US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8598

On August 30 2017 06:58 Jockmcplop wrote:
I'm assuming a bit here but you seem to be framing this in terms of a 'lesser of two evils' sort of argument. This doesn't really work though because the main thing I am arguing for is a differentiated definition of racism. The term has come to encompass so many behaviours, many of them not particularly harmful, that an accusation of racism is both vicious and meaningless at the same time.

On August 30 2017 06:58 KwarK wrote:

If you reread my response to the article you quoted I actually completely disagreed with his premise. His premise was that people voted for Trump (and Sessions, and the rest of the disparate impact crew with their policies) because they were upset about being called racists. I don't think that's why they did it. I think that argument shows an unbelievable level of contempt towards the American voters, it implies that they're not genuinely in favour of policies that disproportionately impact minorities but that they will support those policies if they think it'll spite someone who called them a racist.

Regarding what I said about a member of the KKK having more courage. If we were to compare someone who genuinely believed the racist nonsense and was voting as a logical consequence of those beliefs with the hypothetical individual the author of that article created, who did not believe in racist nonsense but still voted for the same policies as the KKK member as a way of getting back at the other side for calling him racist, I think the latter is worse. The former is ignorance, the latter is malice. Ignorance is more easily excused, and more easily fixed.

But again, I don't think that the right supported policies with a disparate racial impact out of malice. I disagree with his entire premise. My point was just that if they did, that'd actually be even worse.


You're not wrong to say that there is a problem of language. This is what GH attempted to get into a while ago when he started putting a y in the middle of the word racist to show what he was talking about. People didn't want to play that game with him though.

I'm sure there are ideological reasons to swallow the bitter pill that is Trump. Where you lose me is when I ask myself whether the issues were weighted in a colourblind fashion.

Let's say you have a voter who doesn't think he's racist and the most important issue to him is liberty from tyranny and the spectre of government oppression. A good, constitutional, patriotic American who really loves the second amendment. Trump's rhetoric on the second amendment was better than Hillary's, therefore he voted for Trump. That makes sense so far.

The problem emerges when you consider the interplay between his stated starting point, opposing government oppression, and the outcome. Because second amendment rights aren't the only thing to consider there, not when the DoJ is reporting that local police departments are actively oppressing African Americans. Now maybe he sat down and asked himself "is Trump having a supreme court nominee who protects the second amendment worth justice department endorsement of systematic civil rights abuses?" And maybe he did his very best to understand the issues involved and consider how he would feel on both sides before casting his vote.

But I'm not sure our hypothetical voter did in this instance, because I'm not seeing how things like actual current voting rights limitations can be outweighed by the incredibly remote chance that Hillary would seize all the guns. I worry that the reason he voted the way he did was because he weighted the thing that impacted him (and people like him) far, far more heavily than the thing that impacted people who don't look like him.

Clearly this is untrue because clearly racism couldn't be that popular in America because... After all, it's been 20 years since interracial marriage disapproval passed below the 50% mark. Ancient history.

Trump supporters are so tired of being called racist that they support racist policies because the racist at the top doesn't call them a racist. This proves they're not racist because they're only doing the racist thing to get back at people for calling them racist and that makes sense somehow. Because if you're okay with supporting racism but only to get back at people for calling you a racist then clearly that wouldn't imply that you're a racist.

There are two main theories of Trump's support. One is that a large minority of Americans -- 40 percent, give or take -- are racist idiots. This theory is at least tacitly endorsed by the Democratic Party and the mainstream liberal media. The other is that a large majority of this large minority are good citizens with intelligible and legitimate opinions, who so resent being regarded as racist idiots that they'll back Trump almost regardless. They may not admire the man, but he's on their side, he vents their frustration, he afflicts the people who think so little of them -- and that's good enough.

On August 30 2017 07:14 Nebuchad wrote:


Wasn't as much a lesser of two evils rather than questioning your perception of it. Reading your posts gave me the impression that you view problems based on how much they could potentially impact you rather than how problematic they actually are. The part of the left that's "evil about racism" can ruin your life by making you infamous and getting you to lose your job for something you have done (and get another one a little later where you have to be a little more careful to remain anonymous than a normal person would). The part of the right that's evil about racism can ruin your life by keeping you from voting, putting you in jail, killing you... Of course that wouldn't be you or me though.

It just feels foreign to me to be talking about racism in America and to have social justice as the thing to fear. Feels like there are some priorities that aren't in order.

On August 30 2017 07:21 Danglars wrote:

Nah, you launched into your own pet attacks on interracial marriage disapproval. You literally couldn't even faithfully portray his own two theories without half of it being your own inclusion.

Apparently written in invisible ink in the article.


Author Kwark can't grasp a reaction where voters resent being regarded as racist idiots. His only intellectual contribution is pretending a positive support of racist policies is identical to a backlash from resentment.


The actual breakdown from the article. Kwark is entirely in the first camp, but isn't as much calling them idiots than saying racists just need to be trained like children. He cannot mentally engage with good citizens with intelligible and legitimate opinions, because in his mind they only support racist policies.

You want to move on to some more ideological reasons, and why they're wrong, but I'm unwilling to go on that tangent with someone who quotes one sentence and says its "judging conservatives for racism is basically racism." Basically, the man with a fondness for one-liners and snipping out single sentences from larger posts has enough troll qualities to limit my time spent and sometimes wasted. My only interest is seeing if you will support a larger view of humanity's intricacies than reductive blathering. I happen not to think half the country are these racists that hate minorities, and it's in keeping with an understanding that you push and prod and call people evil long enough that they'll resent your behavior and legitimately discard your candidate (if you intentionally put such a despicable candidate up there, as was done). We can come back to the variety of opinions of your good fellow citizens that can speak intelligently and are concerned with the good of their families and society, or we can reduce to the dumb "it ends in racist policies, throw all the antecedents in the garbage I don't want to hear them." Which is your argument.