Schmendrick, I do sympathize. It sounds intensely annoying. But does even the experience of condescension and humiliation justify voting for a lying, cheating, ignorant grifter who tried to overturn a presidential election? And for a party that is only interested in shoveling money at the rich and that is happy to strip millions of peopl…
Schmendrick, I do sympathize. It sounds intensely annoying. But does even the experience of condescension and humiliation justify voting for a lying, cheating, ignorant grifter who tried to overturn a presidential election? And for a party that is only interested in shoveling money at the rich and that is happy to strip millions of people of their medical care, allow our infrastructure to fall apart, destroy labor unions, give polluters a free hand, pack the judiciary with rabid radicals, and ignore climate change? Voting Republican seems like a counterproductive way to fight woke.
The vote for Trump is a vote for a brick in the face to the existing system. It is rarely justified a priori on any utilitarian calculus. It is a raw scream of high-ethanol negative partisanship, with some slight rationalization that someone who so clearly has burnt his boats and rendered himself persona non grata in polite society cannot be coopted by the elite blob (the Moldbuggian "Cathedral") as so many previous conservative insurgent groups have been.
Your listing of grievances holds no weight with the right, because they do not believe that you honestly oppose Trump for those reasons. They believe that you will call *anyone* who expresses views to the right of the progressive consensus du jour a racist, sexist, homophobe, liar, cheater, democracy-despoiler, vulture-capitalist, shill for the rich, etc., while you will find unprincipled excuses to justify and support the exact same sins when they crop up on the progressive side of the aisle.
They view doing things that make woke people maximally mad as the definitionally correct way to fight woke, because if the woke people are mad, they are definitionally not getting what they want.
I don't say any of this gleefully, or with any animosity towards you particularly - I don't know you and if you're in a Wisdom of Crowds comment section you clearly have decent taste in podcasts. I only say this by way of explanation, in hopes you can grasp the actual situation and have an accurate view of a prominent perspective on the other side.
Thanks for the explanation. There are some things I still don't understand, though. For example:
"A vote for Trump is a vote for a brick in the face to the existing system." No, on the contrary. The existing system is plutocracy. Plutocracy is the reason millions of Americans have negative net worth, why the net worth of the three richest Americans is greater than the net worth of the bottom 50 percent of the country, why tens of millions of Americans have no health insurace and why millions more would be bankrupted by a serious illness, why millions of young Americans were crippled by student debt, why every wildfire and hurricane season is a nightmare for large parts of the country and will only get worse, why American elections are up for sale, etc., etc. A vote for Republicans is a vote to continue all this. Destroying woke would seem to be infinitely less important than addressing the above.
And what difference does it make whether I and other Trump opponents oppose him for these reasons? These thingsare true, and that's all that should matter to someone with any kind of moral compass. Are you saying that the bruised egos and offended sensibilities of these young barbarians outweigh the plight of their fellow citizens in their minds?
" 'A vote for Trump is a vote for a brick in the face to the existing system.' No, on the contrary. The existing system is plutocracy...."
You and my hypothetical Trump voter are talking past each other here. The Trump voter sees the people he hates getting mad about Trump and goes "good, if they're mad, they're not getting what they want." Meanwhile you're trying to construct a systematic theory. One is personal, the other systemic.
"And what difference does it make whether I and other Trump opponents oppose him for these reasons? These things are true..."
It's a "boy who cried wolf" problem. If progressives have no credibility with conservatives - or even anti-credibility, which is to say the conservative believes the progressive is most likely to be deliberately lying to him or manipulating him somehow - then the progressive has no chance of convincing the conservative that the conservative's positive assessment of Trump is incorrect and the progressive's systemic theory is better.
What I'm saying is that the conservatives don't believe your "plutocracy" diagnosis is true. They believe you are at best mistaken, and at worst lying. That is the problem you have to solve.
