The Serious Thread has been getting suffocated by all the talk about the election, so I'm splitting it off to it's own separate thread. ALL political discussion will now be done here, and we'll leave the Serious Thread for any other, non-political discussion. FOCUS: Crooked Hillary and The Mop.
I'd just like to thank the mods and everyone who contributes to the political discussions. I live in the neck of the woods where it's all trump rebellion if he doesn't get elected crap -- I literally heard from an in-law yesterday "can you imagine what would happen to this country if a woman ran it?!?" -- so it's nice to read both sides. Even if I don't agree with parts of it, at least I feel like I'm somewhat informed.
Theres an add out here linking Iran and ISIS to the mall stabbing out here and to some local candidate that apparently supports Iran. People are so fucking stupid. ISIS wants to destroy Iran, but never mind that.
I'm not entirely sure what thread this belongs to now, but if you haven't heard already Jon Ronson came out with a Kindle Single recently called The Elephant in the Room: A Journey Into the Trump Campaign and the Alt-Right. If you're pro-Trump it'll probably come off as fear-mongering and if you're anti-Trump it probably won't be super surprising, but I thought it was a really entertaining read. I love Ronson (he wrote So You've Been Publicly Shamed and The Psychopath Test, among others) and it's kind of like a fun epilogue to Them: Adventures With Extremists, which is his most underrated book, in my opinion. The alt-right's influence on this campaign/election has been endlessly fascinating to me, at least when I haven't been terrified, disgusted, upset, and enraged by it.
I feel like, in general, if you ever find yourself saying "boy that Klan grand dragon sure has some great ideas," or voting for the dude with huge klan and white supremacist support, you may be on the wrong side of history.
It won't just be the Trump voters on the wrong side of history. National Debt: $19.4T Record tax receipts, yet Current Budget Defict (FY2016 Complete) $586B Over 20% unemployment (when accounting for short-term discouraged, long-term discourage, marginally attached and part time who want full time - all of which not counted by BLS) Huge trade deficits - $40.73B August 16 Not enforcing immigration regulations No SEC enforcement of insider trading Corporations treated as individuals for campaign contribution considerations Broken tax code War mongering in Syria w/ Russia Support for international allies who fund and support terrorism US military located in 150 of 196 recognized counties worldwide Nation building and regime change International trade pacts accelerating outsourcing Unequal distribution of justice via race and economic ability to pay for justice Law enforcement conducted as a military operation Failure to correct the educational system and on and on.... America is on the wrong side of history. Voting for either or these two shitbags won't change it either.
So you're a Trump supporter. There is no way in what way whatsoever he is trained or experienced to be able to be able to handle the football. I don't like Hillary but there's no way I leave the future of our world in the hands of a "winner."
What I've learned from this election: Mud slinging, sex accusations > Actual issues (Like the fact that our country's racial divide is greater than I've ever seen in my life, homeless folks are still homeless, and the fact that we're somehow on the verge of war with Russia.) Speaking of Russia, how the hell did we end up enemies with them again? We had, at the very least, an uneasy friendship with them for a while until Obama got in office. The next thing I know he and Putin are acting like a couple of male cats that crossed each other's paths. How did Russia become our enemy and the bogey man again? No matter what happens on November 8th, we're all fucked. How did we end up at this point? That is the important question...and how do we fix it?
I'm still kind of confused as to what exactly the alt-right is, they don't seem to stand behind any comprehensive. As far as I can tell they are basically the MRAs of whiteness. They seem to be a response to modern progressiveness run amok. There was a hilarious series of twitter posts about 'white genocide' in the new star wars movie and I saw a neo-nazi cartoonist attach himself to the movement, but most of what I've seen isn't actually racist. More of a defensiveness about culture being attacked and feeling overly threatened, which makes them seem so similar to the progressiveness they're against. It's not surprising radical fringes have wanted to attach themselves, but the most prominent alt-right persona I've seen is Milo and the idea they're comprised of KKK/neo nazis doesn't jive well with the gay leadership. Alex Jones has been around forever, and I have no idea what involvement he claims, but he's still pretty much doing his own crazy thing. I find it funny the far left progressives are blaming this on everything but themselves. You created it. That hair color only exists in nature in one other place. I'm not saying a baboon's ass was never involved, but proof is proof. There was a law suit about this.
Let's admit that Trump can be an asshat. Yet everyone seems to forget that before he was elected Obama was a "community organizer" whatever the fuck that means. He also had experience as a first term mostly absentee senator. It is perfectly reasonable to hate Trump but don't bring up that he isn't experienced.
The Republicans of the late 90s didn't teach you that sexual accusations and mudslinging matter more than issues? The racial divide issues might lessen a bit if a nominee for president wasn't preying upon racism to fire up his base of voters. Russia has less to do with Obama coming into office than it does with Putin consolidating more and more power. You can say Obama's response to all of that was weak (Mitt Romney was saying that in 2012 and identified Russia as a major threat---actually saying they were our number one threat or something). But it's hard to say that someone is being weak when you propose we start being friendly. Really the idea that we should start being friendly is an opinion that has gained traction on the right only since Trump has been around in my opinion. Hell, he even disagrees completely with his own VP about these issues.
Except the alt-right emerged onto the scene very recently and American racism preceded MLK by centuries. Your example doesn't quite work. The alt-right stuff I've seen has went out of its way to mention modern progressiveness as the reason for it's existence. There are racist/hate groups that have always existed and tried to pipe up with "us too!" I'm sure you can find examples, as I've seen a couple without even looking. The alt-right itself however looks to be mostly young, college educated, anti-SJW obsessed. Which I kind of agree with, although I think they're way over the top with being so threatened. I don't understand the anger towards Obama's retaliation to Putin. He has annexed territory with rigged elections (and not rigged like I felt during the Bernie campaign, I mean RIGGED), lied to the world about locations he's deploying armies, and he's gone out of his way to keep unpopular dictators in power. I wouldn't want a government that ignored it, or naively believed a peaceful chat with Putin was going to work this out. Obama has to respond, and the less our governments does the more we'll see of it. And the WW3 talk is unwarranted. This is nothing compared to how close we've come before.
Okay, to state the simile differently. Blaming the creation of the alt-right on the left is like blaming Obama for the birther movement. And the birther movement is now folded into the alt-right movement. And how white does the alt-right look? I know you disagree, but that's what makes my original simile apt. Being an alt-righter doesn't make you a racist. But if you are a racist, then odds are you're an alt-righter. That's been true a long time though when it comes to the Republican Party. This goes back all the way to the southern strategy. The fires of the alt-right have been stoked a long time. The Republican Party is really to blame for this. They were the ones doing the stoking. And they are finding out now that it is hard to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Edited to add: I don't think racism is the only thing fueling the alt-right movement. But it is a large part of it. To ignore it is to not fully understand what's going on with them.
Romneys speech during the primaries is prophetic in hindsight. There's some party pandering, but it's worth a re-watch now that we're closing in on Election Day: