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“ ‘With the exception of the 2016 election’ will be a common phrase in PhD dissertations in 2044.” -Nate Silver
There’s a strange feeling in the air this election. For some it’s exciting, for some it’s terrifying, but everyone who’s followed the news has felt it: we’re in uncharted waters. Nothing like the candidacy of Donald Trump has happened before in American history. Various commentators have tried to find some analogy to Trump: is he Barry Goldwater? Ronald Reagan? Pat Buchanan? …Adolf Hitler? For each of these, the analogy might at first reveal some passing similarity, but ultimately, no, Donald Trump is not like any of these men. None of these analogies are really able to understand how he has behaved, predict how he’ll behave tomorrow, or explain exactly how we should treat a candidate like him. He is a phenomenon without analog, sui generis.
And yet hunting for some analogy is deeply rooted in human psychology, specifically how humans deal with new things. Basically, people like to think of the whole world in categories. Everything we’ve ever encountered, we put into boxes, grouped with other similar things, and assigned a label for easy reference. Then they figure out how objects in each category normally behave, and how we should treat them. So when we encounter a new thing, we quickly check through our categories, and compare this new thing against the things in each of these boxes; then we put it with the ones that seem most similar to it. Now we know what it is, we know what to expect from it and what to do with it.
For an easy example of this process in action, think of Tim Kaine. Most people didn’t know who he was before this election. But when Hillary picked him as a VP, people began to look him up – who is this Tim Kaine guy? And pretty easily, they figured out that he fit in perfectly, right at the center of their “Democrat” box. So they just started thinking of him as “generic Democrat #147295,” and that worked perfectly well for predicting his behavior and deciding how to treat him. What do we expect Tim Kaine to do? Advocate Democratic policies and support the Democratic nominee. Do we like Tim Kaine? If we like Democrats, yes. If we don’t, no. Do we want to vote for Tim Kaine? If we like Democrats, yes. If not, no.
The problem is when we encounter something that doesn’t fit very well in any of our categories. We’ve got this impressive collection of boxes, and we compare it to the things in each box, and it doesn’t seem that similar to any of them. We put it in one box because it’s similar in some ways, even though it’s different in others. But then we look at it and think, “Hmm, that doesn’t seem right,” and we take it out and put it somewhere else – like trying to figure out where to put a spork in your silverware drawer.
It seems like this thing is going to sit in limbo forever. But what if a bunch of other new things come in – and they’re all similar to this first enigma? Pretty soon we start to figure out that there’s a group of things that are all similar to each other, but not similar to any of the populations in our boxes. In other words, we need a new box. So we create a new box, assign it a label, and based on the characteristics this population seems to share, we figure out what to expect of them, and how we should treat them. In short, if you give a person a spork, they won’t know what to do with it; they might spend an unreasonable time trying to figure out where it goes, if they don’t throw it away just to avoid the problem. But if you give them ten sporks, they’ll find a spot in a drawer for sporks and move on with their day.
So what about Donald Trump? As he loves to point out, news stories about Donald Trump’s candidacy have always gotten a lot of attention. People are very eager to learn more about him and his candidacy – they want to know what box to put him in. He used to fit nicely in a few boxes – “reality TV star,” “real estate mogul,” “eccentric billionaire” – but those categories clearly don’t work any more. Reality TV stars don’t run for president; real estate moguls or eccentric billionaires might, but they certainly don’t win the Republican nomination. No, these non-political boxes are obviously insufficient for understanding Donald Trump as politician, and he doesn’t fit well into any of our pre-existing political boxes. He’s not a “conservative” because he doesn’t look anything like other conservatives; he’s a Republican, only because if you win the Republican nomination you have to be a Republican, but he doesn’t look anything like any of the other Republicans in that box.
Donald Trump is a spork in our political silverware drawer. We keep trying out various labels – con man, populist, demagogue – but while they adequately describe him in some ways, they fall short in others. Until we find a box to put him in, he’s simply an enigma; we don’t know what he’ll do, we don’t know how we feel about him, and we don’t know what to do with him. The best we can do is keep swapping him around in boxes that don’t quite match, and treat him like whatever box he’s in at the moment.
At present, the whole strategy on the part of the Trump campaign appears to be to avoid categorization, while trying to nail Hillary into the “corrupt politician” box as firmly as possible. Then the argument would be that everyone knows Hillary is bad, while Trump is at least an unknown quantity. People know how to treat corrupt politicians – don’t vote for them (and, generally, vote for their opponent). As long as people don’t find an even more negative box to put Trump in, they might just put him in the White House.
The Clinton campaign’s job, then, is to put him in a box. “Racist” certainly seems to be an accurate description, but as long as he acts sufficiently unpredictable, the box can’t predict his behavior, so the category doesn’t quite fit. “Crazy racist” has been more effective, because crazy people can do all kinds of crazy things; acting unpredictable would make it hard to fit into most boxes, but this one actually fits better the more unpredictable he is. But then if he simply acts a little more like a conventional politician – gives speeches about policy, establishes an actual ground game, meets with the president of Mexico as though he himself were a world leader – the crazy label starts to not quite fit.
But what if people don’t need to put Trump in a box they already have – what if we create a new box? To do that, we need more people like him. We need a few more sporks. Here’s where the “alt-right” label comes in: most people didn’t know the term prior to this election, but many of Trump’s supporters seem to embrace the title. Because it describes a broad movement for which people have relatively few preconceived notions, there is very little Trump could do to escape the box; whatever he did, we could just decide is another characteristic of the alt-right. Whatever he does, Trump is defining the movement as he does it, so he can’t ever not fit in the category.
Once he’s securely in that box, all the left has to do is establish the characteristics of the box such that it is more unpleasant than any box Hillary is in. If they can establish the alt-right as racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, mysoginistic, and whatever else, then Trump is bagged and tagged. Voters will know Trump is alt-right; the alt-right is bad; therefore Trump is bad.
