Official Current Affairs & Politics thread

[MrDollarBills]

I don't know about those on the left who tolerate Trump, but I'm definitely aware and skeptical of white liberals, like in Oregon!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/white-liberal-racism-why-progressives-are-unable-to-see-their-own-bigotry.html
https://www.vox.com/2017/1/18/14296126/white-segregated-suburb-neighborhood-cartoon
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-history-portland/492035/

Check into the Bernie Sanders area of the political spectrum where you had people outright voting for Trump out of spite for Hillary Clinton or refusing to vote at all(or voting 3rd party). I am no fan of Sec. Clinton but that did not stop me from voting for her in Nov. 2016 because I'd be insane to vote for a raving racist lunatic or enable him by not voting or making a protest vote. The hardcore Bernie Bros...well that's a different story. It's easy to tolerate certain things when it doesn't personally affect you and you lack the empathy to see or care how it negatively impacts other people, which is certainly an issue among white liberals. There are plenty of people who behave like this on the left.

At the women's march last year, someone was carrying a sign that said "If Hillary won, we'd be at brunch right now." I think that perfectly captures my issue with many white liberals. They see injustices that have plagued our country for generations and think that they are a result of the 2016 election - that things only started to get bad once Trump became president. Trump is clearly awful and has made pretty much everything worse, but these problems don't magically go away with a democrat in office - and that's why I feel like a lot of the "#resist" crowd is so useless. It seems like the *only* component of their ideology is opposition to Trump, paying little mind to the underlying problems that made President Trump possible in the first place.

Well said. Trump is not the direct cause, he is the end result.

Anytime I see a white liberal say "This is not my America" in response to the number of appalling things that we've seen happen over the last year and a half I shake my head.

This is indeed America. It has always been America. All of this nasty, racist crap has been there this whole time, white liberals just haven't been paying attention. Trump simply has come along and taken off the veil that was covering it. He has made it so that Nazis and White supremacists feel comfortable enough to do things in public that they were afraid to do a decade ago. The US Government openly abusing brown children at the border will only normalize violence against minorities.

White liberals were asleep at the wheel while we started to see tea partiers having marches and Obama dolls with nooses around their necks. You'll often hear right leaning folks blame Obama for the "rise" in racial tensions in this country. Obama didn't do anything to stoke this. Obama's election was a shock to the system of a racial majority that is now realizing that they will soon become the minority, and they are afraid of what will happen to them when society no longer caters exclusively to them. As someone put it, the election of Donald Trump is white supremacy's last gasp in the United States. White liberals are now seeing just who their friends, family members, lovers, etc really are and its eye opening for them. The rest of us already knew this stuff. Maybe they will catch up in the future and realize that a lot of racist institutions and norms that they benefit from need to dismantled regardless if Trump ends up dying in jail or not.

[Prokorov]

Check into the Bernie Sanders area of the political spectrum where you had people outright voting for Trump out of spite for Hillary Clinton or refusing to vote at all(or voting 3rd party). I am no fan of Sec. Clinton but that did not stop me from voting for her in Nov. 2016 because I'd be insane to vote for a raving racist lunatic or enable him by not voting or making a protest vote. The hardcore Bernie Bros...well that's a different story. It's easy to tolerate certain things when it doesn't personally affect you and you lack the empathy to see or care how it negatively impacts other people, which is certainly an issue among white liberals. There are plenty of people who behave like this on the left.

At the women's march last year, someone was carrying a sign that said "If Hillary won, we'd be at brunch right now." I think that perfectly captures my issue with many white liberals. They see injustices that have plagued our country for generations and think that they are a result of the 2016 election - that things only started to get bad once Trump became president. Trump is clearly awful and has made pretty much everything worse, but these problems don't magically go away with a democrat in office - and that's why I feel like a lot of the "#resist" crowd is so useless. It seems like the *only* component of their ideology is opposition to Trump, paying little mind to the underlying problems that made President Trump possible in the first place.

Well said. Trump is not the direct cause, he is the end result.

Anytime I see a white liberal say "This is not my America" in response to the number of appalling things that we've seen happen over the last year and a half I shake my head.

