "basket of deplorables," which even in this election cycle of Trump calling POWs cowards was a notably stupid thing to say. And in context it was clear she knew it was a dangerous thing to say before she said it since it was part of an elaborate point she was making and she tried to diffuse the fallout before she said it; which probably didn't help her any the following day when she tried to apologize for it since people again believed that she meant it the first time.

 

So you have Clinton promising to take your job away and saying there is a ~50% chance you are racist if you don't vote for her to do so, and then essentially ignoring you because she assumes you'll vote for her anyway like you have in the previous elections; and Trump promising jobs jobs jobs and spending countless hours campaigning for your attention. Sidestepping the extreme unpopularity both candidates already had going into this election (which might have made Obama's election intervention on Clinton's behalf hurt more than help), you're white and have been lower to middle class living in a place that is generally ignored by national politics unless a member of Congress becomes particularly powerful. Why do you care what good or bad thing Clinton (or Trump) promises to do in California or New Mexico or New York or whatever or how believable people are telling you their promises are when only one of them is really attempting to engage you as an equal?

 

 

 

Yeah, ideally you'd think in terms broader than what you are presented with from the candidates themselves, or at the very least realize that Trump was spouting bullshit most of the time, but if you don't how does someone convey that to you without coming off as an elitist prick? We saw how well Hilary attempted to do so. And there was (and still is) no shortage of liberal-leaning echo chambers that were (and still are) all too happy to generalize everyone who didn't fall in line to vote Clinton as being a scumbag of some sort, which I'm sure did wonders for Clinton's popularity with the mythical undecided voter.

[Candescence]

With the coal miners thing, I think Clinton should have worded what she said as "we're going to give coal miners better, safer jobs - we're not going to take away jobs, we're going to replace them and make more jobs". A much more positive way of wording it that wouldn't have needed context and much, much harder to spin as taking away people's jobs.

But, yeah, the negative wording on her part was a terrible idea.

[Patticus]

The coal industry is dying anyway, what with the price of natural gas (its main competitor) being so low nowadays. It was a pretty terrible thing for her to say "we're going to take their jobs", though, as that just comes off as being callous and completely out of touch, but those jobs are on the way out anyway. She should've talked up vocational education, apprenticeships and whatnot. If I recall, those things are pretty popular in conservative leaning regions.

Since Trump didn't mention them either, and presumably has no plan to save Coal Country, there's a big opening for candidates in 2020 on both sides to capture that vote with a real jobs plan that takes center stage. I imagine that the Democratic nominee will probably borrow the content of some of his or her plans from Clinton's, since she has plans for everything anyway, and they'd probably be alright; they don't need to totally overhaul the party's platform.

[Tani Coyote]

As the DNC debates its next chair, looks like Keith Ellison is being dragged down by controversy, as activities from his 20s come back to haunt him, such as calling for a separate nation for African Americans and denying the Nation of Islam's leader was an anti-Semite. This is all in spite of the fact he is 53 now.

It's Robert Byrd all over again. The Republicans, despite the powerful influence of Christianity on their policies, continue to reject personal growth and forgiveness.

With Schumer and Sanders' support though, Ellison is probably a given. It would be nice if both he and Dean received positions though. Dean's excellent approach to the 2006 midterms needs a repeat for 2018. Doubly so given a lot of the Senate seats Dean's efforts won are the ones up for grabs.

8 hours ago, Patticus said:

The coal industry is dying anyway, what with the price of natural gas (its main competitor) being so low nowadays. It was a pretty terrible thing for her to say "we're going to take their jobs", though, that just comes off as being callous and completely out of touch.

Ding ding ding!

And more than enough to swing the vote just a bit to make her lose the key states. When you consider that only 50%+1 of the vote swinging from Trump to her would have made her win, the delicacy of the situation is apparent: in reality, she lost Michigan by less than 6,000 votes, Wisconsin by 14,000, and Pennsylvania by 40,000. It's fairly obvious based on national popular vote counts that most people preferred Clinton, but she pissed off the wrong people with her comments.

We can only hope this election serves to teach the DNC many lessons with regards to winning elections.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

The corrupt shit the DNC did when Sanders and Clinton were running should have taught them that fron the beginning. Here's hope they've learned something that will help instead of pointing fingerd like children.

[Patticus]

They do need to learn that their platform and policies don't need to be overhauled - just tweaked, with a better, stronger messaging focus and more Sanders/Obama style uplifting, inspiring rhetoric. Throwing the baby out with the proverbial bath water would be a monumental over-correction, and a bad misreading of the underlying causes of Clinton's defeat. They also need high profile possible candidate(s) who know what not to say, even in "private", but that's another matter entirely.

[Tani Coyote]

Part of being a politician is being more cerebral than the masses. Otherwise, why shouldn't they be running things in your place?

So while quite a few liberals and anti-Trump people were ranting about how racist and bigoted and whatever America is in on election night, a politician needs more tact. They need to look at what they did wrong rather than assuming America is this homogenous mass of people who hate minorities.

For example, Trump still managed to carry a decent amount of women and non-whites in spite of his comments. Now, in left-wing circles our first response is to cry internalization, but there's something more. Rather than assume these people don't know any better in a paternalistic, frankly elitist fashion that turns off a lot of people in the first place, we should consider that maybe they have valid reasons for backing Trump.

Consider, for example, Trump doing about as good among whites as Romney did. It wasn't him waking up this racist core that let him win, so much as the fact that a lot of traditionally Democratic blocs did not turn out. With all this talk of how awful Trump is compared to prior Republicans and how awful his supporters are, we're ignoring the real Devil in the details here: the DNC failed to energize its base.

There is certainly the chance of voter ID laws causing Clinton to lose Michigan and Wisconsin, given the lower black turnouts this election, but the lower black turnout is nationwide: Clinton just simply couldn't get black voters out the same way Obama could. She banked too heavily on the historical closeness of the Clintons with black voters. I guess she saw her good numbers among blacks in the primaries and assumed this would translate into general election results, blissfully ignoring that people going to primaries and caucuses are more active voters to begin with.

