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I get what you're trying to say, the point I was trying to make was your mode and manner of messaging has ostensibly changed in recent time. E.g., just now way

by pen2l 4y ago

I get what you're trying to say, the point I was trying to make was your mode and manner of messaging has ostensibly changed in recent time. E.g., just now way too casually you've in broad strokes implicated democrats to be behind duplicitous and conniving schemes in which they treat Hispanics and minorities as mere pawns in their games. Uh okay mayyybe someone at the DNC or a blue think-tank thinks like this and has said something along these lines to their fellow counter-part, but it's not how the regular run-of-the-mill liberal on the street or the average liberal on HN is thinking. To win hearts and minds either here in this little corner of the internet or out there in meat-space, it's not worthwhile or productive to say such a thing, if you do then in their view you're making a strawman so you lose a potential sympathetic ear and indeed the chance to win hearts and minds. Maybe qualify your statements differently, say "the heads at the DNC" instead of using indiscriminately general labels like "Liberals" or "Democrats" which tends to make the message start sounding adversarial. By the by, is running for any political office in the stars for you? (I pose the same question to you, Thomas. Frankly I wish both of you would consider it).

rayiner 4y ago
> I get what you're trying to say, the point I was trying to make was your mode and manner of messaging has ostensibly changed in recent time. Sure—I came to the realization that my color blind upbringing in Republican Virginia isn’t something my kids will be able to enjoy. Instead they’ll be writing essays about how their grandfather grew up in a village in Bangladesh to persuade some admissions officer that they should get into college/get a job/etc. As Hilary Clinton might say, I’m resentful about that: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-courts-roe-v-wade-opinion-sparks-racist-attacks-clarence-thoma-rcna36261 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-courts-roe-v-w... > E.g., just now way too casually you've in broad strokes implicated democrats to be behind duplicitous and conniving schemes in which they treat Hispanics and minorities as mere pawns in their games. I think it’s ignorance and wishful thinking. Building a coalition is hard and nobody wants to compromise. It’s easier to assume that non-white people think like your Latinx friend from grad school, and changing demographics will make traditional politics obsolete. There’s also a kind of neo-colonialism. No less than the British in the 1700s, progressive Democrats believe that their own culture is morally superior. They think white societies have evolved the correct views about human rights, gender roles, sexual morality, raising children, etc. They want and need Muslim immigrants and religious Black and Latino people to vote for them, but have no intention of compromising with those groups over the party’s social agenda. (An amusing illustration of this phenomenon recently was white liberals calling Clarence Thomas “Uncle Tom” for views on abortion and same sex marriage that are typical for a Black man from the south.) > To win hearts and minds I think we’re past that. I think progressives are in a quasi-religious thrall, and moderate liberals defenseless against them. I’m hoping for a decade in the wilderness-type collapse of the Democratic Party, like what happened with Reagan, or what’s happened recently with Labour in the UK.
- tptacek 4y ago
  "Defenseless against them"? We depantsed them in the last election cycle. I could say the same thing about the "Christian Nationalists" and jet-fuel-doesn't-melt-steel-beam-ism if your party. Come off it. The real world isn't Twitter.
  - kasey_junk 4y ago
    Worse than that. While the out there wing of the Democratic Party is getting absolutely housed in their primaries and state elections, the Republican Party has leaned into the wilder edge of their party (e.g. Cheney being literally kicked out or Cruz saying more children would die if assault weapons were banned). As for identity politics, how can we talk about that without observing the normalization of paramilitary culture on the right? From the ubiquitous thin blue line flags to the 3 %er sheepdog culture, large portions of the right are gearing up for political violence, most of it directed at black people. The Republicans of my youth who stood for good governance, the rule of law, low taxes & strong civic engagement have been replaced at all levels by preppers, populists & grifters. I can understand being disgusted by the racial politics of the anarchy-socialist wing of the left but to take up with the republicans of 2022 over it seems like madness. It’s a lot easier for me to see a “coexist” bumper sticker than a “Hang all traitors, starting with the Democrats” one. But your mileage may vary.
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    - pen2l 4y ago
      The pendulum is swinging wide across the far-stretched expanses of the Overton window. The temperature is hot everywhere. There was an older gentleman I used to have conversations with in my teenage years when I was living in the midwest, an ardent NRA-supporter, Vietnam-war vet, an old-school American, good-hearted and sweet and wonderful to talk to, quite open to hearing out my then progressive-views and arguing against it. I met him again after a decade and saw that he was a full-on boisterous Trump supporter, unwavering in his belief that Jan6 was justified. Though it was tragic to see him go off in the deep-end, I could not in good conscience write him off, because I knew him and his history. I would like to believe that even the wave of paramilitary culture can be understood, lest we make a fundamental attribution error. Likewise I wish Rayiner would more often employ the principle of charity: engage not with views of people on Twitter, but with the views of the electorate that got Biden in the white house. My best reading tells me that frustrations, particularly of elderly folks, can be traced in some part to the unfair expectation of them to always be up with the latest revision of a social code prescribed and concocted in a place far removed from their dwellings, and when they're not up on it they're quickly cast aside and sometimes demonized. Of course the slighted will show their anger, of course the left-aside will want to rise again. The temperature is hot, and there isn't a moderating force in sight. Strange times. Worrying times.
Dalewyn 4y ago
>implicated democrats to be behind duplicitous and conniving schemes in which they treat Hispanics and minorities as mere pawns in their games. If you'll allow someone to comment from the sidelines, because I can't help myself: I'm a second generation Japanese immigrant (Japanese-American), or what the Left would call a "minority" or worse "POC" ("Person Of Color") here in the US. I personally find such views, labels, generalizations, and implications nothing short of an insult to my character, heritage, and dignity. I grew up being taught to see others for WHO they are, not WHAT they are, and treat everyone equally and fairly. "Judged by the quality of their character", as Martin Luther King once famously said. It's one thing to be called Japanese or Asian, or even a Minority, because those are all objective facts and truths about what I am, but being called a "minority" or even worse "POC" for some worthless political game is insulting. By doing that, the Left are judging me by the "color of my skin" rather than "the quality of my character", by WHAT I am rather than WHO I am, and that's just not how people should treat each other. I've voted strictly Republican ever since about 2016, because while I previously and still consider myself politically to be Centerist with some Conservative and Liberal leanings, it became steadily and abundantly clear to me as I aged and became wiser that I had about as little to do with the Left and Progressivism (no, not Liberalism; the Left are not Liberals) as water has to do with oil. That's not to say I like the Republicans, necessarily, but I nonetheless find more in common with the Right and Conservatives/Liberals (who are primarily represented by Republicans) than I do the Left and Progressives (who are primarily represented by Democrats). Lesser of two evils, as they say. The Left are never getting another vote from me so long as they continue their stupid identity politics game, among many other bullshit.

