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Would you be willing to articulate your argument for Trump here? I promise not to argue against you, and certainly not to slur you. Can't speak for anyone else,

Would you be willing to articulate your argument for Trump here? I promise not to argue against you, and certainly not to slur you. Can't speak for anyone else, though. We now HAVE Trump coming in as US president, so frankly I'd welcome a bit of hope that he might be good. I can't promise to agree with you, but I'm very willing to listen to arguments from those who hold opposing positions to mine.

masondixon 10y ago
> I promise not to argue against you, and certainly not to slur you. Please argue! And thank you for not slurring :) > Would you be willing to articulate your argument for Trump here? I supported Obama. I always considered myself a liberal. I support gay marriage, I support gun control. I support universal health care. I support decent welfare and a safety net. As a programmer, the formative moment for my Trump support came when a prolific open-source developer was forced to leave the community because he would not accept a trivial change to the documentation to change gendered pro-nouns to non-gendered pro-nouns. His reason was he didn't want to mess up the revision history with a trivial change like that. And he was from South America where nouns are all gendered anyway. But one of the big companies came out and said that "they would have fired him". http://www.dailydot.com/news/github-gendered-pronoun-debate/ http://www.dailydot.com/news/github-gendered-pronoun-debate/ This was non-sensical to me, and was bullying. But I soon realised that this overly sensitive behaviour had pervaded all walks of life and all aspects of society and I soon discovered the cliched political correctness run wild with third-wave feminist bloggers, social justice, Black Lives Matter protesting of clearly non-racially motivated attacks, and that was it. Its ironic that my biggest reason for voting Trump is to stop the bullying from the left - who are protesting against...bullying (sexism, misogyny, racism). One side is for freedom of speech, the other side is for controlling what you can say. One side thinks controlling what you can say will be abused and unfairly target people, the other side thinks that freedom of speech is a means of control by the entitled. There's a calm, complex, and nuanced debate to be had here to find a middle ground. But unfortunately there is no Liberal ready to accept that this is the debate that needs to be had. The alt-right, the new right, the Trump supporters - we are ready and waiting to have this debate...
- domfletcher 10y ago
  I think you're right about the need for debate around how identity politics can be better expressed and that is a debate that seems to have been slightly suppressed on the left. I would say two things about why I don't think this is a good reason to support Trump: 1. The situation you describe is fundamentally about freedom of speech vs the right not be be offended. Trump is not an advocate of freedom of speech and doesn't believe in a free press. In my estimation this is much more dangerous than what you describe. 2. This doesn't even register on my scale of the pros and cons of Trump. The Presidency is not about who decides who gets to say what to whom, that is a matter for society at large. As has been described elsewhere in this thread the damage he will do (if he enacts even half of his platform) to immigrant and womens rights, America's standing in the world and free trade will outweigh a hundredfold any small gains you get from a backlash against political correctness.
  - return0 10y ago
    > how identity politics can be better expressed Do you not think that the elections showed that identity politics do NOT matter, instead national politics matter more?
    - domfletcher 10y ago
      I'm talking to OP's specific point around siding with Trump. I think the point is that no body on my side understands what matters in terms of motivating the electorate.
  - masondixon 10y ago
    > As has been described elsewhere in this thread the damage he will do (if he enacts even half of his platform) to immigrant and womens rights, America's standing in the world and free trade will outweigh a hundredfold any small gains you get from a backlash against political correctness. But in four years will you admit you're wrong if it doesn't turn out to be the case? No. It will go on and on and on. I feel I respond to all this fear mongering constantly: > immigrant rights Immigrants are better off with stronger borders. People don't have to suspect them of being illegal. Has that occurred to anyone on the left? > womens rights? Trump: I oppose the use of government funds to pay for abortion. A supreme court judge may be an issue though, but it is unlikely to reverse policy. > America's standing in the world It is bad at the moment. > free trade Both candidates oppose TPP. Canada wants to talk about NAFTA. Free trade destroys local jobs.

masondixon 10y ago

> I promise not to argue against you, and certainly not to slur you. Please argue! And thank you for not slurring :) > Would you be willing to articulate your argument for Trump here? I supported Obama. I always considered myself a liberal. I support gay marriage, I support gun control. I support universal health care. I support decent welfare and a safety net. As a programmer, the formative moment for my Trump support came when a prolific open-source developer was forced to leave the community because he would not accept a trivial change to the documentation to change gendered pro-nouns to non-gendered pro-nouns. His reason was he didn't want to mess up the revision history with a trivial change like that. And he was from South America where nouns are all gendered anyway. But one of the big companies came out and said that "they would have fired him". http://www.dailydot.com/news/github-gendered-pronoun-debate/ http://www.dailydot.com/news/github-gendered-pronoun-debate/ This was non-sensical to me, and was bullying. But I soon realised that this overly sensitive behaviour had pervaded all walks of life and all aspects of society and I soon discovered the cliched political correctness run wild with third-wave feminist bloggers, social justice, Black Lives Matter protesting of clearly non-racially motivated attacks, and that was it. Its ironic that my biggest reason for voting Trump is to stop the bullying from the left - who are protesting against...bullying (sexism, misogyny, racism). One side is for freedom of speech, the other side is for controlling what you can say. One side thinks controlling what you can say will be abused and unfairly target people, the other side thinks that freedom of speech is a means of control by the entitled. There's a calm, complex, and nuanced debate to be had here to find a middle ground. But unfortunately there is no Liberal ready to accept that this is the debate that needs to be had. The alt-right, the new right, the Trump supporters - we are ready and waiting to have this debate...

domfletcher 10y ago
I think you're right about the need for debate around how identity politics can be better expressed and that is a debate that seems to have been slightly suppressed on the left. I would say two things about why I don't think this is a good reason to support Trump: 1. The situation you describe is fundamentally about freedom of speech vs the right not be be offended. Trump is not an advocate of freedom of speech and doesn't believe in a free press. In my estimation this is much more dangerous than what you describe. 2. This doesn't even register on my scale of the pros and cons of Trump. The Presidency is not about who decides who gets to say what to whom, that is a matter for society at large. As has been described elsewhere in this thread the damage he will do (if he enacts even half of his platform) to immigrant and womens rights, America's standing in the world and free trade will outweigh a hundredfold any small gains you get from a backlash against political correctness.
- return0 10y ago
  > how identity politics can be better expressed Do you not think that the elections showed that identity politics do NOT matter, instead national politics matter more?
  - domfletcher 10y ago
    I'm talking to OP's specific point around siding with Trump. I think the point is that no body on my side understands what matters in terms of motivating the electorate.
- masondixon 10y ago
  > As has been described elsewhere in this thread the damage he will do (if he enacts even half of his platform) to immigrant and womens rights, America's standing in the world and free trade will outweigh a hundredfold any small gains you get from a backlash against political correctness. But in four years will you admit you're wrong if it doesn't turn out to be the case? No. It will go on and on and on. I feel I respond to all this fear mongering constantly: > immigrant rights Immigrants are better off with stronger borders. People don't have to suspect them of being illegal. Has that occurred to anyone on the left? > womens rights? Trump: I oppose the use of government funds to pay for abortion. A supreme court judge may be an issue though, but it is unlikely to reverse policy. > America's standing in the world It is bad at the moment. > free trade Both candidates oppose TPP. Canada wants to talk about NAFTA. Free trade destroys local jobs.