The Trump Problem (the real one)

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7Wannabe5
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Ego said: Paranoid. The end is nigh. Faulty reasoning. There is the real Trump problem in a nutshell.
Economics trumps Politics. Physics trumps Economics.

Maybe my thinking is unduly influenced by the peculiar place on the planet I find myself occupying at the moment, but the essential problem, as I see it, is that Science and Practicality are increasingly diverging. IOW, for instance, the people in my neck of the woods who are least likely to believe in the likely results of global climate change are the most likely to have the skills to survive the results. It's cuckoo-bananas.

Chad
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by Chad »

Sorry, of course Ego and I were responding at the same time.

Image

@JP
Obviously, no one is saying all Trump supporters are racist (etc.), but being racist and supporting racists, even indirectly, raises valid concerns.
All while liberal coasties have given up what exactly?
You are correct. Liberal coasties have benefited from this. Though, it's incorrect to assume they all desired an urban life. I know I didn't when I graduated from college, but there was no other option. I did what I had to do.
I'm not saying those changes can't/shouldn't happen, only that we can't expect the group that received the least to give up the most.
The problem, as we have discussed in this thread, is that they don't want any of the potential solutions. Their solution, at least it seems to be the one they want, is a trade war, which will hurt other Americans just to give them the specific job they want. Though, it's not highly likely the trade war would get them a ton of jobs for reasons we have discussed before.

Of course, the same people that will be hurt by this trade war are the same people willing to be taxed to pay for education, welfare, etc. to help transition them, but they don't seem to want that. They seem to be falling into this trap:

"they’d prefer to live in a world where the average salary was $25,000 and they earned $50,000 than one where they earned $100,000 but the average was $200,000."
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... te/403201/

I agree we need to help them, but they need to meet us halfway and voting for Trump was not a halfway vote. Though, in the long run, I think they will view Trump very poorly unless he does a good job of telling them a story to obfuscate what he is actually doing.
adjust their religious beliefs to conform to modern standards of equality.
What have they been required to do? I'm not being flippant. Other than the business owners being required to provide certain health procedures, such as birth control, I don't know what they have been forced to do. Now, if you're suggesting society at large has shifted to where they make it uncomfortable to hate certain types of people, then I can see your point. But, I don't see how that social pressure is any different than when my cousin and his wife moved to Alabama the first question they were asked at a dinner with another couple was, "Have you found a church?" Both sides need to understand these types of things exist and live with them. (You probably hate discussing religion with me by now, sorry.)

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Sclass
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by Sclass »

Ego wrote:.

I've posted before that the median income for Trump supporters in South Carolina was $72,000, higher than Clinton supporters. Median, not average. Has anyone seen data on other .

Ego, I've seen something interesting in the upper middle class neighborhoods I live in (Bay Area CA and South Orange County CA). The Trump voters were not poor. Not rich but certainly not poor. If they complained about the way things were it was related to the prospects for their twenty something kids.

They were upset because the kids had to leave the area or the state to get by. The kids were educated but not part of the new economy powering CA. Left behind so to speak. I can detect a tinge of resentment when I say I'm a techie.

Last night I was up in Pasadena with my mom. I looked out the window and saw a thirty year old Caucasian neighbor hanging out with his friends on the street. He lives at home. I remember giving him a pep talk when he received his music degree ten years ago to be creative and cut a slice of the pie for himself. Well he's living at home at 30 exercising with his pals. I know his folks are rich because I've mistakenly opened their insurance policies that got delivered to mom.

That's on the middle of the day Friday. Heck he's in great shape doing sprints up the block shirtless with his fit pals. Great kid. If he were my son I'd pay to keep him close too.

What I'm getting at, without trying to jump into the political fight, is that some people who don't look like TV Trump voters are out there...possibly in numbers. Once people start associating them with poor, uneducated bigots they go silent and use our sealed ballot system.

My neighbors all around me in OC have kids struggling here and there. They're wealthy and quiet and white. I haven't heard a peep out of them about the election. We just talk about the hot SoCal winter and the Santa Ana wind.

RealPerson
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by RealPerson »

Dragline wrote: Welcome to the abyss. Your guides will be Steve "Goebbels" Bannon and Jeff "hey, boy" Sessions. The enemies list will be long but you'll get a free pass so long as you are willing to look the other way when the torture, killings, assaults on protesters and limitations on the First Amendment begin.
Name calling is not very productive. A president can pick his cabinet. We can judge their actions as they perform them. I am concerned about what I hear about these people in the mass media, but I also realize that the mass media have a long history is distorting the picture of things and people they don't agree with.

