US election 2020 thread

[Smokeandsteam]

I wasn't suggesting you could, and I'm sure there are many different reasons why different people voted trump (examples: the wealthy for the tax cuts, the fossil fuels industry-dependent people for his war on all things green, the loyalists because they always vote GOP, the evangelicals for attacks on gays and abortion, the racists for obvious reasons, the anyone-b ut-Hillary mob ditto, and the b.luecollar vote in the swing states out of desperation as much as anything else), but I was referring to that minority segment of his support who are the hardcore Trump ultras, the fanatics, for whom their man can never, ever be wrong. Their relationship with Trump smacks strongly of cultism to me.

Yeah, but you are now talking about a very different group. The debate started off with reference to ‘Trump voters’. As you indicate there is no such identikit. If we are talking about the activist base then that’s a different matter. All activist groups share certain traits...

 

[Streathamite]

Yeah, but you are now talking about a very different group. The debate started off with reference to ‘Trump voters’. As you indicate there is no such identikit. If we are talking about the activist base then that’s a different matter. All activist groups share certain traits...

Fair enough, I mis-expressed myself, I should have made it clearer I was referring specifically to the ultras.

 

[killer b]

cf. Corbynistas, FBPE maniacs, Brexit Ultras here - it's hardly as if this kind of commitment to a political cause is at all uncommon or at all new.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

cf. Corbynistas, FBPE maniacs, Brexit Ultras here - it's hardly as if this kind of commitment to a political cause is at all uncommon or at all new.

Precisely. Attempts to lump 63 million people into that boat, or to imagined others such as ‘school bullies‘/religious cranks is baffling. More importantly, it indicates the continued existence of a widespread mindset that wants to other or demonise - instead of engage with and seek to win over - those not in activist category.

 

[strung out]

Tbf I was in Thailand having a good time over the last week or so so missed the exciting bit
However, I do remember my first response being "they shouldn't have put up such a shit candidate then"

I was in America at the end of October 2016 - in fact, I was in Las Vegas when the second presidential debate was held there. The whole atmosphere was completely weird and I knew there was a serious chance of Trump being able to pull it off. Hard to gauge the temperature of the moment when you're in it, but it was everything from the campaign ads, to local news, to people we met and saw everywhere.

I still expected to wake up to a HC victory on the morning of the results though.

 

[two sheds]

Precisely. Attempts to lump 63 million people into that boat, or to imagined others such as ‘school bullies‘/religious cranks is baffling. More importantly, it indicates the continued existence of a widespread mindset that wants to other or demonise - instead of engage with and seek to win over - those not in activist category.

Also fair point but Trump cultists particularly Qanon I'd say would relate to scientology sea org. Corbynistas, FBPE maniacs, Brexit Ultras suggested by killer b you'd compare again to the checklist, see how they compare.

I do think it's a valid comparison for the hard core.

 

[NoXion]

cf. Corbynistas, FBPE maniacs, Brexit Ultras here - it's hardly as if this kind of commitment to a political cause is at all uncommon or at all new.

Don't recall Corbynistas ever engaging in voter intimidation.



Reckon hardcore Trumpists like that are on another level.

 

[Pickman's model]

Don't recall Corbynistas ever engaging in voter intimidation.



Reckon hardcore Trumpists like that are on another level.

that ooh jeremy corbyn terrified many an otherwise stalwart tory

 

[Streathamite]

cf. Corbynistas, FBPE maniacs, Brexit Ultras here - it's hardly as if this kind of commitment to a political cause is at all uncommon or at all new.

Not sure Corbynistas ever went in for the more batshit end of conspiracy theorism (or voter intimidation, or toting effing great guns around), and most LP corbyn supporters I met were more rational and pragmatic about their support than the Trumpistas seem to be.

 

[MickiQ]

Don't recall Corbynistas ever engaging in voter intimidation.



Reckon hardcore Trumpists like that are on another level.

Acting like that they must know deep down that they're losing no matter how much they deny it.

 

[killer b]

Come on, they don't have to match up exactly for it to be a comparable phenomenon. You've seen the whites of their eyes. You know it's the same.

 

[bimble]

Any ideas what is going on in this survey here, with 90% of republicans (and majority of Americans) saying they think trump will win , i mean how come they say that?