"the conservatives don't believe your "plutocracy" diagnosis is true"
Right. But why not? It's too silly to say that they don't believe what is utterly obvious simply because people whom they dislike say it's true. It seems to me that you're saying that conservatives are so blinded by their resentment of snobby woke airheads that they're unable to see or unwilling to acknowledge the disasters this lying, vindictive charlatan is likely to inflict on their country and their fellow citizens. Some patriots!
They don't believe it's "utterly obvious." They interpret what they see in the country differently. They believe just as strongly as you do that it's "utterly obvious" that those snobby woke airheads are destroying the country, and that progressives are "unable to see or unwilling to acknowledge the disasters" that various progressive policies have caused such as unnecessary COVID lockdowns, illegal student loan giveaways, catastrophic progressive governance in big cities and deep-blue states, destruction of merit-based hiring and productivity through race- and gender-based affirmative action, and suppression of working class wages and ability to meet CoL increases through mass immigration.
Believe it or not, there are people that look at the world and reach different conclusions than you do.
Fair enough; those are genuine problems, though 1) the lockdowns were an overcautious reaction to a pandemic that killed 1.2 million people. If there had been no lockdowns and the death toll had reached 2 million, would the same people still blame the Democrats; 2) about student loan forgiveness, the Supreme Court said that only Congress had the authority to do it, not the President. Which is pretty rich, considering how completely the Court is lying down for the Executive Branch when it's in Republican hands; 3) big cities have housing problems, because they're such desirable places to live. They don't have safety problems, as Trump has constantly claimed: blue areas are safer than red areas; 4) affirmative action, for better and worse, is officially over. DEI was always a bad idea; I'm glad to see it gone. But a major national problem? Worth sending a real-estate shyster to the White House and a party of bomb-throwers and flag-wavers to Congress? 5) "suppression of working-class wages" -- Are you kidding me? They blame immigration rather than deindustrialization (which was entirely biipartisan), destruction of labor unions (wholly Republican), and huge regressive tax cuts and other inerquality-promoting policies (Republican)?
As I've said, I'm hardly a fan of the Democrats. But compared to a climate-change-denying plutocrat who tried to steal a Presidential election and poisoned the country's politics with his continual lies, and a party that supports him mindlessly, it seems obvious that the Democrats are the lesser evil. By a lot.,
And no, it's not a "boy who cried wolf" problem. The damned wolf is in the White House, targeting his enemies, blathering about Ukraine having started the war, fantasizing about Trump Gaza, and above all, scheming to give the rich another $4.5 tax cut. Can't conservatives see the wolf for themselves?
@George Scialabba And a vote for the (current, Kamala, 2024) Democratic Party isn't a vote to "continue all of this"??! Honestly the second half of the Biden term and its continuation of the Yellen regime et. al. did not help things at all, if you want to talk about causes and consequences.
And at this point I honestly don't know what the fuck the Democratic party stands for (at the level of leadership and politics, which is the level that actually matters).. even Sen. Chris Murphy who is supposed by some to be the person who "gets it", has reverting to focusing on Trump's perceived corruption and grifting, as if doing the same thing twice will somehow work again. Maybe the Democratic party is just completely 'insane'..
Wes: the first half of Biden's term, among other things, rescued several million children who would have fallen into poverty without the Extended Child Tax Credit (https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/child-tax-credit-grows-lift-millions-children-out-poverty). Naturally, when the Republicans took over the House during the second half of his term, they killed it and blocked every other Democratic initiative. Not because they had anything better to offer, but just because they could.
Of course I'm not a fan of the Democrats - they're stupidly woke and, much worse, in bed with Wall Street. I'm a fan of Sanders, whose candidacy the Party twice sabotaged. But the lesser evil is the lesser evil. The Democrats are like a bad cold; the Republicans are the plague.
Well, to be specific: do we need a $4.5 trillion tax cut for the rich, increased fossil fuel production and greenhouse gas emission, throwing 10 million people off Medicaid, turning all the regulatory agencies over to the industries they're supposed to be regulating, more judges at all levels who care only about protecting corporations' rights and not at all about protecting citizens' rights, etc. in order to ... what? Crush DEI and tighten border security? I support these two goals, but I think we can accomplish them without destroying the society and the environment.
Schmendrick, I do sympathize. It sounds intensely annoying. But does even the experience of condescension and humiliation justify voting for a lying, cheating, ignorant grifter who tried to overturn a presidential election? And for a party that is only interested in shoveling money at the rich and that is happy to strip millions of people of their medical care, allow our infrastructure to fall apart, destroy labor unions, give polluters a free hand, pack the judiciary with rabid radicals, and ignore climate change? Voting Republican seems like a counterproductive way to fight woke.
The vote for Trump is a vote for a brick in the face to the existing system. It is rarely justified a priori on any utilitarian calculus. It is a raw scream of high-ethanol negative partisanship, with some slight rationalization that someone who so clearly has burnt his boats and rendered himself persona non grata in polite society cannot be coopted by the elite blob (the Moldbuggian "Cathedral") as so many previous conservative insurgent groups have been.
Your listing of grievances holds no weight with the right, because they do not believe that you honestly oppose Trump for those reasons. They believe that you will call *anyone* who expresses views to the right of the progressive consensus du jour a racist, sexist, homophobe, liar, cheater, democracy-despoiler, vulture-capitalist, shill for the rich, etc., while you will find unprincipled excuses to justify and support the exact same sins when they crop up on the progressive side of the aisle.
They view doing things that make woke people maximally mad as the definitionally correct way to fight woke, because if the woke people are mad, they are definitionally not getting what they want.
I don't say any of this gleefully, or with any animosity towards you particularly - I don't know you and if you're in a Wisdom of Crowds comment section you clearly have decent taste in podcasts. I only say this by way of explanation, in hopes you can grasp the actual situation and have an accurate view of a prominent perspective on the other side.
Thanks for the explanation. There are some things I still don't understand, though. For example:
"A vote for Trump is a vote for a brick in the face to the existing system." No, on the contrary. The existing system is plutocracy. Plutocracy is the reason millions of Americans have negative net worth, why the net worth of the three richest Americans is greater than the net worth of the bottom 50 percent of the country, why tens of millions of Americans have no health insurace and why millions more would be bankrupted by a serious illness, why millions of young Americans were crippled by student debt, why every wildfire and hurricane season is a nightmare for large parts of the country and will only get worse, why American elections are up for sale, etc., etc. A vote for Republicans is a vote to continue all this. Destroying woke would seem to be infinitely less important than addressing the above.
And what difference does it make whether I and other Trump opponents oppose him for these reasons? These thingsare true, and that's all that should matter to someone with any kind of moral compass. Are you saying that the bruised egos and offended sensibilities of these young barbarians outweigh the plight of their fellow citizens in their minds?
" 'A vote for Trump is a vote for a brick in the face to the existing system.' No, on the contrary. The existing system is plutocracy...."
You and my hypothetical Trump voter are talking past each other here. The Trump voter sees the people he hates getting mad about Trump and goes "good, if they're mad, they're not getting what they want." Meanwhile you're trying to construct a systematic theory. One is personal, the other systemic.
"And what difference does it make whether I and other Trump opponents oppose him for these reasons? These things are true..."
It's a "boy who cried wolf" problem. If progressives have no credibility with conservatives - or even anti-credibility, which is to say the conservative believes the progressive is most likely to be deliberately lying to him or manipulating him somehow - then the progressive has no chance of convincing the conservative that the conservative's positive assessment of Trump is incorrect and the progressive's systemic theory is better.
What I'm saying is that the conservatives don't believe your "plutocracy" diagnosis is true. They believe you are at best mistaken, and at worst lying. That is the problem you have to solve.
"the conservatives don't believe your "plutocracy" diagnosis is true"
Right. But why not? It's too silly to say that they don't believe what is utterly obvious simply because people whom they dislike say it's true. It seems to me that you're saying that conservatives are so blinded by their resentment of snobby woke airheads that they're unable to see or unwilling to acknowledge the disasters this lying, vindictive charlatan is likely to inflict on their country and their fellow citizens. Some patriots!
