US Politics Thread

[Kieran]

Hold on...CNN invented victimhood? Who is the biggest, whiniest "victim" in the US? Donald Trump. Santos is a Republican. What about their sense of victimization is "leftist?"

The left have written extensive guidelines on victimology, whether it be race, gender, whatever is the fashion, you're suckers for a pet minority to mollycoddle, and make you look virtuous. Santos, the Republican, was only appealing to the low hand in the deck - CNN seems like a good place for that...

 

[Federberg]

I think it's fair to say that there's victimhood on both sides. While @Moxie is correct that Trump is a whiny bitch that often claims victimisation, and Santos clearly just played the same tune, there is a difference. The entire philosophy of identity politics played particularly by the left is based on a foundation of sub groups being oppressed, and victimised. Let's not get it twisted.

 

[Kieran]

I think it's fair to say that there's victimhood on both sides. While @Moxie is correct that Trump is a whiny bitch that often claims victimisation, and Santos clearly just played the same tune, there is a difference. The entire philosophy of identity politics played particularly by the left is based on a foundation of sub groups being oppressed, and victimised. Let's not get it twisted.

It’s all wrapped up in a neat package called Intersectionality…

 

[Moxie]

The left have written extensive guidelines on victimology, whether it be race, gender, whatever is the fashion, you're suckers for a pet minority to mollycoddle, and make you look virtuous. Santos, the Republican, was only appealing to the low hand in the deck - CNN seems like a good place for that...

By "you're," I'm sure you don't mean me.

You can pretend that Santos learned his tricks from the left, but I think that's a cheap "out." Not convenient for you that Santos is a Republican? Sure, go ahead and blame CNN. But I do find that a convenient way of buying your own story. I'm going to stick with mine: I think Santos is a complete grifter, and has no place in this conversation. He's a sociopath. (OK, Trump is, too, but he's not the same side-show that Santos is.)

I think it's fair to say that there's victimhood on both sides. While @Moxie is correct that Trump is a whiny bitch that often claims victimisation, and Santos clearly just played the same tune, there is a difference. The entire philosophy of identity politics played particularly by the left is based on a foundation of sub groups being oppressed, and victimised. Let's not get it twisted.

I know you like to attribute all of this victimization that you villify to the "left," but let's look at Trump for a second. He's made a political career of convincing entire swaths of the voting electorate that they are victims. They are victims of folks trying to take over their country. Victims of the "culture wars." He's being victimized by the left, and, by extension, so are they. People stormed the Capitol because they felt that they were being victimized by the system. Because that's what Trump told them. I think we can agree that it had a lot to do with him telling them that they were being played as chumps. That's "victimization." He's still selling that.

You agree that there is "victimhood," as you see it, on both sides. The "right" is worried that their white children will be made to feel so bad about themselves if we actually teach the history of slavery in school, to the point of banning books and certain ways of teaching things.To the point of making teachers concerned about what they can and cannot teach in schools. To the point of being concerned about losing their jobs. Isn't that over-victimization from the Right?

Helicopter parents decided years ago that their children were too delicate to fail, and so everyone who participates is a winner. Do you think all of those suburban parents who started "mollycoddling" (@Kieran's word) their kids years ago were Democrats? We're talking about white, middle-class, suburban Americans, so the answer is no.

You say, "let's not get it twisted." I say, let's not ignore where a certain amount of this is coming from.

 

[Kieran]

By "you're," I'm sure you don't mean me.

You can pretend that Santos learned his tricks from the left, but I think that's a cheap "out." Not convenient for you that Santos is a Republican? Sure, go ahead and blame CNN. But I do find that a convenient way of buying your own story. I'm going to stick with mine: I think Santos is a complete grifter, and has no place in this conversation. He's a sociopath. (OK, Trump is, too, but he's not the same side-show that Santos is.)

I know you like to attribute all of this victimization that you villify to the "left," but let's look at Trump for a second. He's made a political career of convincing entire swaths of the voting electorate that they are victims. They are victims of folks trying to take over their country. Victims of the "culture wars." He's being victimized by the left, and, by extension, so are they. People stormed the Capitol because they felt that they were being victimized by the system. Because that's what Trump told them. I think we can agree that it had a lot to do with him telling them that they were being played as chumps. That's "victimization." He's still selling that.

You agree that there is "victimhood," as you see it, on both sides. The "right" is worried that their white children will be made to feel so bad about themselves if we actually teach the history of slavery in school, to the point of banning books and certain ways of teaching things.To the point of making teachers concerned about what they can and cannot teach in schools. To the point of being concerned about losing their jobs. Isn't that over-victimization from the Right?

