Political Roundtable Part XXXI

[montestewart]

Continued from here

[dobrojim]

Another day, more fascism from the GOP.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/20/1106228594/a-missouri-senate-candidate-holds-a-shotgun-and-calls-for-rino-hunting-in-a-new-

It's amazing and terrifying how the impulse for violence has taken over the GOP.

In some way it makes the general cowardice of current GOP officeholders more understandable.
Their base used to mainly focus on opponents. That no longer seems to be enough. They are
expressing violent fantasies about purging (killing) the insufficiently pure members of
their own party.

[Zonkerbl]

I know exactly nothing about reconstruction. Every little tidbit I find out about on twitter (I follow mainly journalists and historians, and a smattering of lefties, although the latter tends to dominate my timeline) shocks the hell out of me.

[Zonkerbl]

Another day, more fascism from the GOP.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/20/1106228594/a-missouri-senate-candidate-holds-a-shotgun-and-calls-for-rino-hunting-in-a-new-

It's amazing and terrifying how the impulse for violence has taken over the GOP.

In some way it makes the general cowardice of current GOP officeholders more understandable.
Their base used to mainly focus on opponents. That no longer seems to be enough. They are
expressing violent fantasies about purging (killing) the insufficiently pure members of
their own party.

I've been trying to warn people. If you study Stalinism, the people most at risk of being outright executed, rather than being sent to the Gulag, where the most loyal Communists on his staff. He was insanely paranoid and the various folks on his staff were constantly plotting against each other. Honestly people need to stop making the comparison to fascism and focus more on the Stalinist cult of personality aspect.

[dobrojim]

I'd say Stalinism was quite fascist. Remember the definition is the combination of authoritarianism
and violence.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

?t=rYcpZZFXdydSTpHMK-fQZg&s=19

Read on Twitter

?t=RiQGpjnS_LyBKSMegbNTxQ&s=19

Read on Twitter

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[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

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[dobrojim]

It's easy to make decisions if you don't have to actually think and evaluate the choices.

[Zonkerbl]

well, it's easy to brainwash people into thinking some "other" are orcs - purely evil with no possibility of redemption, no point talking with them, they exist only to be slaughtered by heroes. We're evolved that way and it's easy enough to believe when we read, for example, the Lord of the Rings. So we're orcs to the Republicans now. We're not even NPCs. We're sprites to be cleared out to get to the next level.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

?t=WAjrvyCbv7TQ4rx_iz3apQ&s=19

Read on Twitter

?t=t-ptC2NRx3FpIFvGGhtAyw&s=19

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

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[Pointgod]

Read on Twitter

?t=PN5rA4n_Ck8HYFj6y-E-8Q&s=19

Remind me again which party is the racist one?

[Pointgod]

Read on Twitter

?t=WAjrvyCbv7TQ4rx_iz3apQ&s=19

Read on Twitter

?t=t-ptC2NRx3FpIFvGGhtAyw&s=19

If only more religious people could have spoken out before we all wouldn’t be in this mess.

[pancakes3]

Read on Twitter

?t=PN5rA4n_Ck8HYFj6y-E-8Q&s=19

i don't need drugs or alcohol to harbor overall resentment of the system.

edit: juneteenth doesn't even fit into his dumb equation. and he's too dumb to realize that he's calling for... what? prohibition? gun control? less holidays for workers? reversing course on marijuana legalization? lol, steps to combat global warming?!

like, what is his point? get rid of Juneteenth? EVERYBODY benefits from Juneteenth. It's not a black holiday. EVERYBODY gets off work.

but i'm sure joe sixpack is nodding along, actively against his own interests.

[AFM]

Smoking weed and drinking sounds like a perfectly fine holiday to me

[Zonkerbl]

BOOOOOOOTH! BOTH PARTIES ARE RACIST! WE LIVE IN A RACIST/WHITE SUPREMACIST COUNTRY!

Why does no one listen to me? When have I ever said Dems are more racist than Republicans?

I will now quote myself: "Republicans are 100% racist. But Dems are 75% racist."

[Wizardspride]

BOOOOOOOTH! BOTH PARTIES ARE RACIST! WE LIVE IN A RACIST/WHITE SUPREMACIST COUNTRY!

Why does no one listen to me? When have I ever said Dems are more racist than Republicans?

I will now quote myself: "Republicans are 100% racist. But Dems are 75% racist."

So you think the difference is only 25%?

If you say so....

[dobrojim]

BOOOOOOOTH! BOTH PARTIES ARE RACIST! WE LIVE IN A RACIST/WHITE SUPREMACIST COUNTRY!

Why does no one listen to me? When have I ever said Dems are more racist than Republicans?

I will now quote myself: "Republicans are 100% racist. But Dems are 75% racist."

So you think the difference is only 25%?

If you say so....

IDK. I think 25% difference seems like an underestimate. The pubs have lots of members willing
to quietly go along and/or tolerate the noisiest and most obvious bigots. The dems have many members
who have trouble recognizing implicit bias in themselves. Both parties suffer from being overly willing
to satisfy large donors at the expense of their median constituent. But the pubs indulge a less
attractive cadre of major donors that are standing in the way of the changes most needed.

Pubs still have lots of people who make really bad faith arguments on this very topic, their arguments
being based on things that were true 60 years ago but have long since changed dramatically.

[Wizardspride]

BOOOOOOOTH! BOTH PARTIES ARE RACIST! WE LIVE IN A RACIST/WHITE SUPREMACIST COUNTRY!

Why does no one listen to me? When have I ever said Dems are more racist than Republicans?

I will now quote myself: "Republicans are 100% racist. But Dems are 75% racist."

So you think the difference is only 25%?

If you say so....

IDK. I think 25% difference seems like an underestimate. The pubs have lots of members willing
to quietly go along and/or tolerate the noisiest and most obvious bigots. The dems have many members
who have trouble recognizing implicit bias in themselves. Both parties suffer from being overly willing
to satisfy large donors at the expense of their median constituent. But the pubs indulge a less
attractive cadre of major donors that are standing in the way of the changes most needed.

Pubs still have lots of people who make really bad faith arguments on this very topic, their arguments
being based on things that were true 60 years ago but have long since changed dramatically.

I guess it depends on what your definition of racism is.

Failure to recognize implicit bias is one thing, it's another thing entirely to espouse white supremacist ideology.

[Zonkerbl]

I'm an economist. My biggest concern is the empirical fact that black people's income does not converge to white people's, that they are in fact diverging over time, more than rich white people's incomes are diverging from poor white people's incomes.

We're all living in the same country with, allegedly, the same access to education and investment opportunities. If you accept the hypothesis that white and black people are not different in terms of intrinsic skills, then there must be something still going on that is preventing black people from catching up with white people.

So if you look at the actual policies that do the most economic harm to black people, the bipartisan War on Drugs, that moderate Dems like Bill Clinton and Biden were primary authors of, has been just as harmful economically as segregation was. So I get the distinction in terms of intent - in that sense at least the Dems are not *intentionally* racist. But the problem is that refusing to confront implicit bias is *just as harmful*, in terms of convergence (or lack thereof) of income and wealth, as segregation was. The income gap isn't narrowing. The home ownership gap isn't narrowing. So don't throw your back out patting yourself on the back just yet.

The only policy that is even more harmful is slavery, and both parties are solidly against it.