This is indeed America. It has always been America. All of this nasty, racist crap has been there this whole time, white liberals just haven't been paying attention. Trump simply has come along and taken off the veil that was covering it. He has made it so that Nazis and White supremacists feel comfortable enough to do things in public that they were afraid to do a decade ago. The US Government openly abusing brown children at the border will only normalize violence against minorities.

White liberals were asleep at the wheel while we started to see tea partiers having marches and Obama dolls with nooses around their necks. You'll often hear right leaning folks blame Obama for the "rise" in racial tensions in this country. Obama didn't do anything to stoke this. Obama's election was a shock to the system of a racial majority that is now realizing that they will soon become the minority, and they are afraid of what will happen to them when society no longer caters exclusively to them. As someone put it, the election of Donald Trump is white supremacy's last gasp in the United States. White liberals are now seeing just who their friends, family members, lovers, etc really are and its eye opening for them. The rest of us already knew this stuff. Maybe they will catch up in the future and realize that a lot of racist institutions and norms that they benefit from need to dismantled regardless if Trump ends up dying in jail or not.

Spot on.

When we had a black president in office cops were still hunting young black men and getting off with a paid vacation and slap on the wrist despite video footage. when we had a black president in office, jails were still overflooded with black men and women and an alarming disproportion rate in a for-profit jail system that targeted minorities and the poor.

This country had all of these problems before trump.... like you said, the big difference is now with a racist d-bag as pesident, all the nazis an klan members can come out of hiding and not have to worry about it. and worse it just makes it easier for young people to turn into that and stops any minor progress weve made.

[MrDollarBills]

One thing I've been saddened by is a somewhat widespread, tired / disgusted reaction about "all the relentless Trump hate." I notice the people reacting that way seem be on the middle-to-left part of the spectrum and seem to take a pretty casual approach to following news and politics.

You mean middle-to-right? I don't know of any on the left who are tolerant of Trump.

No, I certainly didn't mean from the right. The right would be more of an automatic fangs-out situation. IMO they're all-around easier to peg, anyway.

The portion of the left I'm talking about are more like people who don't follow politics much and/or just kind of give lip-service to this stuff. I.e., they're casually left (or dare I say it, Millenials?) and don't like being dragged in to deeper waters like reality is now doing to them, in fact.

So it gets very annoying for them, and at a certain point they start blaming the messenger, essentially.

I mean... sure, the Left-Center-Right spectrum is all well and good, but it's also just a concept. It's always breaking down here, there and everywhere. Even people from close-knit communities can turn on each other with remarkable viciousness, although that goes beyond what I really meant just above.

I get what you're saying...the folks that you're talking about are being disturbed by what they are seeing and they wish things would go back into places where they couldn't see it. That's what people mean when they talk about white privilege in America.

Privilege is a nice thing to have in general. You don't have to worry about certain things that other people do. Like for example, as a man, I don't have to worry about the other man in the elevator that I just stepped on is going to try to touch me or sexually harass me. A woman however, does have to worry about those things and she has to hope that the guy she's in the elevator with isn't a slimeball rapist. The fact that I don't have to worry about that component is a privilege.

However, if I'm going in for a job interview, one of my concerns is if the person sitting across the table from me is a racist and will not give me a fair chance because I'm a person of color. A white liberal never has to think about that, they just hope they don't flub the interview.

If I get pulled over by a cop, I have to be concerned if this guy is a racist who will try to take his daily frustration out on me by abusing me or killing me for no good reason. A white liberal doesn't have to worry about that, because society has told them that the only people cops abuse and kill are minorities (which isn't true btw, but it happens at a rate so disproportionate that it might as well be).

So for the people on the left of the spectrum who are tired about Trump...its all about privilege. Trump's behavior, at the surface level, hurts minorities, women, and LGBT folks (pandering to racists, attacks on healthcare/equality laws/banning transgender troops, etc). If you're not at all appalled or alarmed by Trump, or wish people would stop hating on him...you're most likely in an insulated situation and what he does isn't harming you...yet.

