Should Canada Be Preparing for a Destabilized USA?

[bkd]

Originally Posted by ZeDgE

Electoral college won Obama the election, double standards at work.

What exactly was your point with this statement?

There is no double standard and your grasp on past US elections and Barack Obama's Presidency leaves a lot to be desired. Obama won the popular vote by a few million over both John McCain and Mitt Romney. There is no comparison to his scope and margin of victory and Trump's... so what double standard are you talking about exactly?

[Epicurean]

Originally Posted by ZeDgE

Electoral college won Obama the election, double standards at work.

2008: Barack Obama's margin of victory: 7.27% (9,550,193 votes)
2012: Barack Obama's margin of victory: 3.86% (4,982,291 votes)
2016: Donald Trump's margin of victory: −2.10% (−2,864,974 votes)

Source

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I think that the dung-flailing on both sides is creating an awful lot of heat and very little light. Calling everyone on the right a Nazi (although demonstrably there are some) or everyone on the left haughty champagne socialists (although demonstrably there are some) alienates a whole lot of regular people with real concerns.

So let's please avoid calling people subhuman trash or oppressive elites. If the main goal of your post is to say something which makes you feel good about yourself as opposed to actually advancing discussion, it's best kept to yourself and off the internet.

This is an astute observation, but to take it one step further one has to wonder why the main result has been an emboldened and strengthened right, while on the other side the left is scrambling and disorganized.

I don't think this is just because Trump won the election either. He is a symptom and not the cause.

There is a change that was occurring some time before that made people feel more comfortable about expressing sympathy for stuff like the Confederacy and its racism, and that helped make someone like Trump president.

[hipster duck]

While it does nobody any favours to lump all Trump voters as deplorables, I think we would all be surprised by how high a percent of the population lacks any scruples, and would support barbaric activities if it meant that they could personally get ahead in life. It's basically selfishness taken to its extreme.

For example, after the war, the US occupation force conducted a poll of Germans about their thoughts on the Holocaust. Something like >30% of the Germans living in the American zone thought that the Holocaust was "necessary for the security of Germany". This was after all the evidence of what had happened in the camps was laid out on the table for everyone to see.

We'll never know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Americans who lack a moral compass, and who voted, voted for Trump.

This is presumptuous on my part, but the fact of the matter is that if the left wing is guilty of anything it's that people on the left think they know how you should live better than you do, and people on the right are guilty of being selfish.

Trump himself is selfish. The Trump platform was about being selfish. There was no prescription of how to build a "better society". The left is about meddling, yes, but the Trump campaign was about tearing down that meddling.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by ZeDgE

Electoral college won Obama the election, double standards at work.

Perhaps you should round them all up and put them in prison. Make them wear badges in public. Total thought control and assimilation or else. Does this only apply to white people or anyone who does not conform?

You cant control peoples thoughts.. pretty sure the constitution protects individual liberty, a persons right to free will and to live their life how they see fit within the law. Which is what a true liberal believes. Or used to anyway.. That includes people with different points of view. If their views are extreme and they break the law they will be dealt with accordingly. It seems some on the left are hell bent on turning us into some totalitarian society where everyone must think and act the same. Kind of ironic since that what they accuse the right of trying to do. Both sides are insane as far as I'm concerned.

My Dad was a WW2 vet who fought Nazis, pretty sure this is not what they fought for.

Obama's Electoral College results did not reflect his wins in terms of the popular vote?

[ZeDgE]

Originally Posted by whatnext

That still makes zero sense.

Neither does calling entire geographic areas of people subhuman trash. But here we are.

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Obama's Electoral College results did not reflect his wins in terms of the popular vote?

Trumps rant seemed to say otherwise. Demanding a recount. Which was what I was getting at. Was not aware of the popular vote. I never paid any attention to to US politics prior to all this garbage, it's hard to avoid it. I apologize if I miss understood this.

[rousseau]

The hysterical posture of the social justice warriors and the identity politics crew doesn't help things, it's true. It has served to alienate much of the white working class who should be the Democrats' base. This is a real problem. But the asinine stupidity and the attendant ills it's causing in American society are so asymmetrical they verge on caricature.

In case people forget how sinister the menace of right wing perfidy is in the U.S., the most ignoble list ever assembled in U.S. politics makes it plain: Reagan - Bush II - Palin - Trump.

This is not "many sides." And what happened in Charlottesville wasn't either. Christ! Nazis? Seriously? You go out to protest Nazis, there's inevitably violence, and there's a problem with hate on "many sides"?

Here's the thing: theoretically the alt-right racist scumbags could have had their little march and they could have been ignored, and theoretically that could have diminished their impact. In theory. Because maybe the alt-right is just a minor boil on the body politic that will resolve itself after a while.

