Why the right splintered but the left united
I was very much looking forward to reading this article with that title. It’s an issue I’ve written about myself, and one that interests me greatly.
But alas, the article disappointed me. The author’s main thesis seems to be:
Legutko’s brilliant book suggests that progressives and left-liberals unite more effectively because they are in harmony with contemporary liberal democracy’s liberationist and egalitarian drift””in other words, its tendency to dismantle inherited authorities and pursue equality of result. By contrast, conservatives find much of what they cherish under assault by government’s relentless expansion into areas””such as family, faith, and speech””that were once commonly held to be largely beyond state supervision. Scrambling to resist the ambitious efforts of partisan politicians, government bureaucrats, and courts to entrench progressive norms as default positions, conservatives increasingly lock horns over where to draw lines and what is most urgently in need of preserving…
Progressives””especially progressive elites””can come together in support of Hillary Clinton because of their confidence that for all her baggage she shares their liberationist and egalitarian understanding of liberal democracy and will fortify their grip on the commanding heights of politics and culture. Donald Trump is not the cause but a symptom of division and disarray among conservatives, who have been rattled and thrown on the defensive by a culture and governing institutions that have taken the other side in a partisan battle over the future of freedom.
Although I suppose that’s true, it’s not the main reason (or reasons) for the differences, IMHO. I do agree that Trump is not the cause of the dissension—there’s a long history of it going back to the Rockefeller days and even earlier, although the dissension has been exacerbated greatly during the frustrating Obama years—and I also agree that Trump is at least partly a symptom of problems already present.
However, Trump is not a conservative, while Hillary is a liberal. In some ways, Trump is actually anti-conservative. That’s a problem for a lot of conservatives and makes it hard to unite behind him and easier for liberals to unite behind her.
Trump is also a person with no history of political office at all, whereas Hillary is a seasoned political person with a long track record of devotion to liberal causes. That’s a problem for a lot of conservatives and makes it hard to unite behind him and easier for liberals to unite behind her.
Trump is an offensive personality on the personal level of ordinary decorum. That’s a problem for a lot of conservatives and makes it hard to unite behind him.
Trump is an impulsive personality and is seen as a loose cannon who might actually be dangerous in the presidency, whereas Hillary’s corruption is something liberals are used to and that hasn’t especially harmed them (at least, in their opinion it hasn’t). That’s a problem for a lot of conservatives and makes it hard to unite behind him and easier for liberals to unite behind her.
And now we come to what is perhaps the biggest reason of all: the conservative movement has a tendency to attract and contain higher numbers of rugged individuals among its ranks, people who very much pride themselves on their rugged individualism and orneriness, and their tendency to go against the pack. Liberals are much more often collectivists who go with the group in the political sense and consider it in their best interests. That’s a problem for a lot of conservatives and makes it hard to unite behind him and easier for liberals to unite behind her. But it also has nothing to do with Trump, and is a political problem in general on the right and makes the right much more likely to split and the left much more likely to pull together.
That’s a generalization, of course; the left has its bitter disputes, as well. But the left has its ways of getting people into line.
Why disappointed, again neo-neocon? Berkowitz, as he seems to me here, isn’t speaking of Trump so much as he is speaking of what distinguishes the two parties, Democrat and Republican, at their roots, which is to say what abides in each even down to today. Berkowitz writes, it seems to me, from the positions outlined by Harvey Mansfield in conversation with Bill Kristol here.
I agree that Trump isn’t the cause of the split, he’s just the latest evidence of it. Just think about Majority Leader Cantor and Speaker of the House Bohener and how shocking their losses were.
Unfortunately, instead of learning from those losses the republican establishment seems to be ignoring them. The new speaker has done nothing noticeably different from Boehner. Witness the omnibus spending bill as the largest example.
It really appears the party is headed for a breakup and/or power fight after the election no matter who wins. It will probably happen faster if Clinton wins but it appears to be inevitable.
It’s a good time to reread Angelo M. Codevilla’s 2010 piece in The American Spectator “America’s Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution”
http://spectator.org/39326_americas-ruling-class-and-perils-revolution/
I agree with your assessment, Neo. Aren’t you relieved?
One characteristic of Conservatives is just resisting anyone telling them how to think, which leads to all of that messy individualism.
On the other hand, since many on the Left are bloc thinkers; and when the power brokers from various blocs agree on how to divide the spoils the rank and file fall in line.
That is not 100% the reason, of course, Somehow the Left has managed to appeal to the better nature of many rational people by crafting high-minded sounding positions that have the effect of separating them from rational thought.
A case in point. Grandson will compete in national small college cross country championships, which were scheduled for Charlotte, NC–now moved, of course. Discussing that at brunch last Sunday, my intelligent, professional daughter said the move was right and necessary to support Transgender rights. Seriously? Of course it sounds good on the surface to support the rights of a minority group, right? I could not argue the point there in public without upsetting her Mother; which I try not to do; but, there were so many questions. Pertinent to the topic would be the practical ones such as, “what specifically defines Transgender?”. Will you accept “state of mind” as frequently asserted? If so, how is it verified? Can you insure consistency from day to day? Isn’t that rather important?
On a more general theme, what defines a right in our society, and how do you differentiate a privilege from a right? Should privileges be guaranteed by the State? What if one person’s asserted right–or privilege– impinges on those of others? Who mediates, if rights are not codified? Just for fun, how do you balance Transgender rights with the now famous “right to privacy”?
Once you blur the boundaries, can you legitimately draw a line at any point? For a specific example, could a biological male, who declares Transgender status play for my granddaughter’s college soccer team? Why not? Would you deny that individual the right to play, or force him/her (?) to play outside the bounds of the chosen gender? High minded slogans paper over so many messy questions.
Interesting exchange between sdferr and I on this, starting here…
http://neoneocon.com/2016/11/01/does-socialism-inevitably-lead-to-communism/#comment-1847512
“That’s a generalization, of course; the left has its bitter disputes, as well. But the left has its ways of getting people into line.” – Neo
They’ve lately seemed to be better at “persuading” / marketing, but not sure they intrinsically have the superior operation to” get people in line”.
What explains the GOP winning majorities in the state legislators, in the House, and frequently the Senate?
Good point about the left’s collectivism. The Dems are a big coalition of different groups willing to hang together for their piece of the government provided pie. Republicans used to have principles that they were unwilling to compromise on. Guess a fair number on the right got tired of losing and picked a very flawed vessel in which to pour their frustrations.
A characteristic of the nominating process is campaigning to the left (or right) and then once the nomination is secured, running toward the center during the election.
The left is far better at that than the right. I can only think that the left understands that their candidate is lying and will govern to the left because while the right rails against the candidate if they deviate from their primary position, you don’t hear a peep when the left does it.
Big Maq: explanation for the victories in the House is that minority vote is concentrated in urban districts. Leaving other districts with more white voters that are more likely to vote Republican.
@KLSmith – right, and it thus seems the left is not quite so well organized and “united” after all. It is not like gerrymandering is beyond the left too.
Despite that advantage for the GOP, in 2008 the House swung dem.
