I don’t have time to read it right now. Could you tell me the points you disagree with? Since, of course, you’ve read the whole thng?
Lips got tired.
Didn’t read it, same as I suspect you wouldn’t pay much heed to a Breitbart link.
And note, I admitted in this thread that conservatives are servile. But so are liberals, which is the point. They bow before multiculturalism, redistributive taxation and progressive groupthink.
I pay heed to Blightbart! Shock, horror, and dismay are “heed”!
Yeah, Right after the Ethiopian Mooslum and Crooked Hillary took all my bullets and stuck me in a FEMA death camp, they went and put my name on the death panel list. But Trump, all his alt right racist pals, and his buddy Putin will save us from all the Mexicans, Mooslums, and Libruls running rampant in our streets. :smack:
What group is targeted next, after those groups are gone ----> There’s always another. Oh yeah. They take the leash off Pence and he goes after gays and uppity wimmenfolk who want a bit of control over their own body.
Enjoy your echo chamber guys. It’s served you well so far.
I’ve had a quick scan. “Slander” (or more accurately “libel”) is a rather strong interpretation for a paper that isn’t saying much that would surprise either group. If you’ve got an objection to the excerpt, it would have been more constructive to address it than the blind handwaving.
As for actual criticism: as I said I scanned it quickly but didn’t really see much in the way of explanation of what they mean by “liberal” and “conservative”. I’m suspicious they have defined the groups by the characteristics - “liberals” are A, B and C, while “conservative” are X, Y and Z, which run into the danger of presenting circular arguments (“people who have these traits have these traits”). It’s also an overly Manichaean argument, with not much discussion of the space between the two poles they present.
I’m guessing these are graduate students from the style. Also note that the article is from 2009 FWIW. I rate it a “meh”.
Or, to put it another way, for better or worse, Democracy will only ever give us the will of the majority, and writing off half the electorate as evil fucks and telling them so makes chances of achieving your political goals pretty slim.
Actually, he was taken to court many years ago for his explicit racist actions. But what am I thinking- this is a fact, and I know that you are pretty much immune to facts if they don’t agree with you.
No one is talking about writing off half the electorate or ignoring the will of the majority. As I hope you know, a majority of voters voted against Trump.
What I am in favor of is rejecting people that are using the election results to carry out their white supremacist fantasies. I’m also in favor of writing off people who would prefer to vote against than their own economic interests if it means symbolically getting back at brown and black people. If you’re conflating that with me saying I’m rejecting half the electorate, that’s on you not me.
I should avoid all discussions of politics that involve sarcasm, as I clearly have a challenge reading for complete comprehension the first time around in those circumstances. My apologies for that.
However, even appreciating the tongue-in-cheek quality of your original post, you hit accidentally upon a fundamental truth about the outcome. 1/2 of the voting electorate cast a ballot in support of Trump for president (one can point out that it was less than half, but with a less than 1% difference, I think calling it 1/2 is fair).
The only way to change governance in our Democracy is for a majority of voters to vote for that change. You can couch it in ‘bloody war’ metaphors, but the fact is that yes, if you (and I) want a majority to vote for a Democrat in 4 years, or at least for someone who isn’t quite as off the rails as Trump seems to be in my eyes, then let’s get out there and convince those people that Team Democrat is a team that they want to be on. And spitting in their faces is unlikely to have the desired effect.
The ones who go GOP because of that tasty xenophobia and racism aren’t exactly the low hanging fruit in that effort. And we are not, as a party, “spitting in their faces.” We are insisting on equal treatment and human rights, and we should continue to do that.
Yes, we need to distinguish between the “Tastes Great!” racists and the “Less Filling!” fiscal conservatives, and convince the latter group where their interests are better filled. But if we ever start needing the bigots, then we need to disappear as a party.
Sure. What’s the point of ‘winning’ if it means being deplorable. 
However, there is a narrative exemplified by the OP of this thread that says that all Trump supporters are intentional and hateful racists and misogynists first and foremost.
I just don’t think that 1/2 the country is as nasty as many of my fellow Dems are insisting that it is. And, I think that people for whom racial justice does not rise to a priority over other issues that affect them more personally are still ok people. And, these are, I believe, most of the Trump voters, and are people who we Dems should be working on figuring out how to talk to about a rising tide lifting all boats, and so on and so forth.
It’s not the people who voted against blacks, gays, and women who we need to work at winning over. It’s the people who voted for their own self-interest (as accurate or inaccurate as their assessments may have been) who are possible allies in our efforts, and whom are being written off by folks like the OP as scum.
The short of it is that if we stay focused on painting with a broad brush so that no racist goes un-accused, then the collateral damage is going to be what ultimately might keep us away from political leadership in the short term, and what prevents true cultural/social change in the long term.
Gee… Which side is it that loves to yammer on and on about Second Amendment Solutions???
Which side is it that loves to jabber about “the blood of tyrants” or is it “patriots”, or SOMEBODY’s blood all the time???
The case was “settled”. In short, he was guilty as hell and agreed to a settlement, to avoid paying more. Now it gets played instead as a stunning victory and proof of innocence.
No lie is too big or too small.
Sigh. No. We didn’t.
I more agree than disagree.
But it’s sort of like being fined for negligent workplace safety conditions; you “knew or should have known” the conditions were likely to cause a work injury even if you never went out in your shop and looked around. In this case, Trump voters knew or should have known the danger of putting a man like that in the White House. You can still be an ok person and operate in willful ignorance (up to a point). Curing that sort of thing always has to involve ownership of consequences, though.
On the other hand, we don’t have to go the full Truth and Reconciliation route. We wouldn’t really be able to do that without a yooge Trumpian catastrophe that incontrovertibly hurts these people anyway, and I’m praying that doesn’t happen. Showing them the alternatives clearly should get a bare majority of voters. It won’t change the electorate in a substantial way, and it must be maintained as a major full force effort for roughly the remaining lifetime of the republic, but at least it’s a way that we could start getting people into government who’d like to govern.
No, just no. You’ll end up with a second term if you keep up this divisive shit where you act like about 50% of the population are scumbags.
Non-racist people voted for Trump. I have a friend who would’ve done, if he were technically able and no, he is definitely not racist no matter how hard you try and assert that he is (it’s mostly just preferring Trump over Clinton very slightly, and fear over Russia). Lots of people’s families did. They’re not all evil fascist mini-Hitlers, they’re human beings with hopes, dreams and concerns. It’s time to treat them that way.
Addition: There’s also the argument that Trump is a businessman, i.e. Salesman++. I think a lot of people knew and expected him to exaggerate and bullshit his way along.
If you think it’s something you can change people’s minds on, or ‘educate’ them about then to borrow a rant from the good Doctor: SIT DOWN AND TALK!!
Dismissing people as a bunch of horrible racists and screaming at them is counter-productive to getting them to listen and potentially change their minds, I really believe that. Hysterical shouting and name-calling is a sure sign that someone does not have a good argument.
They don’t have to be “nasty” to be too unreachable to be a worthwhile outreach investment. If we were talking about regular people who just happened to vote
Republican, perhaps my opinion would be different. But I do see Trump voters as being on whole other level of partisanship, one that is going to be difficult to break through without becoming Republican Lite.
The Dems have as much chance of winning these hearts and minds as the GOP has of winning over African Americans. This isn’t defeatism talking; it’s realism.
That’s not to say I think all Trump voters are too partisan to be reached. Chatting one-on-one with could lead to a few opened minds. But one-on-one chats aren’t feasible when we’re talking about millions of people.