[MrDollarBills]

At the women's march last year, someone was carrying a sign that said "If Hillary won, we'd be at brunch right now." I think that perfectly captures my issue with many white liberals. They see injustices that have plagued our country for generations and think that they are a result of the 2016 election - that things only started to get bad once Trump became president. Trump is clearly awful and has made pretty much everything worse, but these problems don't magically go away with a democrat in office - and that's why I feel like a lot of the "#resist" crowd is so useless. It seems like the *only* component of their ideology is opposition to Trump, paying little mind to the underlying problems that made President Trump possible in the first place.

Well said. Trump is not the direct cause, he is the end result.

Anytime I see a white liberal say "This is not my America" in response to the number of appalling things that we've seen happen over the last year and a half I shake my head.

This is indeed America. It has always been America. All of this nasty, racist crap has been there this whole time, white liberals just haven't been paying attention. Trump simply has come along and taken off the veil that was covering it. He has made it so that Nazis and White supremacists feel comfortable enough to do things in public that they were afraid to do a decade ago. The US Government openly abusing brown children at the border will only normalize violence against minorities.

White liberals were asleep at the wheel while we started to see tea partiers having marches and Obama dolls with nooses around their necks. You'll often hear right leaning folks blame Obama for the "rise" in racial tensions in this country. Obama didn't do anything to stoke this. Obama's election was a shock to the system of a racial majority that is now realizing that they will soon become the minority, and they are afraid of what will happen to them when society no longer caters exclusively to them. As someone put it, the election of Donald Trump is white supremacy's last gasp in the United States. White liberals are now seeing just who their friends, family members, lovers, etc really are and its eye opening for them. The rest of us already knew this stuff. Maybe they will catch up in the future and realize that a lot of racist institutions and norms that they benefit from need to dismantled regardless if Trump ends up dying in jail or not.

Spot on.

When we had a black president in office cops were still hunting young black men and getting off with a paid vacation and slap on the wrist despite video footage. when we had a black president in office, jails were still overflooded with black men and women and an alarming disproportion rate in a for-profit jail system that targeted minorities and the poor.

This country had all of these problems before trump.... like you said, the big difference is now with a racist d-bag as pesident, all the nazis an klan members can come out of hiding and not have to worry about it. and worse it just makes it easier for young people to turn into that and stops any minor progress weve made.

Correct.

Ask Native Americans how America has been since Trump took office. I'll wager that the difference is slim. This is the same America that stood by and watched as Native protesters were trying to defend their water and were abused and beaten for it under Obama's watch.

I'm not trying to dump on white liberals who oppose this stuff by the way. As a minority I am glad that I can say in America that there are really good and decent people out there. But at the same time, none of this should be shocking. Not one damn thing. And if anyone thinks that this nasty stuff will all magically disappear when Trump is long gone, I have some bad news for them.

America is at the point where it will not be about liberals vs conservatives disagreeing politically. Those days ended with Obama. It's now about decent human beings versus the worst that society has to offer, and I am now starting to see that's it is making for some strange bedfellows, i.e., conservatives who aren't racist loons finding themselves seeing eye to eye with the same people they were arguing with 8 years ago about healthcare reform.

[Prokorov]

Well said. Trump is not the direct cause, he is the end result.

Anytime I see a white liberal say "This is not my America" in response to the number of appalling things that we've seen happen over the last year and a half I shake my head.

This is indeed America. It has always been America. All of this nasty, racist crap has been there this whole time, white liberals just haven't been paying attention. Trump simply has come along and taken off the veil that was covering it. He has made it so that Nazis and White supremacists feel comfortable enough to do things in public that they were afraid to do a decade ago. The US Government openly abusing brown children at the border will only normalize violence against minorities.

White liberals were asleep at the wheel while we started to see tea partiers having marches and Obama dolls with nooses around their necks. You'll often hear right leaning folks blame Obama for the "rise" in racial tensions in this country. Obama didn't do anything to stoke this. Obama's election was a shock to the system of a racial majority that is now realizing that they will soon become the minority, and they are afraid of what will happen to them when society no longer caters exclusively to them. As someone put it, the election of Donald Trump is white supremacy's last gasp in the United States. White liberals are now seeing just who their friends, family members, lovers, etc really are and its eye opening for them. The rest of us already knew this stuff. Maybe they will catch up in the future and realize that a lot of racist institutions and norms that they benefit from need to dismantled regardless if Trump ends up dying in jail or not.