So, still not sure the dems have a superior operation to “get people in line”.
I’m not convinced that one position has an intrinsic advantage from a “marketing” or “organizational” point of view.
It is this assumption that people take when they say all we can offer is “blood, sweat, tears, and personal responsibility” (to paraphrase somebody I responded to some weeks ago) as our message.
I believe that is a deadly wrong assumption.
This is the shiny, we-are-smart-and-hip-but-you-aren’t version of Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations, which is more neutral about this split. Yes, liberals have a narrower focus around what is moral than conservatives, which makes unity simpler. That is at most an “I say tomato, you say tomahto,” difference, not an obvious moral distinction, but I am not minded to even grant that. In most intellectual realms, we regard the more complex as the higher and better, the simpler as the children’s version.
Which is about how I see it, actually. Liberals are like bright highschoolers or college students, whose reasoning is good enough as far as it goes, but leaves out most of actual reality.
I wonder whether more things like this could splinter off some blacks:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/11/top-dem-donor-compares-black-republicans-to-nazi-collaborators.php
It would be nice if someone would also mention what BLM funder Soros was during during the Nazi era.
Thanks. I missed that article the first time ’round.
…I hadn’t realized that anyone had so succinctly codified my several [what-I-figured-were] wild hypotheses.
So.
Not so wild.
Good to know.
Kudos.
expat
In order to make inroads into the African American community (along with other minority communities) the GOP is going to have to get a different spokesman than DJT.
One of my daughters spends a good amount of time listening to voices in that community. They are terrified of a Donald Trump presidency.
“One of my daughters spends a good amount of time listening to voices in that community. They are terrified of a Donald Trump presidency.” Bill
All 3 of my adult children and their partners are very aware of political and social issues and are not “terrified” of either candidate. They all voted Trump. (Our present abortion laws, the likely escalation of the EPA, judge appointments, and Hillary’s proven use of office to incarcerate people to advance a narrative strongly tipped the balance). They don’t share yours and your daughter’s certainty of the “terror” of a Trump presidency. Nor do I.
Sobran didn’t call socialists and statist pseudo-liberals “The Hive” for nothing.
Bill-Sorry for my sloppy reading of your comment. I see you were expressing that the black community is “terrified”. In other comments you have criticized conservatives (speaking in generalities) with regard to feelings about minorities. In my opinion, your comment feeds into the same blather lived out by the SJW and Democrats en masse. Whether you mean to or not, you infantilize the black community when you suggest they are “terrorized”. I try not to think of people in groups–gender, race or socio-economics. Truth is truth and as far as the political realm is concerned the same moral principles apply uniformly, as do the same moral failures exhibited by the human race down through history. Let’s not fall into our political adversary’s methods. They are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!
Oxymoron – liberal democracy
expat:
Soros was born in 1930, so it’s hard to see what he, as a young teenager, could have been doing to be called a Nazi collaborator, as Ann Coulter has done.
Ann: Soros “collaborated” with the Nazi’s as a teenager however that is perhaps a rather strong accusation for what he did if you read the details. See the Early Life section of this Wikipedia entry:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
i hope this wont get cut, its as concise as this history can be without going out on tangents and other areas that have grown over the past 100 years…
(maybe the war will be on the 100th anniversary of the glorious revolution in 1917? next year? maybe not – who knows… )
The left does not fracture because of the orders they recieved a long time ago that once it worked, they never stopped. they ALSO have control of the press and polls and such for the most part, so its easy to cosset their own “innocents clubs” and run roughshod through the not lefts groups. the not left was never a real entity that had a leadership or example or external state supporting and manipulating on its behalf the way that the left in the USA had the international communist movements and the despots of russia and china.
United front
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_front
If the world was attacked as in the movies, all the nations would join and forget their differences until the one thing is defeated… thats what they decided, and what their leaders and all that have maintained, while using that combined force to change us
there are libraries of documentation you can read for free and learn from about this. it first started with the workers… eventually that let them take over unions, and so define what workers would work or not… as those they would not let in the union could not get union work… who cares if it was communist, in the 1920s and 30s, this made for having a meal.
charlie chaplain covered it in Modern Times and more in his talking. This scene encompasses the idea of the innocents clubs and how a innocent person could end up supporting the communists and be in with them, and never intended to be part of that munsenberg stuff that was popular then
Charlie Chaplin – Modern Times – Flag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idB8FqlYMqw
the point was that it was not what he thought, or intended, it was how the world saw the material of his form act in their eyes. and that was enough for the moments it was needed.
and back then we could break up revolutionaries for being revolutionaries and not just protesters… [many lefties look back on that era as one of struggle and romantic views]
Stalin did not like this united front, so it was crushed, but afte WWII and hitler came the POPULAR FRONT
Following Hitler’s victory, the Comintern argued for popular fronts drawing in forces far beyond the working class movement. Trotsky, now exiled from the USSR, argued that the first policy was disastrous because it prevented unity against the far right and that the second was disastrous because the terms of the struggle would be dictated by mainstream liberal parties and that the communists would have to subordinate their politics within the alliance
Popular front
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_front
their start was in the anti fascist movements of Stalin where people in the west didnt know that they were funding his work, and going to fight for him, and he was manipulating them to fight facism in spain
Sharon W:
A bit harsh on Bill, what happened to the California mello?
Blather indeed. :0
there is no way to talk about this stuff and how it happened without being nearsighted and ignoring the majority history that actually explains it.
only if people had this as part of their common knowledge of history could i shorten it by referring to a time, or incident and people would nod… but the left did not really publicize their working stuff in the front page and their teachers and changers did not teach it either..
its so much easier talking about the american revolution as i can mention something by reference, but not so with these things… other than ex soviets or changers from higher up.
the pubic is not up to speed and these groups had stalins and post stalins cpusa and other organizations that bella dodd and others spoke about and whose history is untaught but not hidden (for the most part there are lots that is hidden. but so is the internal work of the ny knicks basketball team, so its a natural state in which anything can be behind the curtain)
the people today forget that until 1995, the soviets found that games in the US were generally cheaper and easier than warfare against superior enemy.
that if you cant grasp that a man serious enough to exterminate 75 million of his own people by working most to death or starving them or such… would not apply the same level of seriousness to ending the enemy they needed to survive and the vainglorious goal that gave purpose.
browderism and such led to the people we have now. you only have to read jarettes wiki and do some tracing of family lines as these are the families that are working for change and insuring their position at the top of the list…
there is so much history we as a people dont know about our own country because we were never told it and werent curious enough to read it.. [and we are going to suffer for it]
The Popular Front has been summarized by conservative historian Kermit McKenzie as:
This McKenzie asserted was a mere tactical expedient, with the broad goals of the communist movement for the overthrow of capitalism through revolution unchanged
[which is why its still on the table and not some other odd political system… look at the rhetoric, the symbols and all that, tuned to today. names are irrelevant as they pick them and change them to get buy in without much questioning]
they say it ended when the world saw the molotov rippentrop pact, but it just wasnt as formal and the strength of working together to avoid the end of having to be under the liberals instead of their own thing as trotsky said as in a democrat republic its just a numbers game
we are talking about hundreds of people, each could and some have a dozen books about them. hundreds of organizations with many names over time. lots of odd twists and turns and a whole lot of dead people and survivors known today for their changing sides.. menckin, dodd, utley, a very long list… (though none of them are in neos change lists!! why? too old?)
see Judicial Watch: FBI Files Document Communism in Valerie Jarrett’s Family
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/06/communism-in-jarretts-family/
[the article has links to the FBI files]
hiding in plain site knowing it wont be looked at much and that the few who do and try to tell will sound nutty as all this stuff is not in the lexicon of peoples history, so it becomes a conspiracy, not a history untaught.
