DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
If louise Mensch said the sky was blue I'd have to look out the window to check.
The Trump presidency
- Thread starter brogdale
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CrabbedOne
Walking sideways snippily
bubblesmcgrath
Well-Known Member
Reagan and Thatcher had dementia in office.
But you wont hear Louise dissing them.
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tofu eating wokerati
Tbh, not sure that Thatcher had dementia in office. There was no such excuse.
BBC NEWS | Politics | Thatcher dementia fight revealed
CrabbedOne
Walking sideways snippily
Get real, Trump voters have an average income of $75K PA. People earning less than $50K PA if they voted at all mostly voted for Clinton by large margins. Times might be better but this isn't a revolt of dustbowl Oakies out of some some Steinbeck novel.
Capitalism is unstable by design. A major banking bust and Federal intervention is hardly unprecedented in US history. They happen ever couple of decades. Uncle Sam goes Hamiltonian and gets out and pushes until the economy is rolling again that's the way the US system works.
The US in the 70s and 80s was often dystopian compared to this period. Soaring unemployment over twice current levels, rampant inflation, oil shocks, a rolling savings and loan crisis, the losing end of a war in which 50K often conscripted Americans died, crime levels way above what's current, rather a lot of forgotten terrorism. All against the background of a rather hot Cold War nuclear standoff. There was often good reason to be really pissed.
America doesn't grow like it used to as it's one of the worlds most fully developed and by far the richest economy. It's a private debt ladened economy and those tend to be sluggish. The top decile hogs most of the pie and is doing damn well but relatively few Americans complain about that. Richer folks are actually often some of the bitterest about how hard done by they are. Trump voters were pretty eager for the usual GOP menu of reckless deregulation and elite tax cuts but also to go hog wild on a hinted spending spree. To profit from on a hydro-carbon boom. They were keen to curb immigration long a reliable driver of US growth. As a bonus Trump would do down other nations workers on behalf of Americans especially the Mexicans. He'd magically drain the swamp. This is a country living quite lavishly on often Chinese credit that was told to go to the mall after 9-11 and essentially shopped till it dropped. They don't win wars any more because they have picked fights foolishly. Sure a lot of Septics don't feel great about themselves maybe nearly as many as under Carter. It's an accurate judgement but the blame is always conveniently elsewhere.
My God, are we still doing this? He won in November ffs.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
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tofu eating wokerati
No point talking about the demographics any more. Or do you mean the stats are wrong?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
No such thing as "Red Indian", shitbird.
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tofu eating wokerati
CR haz the DNA profiles and all.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
It's just that we've had this convo before like 10 times and it goes like this every time*.
1: Trump won on a tide of white working-class anger.
2: No he didn't, most people who voted for Trump are rich! They are amongst the highest earners in America!
3: While that is partially true, and the people who ordinarily turn out for whatever Republican is standing this time did so again but a lot of voters who had previously voted for Obama or not voted at all turned out in key swing states. Without these voters Trump would not have been able to win.
*have edited out bunfights and accusations.
just the dismissal of the working class in that analysis - it's bullshit.
Yossarian
⏭️
Claiming to have some Cherokee ancestry because there were rumours about somebody in the family tree being 1/16th Cherokee is as American as getting drunk on green beer on St. Patrick's Day because you're part Irish on your great-grandmother's side and are sick and tired of how your people are being oppressed by the British.
bimble
floofy
Yeah I read a thing by him just after the election, where he overlayed drug deaths with election results. Think it's an interesting lens to look at it though, especially when you remember how often Tump referenced drugs during the campaign, ravaging the country, laying waste to young lives etc, and promising that he would (somehow) stop that.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
The problem with drugs is so bad in many areas that life expectancy has decreased in post-industrial areas.
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tofu eating wokerati
OK. I didn't read it as dismissal but if that's what it is then yeh.
First I ever heard of this claim was on here. Great great grandparents count for nothing, same as parents shouldn't. Or some line, somewhere. FFS, what are you, the racial purity police?
bimble
floofy
His blaming Mexicans for this, instead of talking about the deeper causes, would have gone down well, particularly amongst the older voters (parents) who were it seems the bedrock of his support.
Yossarian
⏭️
No, I think Elizabeth Warren is probably getting an unduly hard time for claiming that she has Cherokee ancestry, people whose ancestors have been in the US for a century or three don't tend to have precise knowledge of where their great-grandparents etc. came from and it is very easy indeed for rumors to go through the generations and give people the wrong idea about whether or not they have Native American heritage.
Yossarian
⏭️
I'm not sure what to make of Chris Arnade - some of his insights seem spot-on, at least for a bond trader turned Guardian writer, but he illustrates his stories with what appear to be carefully staged caricatures. Unless the guy on the left in this photo really did just happen to be sitting there with his shirt buttoned up wrong in front of portraits of Elvis and Jesus.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
I'm not sure what to make of Chris Arnade - some of his insights seem spot-on, at least for a bond trader turned Guardian writer, but he illustrates his stories with what appear to be carefully staged caricatures. Unless the guy on the left in this photo really did just happen to be sitting there with his shirt buttoned up wrong in front of portraits of Elvis and Jesus.
He veers far too closely to anthropology for me to be entirely comfortable with him but I'm not sure that what he is presenting are caricatures, the people he talks to and writes about are presented as a lot more multi-dimensional than the way in which ordinary people are typically portrayed in the US (and for that matter UK) media.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
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Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
I don't think it's right to make claims on behalf of the working class in which the not insignificant non-white portion is marginalised, dismissed or ignored. It's just feeding the divisions exploited by the far right. I think it's better to talk of post-industrial areas, or the 'working class within post-industrial areas'. The same kind of language is used in the UK too and it's bollocks.
J Ed
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Did black people in post-industrial areas vote in the same way as white people? The answer to that is no. Recognising the existence of divisions isn't feeding them, it's acknowledging them.
Yossarian
⏭️
Yep, the people he writes about aren't caricatures, I just found it a little jarring how carefully staged the photos were, guess it might be something to do with him being a photographer-turned-writer, which is a little unusual.
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tofu eating wokerati
So why are people attacking her for that? Is she claiming some kind of advantage?
How would that work, exactly? And is the hostility to her claim based on the fact that she passes for white? 
Or is her claim seen as somehow convenient? Who is attacking her, Cherokees or Trumpians, or both? (Genuinely confused here.)
Yossarian
⏭️
So why are people attacking her for that? Is she claiming some kind of advantage?
She apparently believed she had some Cherokee ancestry and was probably mistaken, at least as far as the 1/32nd or whatever is required to officially be Cherokee. Which is a very common mistake. The Cherokee thing appeared in a few campus biographies or whatever, but she was apparently never given any advantages for being Native American.
The Cherokees aren't too bothered, as far as I know, but Donald Trump, because he's Donald Trump, has been attacking her consistently over what he sees as a blemish in her record and has nicknamed her "Pocahontas."
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
OK, I'd heard the nickname. It's going to be hard to shake if she's actually claimed Cherokee heritage. Has she done that, and if so, what does it mean? Is it more than emotional, and if so, can it be unpacked without exploding?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
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