President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I guess Antifa has to kill someone before someone decides they're not here to save democracy.

 

Antifa? WTF ? More made up bullshit by congenital liars, sociopaths and conservatives. Kind of like pizza gate, WMDs and DeepState. More big lies by Nazi propagandists like Bannon Hannity and kellyAnne

 

California needs Ronald Reagan more than ever.

 

Guess Dixie didn't get invited to the party. He was left to follow the news.

 

Oh @YankeeFan:

http://nypost.com/2017/08/26/petition-seeks-to-rename-roosevelt-island-calls-fdr-racist/

 

I want to know what @Johnny Dangerously thinks of Antifa.

 

Damnation by faint praise

 

Fucko's False Flag operations proceeding nicely. Welcome to Kristallnacht.

 

Wasn't me, but I'm all for it.

Let's rename it back to Welfare Island, and build some low incline housing.

 

So, how do you alleviate the advantages that kids who have two parents, who are married to each other, are educated, and who waited until they completed the majority of their education before having kids have?

I'm thinking a 100% death tax would be a necessary step, right?

 

A really thoughtful response. My thoughts (which in spots are strongly-worded and not personally intended)

As I've written before, I'd like to think that, as I write, I'm not necessarily writing from a specific personal perspective, but a systemic one. That said, I'm not a black woman so, correct, I can't speak from a black woman's perspective. Since I tend to reject postmodernism, I firmly reject personal truth; that is, I don't believe in it. I think there's one truth, just the one, and I'm interested in discerning that.

Further, your take seems to suggest a discussion won't bear any fruit because, well, the people of color who'd certainly agree with you aren't here to provide the POV you so obviously know is right and, additionally, a POV they hold. Isn't that at least a little presumptuous?

I'll go ahead and disagree here. To the degree that the Internet/Twitter/social media has amplified the struggle and widened the number of voices speaking, it has made those voices shallower, narrower and stuck in an echo silo. The more national the platform, the shallower it gets, as it must, to attract a broad coalition. But local communities are fraying because of it. No, the struggles of a person 3,429 miles away should not matter to you more than that of your neighbor. If you desire to embrace the struggles of those 3,429 miles away, move there and put your chips on the proverbial poker table, or partner with a church that does so and take regular missions. If White Person A wants to take up the struggle of black Americans, go live there. That's uncomfortable, because that takes more than a message board missive.

To offer an example, I'll use the conservative evangelical side of the conversation.

There's a movement among some more conservative evangelicals - led by a former movie critic, of all things - to pull away from broader culture in bad ways, which includes calls for large-scale departures from public schools because of a growing LGBT curriculum in some school districts. This the movement that uses the photographer in New Mexico as the rubicon, or some unsympathetic principal in some school district as "proof" that America's schools are lost and evangelicals are lost in them.

And, by and large, it's hogwash. Hot garbage. Most local schools never encounter more than one - maybe - transgender student over a course of many years, and, you know, local communities just figure it out. They may not figure it out to your exact liking, or even anyone's exact liking, but, then, the world's like that. The minute you start making a bunch of formal rules for "how to handle every social situation imaginable because some person in an advocacy position says so" you're walking down the road of quiet tyranny - and by that, I don't mean a liberal one.

I mean the one we got with Trump. All those silent voters who have withdrawn from the public square because their views are seen as invalid, only to vote for the one man whose bully pulpit can humiliate the rest of the people remaining in the public square.

Why is that a better result? To me, it isn't.

To the degree the Internet works in your favor, it works in the favor of your ideological enemies, too. As it embraces empathy, it resists it. It makes personal conversation harder and harder. It's making genuine understanding closer to impossible.

I mean, I just disagree. The Democratic Party is getting crushed nationally, on a state level and on a local level. Read the New Yorker Q&A. The Republicans are a few states away from calling a constitutional convention. The framers built a system where the states retain an extraordinary amount of power. To lose at the state level is a big deal in the American government. To lose state legislatures is a big deal. Winning on the local and state level is a big deal.

And...you...can't...win...there with a national liberal platform. Use whatever rhetoric you like, be the full-hearted, journalist for justice for all I care. It...doesn't...win. And if you don't win, it doesn't matter how right you think you are. You have zero control to put those things into policy. That all works well for a Alessia Cara song, but it's not how government functions. A groundswell of emotion isn't going to change policies; Obama didn't get shit done once he lost Congress.

I do think white people have enjoyed privileges that black people haven't. Racism is the original sin of America, and the stain doesn't go away. But to make advances in policy that lead to a more equitable society, you have to do one of four things:

>>Hope you can shame enough white Americans into agreeing that the privilege they experience means changing how they vote, and doing this, out of their own changed hearts, will in turn change America.

>>Strike a deal with a segment of white Americans that puts racial equality as a top priority and actually puts other things - like climate change, or LGBT issues - on a back burner. There are evangelical white Americans ready to vote for racial justice. They'll do it. They're willing. But they will not vote for bathrooms. They will not vote for fewer restrictions on abortions. So - do you want those voters, or don't you? Because the Democrat Party can pick off a big enough number to win some elections on every level, but it means sacrificing other things. This means making choices, which is uncomfortable for liberals, because they want to check "all." Well, you can't get "all." You get some.

>>These white liberal Americans who claim to care so much about the political system can move to swing states and, over the course of 15-20 years, shift the electoral tide. But that means making lives in places like Georgia and Missouri and Wisconsin and Colorado, and not in major city centers like NY/LA/DC.

>>In lieu of policy changes, white liberal Americans would commit to sacrificing their - and their children's - place in line for black Americans. That is: Consciously not applying to Ivy League schools - despite being a legacy - and requesting the admissions board take a minority instead. That is: Not taking the plum internship in a PR firm and going into low-paying social work. That is: Making a purposeful effort to take less in the name of giving minorities more opportunities, and, if the minorities don't initially take them, leaving those opportunities empty anyway. That's sacrifice. That's uncomfortable. A life with that kind of purpose is often more meaningful, but less fun, less cool, less impressive to one's parents, and more disciplined an existence than many white liberals care to lead.

My take on some white liberals is harsh and probably unfair, and I am in the process of repenting of some of it, but here goes: They will support racial equality and justice to the degree that it makes them look good for supporting it, but they will leave it at that, and protect their own opportunities, desires and trajectories, all while judging white Americans who do the same in action but not in rhetoric.

 

How about we start by acknowledging that not everyone has equal access to the "means" of success, and not necessarily through any fault of their own? Then maybe we can acknowledge that groups of hateful people have worked aggressively and systematically for generations to impede access to that path for groups of people they consider inferior based on the color of their skin or some other stupid shit.