OM–I don’t consider it harsh to confront any statement, however subtle that suggests that any person of color is less than capable of dealing with reality as it is, as a thinking adult. It is so built into our psyche as to go unnoticed. It is indeed an insult to any group that is being monolithically categorized. As a woman, the number of times matters that are presented as the women’s point of view, seldom (if ever) conform with my thoughts or opinions. Just sayin’.
Sharon W:
It just seemed like a personal slam on Bill. Too close to the election, nerves are shot?
I thought the Berkowitz article went into the weeds pretty fast and didn’t address my sense of the situation.
Maybe there are structural reasons the left is more resilient in resisting splintering. Though it seems to me American socialist and communist movements did plenty of splintering in the 20th century to the point many of them vanished.
My high-altitude view is that the left is riding some long-wave pendulumn swings in the culture going back to the Enlightenment and the Reformation.
Basically the left has been winning, albeit with some smaller opposing counter-swings, for several hundred years and it’s easier to stick together when you’re winning.
Like Breitbart said, “Politics is downstream from culture.” One can nod sagely and agree, but it’s hard to see how we go about fixing that.
Oldflyer Says:
November 2nd, 2016 at 2:01 pm
.. Somehow the Left has managed to appeal to the better nature of many rational people by crafting high-minded sounding positions that have the effect of separating them from rational thought.
* * *
This is what I have noticed among my friends, who are basically social-religious-conservatives but who have glommed onto some aspect of the Dem “platform” that sounds so much nicer than those old Meanie Republicans (usually but not exclusively illegal immigration).
Just like Senator Obama sounded so good in 2004-2007, before he got the power to do what he actually wanted to do.
To wit:
Brian E Says:
November 2nd, 2016 at 2:43 pm
A characteristic of the nominating process is campaigning to the left (or right) and then once the nomination is secured, running toward the center during the election.
The left is far better at that than the right. I can only think that the left understands that their candidate is lying and will govern to the left because while the right rails against the candidate if they deviate from their primary position, you don’t hear a peep when the left does it.
* * *
Although the Hard-Left today complains mightily when Clinton slinks off to the center-left point and forces her back to the Left, they gave Obama a lot of slack to pronounce his support for centrist positions, until he had the opportunity to “evolve” to the ones they favored.
Assistant Village Idiot Says:
November 2nd, 2016 at 3:44 pm
…
Which is about how I see it, actually. Liberals are like bright highschoolers or college students, whose reasoning is good enough as far as it goes, but leaves out most of actual reality.
* * *
“Anyone who is not a liberal at 20 has no heart; anyone who is not a conservative at 40 has no brain.” (pick your version; it’s been attributed to just about everyone)
However, one of the major problems since at least Wilson is the conflation of Leftist with Liberal: they are not the same thing, although some Classical Liberal positions may have a tendency to lean left (can’t remember whose study I read about that, but the main culprits were the Enlightenment thinkers who were trying to remove religiously motivated morality from the political realm).
In re Angelo Codevilla: he has an animated exchange going with Conner Friedersdorf. This is Codevilla’s rebuttal to CF’s reply to AC’s original article; all are worth reading if just to see whose parsing you agree with.
http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-ever-shallower-iatlantici/on the State of the Republic.
Assistant Village Idiot Says:
November 2nd, 2016 at 3:44 pm
This is the shiny, we-are-smart-and-hip-but-you-aren’t version of Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations, which is more neutral about this split.
* * *
Speaking of Jonathan Haidt:
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-problem-with-social-justice-warriors.html
referencing this article:http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/10/21/one-telos-truth-or-social-justice/
I don’t totally agree with Haidt’s theories, but he usually seems to be more-than-usually open-minded about conservative positions.
Haidt can be patronizing of the right, but his heart is in the right place and his head understands that conservatives aren’t defective human beings but working from a different set of values than the left.
Haidt recognizes it is a serious problem that so many fields are nearly conservative-free.
I recommend Haidt. I especially recommend him to liberals who can’t imagine anything decent being said about the right.
I am amused that, as bad a candidate as The Donald is from many Republican points of vie, he is 1.7% behind in the RCP average just now. I honestly don’t think the Democrats are as united as Berkowitz rather smugly claims. In fact I think they are badly split between their left and center factions and that a huge fight is going on underneath the surface of the party. Is Hillary experiencing all these headwinds – in both the primaries and the general – because the Republican party controls the press? Are Obama appointee Comey and the Weiner Carl Rove’s sock puppets? Is Putin orchestrating Hillary’s troubles by feeding a vociferously anti American Assange the juicy bits to dog her every step? I don’t think so. I think that the left of the party led by Obama are trying to arrange it so that a weakened and wounded Hillary will be so damaged that she will be unable to govern effectively. Nobody I know is saying that so I accept that I may be nuts, but it seems to me that this is a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ situation from the point of view of the left of the Democratic party. If Trump wins they would believe their own propaganda that he would be a disaster and they would win in 2020 or a ruined Hillary could be forced to step aside with the Republicans recruited to the impeachment process to pave the way for someone like Warren or even Michelle in 2020. As a former Democrat of the Harry Truman variety it is quite clear to me that that the Democrats have jumped the shark and gone the full Soviet. I am content to watch the Stalinist cadres of the left try to remake the country in the image of Marx’s fantasies and believe that their efforts will bring to an end – one way or another – the dominance of the Democratic party in US politics. I think Walter Russell Meade got it right when he said that the Democratic party has been successful since 1932 in so far as they did not see their policies as an on ramp for socialism.
Artfldgrs Says:
November 2nd, 2016 at 8:33 pm
…see Judicial Watch: FBI Files Document Communism in Valerie Jarrett’s Family
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/06/communism-in-jarretts-family/
[the article has links to the FBI files]
hiding in plain site knowing it wont be looked at much and that the few who do and try to tell will sound nutty …
* * *
A very interesting article, and sent me back to another I read this week on McCarthy and the Left:
http://observer.com/2016/11/mccarthyism-2-0-has-infected-the-democrats/
Schindler argues that the Democrats have adopted McCarthy’s over-the-top fulminations about Russia and Comey meddling in the election, which could have the same effect of derailing their (possibly legitimate) complaints as McCarthy’s did in derailing his (entirely legitimate) investigation of Communists in government offices.