This leaves Trump with two options. He can try yet again to escape the box the left has put him in. But the only escape from this box for Trump would be to disavow the alt-right. Fire Steve Bannon, insist publicly that he is not and has never been a member of the alt-right, that he disagrees with them substantively on many issues, that he doesn’t want their support. But if the left is correct, and the alt-right constitutes a large body of his support, he would be alienating his most loyal supporters.
Or he can give up on the strategy of remaining an enigma, and pitch his tent with the alt-right. Then the battle can be fought over whether the alt-right is as bad as the left says, or if they’re really the good guys (or at least, not as bad as a corrupt politician). But at this point, Donald Trump would have given up his entire advantage which has served him this entire campaign; he’d be entrenched in a good old-fashioned messaging war, the likes of which the Democrats have been fighting for decades and into which they have considerably more resources to invest.
So far, it seems like the Trump side is simply trying to obfuscate about this label. In response to Hillary’s speech about the alt-right, Trump tried to turn it around and argue Hillary is the real bigot. In response to the “basket of deplorables” remark, he is trying to make it not about the alt-right, or even about racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, etc. (which is specifically what the comment was about); he instead tries to make it about Hillary hating Americans, while being as non-specific as he can about which Americans she is hating.
Perhaps his hope is that the left will see the alt-right attack stumble, scowl, and try something else. And maybe liberals can find another, better box to put him into. But for now, the alt-right label is the best net they’ve got for snaring the Trump brand and bringing it down to Earth where they can fight it. There’s still plenty of time until the election, and with a focused messaging effort, the Trump side can only obfuscate about the label for so long. After that they can send Milo Yiannopoulos on TV to try to argue that the alt-right isn’t racist or anti-Semitic or homophobic, but once the alt-right is tied to Trump, there’s plenty of material for tying the alt-right to some very unsavory ideas. Most voters still don’t know about (((echoes))), don’t know about tweeting pictures of gorillas at black people, and don’t know about the white supremacist websites that proudly bill themselves as “alt right.”
The words “alt right” may just be the silver bullet that can kill Donald Trump.
 
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Your line of reasoning is flawed in a few places. One the "alt right" isn't a firm or established group in anyway and the far right is already represented in the eyes of the public with the tea party. Second any talk from Hillary introducing the alt right with clarity is simply talk until someone confirms what they say. That means that it doesn't stick until trump confirms the problem and does what you say he should do to react to it. Trump can just ignore everything Hillary says about the alt right just like he does about the kkk and the neo nazies.
Not to mention they already call republicans racists sexists and homophobes. making another group that doesn't change anything. That means republicans can say that its just partisan insults from the left while being free to dog whistle everything they're accused of. Its the great american tradition of having your cake and eating it too.
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What do you think that the alt right is? How would you define it?
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On September 21 2016 13:47 xDaunt wrote:
What do you think that the alt right is? How would you define it? Well that's kind of the trick. A lot of people have heard the term recently, but don't necessarily know what it is or what it's connection to Donald Trump might be.
So as a question of political strategy (the larger question of what the alt right actually is aside, it seems like the Democrats would like to convince everyone that:
1) The alt right is a new upswell of various racist, sexist, etc. attitudes, basically Stormfront 2.0.
2) Donald Trump is tied closely to the movement, such that any problem you might have with the alt right is a problem you have with Trump.
The former seems like an easy case to make, between the (((echoes))) meme, r/theredpill, harassment of Leslie Jones for no apparent reason other than being black, etc. The latter seems easy too, what with Bannon being at the helm of Trump's campaign and Breitbart news wholeheartedly embracing the alt right. Is there some part of this political calculus I'm missing?
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On September 21 2016 13:59 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2016 13:47 xDaunt wrote:
What do you think that the alt right is? How would you define it? Well that's kind of the trick. A lot of people have heard the term recently, but don't necessarily know what it is or what it's connection to Donald Trump might be. So as a question of political strategy (the larger question of what the alt right actually is aside, it seems like the Democrats would like to convince everyone that: 1) The alt right is a new upswell of various racist, sexist, etc. attitudes, basically Stormfront 2.0. 2) Donald Trump is tied closely to the movement, such that any problem you might have with the alt right is a problem you have with Trump. The former seems like an easy case to make, between the (((echoes))) meme, r/theredpill, harassment of Leslie Jones for no apparent reason other than being black, etc. The latter seems easy too, what with Bannon being at the helm of Trump's campaign and Breitbart news wholeheartedly embracing the alt right. Is there some part of this political calculus I'm missing?
Well, I do have a pretty good idea of what the alt right is. I've taken a lot of time to research it because I wanted to know whether I fit into it. Spoiler alert: I don't. Nor does Breitbart nor Bannon.
If you really want to learn what the alt right is, go look here. Long story short, people who are true members of the alt right look at everything political and social through the prism of race. And it is from that perspective that alt right members derive and promote racialist agendas that promote racial interests -- specifically white race interests. This is a very radical position that is very selectively held, and the alt right is completely unapologetic about it. I've considered expanding the definition of alt right a bit by arguing that the focus is on "culture" instead of "race," but the real alt right members make their position explicitly clear: it's all about race. They consider anyone who seems to sympathize (to one degree or another) with the alt right but refuses to accept their fundamental truths about race to be "alt lite."
Other people (like Milo) have tried to expand the definition of the alt right beyond what I have described above by lumping in the "trolls." Frankly, I think that this is incorrect and a social disservice. A necessary part of being a political movement is having policy objectives in mind. Chasing "lulz" clearly doesn't cut it. Plus, including the trolls in the definition of alt right undercuts and obfuscates some of the truly horrific aspects of the real alt right agenda.
Which brings us to Trump. Trump's agenda is not a true alt right agenda in that it doesn't go nearly far enough racially in promoting white interests. Sure, he's targeting white voters for support with policies that pander to their interests and he's promoting American culture in a way that that has not been done in at least two generations, but these policies are color blind (racially neutral) in intended application. That's not far enough for the alt right, who see Trump merely as a good first step in the right direction.
