Cont: Trump's Coup - Part 3

[shuttlt]

Evaluating what the Republicans are doing as bad has nothing to do with thinking politics could be full of J. Stewarts.

I accept that you think the Republicans are far more wicked than the Democrats in terms of how they operate within the system, and I don't intend to debate you on that. I certainly don't see them as great and reliable bastions of personal virtue.

That politics will have some nasty folk is an empirical situation, whereas I’m making an evaluation (negative) given that the current Repub election shenanigans is corrosive to the foundation of democracy in a way that makes, say, good old fashioned pork barrel politics seem quaint in comparison.

There really is no point in discussing such a big subject. There will be far too much we disagree on to make any progress. All we'll do is butt heads.

This has less to do with the motives of the founders, and more to do with the structure of the Constitution.

Sure. OK.

There’s one exception to that: when the greedy, power-hungry, and self-interested try to be tyrannical, which is what’s happening now with the Repub legislatures.

The greedy, power-hungry and self-interested always grab power. People who are not greedy, power-hungry and self-interested cannot be trusted within the political machines and do not get on. You've seen the amount of money that is required for a run on the Presidency. Returns are expected on that. Playing different power hungry people off against one another was supposed to be the purpose of the separation of powers, though I would say that broke down long ago. The States are still a balancing form of power, though they are not what they were.

 

[The Don]

Parties and cultures change over 150 years. The idea that they swapped is childish nonsense. The only way this argument can be made is to reduce everything to very narrow questions stripped of inconvenient nuance, as you are doing now.

A strange thing about this argument is that it's always about civil rights/slavery. Nobody ever tries to claim that the two parties swapped over because the Republican's of the 1860s were the party representing corporate America, railroad barons etc... and that the Democrats represent corporate America today. The reason for that is that the claim about the parties swapping is constructed to be politically useful.

The other issue is that the whole, the Democrats of today are like the Republican's of the 1860s ending racism, only works if you look at the Democrats as the Democrats look on the Democrats. If the Democrats being the good guys and on the right side of history is baked into your assumptions, the conclusion follows naturally. If it isn't, they don't. The argument preaches only to the choir.

Really the whole thing works in the same way as comparing somebody to Hitler. It's a way of removing one side of the argument by analogy rather than by engaging with their case.

One of the two major parties in the US openly courts the support of white supremacists. One of the two major parties in the US regularly attracts people who openly display the "stars and bars" flag which is a symbol of the racist Confederacy. One of the two major parties in the US had white supremacists at the heart of government.

Something about looking, walking and quacking like a duck.

 

[shuttlt]

One of the two major parties in the US openly courts the support of white supremacists. One of the two major parties in the US regularly attracts people who openly display the "stars and bars" flag which is a symbol of the racist Confederacy. One of the two major parties in the US had white supremacists at the heart of government.

Something about looking, walking and quacking like a duck.

If I saw the world as you see the world, I would doubtless agree with your analysis of the world. I don't, so there is probably no useful purpose served by discussing it further. I don't mean to be rude or dismissive, but I think that is the reality.

 

[The Don]

If I saw the world as you see the world, I would doubtless agree with your analysis of the world. I don't, so there is probably no useful purpose served by discussing it further. I don't mean to be rude or dismissive, but I think that is the reality.

What part of it is untrue ?

That the GOP courts the support of white supremacists ?

That GOP/Trump rallies are full of Confederate flags ?

That Steve Miller is/was a white supremacist ?

 

[shuttlt]

What part of it is untrue ?

That the GOP courts the support of white supremacists ?
v
That GOP/Trump rallies are full of Confederate flags ?

That Steve Miller is/was a white supremacist ?

If this was something that reduced down to a single fact, or even single facts, that we could talk about in isolation... I'd be up for it. It isn't. Behind any claim of this sort worth discussing are so many others that we aren't going to agree on that there is no point. Our frames for holding and understanding the conversation are too different.