Spot on.

When we had a black president in office cops were still hunting young black men and getting off with a paid vacation and slap on the wrist despite video footage. when we had a black president in office, jails were still overflooded with black men and women and an alarming disproportion rate in a for-profit jail system that targeted minorities and the poor.

This country had all of these problems before trump.... like you said, the big difference is now with a racist d-bag as pesident, all the nazis an klan members can come out of hiding and not have to worry about it. and worse it just makes it easier for young people to turn into that and stops any minor progress weve made.

Correct.

Ask Native Americans how America has been since Trump took office. I'll wager that the difference is slim. This is the same America that stood by and watched as Native protesters were trying to defend their water and were abused and beaten for it under Obama's watch.

I'm not trying to dump on white liberals who oppose this stuff by the way. As a minority I am glad that I can say in America that there are really good and decent people out there. But at the same time, none of this should be shocking. Not one damn thing. And if anyone thinks that this nasty stuff will all magically disappear when Trump is long gone, I have some bad news for them.

America is at the point where it will not be about liberals vs conservatives disagreeing politically. Those days ended with Obama. It's now about decent human beings versus the worst that society has to offer, and I am now starting to see that's it is making for some strange bedfellows, i.e., conservatives who aren't racist loons finding themselves seeing eye to eye with the same people they were arguing with 8 years ago about healthcare reform.

agree 100% on the bolded part... just the fact you have people being openly racist in high offices, blacks being hunted and people either trying to supress their voice or outright ignore there is anything wrong is about as alarming as it gets.

the issue with trump though isnt that all this stuff is new.... its that with him in office it all gets worse. he comes in and the first thing he does is promise a wall, treat immagrants like dirt, talk trash about african countries, range-tweet at black athletes.... thats a bad look and all it does is it make it easier for groups to recruit those next generation racists.

like "hey you can grow up and be a racist and become president!"

[MrDollarBills]

yep. Look at some of the primary races around the country for the GOP. Some candidates were or are literally Nazis. The crazies have been emboldened and the ones with nothing to lose by being outed as a racist don't care.

I mean, Rep Steve King from Iowa is a full blown white supremacist and he doesn't even hide it.

It's not going away any time soon. You have a generation of young white males in this country that are so full of contempt that the America that they feel entitled to is changing into a place where everyone gets a say that they would rather burn this place down before the demographic shift happens.

You ever hold your nose and browse through 4chan or reddit's political forums? There has been a mass radicalization of this element that has happened under America's nose and this is not the end game in the slightest. These people are going to kill someone when the **** hits the fan. Mark my words. Every time Trump throws out those racist tweets he's not talking to me or you, he's talking to his lunatic base that believes in QAnon and gains their information from InfoWars. Stoking their fears, amping them up so when the time comes for him to be dragged out of office America will head into a really dark period even worse than it is now.

It may start at a rally, or it may start with a popular journalist being killed. But its going to start and how it ends I have no clue, but it will not be pretty.

[gigantes]

I get what you're saying...the folks that you're talking about are being disturbed by what they are seeing and they wish things would go back into places where they couldn't see it. That's what people mean when they talk about white privilege in America....

In terms of the people I'm talking about, there's definitely some overlap with white privilege. But one doesn't need to be white or privileged to be lazy and annoyed by the burden of understanding national politics and its repercussions.

I do agree with your points about the angry Bernie Bros and Hillary-haters and the kind of reverse damage they can (and did) cause, and I think there's also some overlap with them as well. "Casual-angries" one might call them, which is not too far from "extremists." People who only understand a limited amount of the situation but feel the need to react strongly in various ways, powered by that great motivational fuel-- anger and outrage.

In fact I think a lot of all this can be summed up by that popular quote-- "The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Because the reality is, we're all amateurs at this stuff. Amateurs, full of cognitive biases, various instincts and emotion, acting on limited information and limited understandings, and influenced by all kinds of agendas and narratives. And then we go out and vote the traditional way (i.e. by the way we spend our money), then by our activism and influence, and finally in the nominal way (i.e. the stuff that happens at polling places).