And it's here that the attempts to pin Trump to the alt right movement fail. The only way to make such an association work is to adopt an overly-expansive definition of the alt right. But the problem with this approach is that it quickly becomes impossible to identify the defining characteristics of the group when the expansive definition of the group is adopted. So what liberals and democrats are left with is a very unconvincing argument that the alt right is full of racists and sexists without really being able to explain why in a compelling manner. This is why the Pepe article on Hillary's website fell so hilariously flat. If they wanted to call Trump a racist, they should just call him a racist and explain why rather than create a convoluted, esoteric theory that uses a cartoon frog and the alt right as a strawman vehicle to do so. Hell, the term "alt right" is still barely on the fringes of the national consciousness. No one knows what the hell it is. All Donald has to do (and his campaign has already done this) is say, "we have no idea what Hillary is talking about," and the attack on him is completely nullified.
So no, the term "alt right" is not the silver bullet that is going to get rid of Trump. Trump's opponents would be better off taking Trump head on.
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But Breitbart and Bannon certainly tie themselves to the term. If you want to argue that they're using the term differently than the lovelies over at r/altright, that's fine, but if the average voter googles "what is the alt right" they find a number of articles saying it's racist, something something Breitbart/Bannon, something something tied to Donald Trump. If Bannon describes Breitbart News as "the platform of the alt right," and then people go look up what the alt right is and find this, it's would be easy to assume Breitbart News is supporting that shit. Then it's just a short hop from Breitbart News to Donald Trump, thanks to Bannon at the helm.
Saying opponents should just "attack Trump head on" ignores how political marketing works, in this election cycle in particular. It's not just about saying "Donald Trump said a racist thing, he shouldn't have said that racist thing." Many people will agree at the time, and yet somehow poll numbers won't swing nearly as much as you'd expect if that many people believed Trump is a racist. It's much more effective to paint overarching narratives, which factor in individual issues but aren't so limited in scope. "Trump said Mexicans are rapists, that's bad" is a short-sighted argument. "Trump is leading a rising tide of ethnocentrism and white supremacy that threatens to set back racial equality a century or more" is a better narrative, if you can get people to buy it. And if the alt right is that movement, and you can establish that the alt right loves Trump and Trump loves the alt right, that's probably good enough to sell it.
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lol, whenever people talk about putting Trump in a box, it makes me think of racing against some CIA-wind up where the parameters are something like "you get to live the life of evel knievel so long as you do nothing to jeopardize your popularity".
I think this is exactly the kind of box the CIA uses....
Imagine trying to define some kind of psychohistory-esc trap against ninja assassins. You're working against a basic protocol like so-and-so is actually trying to die, maybe even before killing his targets.
I don't at all think that Trump's run for presidency is connected to a CIA box of exactly this description any more than I think Trump is sexually interested in Hillary. I did at one point think Barack was a terrorist, but I was paranoid at the time. I have no idea what I'm talking about but I am far more interested in this election than I have been in past elections.
Now I'm starting to think that Trump's candidacy is actually not all that different from the kind of popularity the CIA themselves enjoy....
I see it all NOW! Trump was high and said he's assassinate Hillary when Bill was in office. That's definitely what happened how else could this have come about.
This is a perfect example of how a sincere post can rapidly transform into a troll post when someone not versed into politics tries earnestly to deal with a political thread.
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United States10091 Posts
except that the alt right has actually been winning trump this race. Clinton's miserable attempts at the alt-right, >pepe the frog, and people like Milo and Alex Jones have only cost her. If she continues to go after them and try to paint a target, Trump only gets stronger and its in the polls.
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Trumps closest comparison is Duterte.
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Nice posts, Christian, I think your analysis is sound, though given the nature of elections, always open to change 
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On September 21 2016 16:06 FlaShFTW wrote:
except that the alt right has actually been winning trump this race. Clinton's miserable attempts at the alt-right, >pepe the frog, and people like Milo and Alex Jones have only cost her. If she continues to go after them and etry to paint a target, Trump only gets stronger and its in the polls.
But I don't think those attacks quite landed. There's no way a majority of the population supports the creepy shit the alt right is into (see, as xDaunt suggested, r/altright). I linked in a post above a Scooby Doo meme that alleges all the world's problems are because of Jews. If people saw that sort of thing as representative of Trumpism that could not possibly help him.
It might help him if the attacks come across as an old person attempting to understand internet memes.
On September 21 2016 21:00 farvacola wrote:Nice posts, Christian, I think your analysis is sound, though given the nature of elections, always open to change
Thanks!
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So why don't you think that Clinton's alt right attacks landed? What did she miss?
Edit: Also, that NPR article and mother jones article miss the mark badly. Just to give you a hint, Milo isn't a member of the alt right, and he explicitly disclaims being part of it. Using alt right as a synonym for the new form of conservatism that is emerging doesn't work.
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On September 21 2016 22:46 xDaunt wrote:
So why don't you think that Clinton's alt right attacks landed? What did she miss?
Edit: Also, that NPR article and mother jones article miss the mark badly. Just to give you a hint, Milo isn't a member of the alt right, and he explicitly disclaims being part of it. Using alt right as a synonym for the new form of conservatism that is emerging doesn't work.
I mean, I remember 3 attacks from her. There was the alt right speech. It was alright, I don't remember specifics but I don't think it tried very hard to tie Trump to the issue. It was mostly "there's this new thing called the alt right, it's scary, and I'm against it." Admittedly I only read parts of the speech so that might not be a great summary. But the speech seemed effective enough to me.
Then there was the"basket of deplorables" remark, which got sidetracked in the news by discussions of whether this is the same as the 47% remark. But even if you read the speech she's specifically talking about how many of Trump's supporters are not in that basket, which is the exact opposite of hitting Trump on the alt right.
Then there's the Pepe explainer, which tried to tie Trump to white supremacists, but without using the term alt right, instead choosing the more roundabout avenue of:
1) Pepe the frog is a racist meme used by white supremacists.
2) Trump's son or someone retweeted a Pepe meme about Trump.
3) Therefore Trump is a white supremacist.
People are naturally skeptical of claims from candidates' websites, and this logic was hardly ironclad. But if Hillary (or her surrogates) instead emphasized a) how creepy and racist the alt right is, and b) how closely tied they are to the Trump camp, that seems like an easier case to make.
