Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Thoughts on the US Election

Or…Where Do We Go From Here?

When I was in high school, I learned an important lesson about debating. It isn’t enough to have a strong position yourself; you need to be able to answer the opposition. And answering the opposition means actually understanding it.

We live in a world of memes, of sound bites, of divided tribes who fail to listen to each other. While the other side has no obligation to listen to you, or you to them, if you actually want to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with you, you have to willingly accept that obligation. Your sound bite, like mine, offers no real force of argument outside your bubble…and the people within that bubble are already of like mind.

This is what people mean by “virtue signaling” – we aren’t trying to persuade anyone so much as we are trying to show that we are part of the tribe. Republicans make fun of liberal virtue signaling, ironically using that as a means to virtue signal amongst themselves. We don’t actually look at, talk about, or – gods forbid – attempt to understand the other side on any issue. We snipe and then retreat, and the other side does the same.

We have to do better.

(“Well, why don’t they have to do better?” you ask. I will get to that.)

Eight years ago, I was asked by a gentleman I greatly respect to wait two weeks before jumping into the political debate again. These people were mourning Hilary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, and they needed time to process. Well, it is two weeks after a decisive Republican victory, where all of Congress as well as the White House turned red. Last time, of course, led to four years of “Russia! Russia! Russia!” rather than an admission of defeat in a fair election, followed by a Joe Biden victory which was also not followed by an admission of defeat in a fair election.

I honestly think that, were it not for Covid, we would be almost done with Trump because Biden would not have won. Not only was this outcome predictable, but I predicted it in 2016 during the primary when the DNC rigged their primary election to prevent their only truly popular candidate – Bernie Sanders – from getting the nomination. To put it in Star Trek terms, the blatancy of the primary election rigging, and fact that the majority of Democratic voters simply denied it or shrugged it off, was when we slipped into the Mirror Universe, and while what has followed domestically and on the word stage is certainly distressing, it is not at all surprising.

(And, yes, media sources contradict that rigging, or contradict the illegality of it, but they do not answer the evidence while doing so. It should be remembered that both Donna Brazile and Elizabeth Warren agreed it was rigged before the DNC got ahead of the story. The DNC also successfully argued in court that, while not admitting to the primary being rigged, they had a right to do so.)

In the wake of the more recent election, I am hearing about people cutting each other off, and have seen people using the Republican victory as an excuse to hurt family and people who would otherwise be considered friends. Honestly, do you really think that half the country is evil? I certainly do not. But I do think that politicians and their media allies have been pushing that narrative for a decade now, and it has eroded American society to an unhealthy degree.

If you understand how FOX media misleads their viewers, then you should be able to understand how MSNBC and CNN do the same for a different niche market. If you understand how MSNBC and CNN do this, you should be able to understand that FOX does the same. Both sides are being sold different versions of reality, but neither side is being presented with an accurate version. Actually talking to each other, and being willing to look at primary sources, helps a lot in gaining a clearer picture of what is actually happening.

The Republicans are not your friends. The Democrats are not your friends. Losing friends or family over either is, frankly, insane. Much of what your party tells you is untrue. That goes for both parties. They have the same donors, and serve the same interests. At this point, the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy. You will never get your democracy back without upsetting the apple cart. Trump may not be the upset you want, but you can be certain that he will not be the last, unless one of two things happens:

(1) Real change happens which disempowers the ultra-wealthy, or

(2) The ultra-wealthy consolidate their power enough to prevent that.

You can take heart that the election was not an overwhelming mandate for conservatism. Those few Democrats who have pushed progressive values actually did well, even where electors where decidedly against Kamala Harris. Where it was a ballot issue, states wanted a higher minimum wage. States have overwhelmingly supported pro-choice policies…so much so that more conservative states are attempting to legislate what happens beyond their borders. You can take these election results to indicate that Americans want progress, but that the electorate largely understands that Democrats block progress rather than enable it. I can’t imagine that supporting a genocide or preventing an end to the conflict in Ukraine which US actions certainly were responsible for has helped the Democrats much, either.

I have argued in the past that being a “social justice warrior” doesn’t help all that much, but being a “social justice cleric” – helping people become better rather than cutting them down or cutting them off – does. While I fully understand that tolerance has limits, I have also argued that intolerance is far from the ideal first reaction. I am arguing the same today.

Why don’t they have to do better? Of course everyone doing better should be our goal. You can help people to do better. You can’t force them.