Helicopter parents decided years ago that their children were too delicate to fail, and so everyone who participates is a winner. Do you think all of those suburban parents who started "mollycoddling" (@Kieran's word) their kids years ago were Democrats? We're talking about white, middle-class, suburban Americans, so the answer is no.

You say, "let's not get it twisted." I say, let's not ignore where a certain amount of this is coming from.

You know, I could see about 4 pages ago that Federbergs point went whoosh past you. You seem incapable of recognising the left from other people’s descriptions. We saw this in the trans talk when you said the man interviewing a child abuser had ‘an agenda.’

Of course there are people on all wings claiming to be victims - and sometimes they’re even correct - but the left have created whole pyramid schemes of hierarchical victimhoods that are designed to trap us. So you have black people openly being racist against white people, and that’s okay with the left. Men punching women in the face and openly bragging about it, that’s cool with the left. Women being harassed, that’s okay, they’re bad women - for standing up for women. They design their strange victimologies that way. So yes, white children are right to think that they’re supposed to feel bad about themselves because they’re being sold a Catch-22 by racists who want to say they’re guilty of things they never even heard of. And things they didn’t do. By virtue of being white.

Ibram x Kendi, BLM, you all fall to critique the empty-headed spoofers who monetise victimhood and lawlessness. You don’t critique them because they’re on the left. And yet what they’re saying is so primitive, it wouldn’t take you long.

Really, everybody should be critiquing their own side first. Sadly this is nonexistent, the way modern politics is done…

 

[Kieran]

Helicopter parents decided years ago that their children were too delicate to fail, and so everyone who participates is a winner. Do you think all of those suburban parents who started "mollycoddling" (@Kieran's word) their kids years ago were Democrats? We're talking about white, middle-class, suburban Americans, so the answer is no.

By the way, with regards to the helicopter parents, do you think that every “white, middle class, suburban American” votes for the Republicans? I’d be surprised if they do. I’m not American though, and I don’t know the data. I imagine a lot of “white middle class suburban Americans” vote Democrat. Where I’m from, I grew up in a rough working class area on the north side of Dublin. Almost every leftist on the hustings was from nice middle class suburban houses, coming to patronise us poor folks, trying to claim us as the constituency for their dodgy politics. The posh middle classes have always had a huge representation on the left. We call them in Ireland D4 Socialists - Dublin 4 being a wealthy post code - or champagne socialists. Socialism grew from middle class revolutionaries. Nothing much has changed in that regard.

As for the helicopter parents and the mollycoddling of a generation, you’d enjoy any video that has Jonathan Haidt in it. His book “The Coddling of the American Mind” is essential on this, where it’s only fault is failing to credit Molly for her coddling…

 

[Federberg]

By "you're," I'm sure you don't mean me.

You can pretend that Santos learned his tricks from the left, but I think that's a cheap "out." Not convenient for you that Santos is a Republican? Sure, go ahead and blame CNN. But I do find that a convenient way of buying your own story. I'm going to stick with mine: I think Santos is a complete grifter, and has no place in this conversation. He's a sociopath. (OK, Trump is, too, but he's not the same side-show that Santos is.)

I know you like to attribute all of this victimization that you villify to the "left," but let's look at Trump for a second. He's made a political career of convincing entire swaths of the voting electorate that they are victims. They are victims of folks trying to take over their country. Victims of the "culture wars." He's being victimized by the left, and, by extension, so are they. People stormed the Capitol because they felt that they were being victimized by the system. Because that's what Trump told them. I think we can agree that it had a lot to do with him telling them that they were being played as chumps. That's "victimization." He's still selling that.

You agree that there is "victimhood," as you see it, on both sides. The "right" is worried that their white children will be made to feel so bad about themselves if we actually teach the history of slavery in school, to the point of banning books and certain ways of teaching things.To the point of making teachers concerned about what they can and cannot teach in schools. To the point of being concerned about losing their jobs. Isn't that over-victimization from the Right?

Helicopter parents decided years ago that their children were too delicate to fail, and so everyone who participates is a winner. Do you think all of those suburban parents who started "mollycoddling" (@Kieran's word) their kids years ago were Democrats? We're talking about white, middle-class, suburban Americans, so the answer is no.

You say, "let's not get it twisted." I say, let's not ignore where a certain amount of this is coming from.

it's so interesting that you seem incapable of seeing the identity politics on the left while it's so blazingly obvious to you when it comes from the right. Why is that?