Edit: Milo's relationship to the alt right seems complicated. He at the very least bills himself as some kind of alt right expert who "gives it a fair hearing in the press." Then people ask him questions like 'what would it look like if the alt right's dream were realized' and he starts to talk about how glorious the world would be, and how bad political correctness it is and how much he'd love it if it were defeated. It's like he's trying to play it off like he's not into the alt right – he's just an impartial journalist cataloguing its history and development – but then he does a really bad job of hiding his sympathy for the movement.
Worth noting, by the way, that Milo doesn't seem to agree with your definition of the alt right at all, and does tie it more closely to the Trump campaign. So if your view is that they're not really that close to the Trump campaign but they are super racist, and Milo's view is that they are tied closely to the Trump campaign but they're [/i]not[/i] super racist, surely it wouldn't be that hard to convince voters that Milo's right about how widespread they are and how close to the Trump camp they are, but you're right about how racist they are.
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yea but by the theory of dismemberment the only way to deconstruct is to construct completely. Hillary is a basket case no doubt about it but Trump isn't going to salvage the country either. No one really knows Hillary's motives whether they're just power. There is no telling what she'll accomplish as President but the country will accomplish something if she does. Trump's agenda is a lot more appealing to a Romney supporter because at least the message is ironclad. You're a genius for listing like you do but HIllary is not good for the country man
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Trump is like a cross between Nixon and Bush II: narcissistic and dumb.
I'm reliably informed that the '68 election was actually very similar to this one except it was actually even more unpredictable and crazy.
People should keep in mind that Trump is actually not that bad compared to some others that did become President. It's just that they have forgotten how utterly terrible some past presidents have actually been.
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Hmm, as a Republican voter Trump fits pretty well in the right of center republican box, he supports enforcing immigration laws, is pro life, supports gun rights, seems a bit moderate on foreign policy but is pro American (Unlike Obama imo)(for the record I think a less hawkish foreign policy is not a bad idea.). On Trade policy Trump is pretty moderate, one of the issues I have with him but easily overlookable compared to Hillary.
Trump actually has a plan to reduce the deficit and improve the economy unlike Hillary who is just "increase taxes on the middle class = great for the economy"
Numerous other issues where he is center right.
Overall, this election is far less complicated than people(read, the media) make it out to be, examine the policies, if you are a progressive, vote Hillary, if you are conservative vote Trump.
All the random noise surrounding Trump is irrelevant from an ideas prospective.
The main reason republican voter are resonating with Trump so much is that he is not afraid to say what he thinks and speak common sense even when its not politically correct to do so.
The refugee issue is a perfect example of this. Trump is saying that inviting refugees in to the country is allowing for the possibility of terrorists coming in with them. This is very reasonable, all you have to do is look at Europe to see the possible effects. Even if you feel the risk is worth it (I think this is a fine debate, perhaps the risk a bombing which may happen anyway is worth allowing refugees.) Trumps policy seems reasonable and many Americans surely feel the same way. Yet the media is shocked by his statements and try to label them as "raceist" I think Trump is showing a disconnect between the thinking public and the media elites, pundits, washington analysts etc.
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Also really quick on the race issue, I would ask you, What has the Democrat party really done for the black community in the last 20 years? Look at Chicago, 100% Democrat, Democrat mayor, democrat run State pretty much, the poverty rats for blacks are sky high (something like 14 percent from a quick google search) poverty rates are sky high (34 percent again from google) I saw a stat today that black children have only a 36% chance to grow up in a family with both mother and father so what has the Democrat party done for the black community besides stick them in a cycle of dependency crime and poverty? and don't give me excuses about the federal level, the dems had full control of house and senate as well as president for 2 yours and president for 8 not to mention the Clinton era.
So when Trump suggest economic ideas and education reforms which will actually help Black people all over the countryn I ask you why should black people vote for Hillary? Oh right, I forgot, Trump is a racist, silly me, you get welfare and food stamps and free abortions!
(Also don't bring up civil rights was passed with bi-partisan support and it was the democrats who blocked it for years, until it was no longer politically possible).
I probably said way more than I should but this is my take on the whole "Trump is a raceist" shtick.
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@SlammerIV: Well you kind of hit a lot of different topics pretty rapid-fire there, so it's a bit hard to respond to everything, but I'll do my best.
Regarding Trump's similarity to center-right Republicans:
Trump has a lot of marked differences from ordinary Republicans, which is why you got strong opposition from the right (see #NeverTrump, George Will, Mitt Romney, The National Review, etc.). It's kind of a different topic, which I might try to write a separate blog about, but in brief, the subjects you listed:
-Immigration: This issue has usually been one that doesn't fall very neatly on party lines, but Trump is certainly more extremely in favor of strict borders than Republicans have been, maybe ever (see Reagan and amnesty).
-Pro life: Trump was pro choice until very recently in his life, and has made almost zero mention of the issue on the campaign. The obvious interpretation is that abortion is either an issue where he privately disagrees with the party, or just an issue he doesn't give a shit about.
-Gun rights: Yeah, he seems anti-gun control.
-"Moderate on foreign policy": I don't know where you get this. Trump is neither moderate nor in line with Republican on foreign policy. Republicans fucking hate his anti-NATO, we-may-or-may-not-defend-our-allies positions, and to be clear, these are not moderate positions. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have historically supported anything like what Trump is advocating, and it is a radical change to US foreign policy (thus my characterization of "unprecedented")
-pro-American: I don't even know what this means. Do you think Obama is anti-American? Every candidate for US president is in favor of America; sometimes people on the right call people on the left "Blame America Firsters" for criticizing the US's role as world policeman, but since Donald Trump is far more in favor of diminishing that role than Hillary even that criticism doesn't land.
Trade policy: Extreme protectionism is not moderate. Like his foreign policy, this is a position neither party has really advocated, which is part of what makes it so unprecedented. Donald Trump is campaigning for a foreign policy (both in military and in trade) which actively antagonizes other world powers in hopes of extracting concessions from them (e.g. Mexico paying for the wall, NATO allies pay us money to defend them). "Moderate" implies that it is a compromise between the two parties' positions, but if neither party wants anything like this, it's not moderate.