They don't believe it's "utterly obvious." They interpret what they see in the country differently. They believe just as strongly as you do that it's "utterly obvious" that those snobby woke airheads are destroying the country, and that progressives are "unable to see or unwilling to acknowledge the disasters" that various progressive policies have caused such as unnecessary COVID lockdowns, illegal student loan giveaways, catastrophic progressive governance in big cities and deep-blue states, destruction of merit-based hiring and productivity through race- and gender-based affirmative action, and suppression of working class wages and ability to meet CoL increases through mass immigration.
Believe it or not, there are people that look at the world and reach different conclusions than you do.
Fair enough; those are genuine problems, though 1) the lockdowns were an overcautious reaction to a pandemic that killed 1.2 million people. If there had been no lockdowns and the death toll had reached 2 million, would the same people still blame the Democrats; 2) about student loan forgiveness, the Supreme Court said that only Congress had the authority to do it, not the President. Which is pretty rich, considering how completely the Court is lying down for the Executive Branch when it's in Republican hands; 3) big cities have housing problems, because they're such desirable places to live. They don't have safety problems, as Trump has constantly claimed: blue areas are safer than red areas; 4) affirmative action, for better and worse, is officially over. DEI was always a bad idea; I'm glad to see it gone. But a major national problem? Worth sending a real-estate shyster to the White House and a party of bomb-throwers and flag-wavers to Congress? 5) "suppression of working-class wages" -- Are you kidding me? They blame immigration rather than deindustrialization (which was entirely biipartisan), destruction of labor unions (wholly Republican), and huge regressive tax cuts and other inerquality-promoting policies (Republican)?
As I've said, I'm hardly a fan of the Democrats. But compared to a climate-change-denying plutocrat who tried to steal a Presidential election and poisoned the country's politics with his continual lies, and a party that supports him mindlessly, it seems obvious that the Democrats are the lesser evil. By a lot.,
And no, it's not a "boy who cried wolf" problem. The damned wolf is in the White House, targeting his enemies, blathering about Ukraine having started the war, fantasizing about Trump Gaza, and above all, scheming to give the rich another $4.5 tax cut. Can't conservatives see the wolf for themselves?
That's $4.5 trillion, of course.
@George Scialabba And a vote for the (current, Kamala, 2024) Democratic Party isn't a vote to "continue all of this"??! Honestly the second half of the Biden term and its continuation of the Yellen regime et. al. did not help things at all, if you want to talk about causes and consequences.
And at this point I honestly don't know what the fuck the Democratic party stands for (at the level of leadership and politics, which is the level that actually matters).. even Sen. Chris Murphy who is supposed by some to be the person who "gets it", has reverting to focusing on Trump's perceived corruption and grifting, as if doing the same thing twice will somehow work again. Maybe the Democratic party is just completely 'insane'..
Wes: the first half of Biden's term, among other things, rescued several million children who would have fallen into poverty without the Extended Child Tax Credit (https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/child-tax-credit-grows-lift-millions-children-out-poverty). Naturally, when the Republicans took over the House during the second half of his term, they killed it and blocked every other Democratic initiative. Not because they had anything better to offer, but just because they could.
Of course I'm not a fan of the Democrats - they're stupidly woke and, much worse, in bed with Wall Street. I'm a fan of Sanders, whose candidacy the Party twice sabotaged. But the lesser evil is the lesser evil. The Democrats are like a bad cold; the Republicans are the plague.
I guess the question becomes, do we need a total plague for renewal to be able to happen?
Well, to be specific: do we need a $4.5 trillion tax cut for the rich, increased fossil fuel production and greenhouse gas emission, throwing 10 million people off Medicaid, turning all the regulatory agencies over to the industries they're supposed to be regulating, more judges at all levels who care only about protecting corporations' rights and not at all about protecting citizens' rights, etc. in order to ... what? Crush DEI and tighten border security? I support these two goals, but I think we can accomplish them without destroying the society and the environment.