What stupid shit has Trump done today?

[CRI]

No. That's why I pointed out that 'racism existed and was fought, including by white working class activists.'

Whatever else identity politics is about, it isn't equality, by the way. Nor was it initially, or is even now, driven by 'uppity black people' (or Black people as you put it.)

Well good for them, but why the piss poor response to people of colour organising to challenge racism - dismissing it as "identity politics?"

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Well good for them, but why the piss poor response to people of colour organising to challenge racism - dismissing it as "identity politics?"

Maybe they're snobs as well.

 

[seventh bullet]

Um in other words, "Back in the day, we were all just one big happy colourblind working class family until some uppity Black people complained we weren't doing enough about racism then jumped on the equalities gravy train leaving us white working class people still oppressed."

That isn't what they said.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Gosh: this sure sounds familiar...

A new study by Gary King of Harvard University, Jennifer Pan of Stanford University, and Margaret Roberts of the University of California San Diego suggests that China is the leading innovator on this front. Their paper, titled “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument,” shows how Beijing, with the help of a massive army of government-backed internet commentators, floods the web in China with pro-regime propaganda.

What’s different about China’s approach is the content of the propaganda. The government doesn’t refute critics or defend policies; instead, it overwhelms the population with positive news (what the researchers call “cheerleading” content) in order to eclipse bad news and divert attention away from actual problems.

China is perfecting a new method for suppressing dissent on the internet

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Unger was stark in his conclusions: “Whether Trump knew it or not, Russian mobsters and corrupt oligarchs used his properties not only to launder vast sums of money from extortion, drugs, gambling and racketeering, but even as a base of operations for their criminal activities. In the process, they propped up Trump’s business and enabled him to reinvent his image. Without the Russian mafia, it is fair to say, Donald Trump would not be president of the United States.”

More than anyone, Trump knows what Mueller will discover. He knows the legal peril that he and his family are in. He also knows that his presidency is certain to end — in some way — if that story ever becomes public.

We should remember this when we see how Trump acts in the weeks to come. Like a cornered rat, he will fight to protect his interests. In every conceivable way, he will work to stop Mueller’s probe, to challenge Congress if it intervenes, to undermine the press and judiciary if they get in the way and — yes — even to engage in reckless military adventures if he thought that would strengthen his position.

This next stage of this Trump story will no longer be a diverting reality show. It will be the moment when Americans — and the rest of us — will learn if U.S. democracy is strong enough to stop him.

We now know how the Trump presidency will end. Let's hope we survive: Burman | Toronto Star

 

[CRI]

That isn't what they said.

Sure sounds like it to me. Twice they've referred to white people doing anti-racist stuff as a good thing, but not seeing any praise for people of colour organising against racism. But, who exactly are they talking about in that phrase "smug identity politics brigade. Well-funded job opportunities opened up. Careers flourished," if not (wait for it) people of colour organising against racism.

 

[seventh bullet]

What exactly is this alleged White Working Class?

 

[Tankus]

Anyone with a gold khazi...apparently

 

[maomao]

It's important that black people are properly represented at all levels of society so that when working class black teenagers are forced into the armed forces through a lack of opportunities they can murder foreign children with their heads held high.

 

[RD2003]

There are more people of colour among the lowest socio-economic strata in the US, in relation to their proportions in society, than there are white people. So that's rather inconvenient for your argument about "anti-racism" being about making hatred of the poor acceptable. That's just bunk.

And, I doubt you'll find many working class people of colour in the US who voted Trump, in the UK who voted for Brexit or in France voted FN. So you're really talking about just white working class people here, and they clearly didn't show much solidarity for their non-white working class comrades when they voted for overtly racist candidates, eh?

You're missing the point that those from the white working class who vote for racist candidates are clearly alienated by the liberal left. Probably lost to it for good.

As far as I am aware, nobody has said that their voting for racist candidates is a good thing.