[KHCast]

I understand that minority's voting for trump had valid reasons. I'm just wondering how they find those reasons more worth it than basic rights that were being threatened to their faces by the man and his team. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'm betting it was some shit that Clinton said that led to them voting against her...

[Tani Coyote]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

I understand that minority's voting for trump had valid reasons. I'm just wondering how they find those reasons more worth it than basic rights that were being threatened to their faces by the man and his team. 

They most likely understand that the President is in fact limited by checks and balances. They can vote Republican and still count on the Democrats to protect minority rights, for example.

A lot of Americans understand checks and balances, actually. This is evident in the sizable number of split-ticket votes this election.

Though ultimately, it was a simple analysis: chances are high the worst parts of the platform on race, sex, etc. won't get passed, so the economic promises won the day. Then there was a case of juggling lesser evils: gay people have a potential threat in the GOP on gay marriage, for example, but find it easier to support the GOP against an influx of Muslims that Shari'a law is frankly more dangerous to gay people.

It all goes back to intersectionality though. Yes, one demographic I am in stands to lose from politician x, but another demographic I am in stands to benefit. See the founder of PayPal: he says he's a proud gay Republican... easy for him to say, because he can use his fortune to make up for anything he loses under a Republican government.

Not too surprising. Wealthy gays are masters at throwing poorer ones under the bus. It happened with AIDS, and it happens every year when they vote Republican.

Really this election highlights the evils of capitalism and income inequality. Because money can be used to mitigate the effects of prejudice in the modern day (see, for example, the myriad of black men opting to dress fancier when in public just to have the appearance of wealth and the benefits that has against profiling), it's easy for minorities in privileged positions to support policies that will hurt poorer members of their group far more.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

19 minutes ago, Noelgilvie said:

A lot of Americans understand checks and balances, actually. This is evident in the sizable number of split-ticket votes this election.

Wait...they do? I'm not even being sarcastic when I ask this.

Seems more like the average American is more focused on the actions of the President than that of Congress or the Supreme Court, and only notice the other two when something shocking happens. Granted, in this day and age of the internet where information is flowing at the speed of light, it would make sense that they would understand checks and balances. But the way Americans go about framing their understanding their own government seems like they think that the President is at the top and can do damn near anything -- and thus, when things go wrong or something happens, they blame them -- while the other two parts of the government are below him that the president controls.

It seems like people when people the President as the head of state, they don't understand that he's part of a triangle that is Checks and Balances, hence the massive freakout and hysteria when Trump got elected and people are thinking he'll turn this country into the Fourth Reich as if he actually has the power to do that.

[KHCast]

I guess I can see it like this: if Hilary was blatantly ignoring whites abs focusing on minorities and was still getting white people, trump can get minorities despite all his shit. Plus, no group is going to be unified in goal. Gay conservative republicans exist. Black racists exist. Female sexists are a thing. So the idea of minorities backing the man and even defending controversial things he said shouldn't surprise us. Though, I'm still lost on how people in general let slide the fact that he mocked a dead vets mother and a handicapped person...economic proposals or not, that shit should have really dented him.

 

I'd say that there's at least some credibility in the claims liberals make of of bigotry, homophobia, racism, sexism, etc clearly portrayed currently in the country. The sudden rise of hate crimes goes to show that. I think it'd be ridiculous to say it played no part in trumps success and that it was all on the democrats(which they had a lot of the blame, but not all). This entire forum (that was against trump) at one point was even in agreement on that trump even if he wasn't himself believing any of the shit he said, was doing a great job at raising the problem to light. idk it suddenly feels like we're downplaying those bits, which I get it wait and see, but still.

Yeah dems needed to do a better job reaching to groups outside just the big notable targets, but some of those groups I feel we're just not going to change their mind. I'll post this link again as I think it does a good job explaining what I mean: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/

idk, to me, personal gain, short term gain I should add if his economic policies fuck up our situation even more, doesn't really come off like a great defense if the long term damage is a actual real threat. Though it's a natural reaction to think in the now, so economic gain I guess when you think about it not long term sounds good for minorities?(even though most of the economic prosperity talk was directed specifically at middle class working white people...) And kinda funny that there are gays concerned about the Muslims in our country when a sizable amount of that group actually paid respect and supported the community after the Orlando tragedy. But that's besides the point.

[Tani Coyote]

1 hour ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Wait...they do? I'm not even being sarcastic when I ask this.

Seems more like the average American is more focused on the actions of the President than that of Congress or the Supreme Court, and only notice the other two when something shocking happens. Granted, in this day and age of the internet where information is flowing at the speed of light, it would make sense that they would understand checks and balances. But the way Americans go about framing their understanding their own government seems like they think that the President is at the top and can do damn near anything -- and thus, when things go wrong or something happens, they blame them -- while the other two parts of the government are below him that the president controls.

It seems like people when people the President as the head of state, they don't understand that he's part of a triangle that is Checks and Balances, hence the massive freakout and hysteria when Trump got elected and people are thinking he'll turn this country into the Fourth Reich as if he actually has the power to do that.

Well yes, a lot of people do exaggerate the power of the Presidency, but a considerable number of voters understand the checks and balances process. People vote split ticket on the basis of preventing either Party from doing too much damage, for example. Or in this case, a person may have been a solid Republican, but chose Clinton over Trump when it came to voting for President.

Now that it is not most voters, but there's still a considerable chunk who understand. This is consistent with the fact that turnout is still relative high in midterms, even though it's not as high as Presidential - 40% versus 60%, respectively. A considerable drop, but read it this way: around two-thirds of the people who vote for President are casting votes in the midterms as well, which means they have some grasp of the power of Congress. It's not surprising that midterms usually go to the opposition, because they want to limit the President's power. Now of course there is some sampling differences (it's probable that a lot of people voting in the midterms didn't vote for President), but either way, we've got a good chunk of the voting population with comprehension of Congress.

A lot of people ridicule believing a President's promises, but think of it this way: you know what they will aim for. Reality will presumably be the average of the President's policies and Congress'. If the President is a 10 on an issue and Congress a 6, you can presume the final bill will be around 8. But if the President was a realistic 8, the final outcome would be a 7. It makes sense to vote for the President who promises the most, no matter how outlandish: he will push harder than a "realistic" President.