“This cannot help but recall the early days of the last Cold War, when right-wingers–most infamously Senator Joe McCarthy–made political hay out of allegations of Communist spies lurking behind every corner in Washington. That there really was a robust Soviet espionage infrastructure in America in the late 1940s didn’t change the fact that McCarthy and his ilk simply made up most of their accusations out of whole cloth, at the cost of ruined lives, careers, and vast damage to our body politic.
It’s therefore supremely ironic that those on the left who for more than a half century have detected the specter of McCarthy whenever anybody on the right mentioned Moscow, are now engaging in toxic political games that are deeply reminiscent of the infamous Tail-Gunner Joe. Hillary Clinton and her supporters ought to recall how McCarthy wound up, and how his scurrilous accusations damaged legitimate American counterintelligence for decades.”
I began to wonder: what would it look like if it looked like McCarthy was actually a Communist mole instructed to hyper-ventilate about Communists in order to deliberately derail his own “investigation”?
That may sound unlikely or even impossible, but all good conspiracy theories start with shaky premises that turn out to be true after all.
(Yes, I have watched “The Manchurian Candidate” — its dramatic implausibilities don’t mean that something similar can’t actually happen.)
AesopFan:
I understand that many people are raised as Communists in Communist families and indoctrinated in it. That’s where the term “red diaper baby” comes in.
However, in and of itself it doesn’t tell you enough information, in that people do not necessarily follow in their relatives’ footsteps.
It’s a red flag (literally). But it doesn’t tell you what the person him/herself believes.
You should see the files on some of my relatives. I’m not a red diaper baby in that my immediate family wasn’t Communist, but plenty of relatives were, on one side of the family.
I’m no Communist, and even when I was a liberal I was never, never ever, a leftist. I was more of a Scoop Jackson Democrat.
I’m more nervous that Valerie Jarrett was born in Iran and spoke Farsi as a child.
Essentially utopian leftist philosophy and antropology is more easy to swallow beeng sweet, while its much more sober and misanthropic rightist equivalent is too bitter for majority to accept. People are reluctant to accept inhernt inequality of individuals, genders and races, and also of cultures and religions, and the resulting need of hierarchy in society and of western hegemony in international relations as prerequisits to ensure victory of civilization against barbarity.
Sharon W
“Truth is truth and as far as the political realm is concerned the same moral principles apply uniformly, as do the same moral failures exhibited by the human race down through history. Let’s not fall into our political adversary’s methods. They are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!”
First, let me get a few things out in the open:
I believe every human being is created in the image of God and all have equal worth. I believe in judging people by the content of their character not the color of their skin, and I agree with you that we can’t infantalize other ethnicities or engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations.
A couple of years ago I would have agreed completely with your statement above. However, there are a few things I have realized lately:
1. I can’t claim to understand the black experience until I’ve actually spent time listening to them. This is true in almost all cases – I’m a conservative Republican. How much time have I spent talking with liberal Democrats in respectful conversation, versus living in my comfortable talk-radio bubble? Have you ever sat down with, say, a 20 year old african american man and just let him talk about his experiences?
2. Whether I want to admit it or not, I don’t have to deal with everything they have to deal with. My experience as a white male in America has been different than many of theirs.
3. For example, when I’m pulled over by a cop I don’t have nearly the fear that some of my young black friends do. Now you may argue that their fear is just hyped up from rhetoric by their leaders, and that is in some cases true. But have you listened to them? (I think many people on our side have a really hyped up, unrealistic fear of, say, Syrian refugees.)
4. Donald Trump has – whether intentionally or not – attracted a vocal minority of white nationalists and white supremacists (along with anti-semites). You may not want to face that but it’s the truth.
5. Agreed, some of the reasons some communities feel terrified by a DJT presidency is doubtless due to inflamed rhetoric, but – again – Donald Trump has – whether intentionally or not – attracted a vocal minority of white nationalists and white supremacists (along with anti-semites). This is one reason for the first time in 32 years of voting I voted 3rd party for the Presidential slot.
6. A college student I know use the same word “terrified” when she expressed how her muslim friends feel about a DJT presidency. You may think that’s silly, but he never talked about deporting you.
Among the worst things DJT has done has been to tolerate the racist/bigoted segment of his support.
I know that you are a kind-hearted person, and I know that the vast majority of those supporting Trump are not white nationalists, white supremacists, etc. But even if you don’t want to accept what I’m saying here from a philosophical viewpoint, from a political viewpoint DJTs rhetoric (and that of his followers) towards minorities and women has not helped him.
He still might win. But I hope he doesn’t.
@Bill – good job.
This election should open conservatives’ eyes to a couple of things:
1) We need to get out of the bubble – it presents a hyperbolic and unhealthy view of the world
2) We need to engage those outside the “base” if we want to have any political power – minorities are specifically what we are missing – by DEFAULT, by our ABSENCE.
.
While there is *some* (in a generic sense) truth to what Sharon W is saying – far too many leave it at that, and miss a bigger truth (which Bill is getting at).
Too many stop at the same point Sharon does, and they don’t take the next step and try to understand and then, ultimately, reach out to members of those groups to bring them on board.
Frankly, some of the dire predictions of a clinton presidency seem to echo Sharon’s point that “they” are “less than capable of dealing with reality as it is, as a thinking adult”, as it is assumed “they” cannot be persuaded, being part of a monolithic voting bloc.
Engaging and relating to issues held by folks outside of our core doesn’t mean accepting the left’s framing of the issues.
In fact, it’s just the opposite – framing conservatism in a meaningful way for them to consume and be persuaded by.
Whether or not people are “terrified” of trump getting elected, trump’s campaign and message has been a steady drum beat of negativity, blame, and divisive animosity especially towards minorities and women, rather than a positive vision of his (and our) own.
That trump, without distancing himself, courts themes that are too cozy for the alt-r, has stained the GOP and perhaps conservatism that will take a very long time to recover from.
THAT is something we should all recognize.
It is repelling to the very people we need to win over, and we cannot just passively say those good folks are merely reacting to the left’s framing of it all.
On all this I think Sharon W misses the mark in her criticism of Bill’s remark as “feeding into the same blather lived out by the SJW and Democrats en masse”, focusing on the one bit and not on the whole.
Thanks for taking the time to address my comment Bill. Of course I can’t put myself in the shoes of a black man, young or otherwise. However I never missed a Thomas Sowell column from the 1980’s on and listened to the Larry Elder show daily when he aired in L.A. Larry would have his Mom on every Friday for an hour and occasionally had his father on. Those were wonderful interviews. His father suffered unbridled racism in his early life but endeavored to raise 3 sons without a chip on their shoulders. Truly a remarkable man. These black men, Clarence Thomas and a priest on loan from the archdiocese of Nigeria with whom we have a close family relationship with will be the people I take my cues from regarding race issues. The Leftist/MSM playbook has been creating circumstances that were by and large addressed before this president was elected. And as far as immigration, if anyone, Muslim or not, can’t understand that our government’s refusal to honor the immigration laws on the books is putting our Republic in grave danger then they have no wisdom. As far as the “deplorables” that have jumped on the Trump bandwagon–I have no fear of them having any voice in the greater community. Whereas the LGBT community that backs the Leftists has proven that they are willing to go after the individual to the point of getting people fired, losing a business and so forth. The two forces can’t even be compared when it come to actual perniciousness.