I used to be a normie leftie. I couldn't understand why some people were so keen on guns and the 2nd amendment. It bothered me that I couldn't get them.... so I spent time with them. It took a long while. My feeling now is that the view of the right from the left is about as reliable as one of those medieval maps that showed the location of the kingdom of Prester John and the land where people's heads are in their chests.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

If this was something that reduced down to a single fact, or even single facts, that we could talk about in isolation... I'd be up for it. It isn't. Behind any claim of this sort worth discussing are so many others that we aren't going to agree on that there is no point. Our frames for holding and understanding the conversation are too different.

I used to be a normie leftie. I couldn't understand why some people were so keen on guns and the 2nd amendment. It bothered me that I couldn't get them.... so I spent time with them. It took a long while. My feeling now is that the view of the right from the left is about as reliable as one of those medieval maps that showed the location of the kingdom of Prester John and the land where people's heads are in their chests.

The Racism in the Republican Party is now fully ingrained because of the Conspiracy theorist, and I watched the parties flip myself in 1972. It wasn't as open as it became because of the Militia Movement, and the Hate for Bush and the Latinos, that supported him after he started the Iraqi war.

 

[The Don]

If this was something that reduced down to a single fact, or even single facts, that we could talk about in isolation... I'd be up for it. It isn't. Behind any claim of this sort worth discussing are so many others that we aren't going to agree on that there is no point. Our frames for holding and understanding the conversation are too different.

This sounds like you're just closing your eyes and shoving your fingers in your ears to preserve your worldview in the face of readily accessible facts.

I used to be a normie leftie. I couldn't understand why some people were so keen on guns and the 2nd amendment. It bothered me that I couldn't get them.... so I spent time with them. It took a long while. My feeling now is that the view of the right from the left is about as reliable as one of those medieval maps that showed the location of the kingdom of Prester John and the land where people's heads are in their chests.

Please elaborate on the "leftist" view of guns and the second amendment and how that contradicts the facts.

I fully expect you to trot out the cartoonish view of the left that's presented on FOXNews, OANN or right wing talk radio rather than anything with a basis in fact - I hope to be wrong.

 

[Warp12]

I fully expect you to trot out the cartoonish view of the left that's presented on FOXNews, OANN or right wing talk radio rather than anything with a basis in fact - I hope to be wrong.

They probably only need to trot out the cartoonish view of the left that has been promulgated by the leftists within this forum.

 

[shuttlt]

This sounds like you're just closing your eyes and shoving your fingers in your ears to preserve your worldview in the face of readily accessible facts.

Not at all. The topic is interesting and I continue to read sources on the left, right and in between. I can't turn it into something that can be dealt with in a quick conversation though. It's just not that kind of thing. If it was, the culture wouldn't be split in the way that it is.

Please elaborate on the "leftist" view of guns and the second amendment and how that contradicts the facts.

There is no point. This conversation has been had on the forum many times before. In any case, I think I was saying that I thought the left's view of the right was wrong. The 2nd amendment and guns are a political question. There is no "correct" view on them.

I fully expect you to trot out the cartoonish view of the left that's presented on FOXNews, OANN or right wing talk radio rather than anything with a basis in fact - I hope to be wrong.

I don't watch FoxNews or OANN and I don't listen to right wing talk radio. My view of the left mostly comes from having spent the bulk of my life on the left and then becoming disillusioned with it. Mostly I'm interested in the history of ideas, so I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately about the Enlightenment. I'm about halfway through The Wealth of Nations at the moment. You are wrong.

 

[shuttlt]

They probably only need to trot out the cartoonish view of the left that has been promulgated by the leftists within this forum.

To be honest, the majority of both the left and the right are kind of cartoonish. Very few people have the time or interest to actually dig into where their ideas come from and what the criticisms of them are. That can't really be helped though. I'd been entirely unaware of most of the criticisms of the enlightenment, liberalism, democracy etc.... that have been around for a century or more.

If we are liberals who believe in democracy, it is almost always because we grew up in a liberal democratic society, not because we were convinced of it by argument. Rather like being raised Catholic and becoming a Catholic.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

To be honest, the majority of both the left and the right are kind of cartoonish. Very few people have the time or interest to actually dig into where their ideas come from and what the criticisms of them are. That can't really be helped though. I'd been entirely unaware of most of the criticisms of the enlightenment, liberalism, democracy etc.... that have been around for a century or more.

