8 ms·

In terms of anti-Trump Resistance, I was skeptical in the beginning, but the Women's March did show that getting together in big numbers gets people's attention

by firasd 9y ago

In terms of anti-Trump Resistance, I was skeptical in the beginning, but the Women's March did show that getting together in big numbers gets people's attention. If nothing else it manages to rattle a President who is addicted to watching TV! But I do think one big problem is how to channel the energy the American Left has for marching, protest etc. into voting. Maybe there needs to be a 'March to the polls' on voting days! Everyone from a specific district or area get together, then groups go to their specific local voting locations.

CalChris 9y ago
Well, Hillary did get at least 2.9M more votes than Trump. So voting wouldn't seem to be a problem. Instead we have a gerrymandering problem, we have a voter suppression problem and we have an election that was probably hacked by Trump and the Russians.
- firasd 9y ago
  True. But the problem is that Democratic voters are overly focused on the Presidency and don't turn out in large enough numbers in off-year elections. The reason the GOP has a stranglehold on government (including being able to gerrymander and suppress votes) is because they won big in the 2010 Congressional elections.
- mzw_mzw 9y ago
  > we have an election that was probably hacked by Trump and the Russians. I'm sure you can provide evidence that the "election" was "hacked," since you seem so confident on the topic. What voting machines were hacked, when, by whom, and how do you know it happened?
- daenz 9y ago
  >2.9M more votes than Trump And 90M people eligible voters chose not to vote at all. For as bad as people claimed Trump was, that's a staggering number of people to just say "meh, I don't really care."
- makomk 9y ago
  Based on all the reports I've seen coming out of the two candidate's campaigns after the election, Hillary was probably the only one who was even trying to win the popular vote - and it can be argued that focusing on this cost her the presidency. Bragging about it always seemed a little wrong-headed under the circumstances. (Yes, I've no doubt Trump would do the same if the roles were reversed, but he's not a role model anyone should imitate.)
weberc2 9y ago
Seems the left just burned too many bridges and lost the rust belt. I also don't think their identity politics garnered any affection.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  I hear this point thrown around a lot by the right "the left plays identity politics too much". Have you ever stopped to consider that Fox News, Breitbart and the Republican Party are playing the same identity game, they just restrict it to a single demographic?
  - EdSharkey 9y ago
    Irrelevant hogwash. The left absolutely lives (and perhaps dies) by identity politics. Individuals are invisible non-entities unless and until you can lump them into some race/gender/oppressed group. Name me one signature left policy isn't couched and positioned in-terms of victim identity politics?
    - gt_ 9y ago
      Environmental issues and class economics. But of course, this is my white male privilege speaking.
      - curun1r 9y ago
        > Environmental issues and class economics Nope, at least not in my experience. I attended a small protest at the SF EPA offices in support of the agency and against the funding cuts from the Trump administration. It's fair to say that everyone there was an environmentalist who cared deeply about EPA efforts to curb pollution and encourage green energy. It's stands to reason that the organizers would focus on the thing that united everyone in attendance, right? But, instead, they brought up Native American speakers who offered prayers and talked about how non-Native Americans could never experience the same connection with the land that they had. They brought up Latin Americans who similarly talked about their special exposure to environmental issues. They took what little cohesiveness the group had and fractured it by having to acknowledge people's individuality. We then marched to the Federal building. But on the way, they had multiple stops to protest non-environmental issues. They stopped at a housing developer to protest the new housing they were building, just because it happened to be near an area that's currently low income. Never mind the studies that show that any new housing, even luxury, helps keep rents lower at all levels. And then they stopped to protest in front of an industry conference of some sort. I forget their specific grievance, but I remember distinctly feeling like it was naive and I didn't support it. The whole experience left me with a particularly distasteful feeling. I went to support increased funding and regulation by the EPA and somehow got roped into supporting a ton of crap that I disagreed with. And if this was an isolated incident, I could write it off as being poorly organized, but I've been to a few of these leftist protests now and, with the exception of the march for science, none of them were able to stay on message. They were all sidetracked by focusing on what divides us into individuals as opposed to what united us all to come protest. We're all multi-faceted people, but I think the left needs to learn that when we protest, it's okay to focus on the single facet that unites everyone protesting rather than the many that divide us so that we can speak with a single, powerful voice with a clear and coherent message and not a multitude of easily ignorable voices, each with their own unique message. I know when the right rails against "identity politics" this is not what they mean, but as a progressive, I feel that this sort of identity politics gets in the way of building a coalition large enough to make progress.