by pen2l 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

> I get what you're trying to say, the point I was trying to make was your mode and manner of messaging has ostensibly changed in recent time. Sure—I came to the realization that my color blind upbringing in Republican Virginia isn’t something my kids will be able to enjoy. Instead they’ll be writing essays about how their grandfather grew up in a village in Bangladesh to persuade some admissions officer that they should get into college/get a job/etc. As Hilary Clinton might say, I’m resentful about that: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-courts-roe-v-wade-opinion-sparks-racist-attacks-clarence-thoma-rcna36261 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-courts-roe-v-w... > E.g., just now way too casually you've in broad strokes implicated democrats to be behind duplicitous and conniving schemes in which they treat Hispanics and minorities as mere pawns in their games. I think it’s ignorance and wishful thinking. Building a coalition is hard and nobody wants to compromise. It’s easier to assume that non-white people think like your Latinx friend from grad school, and changing demographics will make traditional politics obsolete. There’s also a kind of neo-colonialism. No less than the British in the 1700s, progressive Democrats believe that their own culture is morally superior. They think white societies have evolved the correct views about human rights, gender roles, sexual morality, raising children, etc. They want and need Muslim immigrants and religious Black and Latino people to vote for them, but have no intention of compromising with those groups over the party’s social agenda. (An amusing illustration of this phenomenon recently was white liberals calling Clarence Thomas “Uncle Tom” for views on abortion and same sex marriage that are typical for a Black man from the south.) > To win hearts and minds I think we’re past that. I think progressives are in a quasi-religious thrall, and moderate liberals defenseless against them. I’m hoping for a decade in the wilderness-type collapse of the Democratic Party, like what happened with Reagan, or what’s happened recently with Labour in the UK.