If we are liberals who believe in democracy, it is almost always because we grew up in a liberal democratic society, not because we were convinced of it by argument. Rather like being raised Catholic and becoming a Catholic.

What you need to understand is you also have people like Myself here Lincoln Republicans who left the Republican party in 2008, when it Turned into the mostly Tea party Libertarian nightmare it is today. Russian Propaganda began tearing the Republican party apart shortly after the fall of the Wall in Berlin, as Republican opportunists flocked to Russian investments.
,

 

[Fast Eddie B]

People who are not greedy, power-hungry and self-interested cannot be trusted within the political machines and do not get on.

Maybe it’s a case of the exception proving the rule, but…Jimmy Carter?

 

[shuttlt]

What you need to understand is you also have people like Myself here Lincoln Republicans who left the Republican party in 2008, when it Turned into the mostly Tea party Libertarian nightmare it is today. Russian Propaganda began tearing the Republican party apart shortly after the fall of the Wall in Berlin, as Republican opportunists flocked to Russian investments.
,

That's well before my awakening. There are obviously the grubby short term reasons for many of the things that happen in politics. I'm more trying to understand things in terms of historical trends and the playing out of ideas. I guess it's not news that the Republican party was showing signs of falling apart well before Trump got a hold of it.

I'm from the UK. Over here one of the key driving forces is the white northern working class. Their socially conservative, reactionary opinions have effectively been prevented from having a platform since the War. Socialist politics kind of patched over that for a long while, but that fell away. Brexit all of a sudden moved the political fault line to give them representation of a sort. I suspect they will be squeezed out again. Similar long term trends, I think, are playing out in the US.

I was reading not so long ago about the development of the ideas that went on to form the Enlightenment within the Church. For example, the equality of souls within Christianity being revolutionary within Roman society, and then playing out and developing over the next 1700 years to become the egalite of the French Revolution. We are living through interesting times.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

That's well before my awakening. There are obviously the grubby short term reasons for many of the things that happen in politics. I'm more trying to understand things in terms of historical trends and the playing out of ideas. I guess it's not news that the Republican party was showing signs of falling apart well before Trump got a hold of it.

I'm from the UK. Over here one of the key driving forces is the white northern working class. Their socially conservative, reactionary opinions have effectively been prevented from having a platform since the War. Socialist politics kind of patched over that for a long while, but that fell away. Brexit all of a sudden moved the political fault line to give them representation of a sort. I suspect they will be squeezed out again. Similar long term trends, I think, are playing out in the US.

I was reading not so long ago about the development of the ideas that went on to form the Enlightenment within the Church. For example, the equality of souls within Christianity being revolutionary within Roman society, and then playing out and developing over the next 1700 years to become the egalite of the French Revolution. We are living through interesting times.

Yes we are but the White National realignment over hear and the end of the socialist programs started Under Ronald Reagan years ago, the modern Democrats are more like the 1950s Republicans than the 1950s Idealist Democrats.
This change has come about largely because of the large number of one issue voters that fights anything progressive, or helpful to themselves infavor of Party Dogma.

 

[Paul2]

The greedy, power-hungry and self-interested always grab power. People who are not greedy, power-hungry and self-interested cannot be trusted within the political machines and do not get on.

That the power-hungry will always grab power does not mean that when they try to grab even more, we don't do more to prevent it, to mitigate its impact, and to return as much power as possible to the electorate itself (within the anti-democratic confines of the Constitution), to increase democracy over authoritarianism.

Playing different power hungry people off against one another was supposed to be the purpose of the separation of powers, though I would say that broke down long ago. The States are still a balancing form of power, though they are not what they were.

Playing one group off another need not be the only system that pushes back against the power-hungry.

 

[Paul2]

I accept that you think the Republicans are far more wicked than the Democrats in terms of how they operate within the system, and I don't intend to debate you on that. I certainly don't see them as great and reliable bastions of personal virtue.