Bret Baier: Sheesh
Thanks Big Maq. You said it better than I could.
One problem in this country, I believe, is many are afraid of listening to the other side because that sounds like weakness and letting go of our beliefs. On the contrary, listening to others often will help us understand more why we believe what we believe, but also engages them so that there can be a mutual gain in understanding.
Scorched earth isn’t working. I’ve said it before (and heard it recently) – conservative talk radio has been a really big thing, considered really important, since the early 1990s. And conservatives have one exactly one popular vote at the presidential level since then. Maybe the echo-chamber/scorched earth/us vs them/looking at our adversaries in the worst possible light strategy isn’t working.
Maybe it was always really just about ratings…
“have one exactly” = “have won exactly”
If sdferr’s link reflects the truth, it’s likely we’ll get Trump for president or maybe Tim Kaine.
What a weird election . . .
Think about it, though – you know how the election is “rigged” – everyone’s against the Republicans, the whole kit and kaboodle of Government and Media rig everything against Republicans. At least that’s what many Trump supporters have been saying…
And here the FBI might be ready to indict Hillary right on the brink of the election (or right after it). Kind of breaks the narrative a bit, doesn’t it?
I daresay she deserves it. I have no idea if that will actually happen or not, though.
Hmmm. If Hillary is indicted and Trump loses the Trump U and Rape of a 13 year old lawsuits, maybe we’ll get Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn after all (!!!)
…
And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt . . .
Stupid election.
Big Maq–If you are correct, please explain the positions of Thomas Sowell and Larry Elder when it comes to Trump. As for the bubble. I listened to some talk radio in the past, but almost none, except Dennis Prager’s dedicated hours…non-political, since this president was elected. Contrary to OM’s assertion that I’m succumbing to “election nerves”, I have no angst about this election. As a devout Catholic I have placed my trust in God first. It is recorded that Jesus said:
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.”
So I pray for my children’s and grandchildren’s sake that indeed we will be living in an environment of eating, drinking, buying, selling, marrying, when Christ returns, but I know the world over terrible, horrible, unspeakable things go on and have gone on since Jesus’ death & resurrection. In our own western culture the Nazi evil alone is an example of how bad it can be. So I pray, trust, speak the truth as I understand it and accept what is.
I couldn’t escape reading that article about Baier’s report without noticing the enormous conflict of interest the situation thrusts up as between Mrs. Clinton and her chosen Vice Presidential partner (partner? Ha! How about sudden usurper instead? The man may as well walk around carrying a blood-dripping knife in his hand, as to continue pretending to friendship), Sen. Kaine. Be afwaid, Mrs. Clinton, be wery wery afwaid.
Neo asked the question- Why the right splintered and the left united.
Since our system is heavily weighted to a winner take all– and whether the founding fathers intended it, the electoral college magnifies the popular vote, in most instances, to provide a legitimacy to the winning party even when the popular vote is close, which it all most always is.
A 51/49 split is a huge victory, but that still means that the country is wildly split. That same 2% victory might result in a 100 electoral vote win. The fact that the MSM minimizes the electoral college and emphasizes the popular vote just an attempt by them to turn our republican form of government into a popular democracy.
Since third parties, unlike parliamentary models, never have any impact on how the country is governed, they are irrelevant. The coalitions have to be formed inside the party, rather than formed inside the governing body.
With the advent of the Moral Majority, building on Nixon’s silent majority, an important coalition, religious conservatives, became a critical part of the Republican coalition. Economic conservatives, neo conservatives, religious conservatives have formed an uneasy alliance since Reagan. I suppose the glue that has held this coalition together is small government, low taxes, self-reliance.
We assume that the conservative movement includes a pro-America, proudly built in America component– but those ideals seem to be hollow, or have been revealed to be hollow over the last few decades.
Illegal immigrants protest proudly waving Mexican flags. Will they find a home in the Republican party.
Global trade policies benefit the investor class more than the working class. They try and buy our vote with cheap goods. Does anyone seriously believe an economy can be sustained with consumerism? Will the working class find a home in the Republican party?
As the economy has faltered and real wages have dropped since the 1970’s, the answer has been to subsidize Americans with government programs. Food stamps, housing vouchers, earned income tax credit, free school lunches, etc. What do Republicans offer the working poor?
So the coalition has fractured. The country is headed in the wrong direction, and while we know it’s because of the leftists, I think secretly we think it is because our coalition partners aren’t pulling their weight.
George W. Bush was elected by bringing in enough of the immigrant coalition, which I assume was first generation immigrants that had assimilated with enough social liberals and his compassionate conservative rhetoric. But did anyone think Bush was a conservative?
McCain couldn’t put together a coalition, even stooping so low as picking Palin as his running mate to bring conservatives back to the fold, while neo and economic conservatives shuddered.
So here’s the choice. We can move left with social programs to entice the working poor and get behind amnesty to entice the immigrant coalition and lose the base, or as Trump is attempting to do, forge a new coalition. If he fails, the Republican party is doomed to has-been status. You can’t fool America first conservatives to join the welfare-state light and amnesty groups again.
We heap disdain on nationalists, or as we call them white supremacists and of course might even tack on racist, xenophobic, homophobic to prove our purity.
But there are a lot of America first conservatives that aren’t supremacist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic that think the traditional American culture should be preserved. So how to peel off those splinter David Duke, neo Nazi, Westboro groups?
We heap disdain on nationalists, or as we call them white supremacists and of course might even tack on racist, xenophobic, homophobic to prove our purity.
I know you’re a good guy, Brian. But this comment infuriates me.
“Prove our purity”. Holy cow
Are you OK with the people Trump has surrounded himself with?
You OK with the way he has talked about and treated women? Or because they “let” him it was OK. He is a big stud of an alpha dog, after all.
You OK with anti-semitism and white supremacy? Spend a few minutes in the darker corners of the pro-trump Pepe the frog spaces. I know it’s a minority but it’s not that small of a minority.
You’re good with all this?
I THINK IT’S A BIG DEAL. It’s not just business as usual to win an election.
I hope he loses and loses big. Only way to purge the party. But I think the GOP is dead (even though I voted down-ticket for the spineless Trump supporting scumbags running).
Need a new party. Feel free to stay in the GOP.
Bill and Big Maq: I dunno. As far as I’m concerned when blacks and Muslims talk about being “terrified” by the police that’s a crybully shuck unless they are as “terrified” by their fellow blacks and Muslims who are statistically far more likely to be a risk of violence.
I’ve lived a sketchy life at times. I’ve been homeless. I’ve been harassed and roughed up by the police. I could have been shot in one quick, tense moment when a policeman had his gun trained on me. My pulse soars and my underarms go wet when I’m pulled over.
I know the police are necessary and have tough jobs. However I will never make the mistake of assuming my interests and those of the police are the same.
But I won’t say I’m “terrified” of the police. And I know there are plenty of white people like me, but no one is shoving microphones in our faces to hear that story.