Gallup: Majority of Americans think Trump will win election

Just 40% of those surveyed think Biden will win.

justthenews.com

 

[killer b]

Fatalism

 

[bimble]

56% think there are secret trump voters ‘in their community’ who won’t admit it but will vote for him, that’s interesting in itself but probably explains a lot of that poll result there too.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Come on, they don't have to match up exactly for it to be a comparable phenomenon. You've seen the whites of their eyes. You know it's the same.

Don't see it, no. They could both be said to have drawn support from groups that previously felt excluded from mainstream political debate. But the similarity more or less ends there, imo. Substitute 'Corbynista' for 'Sandersista' and that works.

 

[Streathamite]

Substitute 'Corbynista' for 'Sandersista' and that works.

Precisely. The berniebros were America's Corbynistas

 

[NoXion]

Come on, they don't have to match up exactly for it to be a comparable phenomenon. You've seen the whites of their eyes. You know it's the same.

I feel differently when I compare them. To ward off any partisan accusations, I don't think the #FBPE wankers come that close either.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I feel differently when I compare them. To ward off any partisan accusations, I don't think the #FBPE wankers come that close either.

Trying not to be partisan, to be a full-blown Trump supporter necessarily involves a degree of cognitive dissonance - it means accepting some of Trump's obvious lies as truths when you really have no excuse for not knowing they're false. And not just on marginal stuff, on the big stuff.

That's a sharp point of difference.

 

[StoneRoad]

A bit of coverage of the senate elections from the beeb.

US election 2020: The five Senate races to watch - BBC News

Some of the remarks made earlier in the thread now make a little more sense to me.

 

[killer b]

Well, I dunno. I reckon it doesn't help you understand a political situation if you're starting at the point of 'these people are uniquely awful'.

(I don't think cognitive dissonance is the term you're looking for though. Maybe - fittingly - it's denial?)

 

[NoXion]

Well, I dunno. I reckon it doesn't help you understand a political situation if you're starting at the point of 'these people are uniquely awful'.

(I don't think cognitive dissonance is the term you're looking for though. Maybe - fittingly - it's denial?)

I certainly never made any claims of uniqueness. I know that personality cults have happened before. I just don't think I've ever seen one at this level, happening right before my eyes, instead of in a history book.

 

[redsquirrel]

I think that what bimble is possibly referring to is that the psychology of the whole Trump thing is more akin to a religious cult than most political movements.
i'm guessing, mind.

@killer b and Smokeandsteam have already made a number of points I agree with so I won't go over everything (the idea that political cultism is particularly new or abnormal shows a lack of history). But the dismissal of Trumpism, or populisms more generally, as cults is standard anti-populist rhetoric, from the same playbook that attributes populism to a mental disorder. Behind it of course is the unspoken assumption that liberal anti-populism is normal politics, that anything outside those parameters is abnormal.

But populism is absolutely 'normal' within liberalism, in fact it is an inevitable outcome of liberal politics. Hence why we have seen the evocation of cults, worshippers, madman, rabble, etc evoked by liberals time and time again - against the Populist Party, against Long, against the radicals in the English Civil Wars, against Syrzia (at first, until it decided to accept its place in 'normal' politics).

I'm not madly impressed by Frank's book The People, No but two things he has got right are (1) that anti-populism needs to be talked about as much as populism and (2) that anti-populism is a reactionary force.

 

[spring-peeper]

He is totally out of touch wrt suburban women...

Trump uses outdated thinking in attempt to woo suburban women: I'm 'getting your husbands back to work'

President Donald Trump offered his latest appeal to suburban women Tuesday evening, promising to get their husbands "back to work" if he's reelected.

www.cnn.com

Claiming he was "saving suburbia" at a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan, the President pitched himself as the candidate for suburban women voters because he's "getting your kids back to school" and "getting your husbands -- they want to get back to work. We're getting your husbands back to work."

While Trump focused on "husbands" during his speech in Michigan on Tuesday, the coronavirus pandemic has had a much larger effect on women in the work place.

The International Monetary Fund warned in July that the pandemic recession is hurting women more than men, and job losses during the economic downturn are happening in sectors of the economy where women are disproportionately represented. The annual Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org showed one in four women reporting they are considering downshifting their career or stepping out of the work place entirely, partly due to the demands the pandemic has placed placed on working mothers.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

But populism is absolutely 'normal' within liberalism, in fact it is part and parcel of liberalism. Hence why we have seen the evocation of cults, worshippers, madman, rabble, etc evoked by liberals time and time again - against the Populist Party, against Long, against the radicals in the English Civil Wars, against Syrzia (at first, until it decided to accept its place in 'normal' politics).