 

[ohmyliver]

APNewsBreak: Flynn details tie to data firm, transition pay
In short Flynn also 'forgot' to mention his work with a company that's affiliated with Cambridge Analytica. Going by Wiki, what they do is look at big data analytics and based on results, specific target communications to key audience groups to modify behavior in accordance with the goal of SCL's client.

'The amended disclosure shows that just before the end of the campaign, Flynn entered into a consulting agreement with SCL Group, a Virginia-based company related to Cambridge Analytica, the data mining and analysis firm that worked with Trump’s campaign.'

I think that this is one to watch.

In other news, Carter Page was being monitored by the FBI since 2014 due to attempts to recruit him by Russian Intelligence (which would mean that all intercepts on him and his communication team trump were legal), and the US intelligence services have found evidence that Manafort and Russian intelligence were co-ordinating on certain matters.

 

[TomUS]

What exactly is this alleged White Working Class?

Oppressed victims of the smug liberal elite.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Some of a section of a marginalised working class voted for a billionaire who appointed a load of Goldman Sachs people, it's true.

But I suspect most marginalised working class people with browner shades of skin didn't support him. Perhaps they don't pop into your head when you think of the working class though.

If you been paying the slightest bit of attention you'd know I have been arguing the exact opposite. It is the other lot, who racialised the class argument. It is the other lot that invented the term 'white working class', while correspondingly the 'black working class' is never mentioned.

Ever wonder for instance why you never hear of anyone refer to the 'Muslim working class'?

Why is this?

Because for identity politics there is no class divisions just 'community'. And in communities you inevitably have 'community leaders' (rarely if ever elected incidentally) with whom the establishment can do business. It is the black establishment that delivers the black vote to the Democrats for example. But in the 'Latino community' these structures are not so well entrenched. Not yet. As a consequence a significant chunk of the 'Latino vote' went to Trump.

But why is there is never any mention of a 'white community'? Because that would be absurd. It is too visibly divided by lots of things, the most prominent being class. And the black community is divided in exactly the same way. Ergo, 'black community' is a political invention. I'll leave it up to you to work out who benefits from the working classes being separated in this entirely artificial way.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

If you been paying the slightest bit of attention you'd know I have been arguing the exact opposite. It is the other lot, who racialised the class argument. It is the other lot that invented the term 'white working class', while correspondingly the 'black working class' is never mentioned.

Ever wonder for instance why you never hear of anyone refer to the 'Muslim working class'?

Why is this?

Because for identity politics there is no class divisions just 'community'. And in communities you inevitably have 'community leaders' (rarely if ever elected incidentally) with whom the establishment can do business. It is the black establishment that delivers the black vote to the Democrats for example. But in the 'Latino community' these structures are not so well entrenched. Not yet. As a consequence a significant chunk of the 'Latino vote' went to Trump.

But why is there is never any mention of a 'white community'? Because that would be absurd. It is too visibly divided by lots of things, the most prominent being class. And the black community is divided in exactly the same way. Ergo, 'black community' is a political invention. I'll leave it up to you to work out who benefits from the working classes being separated in this entirely artificial way.

Thanks for clarifying, but I think there is a need for oppressed people to stand up for themselves on the basis of oppression and sometimes that risks the over emphasis on identity politics long discussed here and on the left. It seems nearly an impossible balance to strike really, and one that the right delights in exploiting while littering their own rhetoric with lies and doublethink.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Oppressed victims of the smug liberal elite.

Don't know if you're being sarcastic, but the device that sets up the liberal elite as the enemy of the working class is (probably less than) half the picture, serving to let the other conservative elites off the hook, and it's often a device used by the conservative elite as if to say that the problem isn't elites per se, but liberals. See also: sneering at "middle class liberals" whereas middle class conservatives, reactionaries etc. don't get it nearly so much in the neck. For the latter groups there is an implication that liberalism is some form of class treachery.

 

[Joe Reilly]

There are more people of colour among the lowest socio-economic strata in the US, in relation to their proportions in society, than there are white people. So that's rather inconvenient for your argument about "anti-racism" being about making hatred of the poor acceptable. That's just bunk.

