Non-AFL chat thread

[Scary_Foot_9]

Bush fatigue ? What about 4 years later after a continuingly tanking economy, Republicans acting like a German goal keeper, and the media smearing him as a communist.
Hilary was a terrible candidate for the progressive side of politics (most of her policy was taken from 1980s Republicans), she couldn't even inspire her base let alone Joe sixpack, because she was seen as untrustworthy, bogged down by scandals and the corporate candidate. Obama was aspirational, his message mobilized people, she was all about incremental improvement. That's not getting anyone to the polls.

The Dems ceded state and congressional territory throughout his presidency. I think his personality and mass appeal papered over underlying issues the left has with grassroots enthusiasm in their traditional working class strongholds, it was always going to be a test when his name wasn't on the ballot. And while Clinton's problems might have exacerbated that test, it was fundamentally going to be hard to sell an aspirational message of change when you didn't deliver on it for the last eight years (I know Republicans roadblocked at every turn, but to the average person he was still the one in charge responsible for their lives) and this time was in less likable packaging. I was Bernie all the way for the record, but if we are being realistic a self described Socialist was also going to have its own set of challenges with the American public.

Bottom line I think this was always going to be a much harder election to win then it looked, but we can agree to disagree my friend.

 

[immortalmike]

The Dems ceded state and congressional territory throughout his presidency. I think his personality and mass appeal papered over underlying issues the left has with grassroots enthusiasm in their traditional working class strongholds, it was always going to be a test when his name wasn't on the ballot. And while Clinton's problems might have exacerbated that test, it was fundamentally going to be hard to sell an aspirational message of change when you didn't deliver on it for the last eight years (I know Republicans roadblocked at every turn, but to the average person he was still the one in charge responsible for their lives) and this time was in less likable packaging. I was Bernie all the way for the record, but if we are being realistic a self described Socialist was also going to have its own set of challenges with the American public.

Bottom line I think this was always going to be a much harder election to win then it looked, but we can agree to disagree my friend.

Definitely will agree to disagree on most of that. Suffice to say that I think Bernie being a relative outsider and Socialist would have only helped his chances. The guy was the most aspirational candidate I've seen and absolutely squeaky clean. It's a real shame.

 

[immortalmike]

We live in Idiocracy people...

 

[BrisDog]

It's just plain sad. 48% of USA citizens are ignorant fools. They do not care that their countries reputation has taken a huge hit yesterday. Trump has no policies of real substance to assist the middle class or rust belt states. A click of the fingers on his little hand is not going to reverse globalisation.

What is concerning to me is the conversations that I have had with conservative voters in Australia about Trump. They see their Coalition support morph into a natural alignment with Trump. Trump does not reflect the GOP or natural conservatives in general. He is a vial sexual deviant, a narcissist like no other (maybe Putin, but he has more political nous than Trump), a hideous racist - and now leader of the free world.

 

[LittleG]

It's just plain sad. 48% of USA citizens are ignorant fools. They do not care that their countries reputation has taken a huge hit yesterday. Trump has no policies of real substance to assist the middle class or rust belt states. A click of the fingers on his little hand is not going to reverse globalisation.

What is concerning to me is the conversations that I have had with conservative voters in Australia about Trump. They see their Coalition support morph into a natural alignment with Trump. Trump does not reflect the GOP or natural conservatives in general. He is a vial sexual deviant, a narcissist like no other (maybe Putin, but he has more political nous than Trump), a hideous racist - and now leader of the free world.

I strongly object to the phrase "leader of the free world". Gerrymandering is so strong in the US Senate, that they stopped being a true democracy in the 1980's.

 

[BrisDog]

I strongly object to the phrase "leader of the free world". Gerrymandering is so strong in the US Senate, that they stopped being a true democracy in the 1980's.

Fair call - not a phrase I rate either. Previously we have followed them like the Pied-Piper into any shit fight they could find but that will obviously change now. I agree with your sentiment.

 

[maddog37]

It's just plain sad. 48% of USA citizens are ignorant fools. They do not care that their countries reputation has taken a huge hit yesterday. Trump has no policies of real substance to assist the middle class or rust belt states. A click of the fingers on his little hand is not going to reverse globalisation.

What is concerning to me is the conversations that I have had with conservative voters in Australia about Trump. They see their Coalition support morph into a natural alignment with Trump. Trump does not reflect the GOP or natural conservatives in general. He is a vial sexual deviant, a narcissist like no other (maybe Putin, but he has more political nous than Trump), a hideous racist - and now leader of the free world.

Words like vile, hideous etc are hyperbole and undermine the point you are trying to make IMHO. It's these type of overly emotive reactions that have stung the closet Trump fan into action.

 

[BEaston]

I don't think it's hyperbole to think sexual assault is vile or hideous.

Are you saying Trump got voted in because of this kind of behavior and not in spite of it?

If so, it's worse than I thought.

 

[gangsta deluxe]

I'm going to pull a friend's facebook post because I think it neatly sums up the problem with the criticisms of Trump and why he and others like him have galvanised support behind then (note, I do not agree with the last paragraph).

I think racism and misogyny almost everything else Trump has said and is responsible for is deeply wrong, and I could like you lay out the reasons for this in intricate detail. However, I'm not going to resort to abusive terminology first up any more, I'm going to engage with people and discuss the issues, without being dismissive and reactionary. Trump is still a human being, as are those who hold these viewpoints. The strategy of dehumanising people with terms like that and not engaging with them is precisely what is giving people like Trump and others (Brexit, Zuma, Duterte, Hanson, La Pen) support.