There is also this: I know that some of you still believe it, but RussiaGate was bullshit. I read the Mueller Report, and I watched his testimony to Congress. I also watched the impeachment proceedings. In both cases, the Republicans came off as far more honest than the Democrats, and the media came off as less honest than either. You might not see it that way, but the majority of voters clearly did. Where we are now is entirely the fault of the Democrats and their enablers. I see no signs that the DNC is going to own their shit, so if we are not going to slide further into dystopia, we need to own ours.

The way I see it, progressives can either try to make allies, or they can give conservatives more reason to ignore and deride them. Making allies requires understanding what other people think, and why, and answering the opposition. My take on Donald Trump is that he really does want to be considered a great president. Yes, it is all about him, but what advantage is there in allowing the “swamp monsters” the only say as to how that should be achieved? Rather than spending the next four years telling him how much you hate him, why not tell him what would make America great? Why not push him to provide universal healthcare when Obama could not?

Or, you know, you can always join the DNC in blaming everyone else, and see where that takes you.

16 comments:

  1. The idea that the Left can exploit Trump's vanity to try and get him to enact progressive policies sounds good on paper, but it doesn't sound like it would work. IMO, there's too much headwind pushing Trump further and further right. And in the meantime, my trans cousin, my immigrant friends, and maybe even my mixed race son could all be in danger from his policies and followers. I don't think there's going to be much kumbaya in the next four years. Rather than try to push Trump to more progressive ideas, I'd put my effort into pushing the Democrats to more progressive ideas. It will probably fail (they love their Clintonian politics and big money donors), but it would be less wasted effort.

    I do appreciate where you're coming from, though, and who knows, maybe you're right!

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    1. You are under no obligation to try, of course, but Trump has already proven himself malleable to public opinion, while the DNC fought harder against Sanders than against Trump. The DNC has proven itself wholly intractable - it is against their economic interests. That doesn't mean you can't try to push them left, but I wouldn't rely on that.

      And, the DNC's game is to blame everyone else, and the vast majority of democratic voters you meet are happy to enable that. I have found very few allies attempting to push the DNC left, aside from the brief hope provided by Bernie Sanders. The DNC moved heaven and earth to crush that hope.

      Like it or not, we have four years of Trump. We can attempt to use that, or we can have another four-year hate fest that serves to push him (and his followers) even further to the right. It is entirely the hope of the DNC that you will choose the hate fest option, because that gives them hope of being elected in the future while making no change to their corporate-controlled policies.

      Meanwhile, 70% of Americans want universal healthcare, and you don't get that number without including conservatives. There are things you have in common with Trump supporters. Probably far more than you know. Again, people who voted for Trump also voted for AOC and Nina Turner, People who voted for Trump also voted to raise the minimum wage. People who voted for Trump also voted down anti-choice measures. Half the nation is not evil.

      The hate fest option fuels their own hate fest response, and increases the risk to your trans cousin, immigrant friends, and others. Even if you don't think Trump can be pushed, trying to do so takes some of that fuel away.

      Absolutely, try to push the DNC left if you think that is a real option. Personally, I think that the evidence is more than clear that the DNC has become an impediment to progress, and has been since Bill Clinton. If somehow Sanders had won as an independent, I don't think the DNC or their media allies would have been any less "Russia! Russia! Russia!" than they were with Trump. That had already started in 2016.

      Make no mistake. If you try pushing Trump left, you will be labelled an "enabler". When it comes down to it, the DNC has shown a willingness to do anything to keep their corporate donors happy. If RussiaGate proved nothing else, it showed that the vast majority of democratic voters will go along with that label regardless of what critical thinking indicates, and a lot of them will continue to believe even after it is disproved. If the "sharp as ever" Biden comments proved nothing else, they showed that the majority of democratic voters will support even an obvious lie, and then forgive it immediately when it is admitted to be a lie. There is a groupthink bubble, and it is dangerous to step outside of it.

      The choice remains yours. Would you rather make alliances to try and achieve the progressive things both sides agree on? Or would you rather retreat further into that bubble?

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    2. I agree with you that the DNC is probably a larger impediment to progress, but in my opinion, if progressives follow the conservative playbook from 30 some years ago, and start taking over local governments pushing the progressive agenda, that will bubble up to the DNC the way Tea Party politics took over the GOP.