“Bill and Big Maq: I dunno. As far as I’m concerned when blacks and Muslims talk about being “terrified” by the police that’s a crybully shuck unless they are as “terrified” by their fellow blacks and Muslims who are statistically far more likely to be a risk of violence.”
Multiple non-contradictory things can be true at the same time.
“My pulse soars and my underarms go wet when I’m pulled over.”
Doesn’t this kind of agree with what I said in the earlier comment?
I would never question this response of yours to the police. It’s what you’ve lived. I personally don’t have the same response. Because I haven’t lived it.
If the word “terrified” bothers you, maybe “scared”? A good amount of the minority citizens of our country are scared of a Trump presidency.
Heck, a good amount of the commenters here are scared (can I say terrified?) of a Hillary presidency. Right?
People have their reasons. I was just saying let’s not discount their reasons as just being blinded by the left-wing rhetoric or whatever. We’re foolish if we do.
All Big Maq was saying was that we have to engage with people who have felt abandoned or that they’ve been made enemies of the Republican party. Doesn’t mean abandon our principles and beliefs (unless those principles and beliefs include not engaging with minorities). We have a good message and we should try to help other people hear it/see it, rather than letting political opponents present them with a grotesque stereotype.
Bill,
What I’m saying is that the left applies the big brush approach. If you oppose Obama, you are racist.
If you oppose SSM, you are homophobic.
If you oppose illegal immigration, you are xenophobic.
You can be an America first nationalist and not be those things, IMO. The question is how to distance from the true racists, etc.
If you see a European talk about an individual, it won’t be very long into the conversation before their nationality is mentioned. Is that racist on their part?
We have adopted such a skewed view of racism that any discussion of race is racist. That’s absurd, but it does fit the globalist/progressive/leftist idea of a world without borders. I don’t accept that’s possible or desirable.
Liberals make a mistake when the try and build a society on the idea of the perfectibility of man. It doesn’t fit reality.
And liberals make the same mistake when they think they can usher in a new world order without borders. Unless they think that new world order should include Islam as the world religion.
Christians, for the most part, aren’t trying to build heaven on earth. We believe we’re just passing through, though we would like everyone to accept the salvation offered in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That fight is between Atheism and Islam. Guess which side wins?
1) We need to get out of the bubble — it presents a hyperbolic and unhealthy view of the world
2) We need to engage those outside the “base” if we want to have any political power — minorities are specifically what we are missing — by DEFAULT, by our ABSENCE.– Big Maq
____
And what do you offer minorities that will convince them to join the conservative side?
Trump is just the evil of the day as far as the left is concerned, because conservatism is evil in their minds.
I agree the illegal immigration issue isn’t nuanced– that we’re not against immigration and welcome immigrants that want to become part of the American experience. But what is the American experience at this point? A ballot printed in 24 languages? Wearing a costume not of your nationality is cultural appropriation?
The left has had it’s hands so tightly wrapped around our education system, that it takes decades to re-program those brainwashed by it. (A healthy dose of reality should help, but even that isn’t enough anymore).
“many are afraid of listening to the other side because that sounds like weakness and letting go of our beliefs” – Bill
All because of…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Pride
.
There are several who peacock around in various comments sections like they have the exclusive lock on logic and on their prophesy of the future.
Like trump’s loud boasts, blame, etc., it covers for a lot of insecurity on where they stand.
.
Fact is, humans are fallible, and we need to recognize that we do have something to learn about “others” that may not fit our idealized characterization of them in our model of the world, that maybe our model is not quite right in some ways.
JFK, for all his faults, after the Bay of Pigs debacle, changed up his team’s decision making process, and encouraged / demanded a wider perspective / dissent, to avoid the “groupthink” that happens to people in a bubble (a cause they pointed to for that prior debacle).
https://hbr.org/2013/11/how-john-f-kennedy-changed-decision-making
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/encouraging-dissent-in-decision-making
The first step is recognizing that we all do have a weak spot – we don’t “know” everything.
.
BTW, Bill, you’ve been doing a fine job explaining yourself. People pick out the emotion attached to what you say, and discard the rest, unfortunately.
BTW, Bill, you’ve been doing a fine job explaining yourself. People pick out the emotion attached to what you say, and discard the rest, unfortunately.
Thanks Big Maq. I’m realizing, though, that I need to probably temper my emotions. They are largely fueled just by the unbelievability of this election. If only we had nominated someone else – they would be walking away with this election.
That’s one reason I push against the oft-stated assertion that any Republican would be as villified as Trump has been. I don’t believe that – he has done the MSM’s job for them and, by the way, has validated many of the left’s worst stereotypes of conservatives along the way.
How did Romney lose?
The guy was as scandal free as you’ll ever find.
Bottom line. Conservatives can be so ideological they would rather lose than compromise.
And at the end of the day, I think too many evangelical Christians stayed home.
What a shame.
“And what do you offer minorities that will convince them to join the conservative side?” – Brian E
I’ve posted some specific ideas elsewhere on this blog, but cannot find it right now.
JJ has some good starting ideas too.
One example I provided was using an issue like education as a door opener. It is plain to see that the government provided service is failing them. So, why not consider vouchers or charter schools, etc. – market based solutions?
I see this issue raised from time to time, but I really don’t see the GOP making this a part of their outreach to the minority communities. It seems more of an academic talking point.
Instead, we get more big government – No Child Left Behind! – which may help marginally, but doesn’t fundamentally change the outcome for those folks.
@Bill – yes, I’m rather p*ssed at the idea that either one will be our next president. It is one YUGE cluster brought on by an emotional reaction.
Of course there was plenty to be upset about before, but we all had other choices, and still do.
In the end it is profound disappointment that I am left with, as it has become clear that while many claim there has been a moral decline in our society, several of them are willing to turn a blind eye and/or excuse someone who represents that very decline so as to have a possible “WIN!!” – letting them/ourselves be railroaded into a “binary” choice.
So, on November 9, we all will have to look in the mirror and wonder if it really is everyone else who is responsible for that decline, or if we are, if fact, the enablers of that decline.
“Bottom line. Conservatives can be so ideological they would rather lose than compromise.” – Brian E
You’ve been around here long enough! Yet, you keep ignoring what many of us are saying.
trump is so far outside of the ballpark on what I/we consider to be a “conservative”. If we are to guess, based on his past statements and behavior, he is very much in favor of many (most?) dem positions, probably the biggest “RINO!!” in generations!
We’ve certainly have had “compromises” as GOP candidates. They all were relatively close to the core of conservative principles, they were definitely not rigid ideologues. Some were elected POTUS, some were not. None were anywhere as far off as trump.
So, if one is willing to go that far outside of one’s principles, it leads to the question, just what are their real principles? How flexible can they be before they lose any hold?
.
BTW, I would love to bet, if it could ever be proven, that the folks who yelled “RINO!!” the most in 2012 are very much supportive of trump now.
The irony of it all!