Plus, let's imagine the campaign. "I will pass whatever Congress agrees with me on" doesn't sound too appetizing. "I will pass this and this," however, does. While some people probably do foolishly believe the President will pass whatever they promised on the campaign trail, I assume most are just trying to put a politician in power who is passionate for whatever goal.

This is where Trump voters got really screwed. He still has his "jobs" appeal, but he's rapidly altered the message to be about infrastructure as opposed to China and Mexico.

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

I guess I can see it like this: if Hilary was blatantly ignoring whites abs focusing on minorities and was still getting white people, trump can get minorities despite all his shit. Plus, no group is going to be unified in goal. Gay conservative republicans exist. Black racists exist. Female sexists are a thing. So the idea of minorities backing the man and even defending controversial things he said shouldn't surprise us. Though, I'm still lost on how people in general let slide the fact that he mocked a dead vets mother and a handicapped person...economic proposals or not, that shit should have really dented him.

When people have to choose between themselves and others, they choose themselves.

For all his unsavory elements, he was promising jobs. That's what people homed in on.

It doesn't help that most people understand you have only two real choices for President. If we had instant runoff voting, approval voting, or some alternative to First Past the Post, lots of people likely would have deserted Trump for another candidate. They would have gone for another job-promising candidate who didn't have the baggage, just as liberals would have gone for another universal healthcare-promising candidate without Clinton's baggage.

Think of it this way: they voted for Trump in spite of his remarks, not because of it. Yes, Clinton's language was less offensive, but her message on jobs was weak. When choosing between better economic prospects or nobody's feelings getting hurt... it was a no brainer for most people.

Now yes, there are the stratification issues besides the impact on one's emotions (consider the elevated risk of physical harm now that a lot of bigots feel empowered), but a lot of people voting for Trump probably deny the existence of stratification to begin with.

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

 

I'd say that there's at least some credibility in the claims liberals make of of bigotry, homophobia, racism, sexism, etc clearly portrayed currently in the country. The sudden rise of hate crimes goes to show that. I think it'd be ridiculous to say it played no part in trumps success and that it was all on the democrats(which they had a lot of the blame, but not all).

Oh, it no doubt did, but I'm going to wager it was small. He didn't really do any better than Romney among whites, for example. Now, it's possible that some of Romney's supporters were driven into not voting or protest voting and found their numbers replaced by racist types, but the overall message I'm getting is bigotry wasn't Trump's trump card.

There's also the factor many forget: Trump's about the same as any other GOP candidate in how awful he'd be for minorities in policy terms. He's just less dignified in his approach to the issue, which is why bigoted people feel empowered by him.

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

Yeah dems needed to do a better job reaching to groups outside just the big notable targets, but some of those groups I feel we're just not going to change their mind. I'll post this link again as I think it does a good job explaining what I mean: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/

Well yes, of course, but that's why we focus our "conversion" efforts on moderates. Moderates can and do change their mind if you sit down with them. Fundamentalist and segregationist types are lost causes for the most part, but there are plenty of moderate conservatives who we could bring into the coalition.

As the Bill Clinton campaign put it: it's the economy. Democrats need to spin their social justice platforms as having real, tangible economic benefit.

Because let's face it. Even if you don't have any malicious perceptions of another demographic, it's terrifyingly easy to remain apathetic to their plight when you have an advantage as a result of it. Social justice needs to be framed as being mutually-beneficial. We all know the anger many whites feel over affirmative action, as a tame example.

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

idk, to me, personal gain, short term gain I should add if his economic policies fuck up our situation even more, doesn't really come off like a great defense if the long term damage is a actual real threat. Though it's a natural reaction to think in the now, so economic gain I guess when you think about it not long term sounds good for minorities?(even though most of the economic prosperity talk was directed specifically at middle class working white people...)

This is where everyone's inner liberal comes out: what benefits society's poorest is likely to benefit everyone in the long run. I guess the idea goes that while benefits may accrue to whites primarily at first, the increased activity would eventually fan out and lift all boats.

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

And kinda funny that there are gays concerned about the Muslims in our country when a sizable amount of that group actually paid respect and supported the community after the Orlando tragedy. But that's besides the point.

I mean, I'm just trying to understand their logic. Not saying it's foolproof.

[KHCast]

5 hours ago, Noelgilvie said:

Oh, it no doubt did, but I'm going to wager it was small. He didn't really do any better than Romney among whites, for example. Now, it's possible that some of Romney's supporters were driven into not voting or protest voting and found their numbers replaced by racist types, but the overall message I'm getting is bigotry wasn't Trump's trump card.

There's also the factor many forget: Trump's about the same as any other GOP candidate in how awful he'd be for minorities in policy terms. He's just less dignified in his approach to the issue, which is why bigoted people feel empowered by him.

Well there's also the casual racism, sexism and homophobia  that was in play as well. Many moderates, or privileged would, and still do, defend the fear of Muslims, support the wall, decredit BLM as a whole and tend to lean on the police side when racism and whatnot is brought up in the force, fear change in out progressive society,etc. Women from what I've been told for many are treated like second class, even by "feminist" men fighting for their rights. So these issues, while not as bad as violent and physical, homophobia, racism, sexism,etc still psychologically seem to play a role despite many people not being aware or loosing their shit at the idea they are perhaps unknowingly one of those things. Even economically, there's a somewhat racial/sexist atmosphere even if it's not blatant obvious. And then there's just the general lack of understanding and empathy. All this behavior is I think what the GOP is trying to capitalize on. Justified/accepted unknowing discrimination. Since like you said, there's not much they legally can do to majorly threaten groups.

[Meta77]

So are young  people still sitting in the streets complaining?  just curious

[Tani Coyote]

Remember the movie Man of the Year, and how the lady who designed the polling machines decided to report their error to the winning candidate, who accepted the results even if he was disappointed he wasn't the real winner?

We could use more people like that in politics. Instead, we have a manchild who literally cannot fathom the idea of losing fairly. Any loss is voter fraud or otherwise rigged.

"Uniting the country" my ass. Practice what you preach, you ferret-wearing idiot.