Meanwhile it's hard, endless work keeping up with a spectrum of news sources so as to get the most accurate picture, and of course working to disentangle the threads and understand the various issues. And who really gets respect for that? Because if you say something factual and accurate, you're still bound to piss off others and be resented for it, if not get outright targeted.

Anyway, part of my point here is that I think understanding how people think is pretty damn important in order to understand why Trump voters (and everyone else) do and say what they do. But how we got here, which you guys were talking about, is also important.

For example, I remember reading analysis some time back that talked about how Reagan was the guy who really jump-started the process of bringing various churches and the ultra-religious in to the GOP playbook. You could then say that over the years, that brand of extremism grew in power and influence within the Republican candidate selection process, until finally you had a babbling buffoon "winning" debates against Jeb Bush and others at the GOP primary a couple years ago. The audience didn't want facts and reality, it wanted entertainment and stuff that made them feel good, such as feeling self-righteous. But the whole process used to be more balanced, I think.

Perhaps along those lines, I think you could also say that every Republican president (maybe Bush Sr gets a pass) going back to at least Nixon was pretty much a misfit who wouldn't usually be elected by a well-functioning, rational voting process. I'm not even sure when the last decent GOP president was, in fact. Eisenhower, maybe??

[MrDollarBills]

^^^you brought up a point I initially was going to touch on.

Right now you have a % of conservatives/republicans in America who do not condone what the GOP is doing and do not support Donald Trump. The center-right and moderate centrist repubs. They say they don't know what has happened to their Republican Party, kind of like white liberals saying "This is not America"...coincidence? Nope.

This has been building since Richard Nixon's southern strategy and continued through into the 80s until 2015-16. The GOP has been dog whistling for votes from the far right/racist block of white voters 45 + years, and it took for a black man to be elected as President for the dogs to finally show up on their front porch.

When Sarah Palin ended up getting forced onto John McCain, that was a warning sign that the extremist element of the right that Reagan/Bush/Bush would subtly (or sometimes vert unsubtle, like Reagan's "welfare queens" speech) pander to for votes and then shut the door on them after the election was over was coming to the surface. She was basically the prototype candidate that paved the way for Trump. A lying performance artist who was racist, inarticulate, and had no use for facts. When you have a voter bloc that cares more about racism and bravado, a candidate like Palin/Trump are like honey to flies. The element that the GOP had been virtue signaling to had finally penetrated the party at the highest level at the same time a black man had won the Democratic nomination.

"Normal" Republicans were caught asleep at the wheel, not thinking about what was happening. Then came Mitt Romney's turn. and who was Mitt Romney's VP candidate? Paul Ryan, who at the time was quite popular with who? The American Tea party (who are now known as "Trump's voter base") who rose during Obama's 8 years. Now make no mistake, Paul Ryan is complete trash, but he's not Trump. But him being pushed as a VP pick to entice the extremist element to again come out and vote is was another sign that the chickens were coming home to roost.

Then all of a sudden, things changed in 2015/16. Normal GOP primary debates were becoming complete side shows. "Normal" Republicans like Jeb, or Chris Christie were being "beaten" in debates by a man who is nowhere near as articulate or intelligent as them, but he sure was louder and obnoxious (and to be more obnoxious than Christie is a feat in itself). All of a sudden you start seeing candidates like Trump and Ted Cruz taking chunks of the voter base. Once Trump had won the nomination, it was too late. The crazies had taken a stranglehold of the party that would always lay out bait for them but would leave them out in the cold right after inauguration day.

Establishment/Normal/Sane Republicans thought that they would always keep these people at bay. Now they're left wondering what has happened to their party. And I say nothing has really happened. The crazies were always there. They were just waiting for the right triggering point (a black man as president, signaling the impending doom of white supremacy in the United States) and the right candidate to latch onto to come pouring to the surface.