I'm not madly impressed by Frank's book The People, No but two things he has got right are (1) that anti-populism needs to be talked about as much as populism and (2) that it is a reactionary force.

I was thinking about Frank ('ll be posting up thoughts about Chapter 4 and 5 later) while reading this thread. He is, if the last 10 pages here are anything to go by, spot on about the political meanings of Democracy Scare. The coding, the othering, the inherent PMC assumptions, the elitism - it's all on display!

 

[spring-peeper]

Election 2020: Terrified to lose and afraid to hope

Nearly 70% of U.S. adults say the presidential election is a significant source of stress, according to the American Psychological Association.

www.usatoday.com

The majority of American adults say they feel it. The anxiety, the fear, the dread.

They feel it before bed and when they wake at night, at red lights and in grocery store lines, at desks and dinner tables. Quiet moments are no longer a refuge, but spaces to ruminate, contemplate, to grapple with how risky it is to hope.

Americans are moving through these final seven days with lumps in their throats, trying to quell the unsettling sensation of the in-between.

Nearly 70% of U.S. adults say the presidential election is a significant source of stress, according to the American Psychological Association's Stress in America survey this month, a dramatic increase from the 2016 election when 52% of Americans said the same. While Democrats are more stressed than Republicans, majorities of both political parties say the contest between President Donald Trump and challenger former Vice President Joe Biden is a significant stressor.

 

[redsquirrel]

I was thinking about Frank ('ll be posting up thoughts about Chapter 4 and 5 later) while reading this thread. He is, if the last 10 pages here are anything to go by, spot on about the political meanings of Democracy Scare. The coding, the othering, the inherent PMC assumptions, the elitism - it's all on display!

Yep like I said I have some issues with his book but he nails the Democracy Scare. BTW I will try to get my thoughts together and contribute to that thread by the ned of the week.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I was thinking about Frank ('ll be posting up thoughts about Chapter 4 and 5 later) while reading this thread. He is, if the last 10 pages here are anything to go by, spot on about the political meanings of Democracy Scare. The coding, the othering, the inherent PMC assumptions, the elitism - it's all on display!

Victories to the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Putin, Erdogan, Johnson, Hitler, etc, are something that should Scare Democracy.

And I make no apology for including Hitler in there. If an analysis applies to the elections now, why wouldn't it apply to elections in the 1930s? Poor analytical tools if they can't be applied to that period as well.

We're also in a bind when accused of 'othering' others precisely because of their othering, which is exactly what I would do to racists, for instance. It's analogous to the idea that defending tolerance is intolerant of the intolerant. And if that sounds absurd, it's exactly the line some religious people take towards secularism.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Well, I dunno. I reckon it doesn't help you understand a political situation if you're starting at the point of 'these people are uniquely awful'.

Yes. I'm not sure where a politics that takes as its starting point the writing of off 63 million people takes you. But for a start once, and if, Biden is elected and gets to work you'd certainly have some explaining to do.

 

[killer b]

@killer b and Smokeandsteam have already made a number of points I agree with so I won't go over everything (the idea that political cultism is particularly new or abnormal shows a lack of history). But the dismissal of Trumpism, or populisms more generally, as cults is standard anti-populist rhetoric, from the same playbook that attributes populism to a mental disorder. Behind it of course is the unspoken assumption that liberal anti-populism is normal politics, that anything outside those parameters is abnormal.

The idea of Trump himself as being some kind of horrific aberration is part and parcel of the same thing - fears that he'll use the Supreme Court to ignore the result of the election (as if that hadn't already happened in the very recent past), the idea in recent posts here that he'll refuse to turn up at Biden's inauguration in a fit of pique - he is an unusual politician, there's no doubt about that - but look at his record in office and it's not really much different from a standard Republican presidency of recent years.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Victories to the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Putin, Erdogan, Johnson, Hitler, etc, are something that should Scare Democracy.

It might scare liberals and others who are attached to, and direct beneficiaries of, the existing order. But for socialists a response might be to ask what the concrete conditions were - rather than metaphysical speculation by the way - that gave rise to their victories.

This might then promote thought about how we engage with those concerns and work to spread knowledge, as an embedded approach and method, rather than condemning people for failing self-indulgent purity tests.