And, I doubt you'll find many working class people of colour in the US who voted Trump, in the UK who voted for Brexit or in France voted FN. So you're really talking about just white working class people here, and they clearly didn't show much solidarity for their non-white working class comrades when they voted for overtly racist candidates, eh?

So when Hilary dismissed the white working class support for the Trump platform as "deplorable" (racist, homophobic misogynist etc) that was what? Out of compassion? As we all know her audience lapped it up. And if someone in audience objected on the basis that 'anti-racism is being used as cloak to enable the wealthy to openly say how they really feel about their fellow citizens' - 'B-U-N-K!' they would all shriek in reply.

'Show me your friends...' as they say.

(the rest of the quote can be supplied on request)

 

[CRI]

What exactly is this alleged White Working Class?

Here and elsewhere, I keep hearing comments along the lines of, "The Democrats lost in 2016 because they failed to speak to working class concerns," or "Trump appealed to economically marginalised working class people."

We know working class people of colour voted for the Democrats, overwhelmingly, particularly African Americans. We also know working class people of colour are economically marginalised - even more so than white working class people, but Trump didn't and still doesn't "appeal" to them.

So, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that when they say "working class" in these contexts, they aren't thinking about working class people of colour. And, since they're often the same people who dismiss civil rights activism as "identity politics" and "divisive" suggests they don't tend to think much about or in fact of working class people of colour.

 

[CRI]

You're missing the point that those from the white working class who vote for racist candidates are clearly alienated by the liberal left. Probably lost to it for good.

As far as I am aware, nobody has said that their voting for racist candidates is a good thing.

*Once more with feeling.*

There have always been white working class people in America who have voted for racist candidates. White working class Republicans are most definitely a thing. They're descendants of the working class whites who established sun down towns, who backed segregation, who participated in lynchings, who put their pennies towards Confederate monuments, who moved out of Northern cities when Black people moved in, etc.

Many shifted from being Democrats in the 1960's because the Democrats began advocating for civil rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, etc. and they didn't like it. These white, working class people abandoned the Democratic Party when Donald Trump was still dodging the draft for his fucking heel spurs. They were "lost for good" when I was still saving up for my first bicycle. Distressing as it seems to be for some to accept, they are never coming back to the Democratic party, let alone will they ever become anything like socialists.

 

[DotCommunist]

fuckit

 

[CRI]

It is the black establishment that delivers the black vote to the Democrats for example.

Christ buddy, did you really just say this? Like African Americans can't decide who to vote for by themselves?

There most definitely are recognised class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. divisions within communities of colour. There's also far more acute analyses of the intersections of oppression and privilege within their activism than I've ever seen from the "it's all about class" lads.

And, you'll find that "significant proportion" of the Latino vote has always gone to Republicans, mostly from Cuban exiles who've traditionally supported the "strong" GOP stance against Castro. They've got repaid with fast tracks to citizenship other refugees haven't enjoyed.

(Lost connection during edit - sorry folks)

 

[NoXion]

So African Americans can decide who to vote for themselves, but the "white working class", especially if they live in rural areas, are by contrast so eager to cut off their own noses to spite their faces that it's pointless trying to court them as a political constituency? Sounds a bit, well, *racist* to me.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

So when Hilary dismissed the white working class support for the Trump platform as "deplorable" (racist, homophobic misogynist etc) that was what? Out of compassion? As we all know her audience lapped it up. And if someone in audience objected on the basis that 'anti-racism is being used as cloak to enable the wealthy to openly say how they really feel about their fellow citizens' - 'B-U-N-K!' they would all shriek in reply.

'Show me your friends...' as they say.

(the rest of the quote can be supplied on request)

Loathe as I am to defend Clinton, she wasn't dismissing the "basket of deplorables" because of their skin colour or socio-economic status. She was dismissing bigotry generally as deplorable, and it's generally overlooked that Trump has a huge base among wealthy people too (tax "reform" is one area I anticipate he'll have a lot less difficulty getting through than healthcare, the stupid wall etc.)