“So, on November 9, we all will have to look in the mirror and wonder if it really is everyone else who is responsible for that decline, or if we are, if fact, the enablers of that decline.” Big Maq
This is a good example of the Leftist point-of-view creeping in. They are the ones that want to lay a blanket of blame for every ill that occurs. The only people responsible for these 2 candidates are the people who voted for them. After the primary Levin presented a very cogent analysis of how the primary election resulted in Trump being the candidate. It was a very narrow margin of people putting him over the top. To suggest that somehow the majority who saw him as the least desirable choice are responsible is a non sequitur. And the choice is not binary. You have many choices. However, because of our framework and history, we can be all but certain that the outcome is binary. As for the moral decline, the people responsible for that are any that are engaged in immoral, unlawful behavior. Ultimately we can only give account for our own conduct.
“One example I provided was using an issue like education as a door opener. It is plain to see that the government provided service is failing them. So, why not consider vouchers or charter schools, etc. — market based solutions?”- Big Maq
___
That’s a great idea. I think it’s part of the Republican platform. Now get that by the Education Union and get it implemented. They hate vouchers and charter schools. That’s a frontal attack on their power. Guess what. The NCLB initiative was sponsored by a Republican president.
Trump has made the case the democrats have done nothing for them. What do they have to lose. Free trade and illegal immigration are killing their jobs (the few that are left). It will be interesting if he makes any inroads.
___
“So, on November 9, we all will have to look in the mirror and wonder if it really is everyone else who is responsible for that decline, or if we are, if fact, the enablers of that decline.” –Big Maq
____
Whether you like it or not, this election is a binary choice.
You have to decide which is worse.
A loose cannon president, espousing a protectionist agenda,
or the potential of packing the court with leftist ideologues, a kleptocracy which will continue to enable all sorts of mischief by leftists who want to see the United State “fundamentally transformed”– which may be the only successful policy initiative of the Obama administration, by the way.
Do you think for a moment that Trump won’t be opposed in the next election by Republicans? If he nominates conservative justices like he has committed to doing and slows the growth of the federal government by not being the president that enacts free college for all, or a wild green agenda– basically California energy for the nation, his term will have been a success.
You can continue your opposition to him in 2020 and undo whatever wild haired scheme he might concoct. I’m trying to imagine something he would enact that couldn’t be undone.
I do know that Hillary’s Supreme Court and appeals court appointments can’t be undone. Federal programs enacted have a life of their own and are very hard to rescind. We’re going to see that play out with Obamacare.
“trump is so far outside of the ballpark on what I/we consider to be a “conservative”.” -Big Maq
At best he’s a NY Republican, or RINO but he’s not Hillary. We are all seeing the corruption endemic in DC playing out in real time. Is Hillary going to be the reformer to that corruption?
Sometimes we need to think long term. Sometimes retreat is necessary to regroup, reequip and re-strategize.
Whether you like it or not, this election is a binary choice
Brian E: Whether you like it or not, this election is not a binary choice.
Check your ballot for how many choices there are plus the write-in. Plus your right not to vote for President or vote at all.
I don’t have to decide which one is worse on Nov. 8, 2016. My choice is based on the future as I best I can plan for it.
I would never question this response of yours to the police. It’s what you’ve lived. I personally don’t have the same response. Because I haven’t lived it.
Bill: However, I don’t call my response “terrified.” I get anxious and I manage my anxiety and I get anxious in many situations. I don’t call my anxiety “terrified” for political gain.
You might say I have no right to dismiss the “terrified” story from blacks and Muslims because I am not black or Muslim or have not spent some requisite amount of time one-to-one with them.
If you follow that logic out far enough, no one has any right to claim they really understand anyone else.
But I say, forget that. I’m human and I sorta understand what most humans are doing.
From what I can tell, blacks and Muslims going on about how terrified they are of the police are playing the victim card for political purposes instead of taking care of business.
“Brian E: Whether you like it or not, this election is not a binary choice.”- huxley
Obviously you can vote for whoever you want.
If Hillary is preferable to Trump to you, you can vote for McMullin or Johnson, or McCain as Kasich did.
Brian E: No. In classic Trump supporter and I would add Daily Kos form, you are just recasting your argument covertly.
Hillary is not preferable to me. Get clear on that.
It’s like one of those stupid party questions: “Would you rather be burned alive or be stung to death by wasps?”
Those are the choices?
Plus my legal residence is California, dude. How is my vote making a difference?
huxley,
Not voting for either is voting for the winner, leaving aside the state you live in.
I’m thinking before this is over, they might call California for Trump!
“After the primary Levin presented a very cogent analysis of how the primary election resulted in Trump being the candidate. It was a very narrow margin of people putting him over the top.” – Sharon
A plurality won…okay, yes.
.
“To suggest that somehow the majority who saw him as the least desirable choice are responsible is a non sequitur.
Not saying that – keep reading…
.
“And the choice is not binary. You have many choices.”
Glad we agre on this.
.
“However, because of our framework and history, we can be all but certain that the outcome is binary.”
That’s like saying “We’ve always done it that way”.
It is a “certainty” because we want it to be so. As you recognize, there are other choices.
I am well aware that this has been the historical tendancy.
But isn’t that based on the assumption that there are candidates that actually fit the party norms?
trump is waaaaaay off.
He’d almost be better off running as a dem. Except, he probably has enough self-awareness to know that billionaires are not exactly celebrated or welcome with the rank and file there.
So, if “our” party, by whatever means, chooses a candidate that hardly represents our philosophy, nor hardly fits our vision of the characteristics of a good solid leader / commander in chief – are we expected to just accept that, all because he is wrapped in our team colors and has an (R) beside his name?
.
Truth is, it is only “binary” if enough of us find trump “acceptable” to make it so. Our own behavior drives that.
People have trapped themselves into this “binary” choice, if they truly believe trump (and clinton) awful, but have been waiting for someone else (several someone elses) to make “the first move” away from the binary conundrum.
But, the problem is if EVERYONE takes that position, NOBODY ever changes out of the binary paradigm.
So, do we stick with the awful, or do we follow our convictions, regardless of what everybody else thinks and does?
.
“As for the moral decline, the people responsible for that are any that are engaged in immoral, unlawful behavior. Ultimately we can only give account for our own conduct.”
If I understand this correctly, I’d have to agree.
But it doesn’t counter the idea that we have compromised greatly by accepting awful, particularly as we have other actual choices, as you rightfully recognize.
Brian E: Declaring something does not make it true.
Perhaps you might actually make a rational argument with, you know, facts and logic to support it.
If you think Califnornia might go Trump, we need to talk. I’m running short on decent weed.
OK, I was never much good with math, but I’ll give it a go. I read somewhere that the weight of an individual vote is 0.00000079%. Your vote divided by the number of voters. But because your vote might matter more or less in states that are heavily weighted toward one party or another, you actual value is adjusted to 0.0000031%.
That is basically meaningless. Your vote means nothing. If you vote, or if you don’t it won’t register on the most sensitive scale ever imagined in the mind of the smartest person that ever lived.
So my advice to you is don’t vote. No one reading this should vote because your vote is insignificant. It’s by a tiny, tiny fraction above 0, but for all practical consideration it’s 0, nada, zilch.
And you should tell all your friends and all your enemies not to vote because their vote is meaningless. It’s worth 0.