It's not a question of personal virtue, it's a question of authoritarianism, of legally manipulating the system so it will be impossible to kick them out of power, regardless of what the electorate desires.

 

[shuttlt]

Yes we are but the White National realignment over hear and the end of the socialist programs started Under Ronald Reagan years ago

It's not that dissimilar. The old parliamentary left died with the end of the war economy under Thatcher through the 80s. In the background the New Left that came up in the 60s had been pivoting away from class and focusing instead on what we'd now call identity politics.

the modern Democrats are more like the 1950s Republicans than the 1950s Idealist Democrats.

Even if that was true, and I haven't thought about it enough to express an opinion, the world has moved on and the United States has changed a lot since the 1950s. I'm not sure what it means to say that the Democrats today are like the Republicans of the 1950s. In what respect?

This change has come about largely because of the large number of one issue voters that fights anything progressive, or helpful to themselves infavor of Party Dogma.

I'm not getting into an argument about what is good for people. In the UK the left has pretty much always had an idea of what was good for the working class that was different from what the working class wanted. Generally the working class have always had rather unfortunate reactionary cultural views. You get that a lot in postwar Marxist writing complaining that the working class liked all the wrong things, capitalism was making them happy and they weren't going to be the bringing about a revolution.

That they aren't sold on whatever the current notion of social and cultural progress is, and don't want the things that progressives think they should want, doesn't seem new or surprising to me. Orwell talks about this quite a bit and it was hardly a new observation even then.

 

[The Don]

I'm not getting into an argument about what is good for people. In the UK the left has pretty much always had an idea of what was good for the working class that was different from what the working class wanted. Generally the working class have always had rather unfortunate reactionary cultural views. You get that a lot in postwar Marxist writing complaining that the working class liked all the wrong things, capitalism was making them happy and they weren't going to be the bringing about a revolution.

That they aren't sold on whatever the current notion of social and cultural progress is, and don't want the things that progressives think they should want, doesn't seem new or surprising to me. Orwell talks about this quite a bit and it was hardly a new observation even then.

I'd like to see that supported with some sort of evidence.

It's true that the policies proposed by the Labour Party as presented by the Daily Telegraph, Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express aren't what a large section of the white working class want but that's not the same thing.

It's also true that in most of the elections since the 1950's, the Labour Party has attracted the majority of working class votes. Even in the days of Maggie Thatcher, working class areas were still staunchly Labour.

 

[sackett]

You limes really tickle me.

 

[shuttlt]

I'd like to see that supported with some sort of evidence.

It's true that the policies proposed by the Labour Party as presented by the Daily Telegraph, Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express aren't what a large section of the white working class want but that's not the same thing.

It's also true that in most of the elections since the 1950's, the Labour Party has attracted the majority of working class votes. Even in the days of Maggie Thatcher, working class areas were still staunchly Labour.

Proving it is a deep bucket. I know it's a very obvious reference, but Orwell does go on about it quite a lot in the second half of The Road to Wigan Pier. Mostly I'm thinking of reading I've been doing about the New Left and the beginning of Social Studies in the UK. That's the period where they are dealing with the realisation that maybe Stalin wasn't that great and absorbing Gramsci and with him the idea that the Marxist revolution wasn't going to happen because capitalism was making the working class too content.

Look at what happened to Enoch Powell, love him or loathe him... he had a huge amount of working class support in England. That working class opinion was absolutely not acceptable to the sorts of people who decide what is up for debate, and what isn't. Labour has always looked on the actual working class like Gordon Brown faced with the "bigoted old woman".

The Labour Party didn't represent working people. The Labour Party represented a particular progressive, managerial vision of the future that for a while centred on the working class. Where there was conflict between that vision and the actual desires of the actual working class, they chose their progressive vision. The gap got wider and wider as Labour moved on to other groups to occupy the place in their progressive vision that the working class had once occupied. Labour no more represent the social views of the, often socially conservative, immigrant communities they have adopted than they once represented the working class.