Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

Yeah, I still like you too, for most of the same reasons.

And, I get that I grew up in fucking Mayberry, and had it easy. But, you're wrong that I don't give a shit, and/or don't see the discrimination.

Where we disagree is on how to resolve the problems we face. I'm also not nearly as interested in placing the blame as you are. I get that people are racist on all kinds of levels, regardless of their upbringing, or their political party.

I believe Barak Obama when he said his grandmother was a little afraid of blacks, even though she was a liberal, with a mixed race grandson that she was raising.

I get that I have to check myself sometimes. I know my mother and father's beliefs were different than my own, and I had to realize I couldn't just inherit their beliefs.

People I know and love have been victims of racism, classism, and sexual assault. I'm not immune to the damage it does, nor do I turn a blind eye to the people that commit these acts. Racism is vile, and goes against everything Christ taught.

I also think the left is very bad about winning friends, and trying to influence people. Bono got through to guys like Jesse Helms. John Roberts should be a hero in every gay household in America. Dick Cheney was for gay marriage before Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.

I don't see how a sign like this celebrates pride, or does anything except to help make enemies of potential friends:



Dems love to blast Republicans for not "compromising", but they need to be as critical towards their own.

For fucks sake, a guy like Joe Lieberman is hated now because he was willing to compromise.

If all Dems do is make enemies with the right, they shouldn't be surprised when the find it hard to have a dialogue, or reach a compromise.

 

I'm saying Democrats caused white flight from urban America, because they didn't want to live next to Blacks.

I'm saying Teddy Kennedy probably never belonged to a Yacht Club that had a Jewish member.

I'm saying that Dems on Wall Street hire white kids from Ivy League schools.

I'm saying that Ruth Bader Ginsberg's law clerks were not a diverse, cross section of America.

I'm saying Democrat landlords are just as likely to discriminate against African-Americans as Republican landlords.

I'm saying that Obama's grandmother would cross the street if she saw a young African-American walking towards her.

I'm saying that African immigrant cab drivers in New York City discriminate against African-American passengers.

I'm saying that the AirBnB hosts who won't accept African-American guests aren't all Republicans.

Racism is an American problem. It's a world problem. And, we're not going to get anywhere if we try to blame one side for a centuries old problem, that neither side is responsible for, and good people on both sides would like to solve.

 

You won't get any argument from me on your last point.

However, only one party has nominated for the highest office in the land, and embraced as its standard-bearer, someone who personifies all of that hatred.

 

There's also only one party whose strategy to deal with an increasingly non-white electorate is to eliminate the ability of non-whites to vote.

The idea that the two sides are pounding out solutions, just from different sides, is laughable.

 

Ahem ...

 

So, the side that continually belittles people who don't agree with them and continually tells them what they think around these parts is the one making enemies? Yes, there is a problem on both sides when it comes to bipartisan governing. I'd like to hear from all the people disputing that.

 

What? Stop being coy.

 

I can think of at least one vile racist who was not only nominated, he was actually elected ... amazingly, he's still a hero to many of leftward leanings ...

 

My father a state senator for 20 years. I think I've talked about this before, but if not, there you go. He was a liberal lion of Montana senate. Fought for women, for Native Americans, fought for worker's rights, all the way back in the early 80s. He was the majority leader for 12 years, senate president for four, and just constantly a thorn in the side of the Republicans. He locked horns with the governor so much, the governor resigned for health reasons and pseudo blamed him. But you know what? Some of the Republican senators ended up being his closest friends. He did deals to get shit done. He fought and fought and then they drank together, and he went home to work as a prosecutor and they went home to their ranches and next year they did it again. When he retired, I think more Republicans came to his retirement party than Democrats. Some of those Republican senators would come round our house and want to talk about my high school football career for hours. They were really good men.

I get really bothered by snooty liberals demonizing the uneducated, the working class, they people who didn't make it out. It's not all liberals, of course, but it's a lot of college-educated snobs, and in media, it's pundit assholes who make a shit ton of money and treat politics very much like a game while they schmooze one another on the Acela. I actually get why some of the Brexit stuff happened. Entire generations of people are being left behind and they're being told, in not so subtle ways, that it's essentially their fault. A lot of the kids I went to high school with, they don't want to invent something that changes the world or become a media star or even own their own business. They want get a job their semi-proud to do where they'll make $45,000 a year for the next 40 years that allows them to spend their weekends at the lake, or hunting, or at their kids football games.

The fact that those jobs are scarce, and they're being told "Well, maybe you should move to Portland, or Boise, or Denver, or take out a big loan and go back to school and hope that translates into a better job...." that's fucking scary. And I get that. Those kids from working-class families, I grew up with them. And they didn't always like me very much, son of a lawyer and a professor. And I understand why.

Sure, there are racists who vote Democrat. Hell, I grew up with those people too. People who loved Bill Cosby and Michael Jordan, but would now lose their mind if their daughter came home and said she was engaged to a Native American man or a black man. People on my football team, who had never met a black person in their life, liked to insist that black people had a special muscle in their calf that made them faster and able to jump higher. I once got in a heated argument about this during a practice, and ended up slapping a kid across the face who called me a n----- lover. His mom was a teacher.

And yes I see this shit plenty of hypocrisy in Baltimore too, my home for the last 16 years, where all the nice liberals are eager to flee the city or send their kids to private schools. It's complicated, and yes, it's often cowardly.

Should Democrats call out their own for shitty behavior? Absolutely. But that shouldn't prevent Republicans from doing the same. Your argument often seems to boil down to "Why should we do it if you won't?"

The begrudging acceptance of Trump as a legitimate candidate for the presidency is one of the saddest developments in my lifetime. It basically shows there is no level of vile behavior we won't rationalize in the hopes of retaining power. I can't imagine a day when the Democrats nominate a anti-vaxer, a Bush-Did-9/11-Truther, an outright hippie-communist who wanted to establish a free love matriarchal society and eliminate borders entirely, but I'd like to think I'd refuse to vote for this person. That this extreme would be too much, and instead of reluctantly rooting for them in hope they would nominate some good judges (assuming they hadn't abolished the court system and replaced it with a yoga circle) I'd push for more moderate candidates in other offices, or get involved myself.

 

Johnson was complicated.

 

Johnson ain't the one I'm talking about ...

 

I assume you're talking about FDR or LBJ. I don't disagree, nor have I ever pretended otherwise.

Either way, the relevance to 2016 and the Era of Trump is escaping me.