It's a general point, and paralleling some of my recent comments, but wealthy bigots do seem to get away with an awful lot, perhaps there is snobbery mixed up in that from liberals, but far less scrutinised is the way the dynamic is used by elitist reactionaries: "how very dare you, calling poor people all those rude names because they are poor" when in fact the problem is the bigotry and not the class. Of course elite bigots will want to distract poorer bigots and throw out red herrings, but that's no reason why people should get sucked in by the act too much. That said, fascism has always exploited such dupery and it's very appealing to bourgeois bigots as well. Yet, the strongest forces of anti-fascism are probably to be found in the working class too. That needs to be supressed by the elite, who will deliberately seek to conflate liberalism with being anti-working class for obvious reasons (despite the problems with liberalism, reactionaries are an even bigger up-front menace). Anti-intellectualism is also wound up in this, a cornerstone of tyranny generally and recent generations have seen a depressing slide in emphasis on working class political and cultural education (look at decimation of Adult Ed, libraries as manifestations of this, as well as cultural trends), it's all very much "know your place, don't trust clever people - they're not like you. Trust us instead. And they're liberals / lefties, ergo liberals and lefties are bad so join our reactionary crusade and lap it up. Unite in bigotry and forget all that class stuff". Tories are full of this shit, Trump is the same thing on steroids. But there is push back too, and appetite for it, hence relative success of Corbyn (middle class tho) and Sanders (probably ditto all told)

 

[gosub]

the same bloke who told the BBC Trump's twitter feed is for domestic consumption only (which made more sense)

 

[camouflage]

fuckit

welcome, here's you're badge... club meets are on tuesdays, you're expected not to turn up.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

the same bloke who told the BBC Trump's twitter feed is for domestic consumption only (which made more sense)

Gorka is such a cunt. Not long ago he was using his usual laughable self-inflated tones (I suppose he thinks Americans are less likely to see through them) to tell us all that Trump's tweets weren't policy, downplaying their significance. Now he is claiming them as a major tool of diplomacy, not least because he's a cunt but I think I covered that.

 

[8den]

APNewsBreak: Flynn details tie to data firm, transition pay
In short Flynn also 'forgot' to mention his work with a company that's affiliated with Cambridge Analytica. Going by Wiki, what they do is look at big data analytics and based on results, specific target communications to key audience groups to modify behavior in accordance with the goal of SCL's client.

'The amended disclosure shows that just before the end of the campaign, Flynn entered into a consulting agreement with SCL Group, a Virginia-based company related to Cambridge Analytica, the data mining and analysis firm that worked with Trump’s campaign.'

I think that this is one to watch.

In other news, Carter Page was being monitored by the FBI since 2014 due to attempts to recruit him by Russian Intelligence (which would mean that all intercepts on him and his communication team trump were legal), and the US intelligence services have found evidence that Manafort and Russian intelligence were co-ordinating on certain matters.

Lest we forget Cambridge Analytica are being investigated for their role In both Brexit & The US election.

 

[ohmyliver]

indeedy, that's why it's one to watch.

 

[seventh bullet]

Loathe as I am to defend Clinton, she wasn't dismissing the "basket of deplorables" because of their skin colour or socio-economic status. She was dismissing bigotry generally as deplorable, and it's generally overlooked that Trump has a huge base among wealthy people too (tax "reform" is one area I anticipate he'll have a lot less difficulty getting through than healthcare, the stupid wall etc.)