Is that theory reasonable? Can you just "ignore the trolls"? Well, you have to ask yourself: why did so many people, not just the "antifa" crew or whoever they are, feel the need to protest against the white nationalists? Was it just an overwrought overreach in our age of identity politics, or did they recognize that this emboldened and growing fringe needs to be checked at every turn?

I think it's the latter.

[rousseau]

Anyone old enough to remember a time when you could poke fun at how preposterous the very idea of Nazis being in America was?

• Video Link

[ZeDgE]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Anyone old enough to remember a time when you could poke fun at how preposterous the very idea of Nazis being in America was?

[youtube]ulCw7RJ5eE8[youtube]

Nazis maybe, but racists always existed.

I don't think they ever went away, they were just ignored. The current political climate is bringing them out of hiding.

They definitely need to be kept in check and spoken out against. As well as handled by the law if needed. Many will this time as they have shown their faces.

The whole idea of racism is stupid. Humans have been on earth for a long time, moving around, mixing etc. Can anyone claim to be a pure race anymore? The word race needs to be removed from our vocabulary. I has no meaning other than to divide.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The hysterical posture of the social justice warriors and the identity politics crew doesn't help things, it's true. It has served to alienate much of the white working class who should be the Democrats' base. This is a real problem. But the asinine stupidity and the attendant ills it's causing in American society are so asymmetrical they verge on caricature.

In case people forget how sinister the menace of right wing perfidy is in the U.S., the most ignoble list ever assembled in U.S. politics makes it plain: Reagan - Bush II - Palin - Trump.

This is not "many sides." And what happened in Charlottesville wasn't either. Christ! Nazis? Seriously? You go out to protest Nazis, there's inevitably violence, and there's a problem with hate on "many sides"?

Here's the thing: theoretically the alt-right racist scumbags could have had their little march and they could have been ignored, and theoretically that could have diminished their impact. In theory. Because maybe the alt-right is just a minor boil on the body politic that will resolve itself after a while.

Is that theory reasonable? Can you just "ignore the trolls"? Well, you have to ask yourself: why did so many people, not just the "antifa" crew or whoever they are, feel the need to protest against the white nationalists? Was it just an overwrought overreach in our age of identity politics, or did they recognize that this emboldened and growing fringe needs to be checked at every turn?

I think it's the latter.

Great post. The people who are saying "both sides" are a problem, are also part of the problem


For example - how dare this guy go out and protest people who are against his very existence:

https://www.theroot.com/interview-20...out-1797796038

[someone123]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The hysterical posture of the social justice warriors and the identity politics crew doesn't help things, it's true. It has served to alienate much of the white working class who should be the Democrats' base. This is a real problem. But the asinine stupidity and the attendant ills it's causing in American society are so asymmetrical they verge on caricature.

The "coastal elites" or whatever you want to call them have extremely little empathy for their rural compatriots and their canonical ideological stance around gender issues, to take another example, is increasingly detached from reality.

In one representative opinion I read, somebody wrote that the rural American towns that are falling apart where nobody has jobs and half the population is on heroin or oxycontin have nobody to blame but themselves, and that in any case that phenomenon is inconsequential next to the suffering of refugees in Syria, so we shouldn't be talking about it.

I've also read feminist opinions that insist that, to make up for pro-male bias in hiring in the past, every new university faculty hire should be female now. The blowback for that was nonexistent. But post somewhere that a scientific study identified population-level gender differences in ability in math and you will be pilloried. You could easily lose your job.

The extreme example of neo-Nazis driving cars into crowds of people is worse but, well, the median on both sides is still extremely crazy now. Neither one presents a plausible direction for the US. If the country is to move forward, both ideologies will have to be replaced by something that is grounded in reality and is broadly fair to everybody, not just 50% or less of the population.

[geotag277]

Ah yes, I suppose it's that time to pretend that neonazism never occurred before Trump, that things like the KKK never existed, and how we should all just ignore the fact that Obama's tenure as President was marked by significantly deteriorating race relations - note, it was correlated, not caused, but things like Attorney General Eric Holder referencing "my people" when throwing out cases certainly didn't exactly get things off to a very good start.

It's always depressing witnessing the vapid intellect and gargantuan ignorance on display, all in the name of political opportunism to promote one brand of politics over the other. For all our advances as society - cell phones, a criminal justice system, the internet - these instances of shameless political commentary really represent the abyss of human nature staring us in the face and how close we are teetering on the edge.

Blaming Trump for Charlottesville is like blaming Obama for Dallas - nonsensical politically charged garbage that any halfway intelligent human being with an ounce of empathy would be ashamed of leveraging into some kind of grotesque justification for "their political side".

