Republicans: candidate who assaulted reporter is fine with us!

[octopus]

@Kimstu

Is that what we’ve come to in the richest country in the world now? Well-to-do upper-middle-class folks tut-tutting because the peasants aren’t legally allowed to work for starvation wages?

Other developed countries have managed to avoid your false dichotomy of immiseration at starvation wages vs. total indigence as the only two choices.

China says “hi!” You think the other “rich” nations avoided the so-called false dichotomy? Why are the extreme right and nationalism becoming so prominent? One major reason is economic pressure from globalization where labor is a commodity and rich countries need to turn a blind eye to immigration and exploitation of black market labor.

[Kimstu]

@octopus

Why are the extreme right and nationalism becoming so prominent? One major reason is economic pressure from globalization where labor is a commodity and rich countries need to turn a blind eye to immigration and exploitation of black market labor.

Your position seems to be that it’s a terrible thing to have a minority of working people in rich nations kept impoverished and grossly underpaid at starvation wages because they’re exploited black market labor, whereas if we could have lots more working people in rich nations kept impoverished and grossly underpaid at starvation wages because starvation wages are now legal, that would be just fine. Because they’re “learning skills and traits” or something.

Not very persuasive, frankly.

[elucidator]

Lots of jobs, so many, lotta folks have two!

[Chisquirrel]

@octopus

Why are the extreme right and nationalism becoming so prominent?

Fear of melanin?

Why are so many on the right angry with brown people while the wealthy build towers with their names on them out of hubris?

[octopus]

@Kimstu

Your position seems to be that it’s a terrible thing to have a minority of working people in rich nations kept impoverished and grossly underpaid at starvation wages because they’re exploited black market labor, whereas if we could have lots more working people in rich nations kept impoverished and grossly underpaid at starvation wages because starvation wages are now legal, that would be just fine. Because they’re “learning skills and traits” or something.

Not very persuasive, frankly.

I don’t have to persuade anyone. The fact is labor is a global commodity now. It doesn’t matter how often you appeal to emotion. You think these multi-hundred billion dollar corporations care about your feelings or usage of words like “starvation wages?” Nope. That’s why China has then tremendous growth it has.

Anyways, at the moment unemployment here is low so this is all beside the point. But at some point the demand for unskilled domestic labor will shrink and those without that college education and many with will be replaced with cheaper foreign labor or kiosks.

[octopus]

@Chisquirrel

Fear of melanin?

Why are so many on the right angry with brown people while the wealthy build towers with their names on them out of hubris?

We just had Obama as president. I don’t think melaninophobia is the main reason for the rise of nationalism. I could be wrong.

[Kimstu]

@octopus

It doesn’t matter how often you appeal to emotion. You think these multi-hundred billion dollar corporations care about your feelings or usage of words like “starvation wages?” Nope.

:rolleyes: People care about starvation, and ultimately, people make policy. Hyper-libertarian bullshit that pretends that specific policy choices are somehow as natural and immutable as, say, the physics of climate change is just that, bullshit.

Sure, policy decisions have to take the existence of global labor arbitrage into account. But that does not automatically mean that more people would be better off if policy-makers in wealthy nations just threw up their hands and allowed global labor arbitrage free rein to push additional millions of their workers into starvation-wage immiseration legally.

[Kimstu]

@octopus

I don’t think melaninophobia is the main reason for the rise of nationalism. I could be wrong.

According to the recent study discussed here, it appears that you are.

[…] researchers Matthew Fowler, Vladimir Medenica, and Cathy Cohen have published the results of a new survey on these questions, with a focus on the 41 percent of white millennials who voted for Trump and the sense of “white vulnerability” that motivated them. The conclusion is very clear:

[…] Employment and income were not significantly related to that sense of white vulnerability.

So what was? Racial resentment.

Even when controlling for partisanship, ideology, region and a host of other factors, white millennials fit Michael Tesler’s analysis, explored here. As he put it, economic anxiety isn’t driving racial resentment; rather, racial resentment is driving economic anxiety. We found, as he has in a larger population, that racial resentment is the biggest predictor of white vulnerability among white millennials. Economic variables like education, income and employment made a negligible difference.

[…] There have now been numerous studies that found support for Trump is closely linked to racial resentment, defined by Fowler, Medenica, and Cohen as “a moral feeling that blacks violate such traditional American values as individualism and self-reliance.”

Of course, that study is specific to the US, but researchers in Europe have similarly found that the recent rise of nationalism and racism are closely linked. Like this guy who spent a year undercover in the European alt-right:

It’s not white men in charge anymore, they believe, and that’s a problem because white men are the only people with the constitution to be able to lead. That’s how they think, so they believe that everything is just tumbling down into destruction and they believe that we need strong white men and violence to set that right. […]

They see themselves more and more as an international movement, and they actively engage with people across the globe.

Again, this is why the racist and anti-Semitic ideology is so central: It’s the universal narrative that connects all of these grievances. It’s their organizing philosophy. […]

You have to see this as a cultural movement above all else. Their goal is to change the culture, and that means making their ideas mainstream. They want it to be okay to hold their opinions in public. […]

What we saw in Charlottesville (and I was on the ground there) was young people, many of them university age — meaning they have their whole lives in front of them — and they weren’t afraid to openly associate with Nazis and the KKK. That says something significant about where we are, about where they think they are.

[Rick_Kitchen]

@octopus

We just had Obama as president. I don’t think melaninophobia is the main reason for the rise of nationalism. I could be wrong.

Never heard of backlash? Or of the melanophobia that occurred during Obama’s terms?

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Bumped.

Gianforte was reelected last week without too much trouble: 2018 United States House of Representatives election in Montana - Wikipedia

[Sherrerd]

@Elendil_s_Heir

Bumped.

Gianforte was reelected last week without too much trouble: 2018 United States House of Representatives election in Montana - Wikipedia

Not Montana’s finest hour. Of course they did go for the Democratic Senatorial incumbent (Jon Tester). In both cases the winner barely got over 50% of the vote (51.1 for Mr. Belligerence and 50.1 for the Senator, according to Ballotpedia.)

Maybe they just like incumbents.

Montana elections, 2018