6 ms·

Anger about what though?

by loopz 6y ago

nwienert 6y ago
If you want to genuinely understand the other side and not comfort yourself by relying on simple slanderous slurs to do the work, this is worth at least an hour of your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0
adventured 6y ago
I can explain that one. Stick with me on this dear HN reader, as your gut reaction may be to trigger downvote, but I'm going to actually explain it for real, I'm going to tell you exactly why (I'm not going to filter it for everyone so it feels better or sounds better). Jobs. Opioid deaths. Suicides. Life expectancy. Standards of living. Manufacturing erosion. Lack of a future. Lack of wealth creation. Rural and middle class erosion. Education costs. Healthcare costs. Endless war. Shitty rotting infrastructure. Mismanagement of the US fiscal house by worthless political elites obsessed with their own petty bubbles in DC. A mediocre social safety net despite enormous government spending. Corporate-government-lobby coordination to endlessly pillage the people (eg per capita healthcare costs in the US being 2x what they should be). Being lied to for generations by the elite political class while things haven't gotten better for half the country for 50 years. Everyone is starting to look around and ask good questions. Like, why do US taxpayers & citizens fork over $8.2 trillion (directly or through debt/inflation) every year, equal to ~40% of the economy, and have so little to show for it? Why is there no money in Social Security? What did they do with what should be the world's largest sovereign wealth fund? Why does nobody call them out on the lie that is the non-existent Social Security lockbox? Why do we keep burning trillions of dollars in the Middle East? Insert 487 other lies from the political class. Trump got their attention because he brought up some of these lies - including the endless war aspect - and was one of the first leading candidates to ever do so. It's a similar reason why Bernie Sanders came so close to the Presidency twice, a large group of people on both sides are very angry and have had enough of the same old status quo (which the elites in power have an interest in perpetuating forever). Those trillions of dollars wasted in the Middle East should have been in a Social Security wealth fund, and some of it should have been put toward infrastructure. Tens of millions of white people - those core Trump voters - are getting increasingly angry about all of it. Most of them probably have no idea what to do, so they're flailing for something different (if you're not an experienced fighter and you get hit in the face, your only capable reaction may be to flail). Those voters are not supposed to be upset about anything (so goes the fantasy social theory), because of their privilege. How is their privilege looking compared to a white person in Canada, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Britain, France, the Netherlands or Sweden? I'd say many of them are increasingly worse off and they know it when they look around. Those standards are what white people in the US look at to compare their well-being, and that's where they start to get increasingly upset. Michael Moore was right about what he said about Trump voters prior to the 2016 election, why they were seeking to elect him. Those voters wanted to throw a molotov cocktail at the system. And they were not thinking particularly rationally, angry people rarely do. People tend to vote for radical options when they're desperate. One can think less of them for voting for Trump, say they chose wrong, shit all over them, call them stupid, mock them, call for their arrest or purging, call for them to be blacklisted, try to suppress their speech and so on. One can shake one's head and proclaim that if they only voted Democrat they could have all of those things they want (which also begs the question on how the Democrats