For example, I remember reading analysis some time back that talked about how Reagan was the guy who really jump-started the process of bringing various churches and the ultra-religious in to the GOP playbook. You could then say that over the years, that brand of extremism grew in power and influence within the Republican candidate selection process, until finally you had a babbling buffoon "winning" debates against Jeb Bush and others at the GOP primary a couple years ago. The audience didn't want facts and reality, it wanted entertainment and stuff that made them feel good, such as feeling self-righteous. But the whole process used to be more balanced, I think.

Perhaps along those lines, I think you could also say that every Republican president (maybe Bush Sr gets a pass) going back to at least Nixon was pretty much a misfit who wouldn't usually be elected by a well-functioning, rational voting process. I'm not even sure when the last decent GOP president was, in fact. Eisenhower, maybe??

^And here's the kicker. George W. Bush and Donald Trump are the only two Republican presidents of the 21st century. Both of them lost the popular vote to get into office. That's a sign that things are changing, and its exactly why the lunatics are now out in full force to "take their country back", because American is becoming brown and they are scared to death of what awaits them in the future

[MrDollarBills]

Read on Twitter

I'll just leave this here.

The Russians are playing both extremes in this country. Just like with the Bernie Bros/#walkaway campaign nonsense, the loonies on the right are being manipulated the same way.

Far left twitter and far right twitter eerily give off the same kind of vibe. Facts be damned, tons of vitriol. The only thing missing from far left social media is the overt racism. I distinctly remember several weeks back seeing a black poster (or someone pretending to be black) talking about how Russian trolls had infiltrated BLM and there had been a propaganda video made encouraging black people to get their gun licences and arm themselves. Turned out that Russian trolls were behind the video. The poster then stated something to effect of "Why should I be mad at Russia for telling black people to arm ourselves?". I was taken aback by that statement because even though black people expressing our right to own firearms isn't a bad thing, its not a good thing when a hostile country is using that for purposes of manipulation to cause civil unrest.

This country is in a dangerous and precarious state right now.

[gigantes]

Yeah, good points all around, MDB. Both the overt appeal to racism and religious zealots no doubt had a powerful transformative effect on the GOP. That, and perhaps some other extremist elements. For example, one might call a certain group the "obnoxious, instant gratification" crowd. Not politically-oriented per se, but you could see how that mindset helped propel candidates like Sanders and Trump in particular.

Patience, professionalism and the long game are things which haven't really been in vogue since... maybe the early 1900's or something... but now they're more like anathema to the culture at large. Incidentally, I don't think it's a coincidence that there's a growing reception for authoritarian measures and leaders around the world. Political parties are preying on these impatient, childish and often bigoted voter segments.

Anyway, I hadn't realised The Southern Strategy started up around the time of Nixon. Just in time to replace Jim Crow laws, eh? I need to read up on it more... starting with WP right now.

^And here's the kicker. George W. Bush and Donald Trump are the only two Republican presidents of the 21st century. Both of them lost the popular vote to get into office. That's a sign that things are changing, and its exactly why the lunatics are now out in full force to "take their country back", because American is becoming brown and they are scared to death of what awaits them in the future

IIRC we latinos are going to be the biggest population vector in a decade or two. Oh well then, just a different set of headaches coming up.

Not that I necessarily see civilisation lasting that long at this rate.

[MrDollarBills]

Yeah, good points all around, MDB. Both the overt appeal to racism and religious zealots no doubt had a powerful transformative effect on the GOP. That, and perhaps some other extremist elements. For example, one might call a certain group the "obnoxious, instant gratification" crowd. Not politically-oriented per se, but you could see how that mindset helped propel candidates like Sanders and Trump in particular.

Patience, professionalism and the long game are things which haven't really been in vogue since... maybe the early 1900's or something... but now they're more like anathema to the culture at large. Incidentally, I don't think it's a coincidence that there's a growing reception for authoritarian measures and leaders around the world. Political parties are preying on these impatient, childish and often bigoted voter segments.

Anyway, I hadn't realised The Southern Strategy started up around the time of Nixon. Just in time to replace Jim Crow laws, eh? I need to read up on it more... starting with WP right now.

^And here's the kicker. George W. Bush and Donald Trump are the only two Republican presidents of the 21st century. Both of them lost the popular vote to get into office. That's a sign that things are changing, and its exactly why the lunatics are now out in full force to "take their country back", because American is becoming brown and they are scared to death of what awaits them in the future

IIRC we latinos are going to be the biggest population vector in a decade or two. Oh well then, just a different set of headaches coming up.