      I think Trump is easily influenced, but he's flighty. Once he gets his sound bite or photo op, he's quickly influenced by something else. I mean, he's been promising healthcare for 9 years now, and it's always 2 weeks away. We could get him to say he supports progressive policies, but I wouldn't put money on him actually following through with any of them. He's suckered several of my former Bernie supporting friends for years now, but he never has any substance to the posturing. Meanwhile, all of his cabinet and staff will be trying to implement their "anti-woke, anti-LGBTQ, anti-leftist" agenda, and probably making it work, because no matter what Trump says, they'll control the levers of power for at least the next two years.

      So I respectfully disagree, but would like to hold out just a bit of hope that you are correct in this.

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    3. //I agree with you that the DNC is probably a larger impediment to progress//

      Only probably? In that case, they are at least as big an impediment to progress as the GOP, and the real danger is that some people become convinced that “reforming” them is the way out. They have been playing the incrementalism and reform traps for decades now.

      // but in my opinion, if progressives follow the conservative playbook from 30 some years ago, and start taking over local governments pushing the progressive agenda, that will bubble up to the DNC the way Tea Party politics took over the GOP.//

      First off, the DNC protects their spoiler candidates from progressives far more than it ever opposes Republicans. At the end of the day, Republicans and Democrats work for the same donors and progressives are the enemy of those donors.

      Secondly, your understanding of the Tea Party is wrong. The Tea Party took control of the RNC by refusing to vote for candidates who didn’t do what they want. The very opposite of Vote Blue No Matter Who.


      //I think Trump is easily influenced, but he's flighty. Once he gets his sound bite or photo op, he's quickly influenced by something else.//

      Easily influenced and flighty are the same thing.

      Your argument here boils down to “Even if we get Trump to say the US should have universal healthcare, he won’t do it, so we shouldn’t try.” If Trump never did anything he said, you might have a point. That “he's been promising healthcare for 9 years now, and it's always 2 weeks away” makes this an easier push not a harder one. Trump hasn’t been in power for 9 years, and the last time he was deliberately prevented from following up on promises by RussiaGate, That doesn’t mean that he means what he says, but it does mean that your objection here has no teeth.

      //We could get him to say he supports progressive policies//

      No you can’t. But you just might be able to get him to act on popular policies which also happen to be progressive.

      //So I respectfully disagree//

      It’s a testable hypothesis, and none of your reasoning points to anything suggesting it should not be tested.

      Meanwhile, “reform the DNC” has actually been tested, and it failed. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying, but it does mean that if you are not willing to try anything else, you are helping to consolidate the power of the oligarchs who control America.

      You can make the choice to not even try, but it is not a choice I can make or respect.

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    4. I never said "vote Blue no matter who" so I'm not sure why you bring that up. But that's a minor point. To the big issue, I don't think we'll ever change the DNC old guard. We need to start electing new young progressives to local office and support them as they move up. A generatiknal change. Which will take time.

      Anyway, it looks like some progressives have taken up this idea, and I will support them in this effort. Video with details:

      https://youtu.be/Coch44bVNGU?si=HAwBaMI1UFbHR1A8

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    5. The entire thrust of your responses has been to somehow fix the DNC. But the DNC is going to fight you far harder than it fights Republicans, and protects its conservative incumbents against progressives. And, having won the battle in court to decide just who is on the ballot without your input, one has to question the sanity of trying to fix the DNC by voting for them.

      By all means, do that as well, but if you are hoping that is enough, I cannot follow you down that path.

      On top of that, as Obama showed, anyone who is in the least bit progressive who does get elected is redirected toward conservative, authoritarian values. You would need a sea change, where the DNC was all (or nearly all) replaced at once in order for that to be effective.

      Of course, if that is all you do - hope for a generational change which takes time - you also give time to the forces arrayed against you...and waiting for that change, even if it did occur, will very likely be a case of "too little, too late".

      If you reject any potential plan that doesn't involve voting for the DNC, having directly said "Vote Blue No Matter Who" isn't required.

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    6. It's funny. I'm not rejecting your proposal. I'm skeptical of it, but I never rejected the idea. I admitted in my first post here that you could be right. I'm not trying to say that a generational change in the DNC is the only way to go. But it would build the network that orogressives need to produce in order to effect changes. And Trump will be long gone by the time that is done.

      In the meantime, sure, we should try to push Trump and see if it will work.

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    7. I feel certain that you will unde5stand how, when a person proposes trying X, and you respond with "I don't think X will work; we should try A, B, and C." that the fist person might take from your statements that you are rejecting their proposal.

      This is doubly true if they are proposing X because A, B, and C have been tried for the last decade or so, and the first person not only noted that they didn't work, but outlined why.