It's a general point, and paralleling some of my recent comments, but wealthy bigots do seem to get away with an awful lot, perhaps there is snobbery mixed up in that from liberals, but far less scrutinised is the way the dynamic is used by elitist reactionaries: "how very dare you, calling poor people all those rude names because they are poor" when in fact the problem is the bigotry and not the class. Of course elite bigots will want to distract poorer bigots and throw out red herrings, but that's no reason why people should get sucked in by the act too much. That said, fascism has always exploited such dupery and it's very appealing to bourgeois bigots as well. Yet, the strongest forces of anti-fascism are probably to be found in the working class too. That needs to be supressed by the elite, who will deliberately seek to conflate liberalism with being anti-working class for obvious reasons (despite the problems with liberalism, reactionaries are an even bigger up-front menace). Anti-intellectualism is also wound up in this, a cornerstone of tyranny generally and recent generations have seen a depressing slide in emphasis on working class political and cultural education (look at decimation of Adult Ed, libraries as manifestations of this, as well as cultural trends), it's all very much "know your place, don't trust clever people - they're not like you. Trust us instead. And they're liberals / lefties, ergo liberals and lefties are bad so join our reactionary crusade and lap it up. Unite in bigotry and forget all that class stuff". Tories are full of this shit, Trump is the same thing on steroids. But there is push back too, and appetite for it, hence relative success of Corbyn (middle class tho) and Sanders (probably ditto all told)

In my own anecdotal experience, working class people are not anti-education, far from it. One of the still lingering and salient points of the era of social democracy and the welfare state is that its formal attainment at the highest levels is something to be proud of. Rather, the political situation preferred by, let's face it, middle class liberals, is making it harder and harder for w/c people (of whatever colour their skin is) to access it. It also depends what you mean by anti-intellectualism. If you mean a challenge to how knowledge is produced and used/shared, then that is to be celebrated, and it still lives, as evidenced by posters on here. I think some of our class-privileged urbanites sometimes forget that w/c people use these boards too, and some of our best political/theory contributors are from non-private school, non-university w/c backgrounds. The left used to be masters at this stuff, both straight-faced challenges and irreverent mockery, but now the far-right are using those same methods to spread their 'insurgent' message and can quite convincingly point to the liberal left as out of touch elitists (and they are quite frankly). Indeed liberals just have to open their own bigoted mouths or type on a keyboard/touchscreen.

 

[phillm]

Shit just got real:

Peter and the Test Tube Babies singer refused entry to the USA for mocking Donald Tump - Louder Than War

British punk singer is 'deported from America for impersonating Donald Trump'

Good time to keep frickin' Bono out as well...

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

In my own anecdotal experience, working class people are not anti-education, far from it. One of the still lingering and salient points of the era of social democracy and the welfare state is that its formal attainment at the highest levels is something to be proud of. Rather, the political situation preferred by, let's face it, middle class liberals, is making it harder and harder for w/c people (of whatever colour their skin is) to access it. It also depends what you mean by anti-intellectualism. If you mean a challenge to how knowledge is produced and used/shared, then that is to be celebrated, and it still lives, as evidenced by posters on here. I think some of our class-privileged urbanites sometimes forget that w/c people use these boards too, and some of our best political/theory contributors are from non-private school, non-university w/c backgrounds. The left used to be masters at this stuff, both straight-faced challenges and irreverent mockery, but now the far-right are using those same methods to spread their 'insurgent' message and can quite convincingly point to the liberal left as out of touch elitists (and they are quite frankly). Indeed liberals just have to open their own bigoted mouths or type on a keyboard/touchscreen.

My point was that it is elites that have encouraged anti-education attitudes in the working class, including via policy that you mention (though conservatives have been worse than liberals in the advancement of it).

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but it hasn't helped. You are right that social democracy did much to advance it, and some liberals paid a reasonable part in social democracy. In my anecdotal experience, plenty of working class aren't anti education, but plenty of working class and bourgeois people actually are - the Mail is as likely to sneer at "experts" as The Sun. Education for the benefit of capital is sometimes an exception, skills based rather than the classic 70s philosophy of liberal eductation. Many liberals are pro education and not arsed about the class of those pursuing it in the least.

Of course the far right will moan endlessly about the liberal / left being out of touch elitists, but it's primarily a distraction from their own ends that are ultimately far more elitist. It's fair enough for liberals to be critiqued from the left for that elitism which exists in their ranks, but coming from the right it's hollow doublespeak wank.