The American Coup: 11.9.2020 -

Politics & Elections
361

This is a very real danger. Trump will soon exit from the White House but his legacy of division and distrust of “the other” will likely linger. The parallels to late Weimar and early Nazi Germany are valid, minus the pogroms and death camps (for now).

The way I see it, we have a potentially cataclysmic set of circumstances that are coming into alignment, where we have not just societal cleavages but we have conflict among the “elites,” and we have elites who are now building their own nations within a nation. Instead of a cooperative building of a nation-state, we have forces that are now building a new nation-state within the nation-state. It’s a new nation, a confederacy, along mostly racial lines but - and I think this is where progressives and dems need to turn on their light bulb here - it will also have some appeal to non-whites who perceive themselves as members of the working class. This is not just tension between rich and poor neighbors within a community; this is a growing nation-wide rift that involves right wing capitalists and working class culturalists on one hand, and more moderate and left-wing academics, professionals, and laboring class on the other hand. And of course, race and religion are factors.

What’s particularly alarming is that this is being fueled by a growing sense of displacement, particularly among white males but also among white people and also non-white males generally. There is a sense that an old order that they have grew up with and expected to live by is now being replaced with a new kind of social ‘deal’ whereby they have to make room for others who have an unfamiliar background. It’s the displacement, either that they are living through now or fear in the near future, that is fueling the rise of right wing politics. And this displacement brings with it a perceives scarcity. Throw in a pandemic and the shuttering of businesses, that perceived scarcity becomes real and menacing. And as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think this pandemic is nearly the most dangerous threat out there: climate change is going to rock our society with extreme violence.

362

“I think they’re getting ready to do it. I’ve said I think this is a character test for the Republican Party.

  • Bolton

Good luck with that John. “character test” ha ha ha ha. I hope you’re prepared to be disappointed.
The good ship “Character” sailed away from the Republican Party long ago.

363

I started reading about Clinton’s impeachment in Wikipedia for comparison. So basically he perjured himself about affairs and that’s on a par with Trump abusing his official power to steer an election his way?

In January 2020, while testifying as a defense lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump during his Senate impeachment trial, Starr himself would retract some of the allegations he made to justify Clinton’s impeachment.[73] Slate journalist Jeremy Stahl pointed out that as he was urging the Senate not to remove Trump as president, Starr contradicted various arguments he used in 1998 to justify Clinton’s impeachment.[73] In defending Trump, Starr also claimed he was wrong to have called for impeachment against Clinton for abuse of executive privilege and efforts to obstruct Congress and also stated that the House Judiciary Committee was right in 1998 to have rejected one of the planks for impeachment he had advocated for.[73] He also invoked a 1999 Hofstra Law Review article by Yale law professor Akhil Amar, who argued that the Clinton impeachment proved just how impeachment and removal causes “grave disruption” to a national election.[73]

What a load of steaming pig shit…

If Biden ends up in the WH come January, the system will have triumphed in no small way. Trump can fight and kick and scream—we can’t stop that. It’s like when the wicked witch screams “'I’m melting! MELTING!” If Trump got the answer “No!” and that were final…but he has to be told a thousand times. OK, this is suffering for him, good deal. True, it’s hard to tell what degree of scorch marks he’ll leave on the government, but that’s a bully for you. We’re going to get his punishment, but at least we’re getting some licks in.

We need to use a wider angle lens, though. The House impeached and the Senate could have done their job and convicted him. Instead, they let the rabid dog go free. Those senators need to take partial ownership for what has happened from that moment forward. COVID was going to claim lives, but what if we’d had a leader who took it seriously, didn’t undermine Fauci, etc.? The responsibility meter’s still running: going forward we don’t know what kind of insurrections may come just trying to get Biden installed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

They say that the workers in a company will take on the personality of the boss. Put a bully in charge and Steve Bannon steps right up.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/tech/facebook-steve-bannon/index.html

The country I grew up in is gone. It’s like having millions of Moonies to deprogram. It will have to start with holding people and organizations accountable for spreading lies, misinformation, hate speech, etc. I think this admin has been a dress rehearsal for something worse.

364

So give the traitors what they want so they don’t traitor anymore? “If you didn’t make me so mad I wouldn’t have to hit you”?