Not that I necessarily see civilisation lasting that long at this rate.

Yeah the southern strategy was used by Nixon and Barry Goldwater to siphon votes in the south by pandering to racist white people. It's what pushed the GOP further to the right and basically pushed minority voters towards the Democrats, before that happened the Democrats used to get a lot of support in the south...well, before the civil rights act passed.

The end game is pretty much what we're seeing now, because minorities, women, and LGBT voters will never support the GOP after decades of abuse and as you can tell by the recent voting numbers, the only people clinging to that party are white men and half of white women. As you have said, latino americans will be the majority and this period in time will not be forgiven or forgotten. And the GOPers who are still sticking with the party despite the shift to the extreme right know this which is why they are stoking nationalism.

And I've noticed that there is a shift towards authoritarian figures that appeal to base instincts in an increasingly more integrated Europe and now America. A lot of that is driven by the same thing that is driving it here, racism and people who are scared of losing societal privilege. It's no coincidence that Vladimir Putin is using this to sew discord in an attempt to rip NATO apart. They would rather throw their country into the toilet, or actually condone treason, before allowing people that don't look like them stand on equal footing. And the sad part is, the majority of the people who fall into this are poor and are just being manipulated by the wealthy. What has Trump done in office to benefit his voting bloc in the south, midwest and appalachia states that are ravaged by overwhelming poverty? Not a damn thing. Yet these people will tell you he's doing a great job, because he says a bunch of racist crap and is using his authority to ethnically cleanse the United States by having ICE terrorize minorities and abusing immigrant children at the border.

[MrDollarBills]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about regarding far left echoing the far right:

Read on Twitter

This is in regards to up and coming Social Democrat Alexandria Ocasio refusing to debate racist troll Ben Shapiro for $10,000. I like Ocasio, she has some good ideas (some are a bit idealistic, but the more I think about it, the more I say why not?), brings a youthful voice to the party and speaks truth to power. My only concern for her is that she needs to stay away from Bernie Sanders, who I do not trust at all right now. Anyway, she was criticized by media outlets for turning down the debate invite. I don't blame her for not bothering with it, Ben Shapiro is a bad faith actor with ill intent. Serious politicians who seek to make real progressive change in America shouldn't waste their time debating racist, intellectually dishonest alt right trolls.

Here's someone, who is clearly coming from a left of the spectrum position, commenting on the above tweet:

Read on Twitter

"Seize their newsrooms". Sounds awfully familiar, right?

This is why I say that sane Americans need to be wary. It's not just the extremist right that we have to worry about.

[gigantes]

I'm not familiar with those particular events, but if I understand your takeaways on that stuff, it does make a kind of sense. I.e., when sh-tty, disingenuous tactics become acceptable, then monkey see, monkey do. So to speak.


re: The Southern Strategy,
You know what really blows my mind is the fact that after abusing and destroying the lives of so many unfortunates in the process of American slavery, then specifically legislating against the rights of black people for so long, then following those laws and customs with various replacement strategies appealing to racism... and THEN for so many people today to act as if all of that was in the past and didn't have strong, direct repercussions still very much affecting the events of today... I mean, just... wow.

[MrDollarBills]

Yep, its like the past has no impact on what people are dealing with right now. People also like to pretend that The New Deal didn't happen in America after The Great Depression, and that it substantially did more for the majority than minority groups.

Anyway:

Read on Twitter

Am I supposed to feel sorry for her?

The media needs to really do two things: a) do a better job at calling out Trump's constant lies, and b) stop making these puff pieces about Trump voters and their 'economic anxiety'. Or better yet, stop making puff pieces about people in Trump's orbit in general in exchange for access to people who are riling up the far right to start killing journalists:

Read on Twitter

This article is going to look crazy in hindsight once Don Jr. ends up getting indicted, or the next time some right wing loon murders a journalist. And it will happen.