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    8. That's a very reductive reading of my original post. I did say that I thought your plan was unlikely to work (not that it couldn't work). I said what I think would be better, but noted that it also probably would not work. Then, I suggested that I could be wrong and you could be right. I thought that was a fairly open-minded response. I guess I was wrong about that, too. Anyway, I'm ready to get back to discussing elf-games.

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    9. Personally, I think you have a far better chance of a progressive infiltration of the GOP then the DNC. The DNC will fight you harder.

      My response was intended to explain why I read your reply the way I did, not to try to claim I could read your mind. It's far easier to misread someone in a text conversation than in a face-to-face one.

      So, about those elf games....

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  2. I agree with almost everything you wrote. Populism has been in the air for at least a decade now, across the political spectrum. When you poll people on individual policies or positions (e.g., universal healthcare, environmental protections, strengthening labor and working class), they are overwhelming supportive, whether Democrat or Republican. And when offered a true left-wing populist like Bernie Sanders, people respond with passion. In the absence of that, some of them will gravitate towards the faux populism of Trump, who says things that sound like he wants to help "regular people" but in practice he does no such thing.

    My only real disagreement is with the idea that Trump sincerely wants to be a great president. He might want to be perceived as a great president, but he consistently appoints people who are pushing the same old Heritage Foundation / Barry Goldwater "drown the government in the bathtub" ideology. One has only to look at the people being appointed to Trump's cabinet to see what we should expect from his second term.

    Mostly I hope he just decides to stay home and play golf all the time again.

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    1. Please don't strawman what I said.

      "My take on Donald Trump is that he really does want to be CONSIDERED a great president." Emphasis added.

      Given that I addressed who Trump surrounds himself with, and that you failed to actually address my recommendation, I take if you are in the "give conservatives more reason to ignore and deride us" camp.

      That's the camp that brought us to where we are.

      If we continue to go down this road, there should be all kinds of fun and games in our future. Just not fun for us.

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    2. Oh, and as I have already pointed out, my hypothesis is testable, What you and Dennis are suggesting is not trying, even though it costs you nothing to do so, and you offer no other course of action which can potentially help anyone over the next four years.

      What, exactly, are you hoping to accomplish?

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    3. Not an intentional strawman; maybe a disagreement over what it means to be "considered a great president". Does Trump care about what future historians think? I'm skeptical. He probably dismisses them as academic eggheads. Does he care about what polls of the American people show? Maybe.

      What does "trying" mean to you? To be brutally honest, I don't really believe that electoral politics holds much hope in the United States. Candidates are preselected by party bosses and filtered through the media, which encourages as contentious and narrow a horse race as possible. Democrats didn't even get to vote for their nominee this time round. I feel that we are essentially living in an oligarchy and as an ordinary person, I don't really feel that I have power over the large scale movements of the nation.

      Societal change happens slower and is not dependent on who is president or in Congress. (In fact, it may well be that progressives fight harder when out of power than when Democrats are steering the ship of state.)

      What am I hoping to accomplish? I am trying to make the world around me kinder and saner. I give money to (mostly local) organizations that support my values. Yes, I agree we need to work with anyone who can help advance the values and policies we believe in. I am tired of political tribalism where everyone picks one of two teams and commits fully to its positions. It leads to monolithic mindsets where Republicans watch videos on "Libs of TikTok" or whatever and believe that all Democrats must support putting litter boxes in school bathrooms for children who identify as cats, and Democrats watch videos of Proud Boys rallies and assume all Republicans must support neo-Nazism. And then we fight against caricatures, while the oligarchs laugh and further concentrate their wealth.

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    4. What "trying" means to me, in this case, is post repeatedly what you want, specifically address Trump, and make sure you are targeting his vanity:

      TheRealDonaldTrump See this? If you really want to make America great, and do one better than Obama, fix it. Provide universal healthcare. 70% of Americans want it, and will cheer for you if you do it, no matter how the media tries to spin it.

      Incrementalism ("Societal change happens slower and is not dependent on who is president or in Congress") is not only a failed ideology; it is one that history has shown to be wrong. Change happens swiftly when the circumstances arise. Whether that change is horrific or not depends very much on who is in charge, and how they react to the call for change.

      And, as I have said, and you have ignored, mine is a testable hypothesis. Yours is a call to do...what, exactly? Nothing?

      You have no power over the oligarchy you live in. Nor do I. Nor do a million others. Together, though, that changes.

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