The fact of the matter is that many of the social problems occurring is a byproduct of the fact that the American government has been failing the American people for generations - some would say the New Deal was the last significant social reforms the American people ever saw - and it isn't the fault of whoever is sitting in the white house that is the problem, it is the disingenuous hypocritical bought and paid for members of congress who perennially sit on their hands making their friends rich while doing jack all for the American people. There is a longstanding pattern of Federal power continually usurping State-level institutions such as education and welfare, and driving those programs into the ground. Whenever Canadians blather on about wishing for a system of government with stronger centralized powers I always wonder if they have any idea about what is currently happening south of the border. Threads like this remind me they generally don't have a clue.

Regardless, as I think it goes without saying that most people here would lean towards favouring a certain political ideology on the left - I would really implore especially those younger readers to start paying attention, thinking critically, and cut through the garbage. Whether we are talking about George Bush, Sarah Palin, Stephen Harper, Brad Wall, or Donald Trump, the playbook seems the same - concoct a mountain of venomous rhetoric, hurling the most sensationalist and hyperbolic caricatures at your political opponents, and then scratch your head and wonder how things got so divisive.

Is it really the case that all those individuals who just happen to reside on the other side of the political spectrum are really these ignoble cartoonish monsters who have no redeeming qualities and who are solely propped in power by the lowest subhumans who happen to be living among us?

I leave it as an exercise for the reader, but you won't find your answers here among rhetoric such as has occurred on the last few pages.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This is an astute observation, but to take it one step further one has to wonder why the main result has been an emboldened and strengthened right, while on the other side the left is scrambling and disorganized.

That's a really interesting observation.

I would venture a hypothesis that in Western countries, ordinary, "centrist" people might turn out to be more sympathetic to the "right" on issues related to immigration/integration/culture, and that it did translate into a bit more political clout than before for such movements. Meanwhile, there's a certain element in the left that is saying exactly the wrong things to these people's ears. The two trends combined work together.

[niwell]

It's also not as obvious, but there is very much a strengthened democratic socialist left movement in the US. They just don't have mainstream political representation as the Democrats are in shambles.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Trump won the electoral college btw, he lost the election by several million votes. The electoral college gives redneck votes more value.

Actually, the main skew it introduces is that it gives electoral weight to statehood. (It would be the only skew if House seats were perfectly proportional to population, but I'm not sure that the most populated states aren't slightly disfavored there.)

So, for example, New England votes have more value because it's divided into many states.

If New England was a single state, it would be #5 in population, slotting between New York (#4) and Illinois (falling to #6), it would be a safe blue state (NH wouldn't be a swing state anymore) but overall, it would be casting less blue electoral votes in elections than it currently does being split into smaller states.

It's not about population density at all, but rather about the ratio of population per state. Of course, it tends to correlate, for obvious reasons, but the former isn't what gives votes more value. Votes in low-population states such as Delaware, Rhode Island and Vermont all have a boosted value, even if those are liberal, East Coast, blue states.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by niwell

It's also not as obvious, but there is very much a strengthened democratic socialist left movement in the US. They just don't have mainstream political representation as the Democrats are in shambles.

In most Western countries I suppose an anti-globalization party would be able to unite good chunks of the "right" and "left". Certainly would work at least for many Bernie/Trump voters.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by someone123

The "coastal elites" or whatever you want to call them have extremely little empathy for their rural compatriots and their canonical ideological stance around gender issues, to take another example, is increasingly detached from reality.

I disagree. I think the extreme detachment from reality is concentrated in the fringes of academia and its cast-offs. However, the so-called coastal elites are probably elided into the grouping of the 45-gender crowd because they aren't vociferously speaking out against them in the way that Milo and Jordan Peterson are.

Who, in turn, are three goblin farts from fairyland. Ever heard Jordan Peterson speak? He says much that sounds so plausible and reasonable, and then he blows it all to kingdom come with nutty claims about social justice warriors portending a new fascism (to name just one of his far-fetched ideas). Which is just...totally crazy. I mean, sure, the SJW ideologues are certainly hurting some people with their inanities, but they're not exactly brown shirts. They're not exactly rounding people up, and they're not exactly looking to invade less politically correct countries. Etc. And that is obviously, obviously, freakin' obviously never going to happen. I mean, c'mon.

Meanwhile, the alt-right's figurehead is throwing around reckless threats against China, North Korea and Venezuela, and his brainless minions on the ground are salivating at the prospect of fireworks.

Originally Posted by someone123

The extreme example of neo-Nazis driving cars into crowds of people is worse but, well, the median on both sides is still extremely crazy now.