Trump supporters, unsurprisingly, latch onto Trump's ideas in large numbers, as seen by the many "PROOF!!!" videos on Youtube of supposedly rigged voting machines. This of course blissfully ignores the many counters: the paper trail, the fact machines are taken out of order, the ability to request a different machine or a paper ballot, etc. Forbes is hardly a far left paper, and even they think it's bullshit and setting bad precedent to claim the voting machines are rigged.

People calling for recounts are called "sore losers" despite the intensely close margin. And the NSA's findings of possible vote tampering. Everyone is saying Hillary will "steal" the vote when it's possible Trump unknowingly stole it. I find this delicious: again, Trump and his supporters are so convinced they can't lose that any attempt to question the result is rigging, stealing, etc.

Politicians and voters like this are dangerous for democracy.

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

Even economically, there's a somewhat racial/sexist atmosphere even if it's not blatant obvious. And then there's just the general lack of understanding and empathy. All this behavior is I think what the GOP is trying to capitalize on. Justified/accepted unknowing discrimination. Since like you said, there's not much they legally can do to majorly threaten groups.

Oh no doubt, but probably not much more than the standard GOP turnout.

We've seen lots of footage of those super awful individuals from Trump rallies, etc. but that's the usual media focus on horror stories. Trump could turn out 1,000 Neo-Nazis but that doesn't mean his rank and file voters are changed much.

[KHCast]

Idk suddenly acting like this "deep rooted racism in the country coming out" spiel didn't have any merit this election I can't agree with. Personally, I do feel as if intolerance, ignorance and  self interest above issues like civil/equal rights regarding many white straight males(a very large group still) were and are issues. This idea that "it wasn't anymore racist and toxic than any other time" I just can't agree with. Maybe not traditionally, but socially accepted/casual/social class wise? I definitely think reared its ugly head and is something to be concerned about with trump as president. With the amount of moderates, undecideds, educated I saw this election JUSTIFYING and arguing for some of trumps more controversial shit, I'm not especially thinking this is a small issue that isn't threatening to certain groups.  Especially in a age where facts and reason are easily thrown out.

[Apollo Chungus]

I made a post a few weeks ago, asking if there was anything I could do to help, considering that I live in Ireland (a country that at times feels so distant from the States as to be on a different planet altogether) and couldn't do anything to directly help people on y'all side of the pond. In response to Nepenthe's post on at least keeping an eye out over here, I wrote an opinion piece discussing the Irish General Election in comparison to the US Election, amongst other things. I'm ignorant as to how to send this to a newspaper to be published online, as well as terrible at self-promoting in general, so I figured I may as well post it here. I'm not sure what I'll do with it; or with myself in general, I must be honest.

My creative drive's been at an all-time low these last few weeks, and I don't really know what to else to do at the moment besides merely existing. But I feel like I have to do something, considering how it looks like everything's been getting worse every day, or I feel like I'm nothing more than a meatbag that consumes resources and then dies with nothing meaningful left behind. In light of climate change, and how aware I am of my own problems, I wish I could do something, anything, to help y'all out and prove to myself that I'm not totally worthless.

I'm sorry for wasting your time with this depressive rambling, but I needed to get it out of my system, if only for a little while. Anyway, here's the piece. I'm gonna listen to Shenmue II music and play Dragon Quest V for a while.

Spoiler

Written on November 10th, 2016 (Apologies for the weird formatting; it didn't convert from MS Word to this forum's style very well)

Well, that’s that. After an arduous eighteen months, the 2016 US Presidential Election has come to an end. Votes have been cast, people in suits have said things, and washing machines will be stuffed with more stained underpants than usual. But I’m not here to talk about who won, why they won, what will result on a local/international level, or anything about said Election. No, what I’m going to talk about is the 2016 Irish General Election.

Remember that? I do, barely. It was some time back in February, and I only knew it was on because the familiar signs were on the lampposts. You know the signs. The signs containing a multitude of indiscernible faces and parties, discreetly placed wherever in the dead of night by who I can only assume are modern-day ninjas. No big announcement from the TV news, no substantive piece on any big time newspaper. Just “Oh, it’s on again. Er, do whatever you want. I’m going back to bed.” About two weeks passed, and the signs had vanished without a trace. I assume that meant people had voted, and that a party had been elected to do whatever it is Irish governments do (usually get hurled abuse from every direction).

If the above paragraph wasn't clear, I paid no attention to the General Election whatsoever. I didn’t vote for anyone, simply because I knew nothing about the parties or their policies and felt I had no right voting in case I got the worst possible party in by accident. Should I have made more strides towards being more informed? Absolutely. But there’s a problem, and it’s a biggie: the handling of the election in terms of time, information and available facilities is woefully inadequate for helping people choose who will leading Ireland for the next couple of years.

Let me start with the time, at least. For reference, the US Election lasted eighteen months: a bit too long for most given how messy that whole affair got, but certainly enough time to look into things and see who you’d support. The Irish General Election, meanwhile, lasted two weeks. That’s barely enough time to find out that an election is happening, let alone doing anything about it.

On that note, the advertising of the election’s existence is worth discussing. Those aforementioned signs are often the only indication your average berk (i.e. me) will get that an election’s on in the first place. And that was in Cork, one of Ireland’s major cities. Heaven forbid you live in a smaller town or a rural village! The media doesn’t seem terribly bothered about it, either. It gets a cursory mention in newspapers and TV broadcasts, but that’s the best it will get in the face of literally any other news (Johnny Depp smuggling his dogs into Australia was more noteworthy, apparently). You want an Election special on RTÉ News? Forget it. Expecting the Sunday Times to supply a magazine focusing on their parties and their policies? You’ve got a better chance finding a feature of the similarities between Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear and The Day My Butt Went Psycho.