by firasd 9y ago

CalChris 9y ago

Well, Hillary did get at least 2.9M more votes than Trump. So voting wouldn't seem to be a problem. Instead we have a gerrymandering problem, we have a voter suppression problem and we have an election that was probably hacked by Trump and the Russians.

firasd 9y ago
True. But the problem is that Democratic voters are overly focused on the Presidency and don't turn out in large enough numbers in off-year elections. The reason the GOP has a stranglehold on government (including being able to gerrymander and suppress votes) is because they won big in the 2010 Congressional elections.
mzw_mzw 9y ago
> we have an election that was probably hacked by Trump and the Russians. I'm sure you can provide evidence that the "election" was "hacked," since you seem so confident on the topic. What voting machines were hacked, when, by whom, and how do you know it happened?
daenz 9y ago
>2.9M more votes than Trump And 90M people eligible voters chose not to vote at all. For as bad as people claimed Trump was, that's a staggering number of people to just say "meh, I don't really care."
makomk 9y ago
Based on all the reports I've seen coming out of the two candidate's campaigns after the election, Hillary was probably the only one who was even trying to win the popular vote - and it can be argued that focusing on this cost her the presidency. Bragging about it always seemed a little wrong-headed under the circumstances. (Yes, I've no doubt Trump would do the same if the roles were reversed, but he's not a role model anyone should imitate.)

weberc2 9y ago

Seems the left just burned too many bridges and lost the rust belt. I also don't think their identity politics garnered any affection.

dguaraglia 9y ago
I hear this point thrown around a lot by the right "the left plays identity politics too much". Have you ever stopped to consider that Fox News, Breitbart and the Republican Party are playing the same identity game, they just restrict it to a single demographic?
- EdSharkey 9y ago
  Irrelevant hogwash. The left absolutely lives (and perhaps dies) by identity politics. Individuals are invisible non-entities unless and until you can lump them into some race/gender/oppressed group. Name me one signature left policy isn't couched and positioned in-terms of victim identity politics?
  - gt_ 9y ago
    Environmental issues and class economics. But of course, this is my white male privilege speaking.
    - curun1r 9y ago
      > Environmental issues and class economics Nope, at least not in my experience. I attended a small protest at the SF EPA offices in support of the agency and against the funding cuts from the Trump administration. It's fair to say that everyone there was an environmentalist who cared deeply about EPA efforts to curb pollution and encourage green energy. It's stands to reason that the organizers would focus on the thing that united everyone in attendance, right? But, instead, they brought up Native American speakers who offered prayers and talked about how non-Native Americans could never experience the same connection with the land that they had. They brought up Latin Americans who similarly talked about their special exposure to environmental issues. They took what little cohesiveness the group had and fractured it by having to acknowledge people's individuality. We then marched to the Federal building. But on the way, they had multiple stops to protest non-environmental issues. They stopped at a housing developer to protest the new housing they were building, just because it happened to be near an area that's currently low income. Never mind the studies that show that any new housing, even luxury, helps keep rents lower at all levels. And then they stopped to protest in front of an industry conference of some sort. I forget their specific grievance, but I remember distinctly feeling like it was naive and I didn't support it. The whole experience left me with a particularly distasteful feeling. I went to support increased funding and regulation by the EPA and somehow got roped into supporting a ton of crap that I disagreed with. And if this was an isolated incident, I could write it off as being poorly organized, but I've been to a few of these leftist protests now and, with the exception of the march for science, none of them were able to stay on message. They were all sidetracked by focusing on what divides us into individuals as opposed to what united us all to come protest. We're all multi-faceted people, but I think the left needs to learn that when we protest, it's okay to focus on the single facet that unites everyone protesting rather than the many that divide us so that we can speak with a single, powerful voice with a clear and coherent message and not a multitude of easily ignorable voices, each with their own unique message. I know when the right rails against "identity politics" this is not what they mean, but as a progressive, I feel that this sort of identity politics gets in the way of building a coalition large enough to make progress.