Deficit/budget plans: Donald Trump's plan is to increase government spending while dramatically lowering taxes. If you think that will be good for the economy, fine, but to think a plan like that will decrease the deficit is pretty close to denying math. The only possible economic argument that it could work is with a very generous supply side economics correction to account for the trillions of dollars of deficit his plan would run. And all this is assuming he finds the hundreds of billions of dollars of spending cuts to government programs that he has promised, without specifying what programs he will cut to save that money. Hillary isn't even who we're talking about, but her plan is primarily to tax the rich more, not the middle class.
And this is a big subject of its own:
Is Donald Trump racist?
This is definitely a topic that deserves its own blog, if not several blogs, but from the links above, let me hit some of the highlights:
-In 1973 Trump and his father were prosecuted by the government – Nixon's Justice Department, specifically – for systematically discriminating against blacks in his apartment buildings. Their case was pretty ironclad. When black testers were sent to inquire about openings, they were consistently told nothing was available, while white testers that inquired immediately after would be shown openings. A former superintendent testified that it was standard policy to mark black people's applications with a "c" for "colored" to signal that the application should be rejected.
-In 1991 former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino John O'Donnell claimed that Trump had been very upset about having a certain black accountant, and quoted Trump as follows:Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control. Trump denied it at the time, but took that back in 1997, saying, "the stuff O'Donnell wrote about me is probably true."
-Numerous instances since the beginning of the campaign, including calling Mexicans rapists, retweeting white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers, and, in a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, making repeated reference to how Jews like to haggle and want to control the world with their money.
Whether Democratic or Republican policies are better for blacks is so tangential to this blog I hesitate to even address it, but since you seem eager to discuss the subject:
That blacks are poor and underprivileged is a pretty bad way of arguing whether Democratic policies are good for blacks, because there's no comparison. If you had a demographically similar city in the same time period governed by Republicans in which blacks fared better, you'd have a good case study (and even then, there'd likely be difficulties with peculiar demographic trends of a particular city; I'm not well versed in Chicago's struggles, but my understanding is that they've had a confluence of economic factors related to industry and population migration that have left them in a peculiarly bad spot). But discussing without a comparison is like running an experiment without a control – you simply can't establish any kind of causality.
Discussing which party's policies are "good for blacks," though, you'll find that Democrats have a significant number of policy suggestions geared specifically toward dealing with many issues that black America is facing: criminal justice reform so that blacks can have more trust in the legal system and get a fair shot; adjust public school funding to depend less heavily on local property taxes, so that blacks aren't doomed to having bad schools simply by living in poor areas; subsidies for low-income housing so poor people living and working in the city don't have to opt for more expensive living situations, such as staying in pay-per-night hotels that cost a lot more than living in an apartment. You may disagree with some of these policies (and I bet you disagree with some other targeted policies, such as affirmative action), but it must at least be acknowledged that these policies are designed to identify the particular problems facing blacks and try to engineer a government response which will help alleviate those problems.
By comparison, Republicans largely tell blacks that they're problems are a result of a) not taking personal responsibility, b) not having enough merit to excel in the meritocracy (see anyone who talks about "bootstraps"), and c) being born out of wedlock. In short, blacks' problems are the fault of black culture, and they need to shape up instead of asking the government for help. Trump is no different; his economic ideas consist of tax breaks for the rich and cutting social programs which normally help the poor, and his "education reforms" are mostly in favor of a voucher system, which is vastly more helpful to middle and upper class people who want to shop around for schools than it is for poor black families, for whom a voucher system has relatively little benefit (and has a very good chance of increasing racial segregation of schools).
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the alt-right is a bullshit phrase made up by the far left to fearmonger people into not voting for trump. they same way they've skewed him as a racist, xenophobic, retard when in actuality his policies are real solutions to real problems (whereas hillary simply panders to minorities).
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"the alt-right is a bullshit phrase made up by the far left"
lol
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@Christian thanks for the detailed reply, you seem to have a very level headed prospective.
Sorry for the rather short and rapid fire posts, I was running late and couldn't really formulate my ideas as I would have liked to, let me attempt to do so now.
Concerning Trumps generally policy I agree his foreign policy is a bit questionable when I said "moderate" I meant generally less hawkish than normal Republican policy but you are correct it is a bit different than either parties.
"-Immigration: This issue has usually been one that doesn't fall very neatly on party lines, but Trump is certainly more extremely in favor of strict borders than Republicans have been, maybe ever (see Reagan and amnesty)."
I think Trumps policy falls very well in line with conservative thought on this issue, one of the frustrations I and many conservatives have is the way the republican party has been so weak on this issue, it is still not unprecedented in my opinion.
On the issue of Pro-life I don't really care what Trump thinks himself, I don't think he particularly cares about this issue but he has partnered with Pro-life groups and will probably veto pro-abortion laws and sign anti abortion laws like lat term abortion laws etc. Not to mention he will likely elect pro life judges.
"-pro-American: I don't even know what this means. Do you think Obama is anti-American? Every candidate for US president is in favor of America; sometimes people on the right call people on the left "Blame America Firsters" for criticizing the US's role as world policeman, but since Donald Trump is far more in favor of diminishing that role than Hillary even that criticism doesn't land."
I did not define this issue very well, and this is probably a bit tangental to the main discussion but I think Obama is Anti-American in the sense that he feels the United States has too much influence and power in world has made speeches in foreign countries basically apologizing for our influence and actions in the world. Frankly I would have to go back and look up some of the stuff Obama has done and said (And Hillary as secretary of state) to fully answer what I mean by "Anti-American"
Basically I trust Trump to act in our own best interest, but I do not Trust Hillary to do the same.