With regards to parents mollycoddling their kids what does that have to do with this conversation? That's a generational thing that permeates Western culture. Look to the East or even the wealthier families of kids of African descent, their parents are merciless. They don't want to hear any excuses, they get tutors for their kids to ensure they excel academically. That's just the way it's been. Probably an over-correction of some sort for some perceived parental neglect by this generations parents in the West.

As for Trump, I did mention him as a proponent of victimhood. If that's all you can bring to the table, then it's not clear to me that you've demonstrated that it's pervasive on the right. Granted it's been a brilliant strategy by an entitled 'billionaire' to connect with the masses (who lets face it he's got absolutely nothing in common with). But it's not clear that it'll ever be translatable for other conservative politicians. You only have to look at how stilted it appears to be when DeSantis tries to exploit the same cultural paradigm. What does seem to be clear is that the use of victimhood on the right seems to be more top down, and for that reason it's both less profound, and more short term. I will say this though... I think that the right actually started the more modern and pernicious form of identity politics with things like Nixon's southern strategy, and from time to time other Republicans used it to great effect like Reagan.

But we're in a whole new world now. What the left are up to is far far more profound and dangerous. They're not just trying to win elections, this is an attack on Western civilisation itself. It's terrifying that people like you are too blind and too politically invested to see what is so obvious to so many of us. Sadly you think that we're on the right, but most of us would probably have been more sympathetic to the type of vision someone like Bill Clinton was selling when he started campaigning (please note the distinction, it doesn't mean that we were Clinton supporters but his vision rhymed with what we thought the world should be. Perhaps @britbox will appreciate the nuance I'm trying for).

On the other hand, on the left the victimhood ideology is more bottom up from activists, and is increasingly infecting the top. Someone like Biden, of a different generation, actually benefits by not having been ideologically captured. This is his strength and what has made him acceptable to a slight majority of the voter base. Whether that continues to hold or the damage of the great inflation is too much to overcome is essentially what the 2024 election is going to be about unless he's able to make the election about Trump. That has to be Biden's hope, otherwise he's doomed. I can tell you now, if someone like Haley is able to get the nomination she'll destroy him. Book it!

Just for once I wish you would sit down and think through the logic of what these identitarians are trying to push. Consider the evolution and increasing fractionalisation of their politics - first women and race, then black women, then black lesbians, then transgender and on and on and on... Work through what the endgame of their ideology is, and ask yourself if you want it. Complete societal balkanisation. If you think it can be taken to some utopian point and no further then all I can do is.... Instead I suspect as usual your need to be 'right' in the moment will win... again (even if you end up being terribly wrong as usual, as demonstrated by receipts from our debates over the years)

 

[Federberg]

I believe these are university students. These are the same people out there protesting for Hamas

 

[shawnbm]

I often wonder if this is set up as I can't believe the ignorance can be real. If it is, it is astounding. Just horrific.

 

[Federberg]

I often wonder if this is set up as I can't believe the ignorance can be real. If it is, it is astounding. Just horrific.

I'm telling you! Even if you don't pay attention in school. Surely one would get the information from movies! I mean... did no one watch Pearl Harbour??

 

[Federberg]

Never really understood the smart folks who argue Trump is a better option than Biden in 2024. Exactly how many of his former senior cabinet ministers need to warn the world that this dude is a wrong ‘un?? What more needs to be said? What other person in a leadership position would even two of their colleagues have to say to you he’s bad before it gives you pause

 

[tented]

I believe these are university students. These are the same people out there protesting for Hamas

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Public education has slipped a lot over the last few decades. Other countries routinely outscore the US in math, science, etc.

 

[tented]

Never really understood the smart folks who argue Trump is a better option than Biden in 2024. Exactly how many of his former senior cabinet ministers need to warn the world that this dude is a wrong ‘un?? What more needs to be said? What other person in a leadership position would even two of their colleagues have to say to you he’s bad before it gives you pause

Exactly. They’re trying so hard, but they won’t change the minds of the hardcore Trumpsters. Apparently nothing will, given everything Trump has gotten away with all these years.

At the time, Trump’s comment "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" seemed silly. Now it seems prophetic.

 

[Moxie]

it's so interesting that you seem incapable of seeing the identity politics on the left while it's so blazingly obvious to you when it comes from the right. Why is that?