Trump’s base is white men. Not white men in “flyover country” - white men in every state, and if you don’t believe me look at the voting patterns in upstate New York, or western Massachusetts, or the Central Valley. White men have always been listened to. They have always done most of the talking. Their concerns have always been - and still are, no matter what anyone says - been the most important concerns. They hold more power, influence, and agency than any other group, whether they live in North Dakota or New York. They have always gotten the most respect. Respecting and listening to them is NOT the deficiency and it never has been.

365

Good post, eh.

366

When the rubes are done explaining how they fell for a New York City conman, maybe they can impart some pithy and folksy wisdom. Or not. Perhaps they should come to the cities and thank us for subsidizing their existence. Nationwide, counties that voted Trump accounted for only 29 percent of U.S. economic output.

We understand them, alright. Our sole need is to outvote them.

367

Then how come Trump won in 2016?

368

Because being listened to isn’t the same as being coddled, which is what they really want.

369

Some people might consider sensible health care like the rest of the world seems to manage, at a bare minimum not going backwards on the climate, and not needlessly throwing piles of money at the already wealthy to be coddling, but to each their own.

370

I really have no idea what you are going on about.

Could you elaborate? You seem to be saying that white men are not listened to, and that is why Trump won in 2016.

If that is not the thesis that you are proposing, then you have communicated poorly.

If that is the thesis that you are proposing, then you should try to defend it with more than drive-byes and passive aggressive phrases.

371

The white men who want universal healthcare and green policies voted Democrat. The areas where Democrats lose are with ideologically conservative voters, voters who are ecomically tied up in something like the oil industry that stands to lose from green policies, or voters who have cultural grievances that they blame on the status quo which is generally seen as liberal/pro-Democrat.

372

And the fact that only Trump counties accounted for only 29 percent of US economic output might also provide another takeaway, which is that the losing incumbent actually won counties where the economy wasn’t doing particularly well, and the winning challenger won the election with the support of people in large diverse metropolitan areas.

I see this as a dangerous fault line that could be exploited by another authoritarian populist in the not-too-distant future.

373

I saw it as:

“If you are well off, and you want to lift others up as well, vote ‘D’.”

“If you are not well off, and you want to drag everyone else down as well, vote ‘R’.”

374

There are multiple ways to splice and dice the election results, but one theme that’s beginning to emerge from both 2016 and 2020 is that Trump is killing it in rural America, and this seems to be true even when they are in economic decline. It would be one thing if this were just one bad result, but Trump’s politics dominate rural America to the point where Democrats are completely shut out there. This is not good for the party or country, which is why they have to pivot away from the supposed inevitability of the demographic advantage.

375

I’m not sure if I’m being whooshed or not, but this makes as little sense as Trumpers saying that their neighbors and clerks and bosses and coworkers and family and everyone around them is going Trump, so surely Trump will win in a landslide.

376

Again, votes are about far more than merely what benefits one’s economical bottom line.

If a voter is anti-LGBT, anti-abortion, anti-feminism, anti-Muslim, and faces a choice between a candidate who might benefit them financially but supports all those things they oppose (LGBT, abortion, feminism, Islam), versus a candidate who might not benefit them economically, but opposes all those things, they’re heavily likely to go after the latter.

377

Right, but bigots can’t be reasoned with. There is no message that can reach them.

They are the ones that want to drag everyone else down. They will vote out of hate, even if it hurts them.

Do you think that bigots make up 100% of Trump voters, or can any be reached?

378

My SO is related to Trump supporters in North Carolina. The “librul tears” sort of Trump supporters.

The person deserves respect but their views are laughable.

379

I’m willing to have robust policy debates. But it’s going to go nowhere if the person I’m debating keeps claiming my position isn’t what I say it is - especially if that is their only talking point.

I lay out my idea of a humane and workable immigration policy and the response is noooo…you want open borders and free stuff for everyone that crosses them.

You get the idea. I’ve made the effort, it’s not productive. I once tried to convince someone online that no, Michael Bloomberg is not A RADICAL LEFT SOCIALIST.
And nothing I said could change the guy’s mind. I’m not sure what kind of pickup truck I’d have to get in to understand that viewpoint

380

I think there’s a way to get some voters in Trump country to ‘respect’ Biden and Dems, but it is going to take a special approach. I want to make it clear that, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to court Trump voters; they’d just be more reasonable. But the reality is, there has to be an effort to court at least some of the more reasonable ones, and I think that has to be done along largely economic lines. Trump paid attention to rural and small town voters in ways they’ve not been addressed by either party in years. Biden will have to do the same.