The issue of economic policy is to my mind the most interesting again, when I say "Moderate" I simply meant different from standard conservative thought, I agree I miss used that term . Trump's protectionism is certainly the most troubling part of his economic policy although I do think it is more along the lines of progressive policy as it favors government intervention into the free market. To my mind, I think Trump is a smart enough business man that he will not go overboard on destroying trade, I am not an expert on trade policy by any means and my instinct is that any government intervention will result in a decrease in productivity, yet perhaps giving incentives for companies to stay in the country will be a good thing. Specifically on the issue of China I have not studied the issue but I give Trump the benefit of the doubt that China has not been taking advantage of our trade agreements and currency so perhaps some policy change in that direction would be beneficial.
While I have reservations on Trump's trade policy I think his economic policy is excellent, I do not know where you got the idea that he will increase spending, from what I could find Trump is in favor of government money for child-care as well as well as spending money on infrastructure, but these spending increases can be easily off-set by his plan to reduce military spending(removing troops from places like Germany for example), increase tax revenue by cutting loop-holes and theoretical increases from lower tax rates on businesses (Laffer curve), eliminating Obama care and hopefully reforming medicare etc.
The big one here is regulation reform and corporate tax reduction. These two issues are massive weights on our economy, small businesses, one of the largest sources for job creation, have to deal with massive reams of regulations and red tape which causes huge expenses directly effecting the consumers. the U.S.’s corporate tax rate of 39 percent is the third highest in the world, tied with Puerto Rico and lower only than the United Arab Emirates and Chad. The U.S. tax rate is 16 percentage points higher than the worldwide average of 22.8 percent and a little more than 9 percentage points higher than the worldwide GDP-weighted average of 29.8 percent.--Taken from a study by the taxfoundation.org.
The ridiculously high corporate tax rate directly damages small business and large businesses, forcing many companies to take operations overseas, and generally causes economic mayhem.
If Trump reforms theses two issues, regulation and 39% corporate tax the economy will experience massive growth, in all sectors directly benefiting consumers and the unemployed. Now this economic growth is a benefit to ALL Americans, especially the poor and middle class. I ask you, who usually gets unemployed first, the rich or the poor? Who get hit the most by higher prices on goods and services, the poor or the rich? When the economy is good, the poor and middle class benefit the most, the rich don't really care whether the price of bread is 2:00 or 2:50, they can afford 100,000 loaves either way. So when Hillary says "I want to make rich evil corporations pay their fair share" she is actually directly taxing the poorest Americans.
Now concerning the race issue. To me this is directly related to the idea of Trump as a raceist vs Hillary. My point is that the fact of whether Trump is somehow racist is unimportant compared to the question of whether Trump will improve conditions for minority groups, whether they are Hispanic, Black, or whatever.
This is such a complex topic, I do not think I really have a good enough understanding nor the time and writing skills to fully explain my thoughts and rational. In fact I think the reason this is such a thorny topic is that there is really no easy solution, the problems of the Black community is rooted in extremely complex social and economic issues which are very hard to unravel. I will attempt to explain myself as I see it, but I fear I may not be able to communicate my thoughts as clearly as I would like.
You are correct just one set of data does not provide a very clear picture, by mentioning Chicago I was simply grabbing the first example that came to mind + 1 minute of google searches (Not a strong argument). The overall point I was trying to make was that if we look at majority black communities, Inner city Chicago, New York, Detroit, etc. These places have been solidly democrat for years and the party has had ample opportunity to implement those policies you mentioned. More funding for inner city schools, affirmative, action, criminal justice reform(That kettle of fish is beyond the scope of this discussion), welfare programs, rent subsidies etc. In fact most of these have actually been implemented for example rent subsidies, rent control, welfare and foods tamps affirmative action. In addition I believe the government has been pouring money into the school system for years without positive effect.
Yes these policies are targeted to the black community but I would argue they simply do not work. For example rent control is designed to provide low cost housing for the poor community but it actually has the opposite effect, as counter intuitive as it seems. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact details.(I highly recommend "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell he has a fantastic explanation for the economic failure of rent control) I believe the issue is that at an Artificially low cost the incentive for a landowner to run an inner city apartment complex is low and thus there is no incentive to build Apartments and as a result there are simply not enough rooms to go around and the poor are forced to, as you mention, to pay high prices for hotels etc. The sad fact is that because of rent control inner city dwellers actually have to pay MORE compared to suburban communities. Government subsidies for housing is now like putting a band-aid on the gaping wound caused by rent control.
Education is an issue where the proposed solution for years has been to simply pour more money on the problem and hope it gets better, this has not succeeded and I do not see any reason why the next four years will be different. I will not touch on this too much as I have very little knowledge, fair enough to say I think do not see how Trump's plan will be worse than Hillary's, perhaps vouchers will not benefit inner city schools as much but neither will simply adding money.
However I would not necessarily be against more funding for inner city schools, certainly cutting waste and improving teacher salary might help(cutting bureaucratic waste is easier said than done I know).
The issue of education is deeply rooted in the social and economic problems in the inner city and minority communities, however.
I think you really mischaracterize the Republican position on the black community, from a conservative point of view the problems in the black community is not black culture, it is the economic and social system which exists in inner city communities. The problems like crime rates, out of wedlock children, poor education etc are not the root problem, they are simply the surface level results of the deeper issues. The problem is that the deeper issues are very hard to ferret out thus I can see why it is easy to mistake the surface problems with the root problems. It is a very thorny issue as the problem is circular. you have bad education as a result of broken family structure and low quality education, this results on few job opportunities which leads to crime and dependency which then feeds the cycle of broken families and poor education I frankly do not know what the best solution to the inner city minority problem is, I think a first step is improving the economy to the point where inner city jobs exists is the best place to start. Also education reform and improvement, although again I am very unsure how this would be done.
As far as whether Trump himself is a receist I think it is frankly irrelevant, I could counter by quoting Bill Clinton who once said something along the lines of (Talking of Obama) "A few years ago and this guy would have been serving us coffee."
I could mention Hillary's and Bill's ties to the old democrat part in Arkansas and the KKK(Robert Bird anyone?).