As to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul making statements....well, politicians will say all kinds of silly things to further their agenda. If Mitt Romney is seriously considering to accept the nomination as Secretary of State, he can't be that disturbed by a president Trump. It's not like Romney needs the paycheck.

"Good" presidents who received the liberal stamp of approval can do some really bad things: FDR ordered the Japanese Internment during WW2. Ask Japanese Americans how confident they are in their constitutional right being respected by a darling president of liberals. Obama used the IRS as a weapon against his political enemies, although we will never really know for sure since the IRS "lost" the evidence and their leadership took the fifth to avoid having to testify. We can fairly assume that Obama abused one of the most powerful and feared domestic government agencies to intimidate and threaten his opponents. So much for the rule of law under this darling president of the mass media.

These are just a couple of examples of supposedly "good" presidents violating your rights. When push comes to shove your constitutional rights are mostly window dressing and can be violated whenever it suits the government. That doesn't make racism right or better. All I am saying is that people get selectively upset when their pet peeves are involved. Everyone does that, but it helps to be reminded of that once in a while. Nobody calls FDR "Goebbles", but that is what he was to Japanese Americans. And that is not rumors or speculation. That is established historical fact.

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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by jacob »

Since there's lot of mentioning about having to move out of the troubled areas and seek out opportunities, I think this may apply. Land managers seem to have similar problems when trying to choose the optimal habitat to focus conservation efforts on. In particular, when a specie's preferred habitat (patch) doesn't actually match the optimal habitat (because the species itself or the managers are incapable of seeing this). This habitat is also called a trap patch and in this case, conservation efforts are wasted or at least inefficient. Also, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_trap

For humans, values other than survival may be more important.

Dragline
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by Dragline »

RealPerson wrote:
As to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul making statements....well, politicians will say all kinds of silly things to further their agenda.
What is Ron Paul's agenda, pray tell?

Trump continues to play victim and scapegoat anyone that says anything in opposition to his choices or rule, even private citizens. It's only going to get worse.

Last night a cast member of a play with zero political power says this to the V.P. elect:

“We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” said Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, the nation’s third vice president. “We truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us.”

Trump's reaction is to claim "harassment", act like Pence was in some kind of danger and demand an apology -- to a private citizen who had the temerity to speak up and whom he is supposed to be representing:

“Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing,” the Republican Trump tweeted Saturday. “The theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”

Who is crying about purported micro-aggressions now and talking about "safe spaces" for elected officials? Or is speaking to your elected representatives in a public place not allowed now?

Trump is a hypocrite and a bully all the way and demonstrates it almost every day. Anybody who criticizes him will be treated as a criminal. Those with the least power will be treated the worst.

Meanwhile, Bannon is crowing about how they are going to "rule for 50 years" and extolling the virtues of darkness.

Or did this stuff just "not happen"?

The_Bowme
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by The_Bowme »

Ego wrote: I've posted before that the median income for Trump supporters in South Carolina was $72,000, higher than Clinton supporters. Median, not average. Has anyone seen data on other states?

So that leads us to the fact that we are misunderstanding the "real" problem.
I have heard this point made a fair amount, but I think the fact that young people and minorities generally voted Clinton by a large margin would explain the difference in Clinton's median voter. I think an important question is what is the median income of people who voted in the election, as the low-income are much less likely to vote, period. Comparisons of Trump's median income to the state-wide or national median income are therefore not useful.

I think it's pretty clear that communities (defined geographically, not ethnically or culturally) that have done poorly economically in the past decades tended to vote for Trump. The exception would be rust-belt cities, where a mix of minority population, union types, and cosmopolitan values made Trump repugnant. I realize racism and sexism was a factor in the election, but the evidence that economics isn't involved in this result seems far from conclusive to me.


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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by jacob »

I think that one of the biggest problems with a two-party system is that voters are forced to choose between only two dishes (or none of the above). This forces voters to lump the liver in with the steak while making it easy for the other side to assume that everybody who picked the steak also likes liver (or approves of it; or doesn't consider it a deal-breaker).

Whereas, it in a parliamentary system, there would be more and visible parties and it would be easy to distinguish the nationalist/populist vote from the religious/conservative vote and that from the libertarian/free-trade vote because they'd generally each be their own separate party.

It seems to me that the R party now comprise three or more separate parties under a single umbrella now, where the Trump Party is just one of them. However, T being the majority party (as per RNC), it means that Trump heads the government which is formed by the R-coalition. However, it does not mean that everybody who supported the R-coalition is necessarily fully aligned behind the T-party base. Keep the approval ratings in mind.

Therefore, statistics that summaries the distribution with averages or variations to describe what's a bimodal or a trimodal distribution doesn't make much sense to me in terms of explaining what's going on. This requires more than a single variable to make sense of!