screwed up so badly that they lost the poor and lower class white voter that they used to have). Those voters feel attention-abandoned by the Democrats - which is an ongoing mistake by the Dems - and Trump scooped them up by paying attention to them. They're angry regardless of anyone's thoughts about them, they're increasingly lost regardless, and they're going to get more so as time goes on and as things fail to improve, as their lot in life fails to improve. They're angry because their point of comparison isn't what some people think it should be, it's what they think it should be. White lower & middle class people are never going to bounce around happy because they're better off than a poor black person in the US (which is what the premise of throwing white privilege statements at them is meant to accomplish), that is never going to be their point of comparison no matter what anybody says to them; their point of comparison is going to be other affluent white people around the world (that is not a politically correct thing to say, of course, it's the actual truth of their perspective and what's really going on). Telling people that they shouldn't be angry does not work, particularly when they've been dealing with decades of standard of living erosion and have little hope for the future being better. The elites have been conspiring against their interests forever at this point, it's little wonder they're staggering around in a daze with little clue as to what direction to go. It's a mistake for the Democrats to obsess over blaming and castigating those people, instead of focusing on convincing them, swaying them, educating them, peeling away voters and ultimately delivering real life improvements (the big part of that) if they truly believe they have a better path to offer for their future. The Democrats have power again (narrowly), and they need to deliver a lot better than they did in 2009-2010 with their mostly squandered super majority.
- tartoran 6y ago
  These are genuine reasons to be angry but these people are angry for the wrong reasons. While their candidate, Trump, promised to change the political landscape he actually prooved even more incompetent than the former. There are 100s ofreasons which im not going to bother to mention here. He lost the elections for those reasons and also because he was not tearing down the establishment but the nation. I see people comparing BLM with the proud boys and that is the most dishonest thing to do. BLM were protesting about police brutality which affects us all. Proud boys were a rebranding of a radical group who was directly following Trump’s orders.
- flatline 6y ago
  All fair points, and yet even in the midst of this we saw white privilege at work this past week when the protestors were, for all intents and purposes, allowed into the Capitol. These people have been told that their trouble is caused by brown people coming to take their jobs, by affirmative action. They are told that the government is the problem, when in reality so many poor people in the South rely on government assistance just to survive. They look for a cause for their troubles and the right wing media hands them a false narrative.
  - j8hn 6y ago
    This is an interesting take that I have seen in my Facebook feed, media and Joe Biden about white privilege allowing the protestors into the Capitol building. How did white privilege allow them access?
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      They got in because police reaction to this protest was far different from police reaction to BLM protests in DC: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/07/metro/photos-how-law-enforcement-treated-black-lives-matter-protests-dc-compared-attack-us-capitol-wednesday/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/07/metro/photos-how-law-... I assume you have noticed how the majority of the people in the 1/6 "protests" were white, didn't you?