I think that is irrelevant, even if Trump is a dyed in the wool raceist his policies have the best chance and improving the lot of poor minority groups. It is not like Trump has absolute power, he cannot get elected and than repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments. I ask you: What exactly(besides re-tweeting white supremacist tweets) do you think Trump will do to disadvantage minority groups?
Obviously I do not think Trump would do such a thing, I frankly do not think he is a racists in the sense that he would pursue policies which would benefit one race over another, I would not disagree that Trump is a receist in a broad sense, as in his comments about jews, but I would argue that this is more like generally stereotyping especially to make a point. For example he didn't say"All mexicans are rapists," rather he mentioned a specific case and used a narrow stereotype of illegal immigrants to argue for immigration control, I frankly do not see this as raceist as he is simply stating fact with this logic.
1. A certain percentage of illegal immigrants (Majority of these Mexican) are criminals: Demonstrably true.
2. Thus why should we allow this percentage of criminals to enter our country illegally given we cannot strain out the criminals.
I fail to see the racism in this logic, you may disagree but how is it raceist?
One last thought I wanted to paste on this poorly formatted and executed post is that the flood of illegal immigrants directly compete with lower class minority groups for jobs, stopping cold the entrance of illegal immigrants should improve lower class job opportunities for poor American citizens.
I do want to thank you ChristianS for this post, you seem very well informed and I respect your well reasoned opinions. I do find these issues very fascinating, especially concerning the whole race issue.
As I mentioned earlier I highly recommend reading some of Thomas Sowell's work, he has some fascinating insight on the economics of inner city minority groups and economics in general.
I will leave a link to his web page. http://www.tsowell.com/
Edit: rereading this I realize my post is a bit off topic as it does not directly concern much of what was discussed above. To me this is the best way to understand the issue of racism and which political "box" to put Trump in. However, I do understand that my post is rather tangental to the political question of whether Hillary can pin Trump into the racist box.
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it's not a matter of whether trump is racist, it's the fact that he incites racism in his followers. We need someone who actively fights racism
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ya i mean trump is a farsighted politician. even so he's doing badly in the polls because of rampant idealism. it's almost impossible to simultaneously guide the nation toward the aims and likewise win votes. realistically a candidate with the perfect answer to every issue is losing support left and right and without the engineering to win an idealized election (grassroots election) the major question becomes one of media. trump obviously is far ahead in media holdings but he's way behind in the things that matter in his personal life. bringing the kind of fiscal solvency to Washington isn't practical from a national view because the united states stakes its personal reputation on being an international monetary reform frontrunner. if foreclosures and wall street are the make or break issue or as you suggest IMF and national banking schemes are appealing only to the informed 1% there's no capacity to resolve the fundamental question of dollar value, gold standard, and larger market property. landed interests are collapsing and strategic interests are unavailable. therefore to the extent that we're hoping to achieve a quasi-independent future for tax paying citizens, we can't resort to logic of consequence and can only suppose that the real political nature of the debate is one that supposes military interests outweighing the general economic welfare. then in practice any mention of the alt-right is appealing primarily to tea party, neo-conservatives whose private holdings and quantified interests are certainly not in league with the national interests wholesale. a general and domestic monetary collapse of international character impinges on the personal character of citizens abroad and endangers trilateral trade issues between mexico and Canada. nothing suffices to undermine the campaign to the extent that our global infrastructure does, and it makes me wonder whether the election is anything more than a sham. we're not trusting our candidates at the bottom line to be unified with the kind of constructivism alt-right propaganda brings to mind. after all if we can't trust our candidates then we can't trust our voting methods or our best intentioned appraisal of politicorelations. Finally we're deftly avoiding the issues politicians are meant to address and resorting to a kind of laissez faire attitude in our own caretaker duties as citizens. Focusing like we can govern these issues to the same extent like a candidate as Trump we're not judging things at face value. Clearly we're expressing marked preferences for non-election issue and supposing the best of the nation to benefit. Exaggerating the methodological inquiry of alt-right attitude is just as bad or worse than the vectors and intentionalities characterizing judgment and invoking unpardonable clause of by-gone properties characteristic of historical revenant. Then fading from view are the real stakes we're playing for and the morphological perspective of how well our favored candidates are in office. This short run perspective is nothing other than inexperience by the voting public and a marked indifference by relative judges themselves. We're achieving nothing and there's nothing to achieve.
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On September 23 2016 07:59 imgbaby wrote:
it's not a matter of whether trump is racist, it's the fact that he incites racism in his followers. We need someone who actively fights racism
The irony being that affirmative action is the definition of a racist policy but is backed to the hilt by the dems.
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On September 23 2016 07:59 imgbaby wrote:
it's not a matter of whether trump is racist, it's the fact that he incites racism in his followers. We need someone who actively fights racism
From what I've been seeing it is certainly not white racists that are causing racial tensions in America.
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On September 23 2016 23:55 Vandrad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2016 07:59 imgbaby wrote:
it's not a matter of whether trump is racist, it's the fact that he incites racism in his followers. We need someone who actively fights racism From what I've been seeing it is certainly not white racists that are causing racial tensions in America.
Come to Ohio and we'll see how that notion checks out.
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On September 23 2016 17:41 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2016 07:59 imgbaby wrote:
it's not a matter of whether trump is racist, it's the fact that he incites racism in his followers. We need someone who actively fights racism The irony being that affirmative action is the definition of a racist policy but is backed to the hilt by the dems.
Affirmative action is not reverse racism. To assume it is reverse racism is to assume that minority groups, particularly those that are black, are afforded the same opportunities as white people.
The purpose of affirmative action is to correct institutional biases in our society. If we assumed society was a pure meritocracy, there would be far more women in higher positions of power but as we know in many, many industries that is not true. The critical tenet of affirmative action is that it diversifies work and educational environments, allowing certain genders and races to enter said industries, and normalize said races and genders in these industries.
It isn't a racist policy because its not telling white people, who don't suffer from the same institutional biases, to go home and suck eggs. White people, still by and large, aren't still frozen out of certain real estate markets through exclusionary practices for instance.