And so it goes. Well, everybody is convinced that their vote is worthless, and they don’t vote. But there is one guy in the middle of Montana, or Wyoming (I forget) that doesn’t hear about this and, he goes and votes.
And the result is Hillary wins 1 to 0.
Your not voting is a vote for the winner.
One thing you can’t discount in the splintering is the steady diet of conspiracy theory–especially apocalyptic conspiracy theory–that the right has been relentlessly fed for 7 years.
Obama is a tyrant trying to literally destroy America. FEMA is about to start setting up internment camps. The UN is poised to invade and Jade Helm is part of it. Etc. We now have a candidate on Alex Jones’ show.
The Left has had their conspiracy theories to be sure–but none as severe nor as pervasive (Heritage had to start their own news site to get away from apocalyptic advertising). The stories of real, impending doom sold a lot of gold certificates to conservatives who trusted their alternative media. The left never mined their viewers in the same fashion.
That’s one reason the right is having cohesion difficulties: they rejected traditional media and then were conned by alternative media.
Brian E:
By that “logic,” if the winner wins by more than one vote, even if you voted for the winner’s opponent, you voted for the winner.
Actually, failing to vote is failing to vote. It is not voting for the eventual winner, whoever wins. Voting for the winner is voting for the winner. Voting for the opponent is voting for the opponent. And voting for someone else who loses—write-in or third party—is voting for that somone else who loses.
@Omnivore – interesting site, particularly the concept of “toxic information”.
Omnivore – well said.
Neo – math and logic doesn’t work in binary land
We get awful candidates for multiple reasons (for example, there are few sane people who would want to go through the 24/7 colonoscopy that is a modern presidential campaign) but mainly because we keep voting for them.
I don’t need perfect. Moderately good is good enough. But I don’t vote for awful.
President Obama: ‘If You Don’t Vote, That’s a Vote for Trump’
So there you have it folks. You’re voting for Trump whether you like it or not!
Neo, not voting is mathematically not the same as voting for the loser. If you don’t vote you raise the weight of all the people who do vote.
Brian E:
My point is that not voting is not voting.
It is NOT voting for the winner.
It does in fact raise the weight of all the people who vote, by an infinitesimal amount. But that is not “voting for the winner.” Nor does it determine the winner, unless the winner wins by one vote. And of course, if enough people don’t vote who would somehow otherwise have voted for the loser’s side, enough to make the difference and make the loser a winner, then it helps by a small amount to determine the winner.
Big Maq – this is like my thesis on that stuff. I wrote it in 2014: http://politicalomnivore.blogspot.com/2014/10/when-winning-doesnt-win.html
The choice is binary if you believe there’s one major candidate worse than the other. If you believe that and you don’t vote for the least bad one then you are at least partly responsible if the worse one wins.
However, if you truly believe that they are equally bad then there’s no reason to vote for either. In that case you can abstain or make a statement by voting for some candidate that you know will not win. Either way it will have no effect on THIS election.
That’s what is meant by saying this is a binary election. The outcome will be one or the other. It doesn’t matter for the election’s purposes how either candidate got where they are. There will be plenty of time for analysis and blame afterwards.
How we got here might be interesting to debate but the election is all that matters for the moment. We’re like a person in a car careening down a hill. It’s a lot more important to try to survive the crash than it is to try to figure out why we are where we are.
Irv
What if this is the last binary election?
For the first time in my lifetime I’m seeing what might be the end of one of the political parties (even if the strongman wins)
The GOP may no longer be viable after 2016. Possible?
Bill – I’ll worry about that after the election. First I want to try to control this crash.
I agree the republican party is headed for either a complete reorganization or a split depending on winning or losing but it’s hard to plan for the long term future when the immediate future is in so much doubt.
After the election, within a couple of months or so, I think we’ll have a clearer picture and then we can start to manage that. Some problems just can’t be worked on until the information is available to work on then.
“What if this is the last binary election?”- Bill
That is more likely to happen if Hillary is elected than Trump.
Yes, the Republican coalition is stressed. I wouldn’t say it’s fractured at this point, but their is a fissure developing.
But what if Hillary makes good on her promise on illegal immigration.
From the Washington Post:
“Hillary Clinton’s pledge not to deport any illegal immigrants except violent criminals and terrorists represents a major break from President Obama, and it could vastly increase the number of people who would be allowed to stay in the country….”
“The Supreme Court is expected to set an important marker testing the White House’s power in deciding how to enforce border laws when it rules on the constitutionality of Obama’s program to grant work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. A ruling is expected as early as June.
Conservative critics of Obama’s policies suggested that Clinton has opened the door to far greater leniency and lax enforcement.
“This really is a breathtaking step toward open borders,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports lower immigration levels. “If you take that step, it needs to be put in front of the public: Do you think immigration laws are irrelevant unless the illegal immigrant has committed a violent offense or drug crime?”
Immigration lawyers said they believed Clinton’s pledge would be well within the law. Though the Supreme Court is reviewing Obama’s work-permit program, Clinton’s action would be an administrative directive to broaden the DHS enforcement guidelines but would not necessarily add more work permits, the legal experts said…
Disappointed by the high-profile failure of bipartisan efforts in Congress during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, advocates said their priority is now focused on winning deportation protections for those already in the United States before figuring out a new legislative strategy to get them full legal status and, ultimately, citizenship.””
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clintons-stance-on-immigration-is-a-major-break-from-obama/2016/03/10/6388a1f8-e700-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html
“The Obama Administration Wants to Make Sure Non-Citizens Vote in the Upcoming Election”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431676/obama-administration-enabling-noncitizen-voting
This is a must read article because it shows the path to allowing illegal immigrants to vote. And if Hillary replaces Scalia with a left leaning justice, it raises the possibility greatly.
This is just one more reason why this election is pivotal.
I agree with Sergey that leftist philosophy has such a hold on people because of its inherent ‘sweetness’. I would add that I think that sweetness is based on its appeal to reason – which the West began privileging in the Intellectual Enlightenment.Indeed. communism was invented by Marx, a child of the Intellectual Enlightenment. He was deeply disappointed that the French Revolution did not succeed and a large part of his motivation in later life was the surprising failure to him of the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. But people just don’t behave on the basis of reason alone but we often still consciously think we should and often fall for the rational appeal of the left’s ideology.
@Omnivore – read that, and, yes, there is gold in them thar angry hordes.
Many (particularly those in “conservative” media) play down the role that “conservative” media has had, but it is certainly not insignificant.
Still, it only works if there is a receptive audience.
I do believe there is a feedback loop operating, and/or a bubble effect of confirmation bias.
Rather than behaving as “meat puppets” as some suggest, I think some have become so wound up in the fear that they actively choose to ignore any counter facts / arguments.
Others see the gap between reality and what they are being fed and begin to wonder of the veracity and motivations of those literally selling those ideas.
“leftist philosophy has such a hold on people because of its inherent ‘sweetness’.”
Lorenz, don’t only look at the left, as sometimes the light you are flying towards is really not the enlightenment you think it is.
http://jared811111.deviantart.com/art/Welcome-to-the-Wild-Bug-Zapper-352866068