On the flip-side there's also that whole "if you break it, you buy it" argument which goes along with voting for a particular candidate or even staying at home (you own the winner). Making some effort to clarify one's position (alternatively not taking extreme positions) seems recommendable when hedging against future outcomes?!?

The_Bowme
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by The_Bowme »

Those were based on exit polling from primary contests, a group that will skew even more affluent than the general election. Comparing it to the national median income is not useful, as the poor and lower working class tend not to vote, especially not in primaries. Comparing Trump to Clinton to undermine economic influence is also not useful, as Clinton would have higher representation among young and minority voters for very good reasons unrelated to the economy (edit: and the young and minority votes tend to earn less than the median).

I'm sorry, but Michigan did not suddenly become more racist in 2016 after voting for Obama twice. Plenty of white people who voted for Obama previously voted for Trump this year, and plenty of black people who voted for Obama did not turn out. People might blame it on misogyny as determinant still, but a majority of the electorate is women.

I'm not quite sure if anyone is disagreeing here on the fundamentals. Is it contested that the long-term stagnation of wages of low and middle income earners, the hollowing out of local economies, and under-investment in public infrastructure contributed to this result?

Chad
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by Chad »

Who is saying it's only racism? No one is making that argument.

BRUTE
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by BRUTE »

Chad wrote:Who is saying it's only racism? No one is making that argument.
CS wrote:This article found no correlation with economic anxiety and Trump support. It was all racial anxiety.

BRUTE
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by BRUTE »

jennypenny wrote:Let's suppose I completely agree that people voted for Trump because they are racist. Why do you think this is suddenly an issue? Did 60 million people just wake up this year and realize they are racist? People scapegoat when their backs are against the wall. If they weren't suffering economically, they wouldn't be looking for a scapegoat. We all know that bad times give rise to baser instincts. A normally honest person will gladly steal to feed their hungry child, and in that situation most would empathize.
this + 1000.

in brute's opinion, liberals are making in a huge mistake in moralizing their politics. yes, it leads to very passionate supporters. but it is based on a mistaken mental model of human consciousness.

racism isn't caused by moral failure, it is caused by lack of inoculation. the reason urban liberals are less afraid isn't because they're "better" humans, it's because they more exposure to brown/black/yellow/red/green colored humans with funny clothes.

if racism is viewed as a moral failure, and apparently it can't be shamed or trained out of those dumb red humans in the midwest, then the only solution is total annihilation. that's the strategy currently pursued by liberals. it's a pretty bad strategy, because the red humans have all the guns and all the food and, let's be honest, all the country. and as of the election, they additionally have the white house and congress and the senate.

in brute's opinion, liberals with moralizing identity politics are similar to past religious moral doctrines. when the church says x and y behavior are caused by moral failure, are morally bad, and must be shamed or punished, there is no positive-sum way out of the situation. inherently morally evil humans must be annihilated or at least suppressed.

turns out that was a pretty incorrect assumption - there is no such thing as "moral character" of humans. humans are very much context-sensitive animals. like JP said, if a human can't feed his kids, he'll think stealing is just fine.

the solution is not to create The New Order of Liberal Identity Politics with an inquisition. this strategy just failed dramatically.

the solution is slow inoculation of the dumb red humans in the midwest to whatever it is they're afraid of.

racism can't be beaten out of humans. but it can be slowly drained when they can get a ride to the auto shop from their muslim neighbor, or when they send their kids to the same school as a Mexican family. brute has pretty much zero fear of muslims because he grew up with muslim neighbors, had crushes on their daughters, admired the cool older boys with their fancy sports cars, and received bribes in the form of absurdly sweet candies in plenty. it's hard to be afraid of one's own baby sitter.

moralizing is not wrong in the moral sense, it is wrong in the scientific sense. there is no basis for the concept of human moral character. it's simply a false view of reality. thus, the shaming and suppressing won't work.

and good luck with the annihilating when the other side thinks the 2nd amendment is more American than apple pie.

RealPerson
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by RealPerson »

Dragline wrote:
RealPerson wrote: Trump continues to play victim and scapegoat anyone that says anything in opposition to his choices or rule, even private citizens. It's only going to get worse.

Last night a cast member of a play with zero political power says this to the V.P. elect:

“We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,” said Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr, the nation’s third vice president. “We truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us. All of us.”

Trump's reaction is to claim "harassment", act like Pence was in some kind of danger and demand an apology -- to a private citizen who had the temerity to speak up and whom he is supposed to be representing:

“Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing,” the Republican Trump tweeted Saturday. “The theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”

Who is crying about purported micro-aggressions now and talking about "safe spaces" for elected officials? Or is speaking to your elected representatives in a public place not allowed now?