But let’s say you do find out about the election, perhaps through the prophesying of a mad old geezer down by the pub. Alright, then there’s the matter of choosing who to vote for: good luck with that, mate. Sorry for another US comparison, but they had a website named isidewith.com. It was a website where you were questioned on numerous policies for different categories of US life, and gave an answer for each question. There were explanations you could click on if you didn’t know about certain policies, facts and statistics were supplied to better inform your choice, and your answers were given enough scope to fit your views. You could choose:

-Yes
-No
-Yes, but (caveat #1)
-Yes, but (caveat #2)
-No, but (caveat #1)
-No, but (caveat #2)
-Other (fill in yourself)

After the answers were tallied up, you were then shown how much you agreed with the policies of each candidate from highest to lowest. It was incredibly in-depth, and it more than likely helped at least a few people out in deciding who to vote for. In Ireland? We got smartvote.ie: a bland questionnaire that didn’t offer explanations for the uninitiated, worded questions confusingly, and only offered those endlessly vague strongly agree to strongly disagree answers. With isidewith.com, I came out with a better understanding of certain laws and informed about who I would ideally vote for. With smartvote.ie, I came out confused and unsure about the point of it all.

But, you might say, why not just ask other people about it? Well, I’ll tell you why, and this is true the world over. If you ask anybody about their own country’s politics, you’re likely to get one of two answers:

1. “Er, I dunno. I don’t really know anything ‘bout what’s going on. Why, is there an election on?”
2. “Ah, don’t bother voting. They’re all horrible in some way, and will ruin everything no matter who you vote for. It’s a disgrace.”

If nobody seems able to tell you anything about who to vote for and why, then what’s the point of going in? You may as well stay home and watch The Thick Of It for all the help it’ll do; at least then, you have a chance of enjoying yourself.

But maybe you don’t have that issue; maybe you’ve done Holmes-levels of investigating the matter and have decided you’re going to vote for X party because they support Y policy you agree with. Good, now to get to a polling station and vote, right? Well, you have to check your citizenship and see if you’re able to vote in this type of election (a Dáil election). If you’re Irish or British, you’re good to do. If you’re from Europe or elsewhere, however, you can’t vote. Yes, you might not able to vote for the people who’ll be in charge of where you live, it makes no sense to me either.

Anyway, if you can vote, you might still find yourself with restrictions. For one thing, you can only vote in one particular polling station, which could be in a completely different county depending on where you live and where you were born. Or you might find that said station is only open for a limited amount of time, and that day might not be on a holiday. Oh yes, did I forget to mention that you can only vote on the one day? Well, now you know.

If you’re still reading this, then you probably understand why the General Election is seen as such a non-event, even though it really shouldn’t be. We’re choosing who will be running our country for the next couple of years, and yet it barely registers to most of us as being important. Not even the government or the media seem to care, perhaps to the delight of some of you readers. But we can’t keep doing this.

We’ve seen this sort of disaster happen twice in the last six months with Brexit and the US Election. Poor communication as to what’s happening and what was at stake led to many people in Britain voting to leave the EU, and then Googling to find out what the EU was the next day. The general apathy amongst many people which led them to believe both sides were horrible and therefore not vote led to Trump winning against Clinton in the US Election. We can’t keep letting it happen, and we have to start somewhere.

Some of you will say that there’s no need to change how the General Election is advertised or how it works here in Ireland. It doesn’t really matter, all government parties are the same, we don’t have a big impact on the world, so why bother? Because one day, it will matter. There has been a resurgence in right-wing nationalism as of late, and men like Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have risen to the limelight as its main representatives. This is a movement that wants to restrict immigration to an unreasonable degree, damage the rights of people who are different from its representatives and main demographic (i.e. straight white dudes) and seems eager to pull back social progress in the name of making a country feel good about itself.

One day, we’ll have our own Farage, our own Le Pen, our own Putin, and our very own Trump. And we need to do change the system to insure people are properly informed to make decisions and can easily vote, regardless of their nationality. We can smugly think of select Britons and Americans as easily led morons, but we can and will do the same if we remain complacent about our own electoral system and how it works. Please, don’t stand by and let this happen like it has in so many other countries. Get up, and do whatever you can to change things for the better. Be informed, be helpful, be vigilant.

-Jim McGrath (FrDougal9000)

 

[Tani Coyote]

On 11/28/2016 at 1:40 PM, KHCast said:

Idk suddenly acting like this "deep rooted racism in the country coming out" spiel didn't have any merit this election I can't agree with. Personally, I do feel as if intolerance, ignorance and  self interest above issues like civil/equal rights regarding many white straight males(a very large group still) were and are issues. This idea that "it wasn't anymore racist and toxic than any other time" I just can't agree with. Maybe not traditionally, but socially accepted/casual/social class wise? I definitely think reared its ugly head and is something to be concerned about with trump as president. With the amount of moderates, undecideds, educated I saw this election JUSTIFYING and arguing for some of trumps more controversial shit, I'm not especially thinking this is a small issue that isn't threatening to certain groups.  Especially in a age where facts and reason are easily thrown out.

Oh, there's no doubt Trump enabled casual bigotry but here's food for thought: those people were always there, they just tended to stay quiet.

Since Trump lacked any tact and just spoke as crassly as he could, many felt they could as well. Hence this idea this election is any more sexist, racist, etc. when chances are a lot of these people were just more discrete about it in prior years.

The debate over political correctness is a large one, but it's a fact that saying things like "all of group x should be y" was seen as unacceptable from a politician's mouth prior to this cycle; just look at the uproar over politicians saying awful things about abortion and family planning. Most people act differently when observed: a person may hide racism in the presence of others, but express it at the ballot box; this is just the nature of the private vote. Trump ended this for many, because now people with such views felt empowered to speak them openly.

Seriously though. If a person was interested in modern segregation, chances were high they recognized the benefits of voting Republican (tough on crime, low police accountability, voter ID laws, etc.) long ago. They just now feel it's okay to speak awful things, rather than hide it under another argument.

Looking at exit polls between 2012 and 2016, we're seeing a mixture of more whites turning out for Trump, which isn't necessarily an indication of racist leaning, and lower turnout among non-whites; what non-whites did turnout, furthermore, voted for Clinton a little less than Obama. Those few percentage points, however, were enough to cost her election. Then there's the vote that doesn't get enough attention: the youth vote. While young voters overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, about 9% voted third party.