You can't quantify it exactly, but I think it's obviously not the same on both sides. How many snarling right wing assholes on Youtube or wherever are claiming that the progressive "cuck" deserved to be killed at the rally? How much noise was there from the marchers and their supporters that they were ready for violence? How many mouth-breathers in the U.S. south are upset that the statues of military figures who fought a war explicitly and entirely to preserve their right to enslave human beings are being taken down?

What percentage of the population do these people represent? It's not huge, but it's not small.

On the other side of the equation, what percentage of the "progressive left" vociferously support the shooting of police officers by black people? They're out there on the fringe, but they're a vanishingly small number of radical elements that the vast majority of Black Lives Matter supporters decry at every turn.

Identity politics is more difficult. A lot of it really is nuts, but a lot of it is just about the dignity of people who don't fit into the standard slots in society. Gay marriage was the ultimate identity politics battle. What reasonable person in 2017 would argue against it? On the other hand, I agree that the case of the gender issue dissenter at Google really is disturbing, that there is a somewhat rigid orthodoxy in many circles about this stuff, but I foresee this kind of thing calming down as the pendulum swings. There are too many people in the mushy centre who don't fervently believe the idealistic claptrap for it to survive for very long, even if they understand that the motivations behind it are for justice and equality.

[JM5]

From what I understand, the nazi march in Charlottesville was organized in protest of the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue on the UVA campus. As I understand it, the public parks in Charlottesville, originally named after Confederate generals Lee and Jackson have been renamed in recent years.

If you actually bother to do some research regarding the history of the US civil war, you will realise that these men were not exactly rabid supporters of slavery. In fact Lee was said to be relieved that slavery ended with the defeat. Rather they were defenders of their home, way of life and the Southern nationalist ideal from the economic and cultural domination of the North. The parks and statues were named/erected long ago, when the victorious federal government did not have the gall nor the legal authority to remove symbols of the defeated rebellion. Instead they are now being renamed and removed by a liberal activist mayor and city council.

As someone who was born and grew up in a socialist dictatorship where renaming streets, removing statues and jailing people for wrongthink was simply par for the course, it's difficult to stand by and watch as the exact same thing happens in the country that has been seen as the leader of the "free world". If you're sitting there reading my words, thinking this is somehow different THINK AGAIN. Decisions like this never came from high up in Socialist countries either, it was always small time local politicians that wanted to leave their mark and kiss up to the higher ups that did this type of dirty work there too.

It's also disheartening that the only people willing to protest this blatant revision of history and disenfranchising of a large segment (if not majority) of the population of Virginia are nazis because many regular citizens are either too afraid to speak out or are themselves brainwashed into thinking that authoritarian social engineering and overturning the established order is in their best interest. I can't predict the future, but based on personal experience, I really don't think it will be.

We'll have to see where this goes. I really think that many people who have been sitting on the sidelines, comfortable in their suburban homes, generous and welcoming to minorities and alternative lifestyles will slowly start to feel the sting of the divisive socialist identity politics. Their generosity will come to an end and those in power, the media and academia who keep pushing the identity politics/equality of outcomes agenda will be left isolated.

At least, that's what I hope will happen.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by rousseau

On the other side of the equation, what percentage of the "progressive left" vociferously support the shooting of police officers by black people? They're out there on the fringe, but they're a vanishingly small number of radical elements that the vast majority of Black Lives Matter supporters decry at every turn.

My position is more that this isn't a fruitful way to look at the situation. Let's imagine a hypothetical situation where one side invents a new type of behaviour that's so bad that it is clearly worse than any current behaviour. Would we then stop worrying about the things we now worry about?

The question of who is worse is really just a false dilemma that partisans like to use to get people to support them. My take instead is that there is not much worth salvaging on either side of US politics, even if one side has done worse things than the other.

On the other hand, I agree that the case of the gender issue dissenter at Google really is disturbing, that there is a somewhat rigid orthodoxy in many circles about this stuff, but I foresee this kind of thing calming down as the pendulum swings. There are two many people in the mushy centre who don't fervently believe the idealistic claptrap for it to survive for very long, even if they understand that the motivations behind it are for justice and equality.

Big corporations are essentially autocratic. Once they crack down and show they will fire people for believing the wrong thing, others shut up unless they also want to be fired. I am not sure why this situation would get better instead of worse given the dynamic.

The consequences are pretty bad too. The Google memo writer got fired and is probably going to have a much harder time finding employment now. The actual impact of the gender balancing policies isn't entirely clear to me but if those really are wrong then that could be bad too, and it seems like there's no way to fix it now because that process isn't transparent and open to reason.

[harls]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This is an astute observation.

Originally Posted by lio45

That's a really interesting observation.

Mr. Aylmer knows what's up, and I'm not just saying that because I live in Aylmer. I always enjoy his point of view.

He's very learn-ed, I'm learnding lots from him.

• Video Link