Trump is a hypocrite and a bully all the way and demonstrates it almost every day. Anybody who criticizes him will be treated as a criminal. Those with the least power will be treated the worst.

Meanwhile, Bannon is crowing about how they are going to "rule for 50 years" and extolling the virtues of darkness.
A cast of a play has every right to express their opinion and an audience has every right to boo a future VP. Maybe not done in the best possible taste, but certainly legal.

Trump may very well be thin skinned and tweet happy. Once president, I hope he will develop thicker skin, such as Bush had to develop when the White House press corps remained seated as a sign of disrespect when the president entered the room. Time will tell.

Tweeting about being upset by the cast of a play is freedom of expression exercised by Trump. He does have the same right as the cast members I would think. And his tweet may be just as silly and tasteless as the booing, but both are lawful actions.

Killing US civilians with drone attacks without due process, or using the power of federal agencies to intimidate those with whom you disagree? Those are examples of serious decisions with serious consequences. Those are actions, not words. Those are illegal actions. There is a fundamental difference between tweeting something dumb or saying something stupid, vs abusing the power of the executive branch for vindictiveness or political gain. A tweet, a comment, locker room talk, or talking about a 50 year reign, are all just words. Abuse of power is an entirely different thing. I am sorry, but I just can't see those as equivalent. Besides, Trump and his chosen appointees can't abuse power until January 20 because they have no power until then. If Trump orders the IRS to audit the cast members because of their free speech, I will protest such abuse.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by black_son_of_gray »

A long but interesting/insightful take on Trump, racism/white nationalism, and the media coverage of Trump:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/yo ... ying-wolf/

Dragline
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by Dragline »

"Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 3m3 minutes ago
Very rude and insulting of Hamilton cast member to treat our great future V.P. Mike Pence to a theater lecture.Couldn't even memorize lines!"

So VP Pence is the "Great Leader". I suppose DT is the "Dear Leader". Welcome to North Korea. No critiques of leaders allowed. Better learn your place. Sycophants always welcome.

And remind me, why is this even on the table:

“What does it say about America if we’re going to inflict torture on people,” [former GOP presidential candidate McCain] said.

http://wtop.com/government/2016/11/mcca ... einstated/

RealPerson
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by RealPerson »

BRUTE wrote:racism can't be beaten out of humans. but it can be slowly drained when they can get a ride to the auto shop from their muslim neighbor, or when they send their kids to the same school as a Mexican family. brute has pretty much zero fear of muslims because he grew up with muslim neighbors, had crushes on their daughters, admired the cool older boys with their fancy sports cars, and received bribes in the form of absurdly sweet candies in plenty. it's hard to be afraid of one's own baby sitter.
+1! Very well said. I grew up without a muslim in sight so to speak. It took getting to know some to get over my ignorance and misconceptions about them. But the people I got to know would not have blown themselves up in a crowd. Clearly, we are not talking about the same kind of muslim. Then, hearing that some suicide bombers apparently radicalized in a matter of weeks to a few months gives me pause. How do you distinguish one kind from the other kind, and how do you prevent one kind from turning into the other kind? Those are real questions and make it so much easier for a guy like Trump to single that group out in his campaign. He is offering a simple answer to these questions, even if it is the wrong answer.

Riggerjack
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by Riggerjack »

A long but interesting/insightful take on Trump, racism/white nationalism, and the media coverage of Trump:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/yo ... ying-wolf/
That was a great article!

"Stop centering criticism of Donald Trump around this sort of stuff, and switch to literally anything else. Here is an incompetent thin-skinned ignorant boorish fraudulent omnihypocritical demagogue with no idea how to run a country, whose philosophy of governance basically boils down to “I’m going to win and not lose, details to be filled in later”, and all you can do is repeat, again and again, how he seems popular among weird Internet teenagers who post frog memes. In the middle of an emotionally incontinent reality TV show host getting his hand on the nuclear button, your chief complaint is that in the middle of a few dozen denunciations of the KKK, he once delayed denouncing the KKK for an entire 24 hours before going back to denouncing it again. When a guy who says outright that he won’t respect elections unless he wins them does, somehow, win an election, the headlines are how he once said he didn’t like globalists which means he must be anti-Semitic."

This link has been posted in this thread twice, (three times now) with no further mention? I like his mothodologies for determining white supremacists, though he probably missed some from the very racist Moridor.

Chad
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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by Chad »

Valid points by both you and the author. I probably missed it, as I try to stay away from Slate and don't always click on links from Slate and other websites that are all one team. I lean that way anyway. I don't want to cloud up my thinking with too much one side.

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Re: The Trump Problem (the real one)

Post by jacob »


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