So while this election certainly has made the bigots in American society feel empowered, we have to remember two other considerations: 1) not everyone who voted for Trump is a bigot, they just felt he had the better ideas or was more trustworthy, and 2) Clinton and the DNC failed to mobilize the Obama coalition. It's partly to blame on new voter ID laws, but a lot of it has to do with Clinton's baggage and the DNC's arrogance.

[Mad Convoy]

I think the motivations for voting Trump were definitely more complicated than a lot of liberals give credit for. Yes, you do get the Nazis and other awful people that found Trump appealing, and I can see why, but you also get people who want jobs and think Trump is going to push for them, or people who think that Trump is going to bring America back to what they think was the glorious period of 1950-1960. And not because those days were rife with sexism and racism, but rather because those days really were a glory period for a lot small towns, as industry boomed after WWII. Sure, those days were built off the backs of racism, sexism, etc. but a lot of Trump's voters weren't there to see that, whether because they're too young, immigrants (yes, there were immigrants that voted for Trump), or white. At the end of the day, we need to recognize that its an overgeneralization to claim that the election happened because horrible people voted en masse for a horrible guy-- there were indeed the Nazis and other awful individuals in the booth, but most were scammed into thinking that a horrible person has their best interests in mind and is actually going to care about them and help them for once. So we should treat them like the victims of a scam-- instead of insulting them, assuming that they're idiots and bigots, or otherwise doing stuff that confirms what they've come to believe about us being just whiny and judgy and not worthy of being listened to, we need to calmly explain just what the implications of their vote are for subjects that they care about, tell them what they can do about it now, and above all else, make sure they know that unlike Trump, we have their best interests in mind and do care. This is no easy task-- often people who are victims of scams get defensive and enter a state of denial, trying to justify their decisions, only to cycle through the stages of grief and be at risk for reckless or counterproductive behaviors when it does get through their skulls that they've been scammed. Not to mention that there are extremists and ignorants on the progressive side too that can aid the construction of denialism and hold back diplomacy. But we should keep at starting a discussion with patience, empathy, and above all else persistence, because the long term benefits of it are worthwhile.

We also need to raise voter confidence. Stuff like Trump claiming a rigged vote is absolutely not helping with that (though that has perhaps backfired now that he managed to win the electoral collage-- now liberals are feeling more confident that a candidate can beat the odds without support from one of the main parties, a precedent that could benefit a popular minority, female, or even independent president as much as it could benefit a psuedo-fascist like Trump), but I think above all else, its actually Republican gerrymandering and disenfranchisement that discourages people. People in red states don't think a Democrat has a chance of winning, so they don't bother-- not realizing that gerrymandering is not foolproof and can be overpowered if enough Democrat voters show up, and that standing up to disenfranchisement instead of dismally accepting it is key to ending it. We need to change that perception of "Why bother?" through education about how the political system works and what we can do with it.

The hardest thing to recover from a Trump presidency, I think, would be the environment. People would unite against his racist, sexist, homophobic proposals, assuming those are even key issues for him that he'd focus on when making executive orders and speeches, because not being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. has become the status quo for most Americans-- but Americans tend to treat environmental concerns at best like background noise and at worst like a threat to the economy. Which would be tolerable, if unideal, if a lot of what Trump wants to do wouldn't be seriously damaging to the environment and if he wasn't hiring the least scientific people I've seen in a long time to handle the EPA. While ecological disasters like the Industrial Revolution and the Dust Bowl have been recovered from in the past, it took a long time then and lots of hard work and scientific research, and it will take a long time here.

If there's a politician we should look towards to get an idea of how Trump is going to be as a president, we should look no further than Italy, which had its own Trump in the form of Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi was a rich media mogul who despite initially being treated like a joke, his notoriety, and extensive list of crimes, scandals, and corruptions and broken promises managed to be a leading force in Italian politics for 20 years, and seemed untouchable in his position as Prime Minister which he maintained for nine years (making him the longest serving Prime Minister as of this posting in Italy) and could have maintained for longer if not for the looming debt crisis in 2011. He blew dog whistles to make his point, insulting anybody who got in the way, making sexist comments about the women that oppose him, as well as racist and homophobic comments, while trying to play the casanova and the family man cards at once, and made his campaign all about him, no party needed. The ultimate factor in his victory was populism, as Italians distrusted their government and establishment politicians and voted for him to spite them rather because they liked him, though they initially thought his business experience would help Italy's ailing economy. Berlusconi, once in power, hosted what were called "bunga bunga" parties but which were essentially orgies with plenty of prostitutes, including at least one that was underage (These parties eventually lead his wife at the time to divorce him, though he was able to overturn charges for the underage sex). Berlusconi's scariest act, however, was when he tried to pass a law that essentially made it impossible to prosecute him in court for any crime-- while democratic Italy obviously never allowed that to pass, it still worried people who saw the act as an attempt to establish a dictatorship and feared that that might not be his last attempt at establishing an authoritarian government. And its worrying here because unlike Italy's Prime Minister, Trump has the power of the presidential pardon and the executive order, and he would not be above pardoning himself for any crimes he gets caught committing or tweaking the rules to suit himself. Not to mention that Berlusconi effectively changed the face of Italian politics to treat the mass parties as irrelevant and favor perceived outsiders for quite some times-- something that can go good or bad in America depending on what caliber of candidates that rise up, but will certainly lead to a lot of uncertainty and worrying moments. The bright side is that unlike Berlusconi, who has no term limits and is still free to rise back up in power at any time (as he got scarily close to back in 2013), Trump has a limit of 8 years, so once he's gone and disgraced, he's not likely to get a position of political power again. Berlusconi also had quite the comeuppance in 2013, as his history of crime came back to bite him in the form of a tax fraud conviction near election day that stopped him from holding public office. He's still rich, still has his businesses and a football team, but has developed quite the persecution complex as a result of his experiences (Italian Jews were quite upset when he tried to compare his family's problems to the Holocaust) and as of now his party is safely in the "no influence" zone.