tptacek 4y ago
"Defenseless against them"? We depantsed them in the last election cycle. I could say the same thing about the "Christian Nationalists" and jet-fuel-doesn't-melt-steel-beam-ism if your party. Come off it. The real world isn't Twitter.
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  Worse than that. While the out there wing of the Democratic Party is getting absolutely housed in their primaries and state elections, the Republican Party has leaned into the wilder edge of their party (e.g. Cheney being literally kicked out or Cruz saying more children would die if assault weapons were banned). As for identity politics, how can we talk about that without observing the normalization of paramilitary culture on the right? From the ubiquitous thin blue line flags to the 3 %er sheepdog culture, large portions of the right are gearing up for political violence, most of it directed at black people. The Republicans of my youth who stood for good governance, the rule of law, low taxes & strong civic engagement have been replaced at all levels by preppers, populists & grifters. I can understand being disgusted by the racial politics of the anarchy-socialist wing of the left but to take up with the republicans of 2022 over it seems like madness. It’s a lot easier for me to see a “coexist” bumper sticker than a “Hang all traitors, starting with the Democrats” one. But your mileage may vary.
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  - pen2l 4y ago
    The pendulum is swinging wide across the far-stretched expanses of the Overton window. The temperature is hot everywhere. There was an older gentleman I used to have conversations with in my teenage years when I was living in the midwest, an ardent NRA-supporter, Vietnam-war vet, an old-school American, good-hearted and sweet and wonderful to talk to, quite open to hearing out my then progressive-views and arguing against it. I met him again after a decade and saw that he was a full-on boisterous Trump supporter, unwavering in his belief that Jan6 was justified. Though it was tragic to see him go off in the deep-end, I could not in good conscience write him off, because I knew him and his history. I would like to believe that even the wave of paramilitary culture can be understood, lest we make a fundamental attribution error. Likewise I wish Rayiner would more often employ the principle of charity: engage not with views of people on Twitter, but with the views of the electorate that got Biden in the white house. My best reading tells me that frustrations, particularly of elderly folks, can be traced in some part to the unfair expectation of them to always be up with the latest revision of a social code prescribed and concocted in a place far removed from their dwellings, and when they're not up on it they're quickly cast aside and sometimes demonized. Of course the slighted will show their anger, of course the left-aside will want to rise again. The temperature is hot, and there isn't a moderating force in sight. Strange times. Worrying times.

Dalewyn 4y ago

>implicated democrats to be behind duplicitous and conniving schemes in which they treat Hispanics and minorities as mere pawns in their games. If you'll allow someone to comment from the sidelines, because I can't help myself: I'm a second generation Japanese immigrant (Japanese-American), or what the Left would call a "minority" or worse "POC" ("Person Of Color") here in the US. I personally find such views, labels, generalizations, and implications nothing short of an insult to my character, heritage, and dignity. I grew up being taught to see others for WHO they are, not WHAT they are, and treat everyone equally and fairly. "Judged by the quality of their character", as Martin Luther King once famously said. It's one thing to be called Japanese or Asian, or even a Minority, because those are all objective facts and truths about what I am, but being called a "minority" or even worse "POC" for some worthless political game is insulting. By doing that, the Left are judging me by the "color of my skin" rather than "the quality of my character", by WHAT I am rather than WHO I am, and that's just not how people should treat each other. I've voted strictly Republican ever since about 2016, because while I previously and still consider myself politically to be Centerist with some Conservative and Liberal leanings, it became steadily and abundantly clear to me as I aged and became wiser that I had about as little to do with the Left and Progressivism (no, not Liberalism; the Left are not Liberals) as water has to do with oil. That's not to say I like the Republicans, necessarily, but I nonetheless find more in common with the Right and Conservatives/Liberals (who are primarily represented by Republicans) than I do the Left and Progressives (who are primarily represented by Democrats). Lesser of two evils, as they say. The Left are never getting another vote from me so long as they continue their stupid identity politics game, among many other bullshit.