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The main reason there are fewer women in higher positions of power is because so many women drop out of the workforce to have kids and then return on a part-time or casual basis while they are raising the kids.If you compare women who never had kids and thus never dropped out of the workforce for a time to men then they earn around the same.For childless women under 30 living in urban areas they earn 8% more than men.
There is no institutional bias in this situation it is all personal choice.
A white kid growing up in West Virginia where Obama closed down half the coal mines will have it tougher than some rich white kid growing up in Palo Alto.W-V is one of the poorest states in the USA and one of the few states where whites are still 90%+ of the population.Why should you discriminate against some poor white kid from W-V via affirmative action just because he is white? No, affirmative action discriminates based on race and that is the literal definition of racism.I don't see what there is to argue here.
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Appalachian is a recognized class for the purposes of most affirmative action programs, so try again with your example nettles
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There's poor white kids in every state.
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On September 24 2016 22:21 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
The main reason there are fewer women in higher positions of power is because so many women drop out of the workforce to have kids and then return on a part-time or casual basis while they are raising the kids.If you compare women who never had kids and thus never dropped out of the workforce for a time to men then they earn around the same.For childless women under 30 living in urban areas they earn 8% more than men.
There is no institutional bias in this situation it is all personal choice.
A white kid growing up in West Virginia where Obama closed down half the coal mines will have it tougher than some rich white kid growing up in Palo Alto.W-V is one of the poorest states in the USA and one of the few states where whites are still 90%+ of the population.Why should you discriminate against some poor white kid from W-V via affirmative action just because he is white? No, affirmative action discriminates based on race and that is the literal definition of racism.I don't see what there is to argue here.
You're overstating the case that institutional bias against women doesn't exist. Yes, the maternity leave issue is one area where earning inequality can happen. But first of all, depending on the industry that doesn't account for all the disparity in income levels, and second of all, this phenomenon is still pretty common even if the mother doesn't drop out of the work force – just takes her paid maternity leave, has the kid, and then comes back into work. Motherhood consistently damages women's careers in a way that fatherhood just doesn't, which is still about personal choice, but on a double standard. Women have to make a "personal choice" between career and family, while men can have both.
Re affirmative action: That's a dumb argument against for a couple of reasons. First of all, you're highlighting an underprivileged group that you say doesn't get the benefit of affirmative action, and ask why that group doesn't get benefit – but that argument actually starts from the assumption that underprivileged groups should be favored to level the playing field, and just whines that one group isn't included. The obvious policy implication of your argument isn't to stop affirmative action, it's to start doing it for poor white kids from West Virginia. And in fact, since we're not in the era of quota systems any more, underprivileged white kids probably do get some benefit in the college application process. If two students had the same SAT scores, and similar quality of writing in their essays, a lot of schools would probably favor the poor white kid over the rich one.
Then you argue that "because affirmative action discriminates based on race it's racism," which is trying to win the argument by semantics instead of actually talking about whether affirmative action is good or bad. If we find that affirmative action does good in the world, but accept your definition that it's racism, we wouldn't say "oh, well, it's a good thing, but we shouldn't do it because it's racist." We'd say we'd found maybe the only case of racism that actually lessens racial inequality, so we should still do it.
And your definition is pretty questionable anyway. There's a legitimate argument to be had about whether or not it's racist to discriminate based on race if you're just trying to offset the discrimination based on race that already exists in the world. An example:
Let's say you're in middle school. And you go to school one day, and in the cafeteria, the school has decided to provide ice cream cones for lunch today! But there's not enough for all the students, so the school gives ice cream cones to teachers to hand out at lunch. Unfortunately, most of the teachers are racist pricks, and they only give ice cream to white students. One teacher, Mr. Jones, is not a racist prick, but isn't sure who to give his ice cream cones to. Would it be racist if he gave them to only black children, to try to offset the discrimination by his colleagues? Or is he obligated, by his non-racism, to ignore the race of the students and hand them out equally (meaning that black students wind up with a much smaller chance of getting ice cream, since only one teacher will give to them and even that teacher is still giving a lot of his ice cream to white kids).
I think the obvious answer is that if Mr. Jones isn't racist, he should give all his ice cream to black kids because that makes the overall system more fair, even though if you looked just at the kids Mr. Jones gave ice cream to, he would look pretty unfair. Of course, the American education system's admissions process is a lot more complicated than handing out ice cream, but this at least demonstrates that the position "because affirmative action discriminates based on race it's racism" is either semantically trivial, or, if the implied "so therefore it's bad" is there, dumb.
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Yes, there are some women who quit work to become mothers due to personal or logistical issues. But that is completely irrelevant to my point. I specifically stated higher positions of power for a reason.
In these cases, women with very good careers generally do not have a lot of children (or none at all) in order to retain their career. Unlike the father, the women in this situation find it difficult to have children because you may be put to pasture if they do have one. And no, it isn't always a double standard where the mother gets leave and the father doesn't. After all, Canada provides paid parental leave to the father if he wishes to take it I am not mistaken.
Even if we assume that most mothers quit their (fulfilling and well paying) careers because of motherhood (which screams BIOTRUTHS if you ask me), it still doesn't explain why the percentage of women on ASX 200 board of directors is still less than 1/4 despite women being, in general, better educated than men. And that number is only as high as it is because many companies are actively issuing diversity quotas.
I don't know where you work in Australia but I know its a trend in small engineering firms to either pay women less or not hire women at all because they are seen as less capable than men. Obviously they won't say it that's the general attitude in these environments. For this sort of firm, the only woman is a secretary and I'll let you know the one at my company earns less than I did when I first stated as a full time graduate despite having worked there for a decade.
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@slammer, thank you for such an in-depth post. I really wanted to hear a real opinion. It seems hilarious to me that you have presented a platform that Trump has not at all been able to articulate coherently and clearly. Nowhere am I able to read this kind of thought from the Republican party, so they don't really give me the impression that they know what they're doing. Your ideas make sense, I just don't see the evidence. I guess same with Hillary.
@christian, thank you for the post. I aspire to write like some of you guys do, regardless of whether your point is truly true or not. Presenting an argument well is its own quality. Also your insights are dope/thought-provoking.
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EPT