So in short, Berlusconi scared the crap out of a lot of people with his economic mishandling, made one attempt at establishing a dictator-y law, changed the face of the Italian government to one that embraced primarily outsiders, and did a lot of criminal, corrupt, and sleazy things. He didn't undo social progress or kill the Italian democracy, but didn't exactly display a lot of fondness and respect for those things either. Italy and its democracy lived, of course, and its steadily recovering from him, but there were plenty of tough times and protests during his period of influence and power. Is Trump exactly like Berlusconi? No-- while Trump can theoretically pardon himself and tweak the law more than Berlusconi could, not to mention that Berlusconi is apparently a romantic (real: ideological) liberal while Trump is center-right pragmatist, Trump is a lot more limited in terms of time allowed to serve and influence in governmental decisions (especially since Congress clearly dislikes him). But I think they have enough in common to merit a comparison.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11981754

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/20/donald-trump-silvio-berlusconi-italy-prime-minister

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/16/is-trump-a-berlusconi-let-a-berlusconi-expert-explain/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/09/do-other-countries-have-donald-trumps-of-course-they-do/ (this one actually talks about other political leaders like Trump besides Berlusconi-- its an interesting, if a bit outdated, read)

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You know, as far as the comparisons of Trump to Hitler...doesn't that comparsion come off as kind of ironic, if not hypocritical, that people who voted for Trump yet are staunchly patriotic would vote for the think that their country was against in the glorious moment that was World War II?

I mean, granted, Civil Rights ballooning afterwards showed that white Americans, despite being against Nazis, ironically weren't too different in how they treated minorities (minus the outright death camps - Japanese Internment notwithstanding), but for people who voted for Trump secretly being Nazis would be a massive slap in the face of all of that.

I'm not saying it isn't a thing, but just something of note for people to look at.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

26 minutes ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

You know, as far as the comparisons of Trump to Hitler...doesn't that comparsion come off as kind of ironic, if not hypocritical, that people who voted for Trump yet are staunchly patriotic would vote for the thing that their country was against in the glorious moment that was World War II?

I mean, granted, Civil Rights ballooning afterwards showed that white Americans, despite being against Nazis, ironically weren't too different in how they treated minorities (minus the outright death camps - Japanese Internment notwithstanding), but for people who voted for Trump secretly being Nazis would be a massive slap in the face of all of that.

I'm not saying it isn't a thing, but just something of note for people to look at.

Spoiler

Probably my ignorance speaking, but it's probably a "they didn't care about the atrocities Hitler committed until he started killing upstanding white people; then it became evil" sort of thing. If it had been genocide against every race except for white people, they'd probably laud him as a great hero...at least until he murdered them for looking at him funny.

Moral myopia at it's finest.

[Mad Convoy]

The truth is, Nazism is simply a very niche belief in America that never really caught on despite Germany's efforts at sabotage. Even modern Nazism differs a lot from Hitler's Nazism. That's not to say that bigots and Nazis don't exist in America-- its just that there's not enough of them for them alone to push a president into power. Again, while race certainly plays a role for some in terms of who they voted for, the actual reasoning is more complicated.

Spoiler

4 minutes ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

 

Probably my ignorance speaking, but it's probably a "they didn't care about the atrocities Hitler committed until he started killing upstanding white people; then it became evil" sort of thing. If it had been genocide against every race except for white people, they'd probably laud him as a great hero...at least until he murdered them for looking at him funny.

I'd be careful with that. As with all wars, the reasoning to enter was a lot more complicated than "because it affects white people now". For one, in Hitler's eyes, he was doing a genocide against every race except for white people and the Japanese and, as you can tell, the US was still morally against Hitler. Hitler's rise to power also went ignored by Americans due to the continued influence of isolationism keeping Americans from staying up to date on German politics-- not that the American people would have cared as it was seen as not my country, not my problem and it was assumed by the US government that the Weimar Republic would eventually find its footing as the general belief was that all fallen dictatorships would tend to democracy. When that didn't happen, that's when people started to worry, as they saw it a threat to democracy, especially when Hitler began to conquer other countries. In hindsight, we can see that republic was in dire need of protection from the Nazis and Communists, who sabotaged it at every opportunity, but people simply didn't know that back then so it came as a huge shock. Isolationism was still a thing though, and despite reservations about Hitler, the US wanted to avoid getting involved in a European conflict, especially since American ignorance on the impact of WWI on Europe lead the American public to believe that WWI had been a meaningless affair and a letdown. The US government still wanted to help, but pushback from the people prevented it from directly participating in war. Then came the second big shock-- the Pearl Harbor bombing. Completely unanticipated by America, there was a collective realization that America's attempts to stay out of conflict would not necessarily be met in kind, not to mention that America just got a taste of what European countries were experiencing on a daily basis, and knew immediately that it could no longer stay out of it. There had already been moves from the US government to help what would become the Allies, but Pearl Harbor finally gave the US government the exact reason it needed to declare war. But even then, hesitancy lead it to initially only declare war on Japan-- that was, until Hitler heard the news and decided that if you make war with Japan, you make war with Germany. Thus, the US went past the point of no return and was now up against the Axis as a whole, whether it liked it or not. While the moral aspect wasn't the reason the US got involved, the US public genuinely believed that fighting back against the Axis powers was morally right as it protected freedom and democracy from its enemies (in fact, the realization of how hypocritical it is to believe it morally right to fight for freedom and anti-racism in one country while oppressing people on the basis of race in your own country helped set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement), but it also happened to make for great propaganda. 

So it was less "It affects white people now!" and more "I didn't want to do this at first, but the atrocity at Pearl Harbor makes me realize what has to be done for the good of my country." Its still not entirely altruistic-- the US did indeed, at least initially, enter the war as a form of self defense rather than out of a sense of moral obligation. I can assure you, however, that Hitler would not have been seen as a hero by any stretch of the term, even if the US didn't choose to intervene, as the public, in spite of how hypocritical it may seem from a modern perspective, were morally opposed to Hitler's policies and actions. Besides, despite socialists' best efforts to promote it, socialism never really caught on in the US like it did in Europe, so people wouldn't have agreed with Hitler's government style anyway.

 

[Tani Coyote]

6 hours ago, Mad Convoy said:

I think the motivations for voting Trump were definitely more complicated than a lot of liberals give credit for.

Indeed.

Sadly, the Left's biggest weakness is its tendency to argue over fine print, rather than focusing on results.

It's no wonder right-wing elements have such an easier time organizing.