Anger about what though?

by loopz 6y ago

Anger about what though?

If you want to genuinely understand the other side and not comfort yourself by relying on simple slanderous slurs to do the work, this is worth at least an hour of your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5xxlajTW0

adventured 6y ago

I can explain that one. Stick with me on this dear HN reader, as your gut reaction may be to trigger downvote, but I'm going to actually explain it for real, I'm going to tell you exactly why (I'm not going to filter it for everyone so it feels better or sounds better). Jobs. Opioid deaths. Suicides. Life expectancy. Standards of living. Manufacturing erosion. Lack of a future. Lack of wealth creation. Rural and middle class erosion. Education costs. Healthcare costs. Endless war. Shitty rotting infrastructure. Mismanagement of the US fiscal house by worthless political elites obsessed with their own petty bubbles in DC. A mediocre social safety net despite enormous government spending. Corporate-government-lobby coordination to endlessly pillage the people (eg per capita healthcare costs in the US being 2x what they should be). Being lied to for generations by the elite political class while things haven't gotten better for half the country for 50 years. Everyone is starting to look around and ask good questions. Like, why do US taxpayers & citizens fork over $8.2 trillion (directly or through debt/inflation) every year, equal to ~40% of the economy, and have so little to show for it? Why is there no money in Social Security? What did they do with what should be the world's largest sovereign wealth fund? Why does nobody call them out on the lie that is the non-existent Social Security lockbox? Why do we keep burning trillions of dollars in the Middle East? Insert 487 other lies from the political class. Trump got their attention because he brought up some of these lies - including the endless war aspect - and was one of the first leading candidates to ever do so. It's a similar reason why Bernie Sanders came so close to the Presidency twice, a large group of people on both sides are very angry and have had enough of the same old status quo (which the elites in power have an interest in perpetuating forever). Those trillions of dollars wasted in the Middle East should have been in a Social Security wealth fund, and some of it should have been put toward infrastructure. Tens of millions of white people - those core Trump voters - are getting increasingly angry about all of it. Most of them probably have no idea what to do, so they're flailing for something different (if you're not an experienced fighter and you get hit in the face, your only capable reaction may be to flail). Those voters are not supposed to be upset about anything (so goes the fantasy social theory), because of their privilege. How is their privilege looking compared to a white person in Canada, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Britain, France, the Netherlands or Sweden? I'd say many of them are increasingly worse off and they know it when they look around. Those standards are what white people in the US look at to compare their well-being, and that's where they start to get increasingly upset. Michael Moore was right about what he said about Trump voters prior to the 2016 election, why they were seeking to elect him. Those voters wanted to throw a molotov cocktail at the system. And they were not thinking particularly rationally, angry people rarely do. People tend to vote for radical options when they're desperate. One can think less of them for voting for Trump, say they chose wrong, shit all over them, call them stupid, mock them, call for their arrest or purging, call for them to be blacklisted, try to suppress their speech and so on. One can shake one's head and proclaim that if they only voted Democrat they could have all of those things they want (which also begs the question on how the Democrats screwed up so badly that they lost the poor and lower class white voter that they used to have). Those voters feel attention-abandoned by the Democrats - which is an ongoing mistake by the Dems - and Trump scooped them up by paying attention to them. They're angry regardless of anyone's thoughts about them, they're increasingly lost regardless, and they're going to get more so as time goes on and as things fail to improve, as their lot in life fails to improve. They're angry because their point of comparison isn't what some people think it should be, it's what they think it should be. White lower & middle class people are never going to bounce around happy because they're better off than a poor black person in the US (which is what the premise of throwing white privilege statements at them is meant to accomplish), that is never going to be their point of comparison no matter what anybody says to them; their point of comparison is going to be other affluent white people around the world (that is not a politically correct thing to say, of course, it's the actual truth of their perspective and what's really going on). Telling people that they shouldn't be angry does not work, particularly when they've been dealing with decades of standard of living erosion and have little hope for the future being better. The elites have been conspiring against their interests forever at this point, it's little wonder they're staggering around in a daze with little clue as to what direction to go. It's a mistake for the Democrats to obsess over blaming and castigating those people, instead of focusing on convincing them, swaying them, educating them, peeling away voters and ultimately delivering real life improvements (the big part of that) if they truly believe they have a better path to offer for their future. The Democrats have power again (narrowly), and they need to deliver a lot better than they did in 2009-2010 with their mostly squandered super majority.

tartoran 6y ago
These are genuine reasons to be angry but these people are angry for the wrong reasons. While their candidate, Trump, promised to change the political landscape he actually prooved even more incompetent than the former. There are 100s ofreasons which im not going to bother to mention here. He lost the elections for those reasons and also because he was not tearing down the establishment but the nation. I see people comparing BLM with the proud boys and that is the most dishonest thing to do. BLM were protesting about police brutality which affects us all. Proud boys were a rebranding of a radical group who was directly following Trump’s orders.
flatline 6y ago
All fair points, and yet even in the midst of this we saw white privilege at work this past week when the protestors were, for all intents and purposes, allowed into the Capitol. These people have been told that their trouble is caused by brown people coming to take their jobs, by affirmative action. They are told that the government is the problem, when in reality so many poor people in the South rely on government assistance just to survive. They look for a cause for their troubles and the right wing media hands them a false narrative.
- j8hn 6y ago
  This is an interesting take that I have seen in my Facebook feed, media and Joe Biden about white privilege allowing the protestors into the Capitol building. How did white privilege allow them access?
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    They got in because police reaction to this protest was far different from police reaction to BLM protests in DC: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/07/metro/photos-how-law-enforcement-treated-black-lives-matter-protests-dc-compared-attack-us-capitol-wednesday/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/07/metro/photos-how-law-... I assume you have noticed how the majority of the people in the 1/6 "protests" were white, didn't you?