With regards to parents mollycoddling their kids what does that have to do with this conversation? That's a generational thing that permeates Western culture. Look to the East or even the wealthier families of kids of African descent, their parents are merciless. They don't want to hear any excuses, they get tutors for their kids to ensure they excel academically. That's just the way it's been. Probably an over-correction of some sort for some perceived parental neglect by this generations parents in the West.

As for Trump, I did mention him as a proponent of victimhood. If that's all you can bring to the table, then it's not clear to me that you've demonstrated that it's pervasive on the right. Granted it's been a brilliant strategy by an entitled 'billionaire' to connect with the masses (who lets face it he's got absolutely nothing in common with). But it's not clear that it'll ever be translatable for other conservative politicians. You only have to look at how stilted it appears to be when DeSantis tries to exploit the same cultural paradigm. What does seem to be clear is that the use of victimhood on the right seems to be more top down, and for that reason it's both less profound, and more short term. I will say this though... I think that the right actually started the more modern and pernicious form of identity politics with things like Nixon's southern strategy, and from time to time other Republicans used it to great effect like Reagan.

But we're in a whole new world now. What the left are up to is far far more profound and dangerous. They're not just trying to win elections, this is an attack on Western civilisation itself. It's terrifying that people like you are too blind and too politically invested to see what is so obvious to so many of us. Sadly you think that we're on the right, but most of us would probably have been more sympathetic to the type of vision someone like Bill Clinton was selling when he started campaigning (please note the distinction, it doesn't mean that we were Clinton supporters but his vision rhymed with what we thought the world should be. Perhaps @britbox will appreciate the nuance I'm trying for).

On the other hand, on the left the victimhood ideology is more bottom up from activists, and is increasingly infecting the top. Someone like Biden, of a different generation, actually benefits by not having been ideologically captured. This is his strength and what has made him acceptable to a slight majority of the voter base. Whether that continues to hold or the damage of the great inflation is too much to overcome is essentially what the 2024 election is going to be about unless he's able to make the election about Trump. That has to be Biden's hope, otherwise he's doomed. I can tell you now, if someone like Haley is able to get the nomination she'll destroy him. Book it!

Just for once I wish you would sit down and think through the logic of what these identitarians are trying to push. Consider the evolution and increasing fractionalisation of their politics - first women and race, then black women, then black lesbians, then transgender and on and on and on... Work through what the endgame of their ideology is, and ask yourself if you want it. Complete societal balkanisation. If you think it can be taken to some utopian point and no further then all I can do is.... Instead I suspect as usual your need to be 'right' in the moment will win... again (even if you end up being terribly wrong as usual, as demonstrated by receipts from our debates over the years)

We've moved on from this on this thread, and I don't mean to bring it back, only to clarify that I wasn't trying to say that this culture of victimization can be seen on both sides. You and Kieran do enough blaming of the left, so I was only showing that there are examples on both sides. In fact, I realized that I mean to write that not "ALL" the suburban parents are Democrats, so therefore not to imply that they are all Republicans, either.

I think mollycoddling kids has a lot to do with inclining them to grow up thinking that nothing is their fault, and therefore something else must be to blame when things go wrong, i.e., victimhood. Anyway, moving on.

 

[Moxie]

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Public education has slipped a lot over the last few decades. Other countries routinely outscore the US in math, science, etc.

That is too true, but American History? Don't these students have to take standardized tests anymore?

No wonder Americans have developed a taste for the dictator. They have no idea what it means, or the history that goes with it. To your above point about Trumpism, and the lack of concern over his disregard for basic principals of democracy.

Ironically, tomorrow is December 7th. FDR said it was a day that would "live in infamy." Not anymore, I guess. Nor, someday, will Sept. 11th, by this reckoning.

Since tomorrow is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, allow me to tell you that my uncle was there. Navy. He was stationed to the Argonne. He'd just gone off watch and back to the barracks when the bombing started. In the chaos after, soldiers were re-billeted to the four winds. He had a close friend he never heard from again, and considered dead. Convinced by my aunt to go the a Pearl Habor Survivors reunion...I think the 20th, 1961...he ran into the guy! Each had thought the other was dead. They remained close friends thereafter.

It is said that those who don't remember history are destined to repeat it.

 

[Kieran]

We've moved on from this on this thread, and I don't mean to bring it back, only to clarify that I wasn't trying to say that this culture of victimization can be seen on both sides. You and Kieran do enough blaming of the left, so I was only showing that there are examples on both sides. In fact, I realized that I mean to write that not "ALL" the suburban parents are Democrats, so therefore not to imply that they are all Republicans, either.