Quote

At the end of the day, we need to recognize that its an overgeneralization to claim that the election happened because horrible people voted en masse for a horrible guy-- there were indeed the Nazis and other awful individuals in the booth, but most were scammed into thinking that a horrible person has their best interests in mind and is actually going to care about them and help them for once.

This really is the kind of critical understanding that is needed moving forward.

Clinton has expressed regret for the basket of deplorables comment, but the DNC has to work hard to prevent further fallout.

For starters, it has to abandon the college liberalism approach of throwing words like "racism" around so casually. True or not, it's a very bad word to use due to the emotions that come with it.

Yes, a person who voted for Trump after his racist remarks could be classed as an objective racist (someone who supports policies that harm a race, even if that's not their goal in supporting them), but it's obvious calling them racist is counterproductive.

Quote

Stuff like Trump claiming a rigged vote is absolutely not helping with that (though that has perhaps backfired now that he managed to win the electoral collage-- now liberals are feeling more confident that a candidate can beat the odds without support from one of the main parties, a precedent that could benefit a popular minority, female, or even independent president as much as it could benefit a psuedo-fascist like Trump), but I think above all else, its actually Republican gerrymandering and disenfranchisement that discourages people. People in red states don't think a Democrat has a chance of winning, so they don't bother-- not realizing that gerrymandering is not foolproof and can be overpowered if enough Democrat voters show up, and that standing up to disenfranchisement instead of dismally accepting it is key to ending it. We need to change that perception of "Why bother?" through education about how the political system works and what we can do with it.

This.

While many House districts aren't competitive, state governments tell a different story. Even in states where the legislature isn't as competitive as it could be, the state Governorships create an opportunity for the opposition to cause problems.

Enough Democrats turning out in 2018 could flip quite a few Governorships and chambers, and pave the way for solid majorities (assuming Trump loses re-election) in 2021, allowing an end to gerrymandering.

6 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

I mean, granted, Civil Rights ballooning afterwards showed that white Americans, despite being against Nazis, ironically weren't too different in how they treated minorities (minus the outright death camps - Japanese Internment notwithstanding), but for people who voted for Trump secretly being Nazis would be a massive slap in the face of all of that.

Actually, Civil Rights ballooning afterwards is partly because of World War II. Many Americans started to feel uncomfortable with racism after seeing what it could lead to.

Now, they didn't flip and become activists overnight (it wasn't a pressing concern, plus racism benefited many of them), but they were left lukewarm to the idea. Lukewarm enough that controversial tactics like using children (who would promptly be assaulted by police) in Civil Rights marches became an effective strategy for change.

It's worth noting that men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington likewise recognized the hypocrisy in arguing for freedom while keeping slaves. As educated people, they understood racism is irrational and doesn't hold up very well against scientific review (hence why "scientific racism" would later grasp at straws to find innate inferiority in peoples so as to justify subjugating them). Unfortunately, both sided with the idea that their self-interest came first (even if Washington would free his after his death). I think this is an important case of looking into the mind of racism: while there are certainly many who are so deep in hatred and ignorance there is no hope, many people with racist thoughts and behavior can recognize they are in the wrong, but feel some need to continue their current course.

5 hours ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

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Probably my ignorance speaking, but it's probably a "they didn't care about the atrocities Hitler committed until he started killing upstanding white people; then it became evil" sort of thing. If it had been genocide against every race except for white people, they'd probably laud him as a great hero...at least until he murdered them for looking at him funny.

Moral myopia at it's finest.

Funny story, the Germans were almost two different people on each front.

While there were war crimes on both, the Germans were more inclined to follow protocol regarding prisoners of war in the West than the East. The East was pretty much nonstop slaughter. It's easy to see why: the French, Americans, British, etc. all had a place in Hitler's order, whereas the Slavic peoples of the East did not.

It's easy to think of the Nazis as being demonized above all other tyrants because they killed white people, but given those whites historically wouldn't have been considered white - Jews and eastern Europeans - that's anachronistic. In reality, when all those soldiers were marching through those death camps, seeing piles upon piles of bodies... something told them that this was wrong. The same way countless German soldiers made a habit of putting themselves in a drunken stupor after mass executions, something that partially motivated creating the death camps.

For every KKK or SS type, there are many more people who have a good core, they are just misguided. It's easy to fall into racism, but it is difficult for many to completely bathe in it. Denying another group benefits comes easily, actually using violence against them not so much. It's no surprise militaries devote so much money and time to finding ways to dehumanize the enemy; the fact is most people really don't want to kill or maim each other outside a moment of passion.

But back to the point of why the Nazis get so much press. I think it's a variety of factors. For starters, Hitler committed his atrocities in the Western world, so he gets plenty of press. There's also the disturbing efficiency of it: modern concentration camps had existed for decades, but the Nazis created entire camps designed to take in people from every corner of Europe explicitly to kill them. That's not counting the many ways the Nazis used the Holocaust for profit: melting down gold and silver possessions, reselling the possessions of the death, etc.

I think what really puts the Nazis up front in the Western psyche, though, is what comes afterward: the rise to prominence of the Jewish lobby, and the subsequent creation of Israel and all the controversies surrounding it. There is no massive Zionist conspiracy, but it is hard to deny that (in alliance with fundamentalist Christians) a powerful Jewish political force emerged in the aftermath of the War; this is especially true in the case of America and the British Empire, the two superpowers in the immediate aftermath of the War. The Jewish people have endured oppression for thousands of years, following the trail of tolerance to wherever they could, but Hitler came dangerously close to creating a world order where they'd be exterminated outright. Their organization into a cohesive political force, and then an independent, controversial political unit, has provided plenty of basis to keep the Nazis immortalized as a face of oppression.

[KHCast]

It is interesting how people raised in the "racist areas" of the country seem to be more allowed to judge and say those people are racist, almost like they get a pass, but people in more progressive or educated areas doing the same is a bad thing. I mean, I guess liberal whites tend to come off as pompous and devaluing and generalizing of those groups more than those that have lived there? Just guessing on that, but I see more respect and room to talk from someone from the Deep South that left and has admitted the people they know are in face ignorant, or racist, or hateful.