[bud29]

By and large, the media's actions over the last ~3 years will be considered total malpractice in hindsight. Iraq War level stuff. They made this entire thing possible during the election by giving Trump billions in free advertising, airing his rallies in full, and obsessing over the Clinton email investigation.

Now, instead of criticizing Trump's horrendous politics, they love to focus on the tweets. How he's violating our precious political norms. Weeks at a time are spent covering Michelle Wolf's rude jokes, Sarah Sanders being kicked out of a restaurant, and people being mean to Alan Dershowitz. When they actually shift focus onto this administration's atrocities - the immigrant camps, the attempts to strip millions of healthcare - it's been incredibly effective in mounting pressure on those in Washington. Congressmen start getting flooded with calls, people get angry, and it actually makes a difference. We need say more of that.

[MrDollarBills]

By and large, the media's actions over the last ~3 years will be considered total malpractice in hindsight. Iraq War level stuff. They made this entire thing possible during the election by giving Trump billions in free advertising, airing his rallies in full, and obsessing over the Clinton email investigation.

Now, instead of criticizing Trump's horrendous politics, they love to focus on the tweets. How he's violating our precious political norms. Weeks at a time are spent covering Michelle Wolf's rude jokes, Sarah Sanders being kicked out of a restaurant, and people being mean to Alan Dershowitz. When they actually shift focus onto this administration's atrocities - the immigrant camps, the attempts to strip millions of healthcare - it's been incredibly effective in mounting pressure on those in Washington. Congressmen start getting flooded with calls, people get angry, and it actually makes a difference. We need say more of that.

The mainstream media is 100% complicit and this includes CNN and MSNBC who gave Trump a non stop platform for his ignorance. Newspapers are also complicit as well. The same people that decided to elevate this man are the same ones who could end up getting killed by some lunatic from his base. Every rally he holds his language used towards the news media worsens.

and speaking of the administration's atrocities:

Read on Twitter

This is infuriating. Trump, Miller, Sessions and anyone complicit in these acts need to be hauled in front of the ICC and tried for crimes against humanity and if found guilty, executed indiscriminately. You should not be able to do harm to children and still breathe.

Meanwhile, the media is focuses on Omarosa spilling dirt when this should be front and center on every news broadcast and newspaper headline.

[13th Man]

Omg, this board is so brainwashed and funny. You all have it backwards.

Peter Strzok just got fired from the FBI, no **** didn't I say he was the real crook all along? The true Russian collusion will be revealed within the coming weeks and months in it stems from the DNC along with their cast of puppets; Mueller, Strzok, Rosenstein and all of the idiots from Fusion GPS; Glen Simpson, Bruce Ohr, his wife, Christopher Steele etc. These people are the real crooks and they will be exposed in time.

So what happens to the Trump/Russian collusion narrative that you guys and the MSM have been falsely pushing down everybody's throats for years? I guess it's time to turn to Omarosa now for credibility right?

[13th Man]

And it other news Antifa turns violent yet again and publicly threatens to assassinate the president yet CNN calls them an anti-hate group. LMAO!! The mainstream media has lead everyone to believe that white supremacists are everywhere yet the only fascist and violent people that turned up were the Antifa.

They came out in droves and even attacked a reporter from MSNBC which was not acknowledged by their own station because it goes against their narrative. So now the MSM pretends that none of violent Antifa stuff this is happening. Just ridiculous.

Idiot Jim Acosta from CNN shows up to a Trump rally, gets vocally berated by the folks there and he cries until no end. CNN covers it like crazy. Antifa physically assaults reporters and the media tries to cover for them. And this is one of the reasons why a recent poll indicated that 91% of the public do not trust the mainstream media.

[13th Man]

The MSM and the left are so unhinged that they're unknowingly helping Trump's cause for another 4 years as president.

They're also going in some weird direction that promotes socialism. Good luck with having Bernie Sanders, Maxime Waters and Ocasio-Cortez lead the DNC campaign. Just wow.

[13th Man]

And you've got Sarah Jeong, the most racist biotch who was caught spewing hundreds of racist tweets but gets a free pass from the New York times and by the left. LOL. I guess it's ok to be racist against Whitey right? Ben Shapiro was right regarding Identity Politics with the left.