I think mollycoddling kids has a lot to do with inclining them to grow up thinking that nothing is their fault, and therefore something else must be to blame when things go wrong, i.e., victimhood. Anyway, moving on.

This is not quite accurate. Of course there are individuals who claim to be victims, and sometimes probably are correct. But the idea of structural victimhood is what gets the democrats/left their votes.

The victimhoods are also hierarchical. Like a game - which it is - but it’s a deadly, lousy, unfair game that’s rife with embedded bigotry.

“I’m a white man.” [patriarchy, oppressor, colonialist]

“I’m a white woman.” [victim lite]

“I’m a black woman.” [victim +]

“I’m a black lesbian.” [victim ++]

“I’m a black lesbian single mother” [victim +++]

“I’m a black lesbian single mother of trans kids with ADHD” [victim legend status]

“I’m Asian.” [tumbleweeds]

And of course victim points bring prizes, privileges. Black people could riot forever and the left would be like, those poor babies, I hope them racists pay for what they done, cos they musta something!

You had affirmative action because of group identity politics. It didn’t apply to everybody, because you have hierarchies.

These are systemic racisms - of the left. And they are examples of your rewarding the structural victim culture of the left..

 

[Kieran]

Now this one, I sat on for a couple of days, ran it by a few people, because it seems so incredible, shocking, ground-changing, that I wanted second, third and fourth opinions. Basically, the video tells us that George Floyd wasn’t murdered, that Derek Chauvin is innocent, that evidence was suppressed at the trial, and that the police body cam footage tells a completely different story.

One of the friends I showed it to - a fellow poster here - said a doctor in their extended family said as much when he saw the footage back in 2020, that Floyd OD’d on fentanyl and that his death wasn’t consistent with neck compression.

I put this here because if it’s true, there’s been many injustices, caused by a racist rush to judgment. I made the same rush to judgment, by the way - I believed he’d been murdered. But newly released evidence showed he wasn’t, apparently. And so the aftermath to his death has to be seen in a different light.

The rise of BLM, Ibram X Kendi, the take-the-knee charade, the defund-the-police hustle, the wanton criminality on the streets, the politicising race during a presidential election in favour of one candidate over another, the blatant exploitation by the left of this horrible moment, was morally cynical, reprehensible and damaging.

This man’s death and deification in the aftermath affected the whole of the western world.

It still has to be litigated, and proven in court, but I can see there might be clear grounds for doing that.

Meanwhile, bear this in mind, Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times recently, in prison.

 

[Kieran]

Now this one, I sat on for a couple of days, ran it by a few people, because it seems so incredible, shocking, ground-changing, that I wanted second, third and fourth opinions. Basically, the video tells us that George Floyd wasn’t murdered, that Derek Chauvin is innocent, that evidence was suppressed at the trial, and that the police body cam footage tells a completely different story.

One of the friends I showed it to - a fellow poster here - said a doctor in their extended family said as much when he saw the footage back in 2020, that Floyd OD’d on fentanyl and that his death wasn’t consistent with neck compression.

I put this here because if it’s true, there’s been many injustices, caused by a racist rush to judgment. I made the same rush to judgment, by the way - I believed he’d been murdered. But newly released evidence showed he wasn’t, apparently. And so the aftermath to his death has to be seen in a different light.

The rise of BLM, Ibram X Kendi, the take-the-knee charade, the defund-the-police hustle, the wanton criminality on the streets, the politicising race during a presidential election in favour of one candidate over another, the blatant exploitation by the left of this horrible moment, was morally cynical, reprehensible and damaging.

This man’s death and deification in the aftermath affected the whole of the western world.

It still has to be litigated, and proven in court, but I can see there might be clear grounds for doing that.

Meanwhile, bear this in mind, Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times recently, in prison.

The more I’m hearing about this then an injustice of historic proportions in the modern era has taken place. I’ll watch whole documentary over the weekend.

This should impact every level of politics and justice in America - especially on the left. It’s infuriating, not good for my bloody pressure, thinking about both this conspiracy and the coup that’s taken place in universities, where their presidents are smirking at questions regarding rampant anti semitism among students and professors.

Yeah, ‘coup’ Is the right word. It makes January 6th feel like little Christmas in comparison, when you add up all the areas of American life that have been Co-opted by radical far left activists…

 

[Kieran]

This is the complete documentary:

 

[Moxie]

I don't suppose anyone watched the 4th Republican debates the other night. (Why would you?) Christie called out Trump in the way that no one will, and took Haley's side against the other two. Interesting. I post this video for the initial debate comments, not the later commentary, which I haven't watched.