We need to aggressively argue against their viewpoints, but I think we need to fundamentally reevaluate how we treat those who hold them. Obama does this the right way, look at his approach - I think it is the way forward. Ridicule and downright dismissal isnt working. I feel like we are acting like the socialists who laughed at and spat on Mussolini, and we saw what happened there.

On a side note, the sexual assault issue is a different one entirely, and if he is responsible I hope he gets impeached and jailed.

"In light of the U.S election results as they stand at the moment, I feel some contemplation and reflection is needed alongside instinctive partisan reactions. There will no doubt be plenty of reactionary commentary about how "stupid" Americans are to have elected Trump. But, this sort of response only serves to highlight the very same feelings of disenchantment and disenfranchisement with the political system that have propelled Trump into a winning position to begin with. In other words, it is precisely *because* the concerns and views of Trump's largely 'blue-collar' working-class voter base in the U.S have been derided as "stupid" and so on by the decidedly anti-Trump political and media classes, that they have felt drawn to someone (that is, Trump) who they feel is listening to them. So, when this kind of derision is expressed in response to the election result, I feel that what some people are actually doing (in some cases, seemingly unwittingly) is simply reflecting the very attitude of dismissive contempt from "the elites" that Trump has exploited and led a mass uprising against, with obvious parallels to be drawn with "Brexit" in the UK and the deriding of those on the pro-Brexit side as idiotic "little Englanders", and so on - and we all know how well that turned out. In an Australian context, supporters of Pauline Hanson are routinely painted as red-neck bumpkins, but that has by no means made her supporters less inclined to vote for her; if anything, it has only strengthened their resolve.

Simply put, the more people are told that only idiots would or could think as they do, the more likely they are to say "Up yours, then!" to their detractors, by supporting the exact opposite position.

I am not a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that it is necessary to consider carefully the perception of elitism on the part of those seeking to oppose him, from the perspective of his supporters. I feel that certain people who opposed Trump were so convinced of the righteousness of their views that they thought of themselves as being "better than", or otherwise "above" those holding pro-Trump views, and this has led in turn to Trump being able to position himself as a "champion of the masses" against "the elites", despite his enormous wealth. Trump's opponents needed to position themselves as *part of* the masses working against "the elites" (including Trump himself), but instead many seemed to place themselves on some supposed higher moral ground, from which Trump's supporters clearly felt they were being 'looked-down upon'. In short, Trump's opponents came off as seeming more elitist than Trump himself - a considerable achievement! in so doing, they effectively helped to facilitate one of the great deceptive Class reversals in political history.

A final personal thought: As someone who identifies strongly with Left-wing politics, I would have struggled to vote for Clinton in good conscience if I were a U.S voter. My political views are much closer to those of someone like Bernie Sanders, who was treated appallingly by the Democrat party machine, in my opinion. But, the election of Trump has certainly placed many of the failings of left/progressive political campaigning in the U.S in sharp relief: Trump's primary support base, as I have said, are white, working class 'blue-collar' voters. This demographic would once have been the 'bread and butter' of the Left, and yet, as I have said, certain sections of the Left have seemingly disowned this demographic in favor of other social identity groups. I can't help but think that Trump's rise says more about the state of the Left in general than it does about the state of politics per se. If this is the case, the Left would appear to be a terminal state."

 

[maddog37]

I don't think it's hyperbole to think sexual assault is vile or hideous.

Are you saying Trump got voted in because of this kind of behavior and not in spite of it?

If so, it's worse than I thought.

That's not what I'm saying and I'm pretty sure you know that.

 

[Ant_]

Sitting at my gate for a flight to Japan overnight. First trip overseas, going solo for 3 weeks, absolutely crapping my dacks.

#pray4Igloo

You going to that pokemon store in Tokyo?

 

[gangsta deluxe]

This article sums up my feelings pretty well. It is by Naomi Klein, the woman who torched us for ridiculing Trump and pointing out our behaviour with refugees on Q&A recently. I think it applies here as much as in the U.S., Canada and the U.K

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...s-class-sealed-americas-fate?CMP=share_btn_fb

It was the rise of the Davos class that sealed America’s fate
Naomi Klein

They will blame James Comey and the FBI. They will blame voter suppression and racism. They will blame Bernie or bust and misogyny. They will blame third parties and independent candidates. They will blame the corporate media for giving him the platform, social media for being a bullhorn, and WikiLeaks for airing the laundry.

But this leaves out the force most responsible for creating the nightmare in which we now find ourselves wide awake: neoliberalism. That worldview – fully embodied by Hillary Clinton and her machine – is no match for Trump-style extremism. The decision to run one against the other is what sealed our fate. If we learn nothing else, can we please learn from that mistake?

Here is what we need to understand: a hell of a lot of people are in pain. Under neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatisation, austerity and corporate trade, their living standards have declined precipitously. They have lost jobs. They have lost pensions. They have lost much of the safety net that used to make these losses less frightening. They see a future for their kids even worse than their precarious present.

At the same time, they have witnessed the rise of the Davos class, a hyper-connected network of banking and tech billionaires, elected leaders who are awfully cosy with those interests, and Hollywood celebrities who make the whole thing seem unbearably glamorous. Success is a party to which they were not invited, and they know in their hearts that this rising wealth and power is somehow directly connected to their growing debts and powerlessness.

For the people who saw security and status as their birthright – and that means white men most of all – these losses are unbearable.

Donald Trump speaks directly to that pain. The Brexit campaign spoke to that pain. So do all of the rising far-right parties in Europe. They answer it with nostalgic nationalism and anger at remote economic bureaucracies – whether Washington, the North American free trade agreement the World Trade Organisation or the EU. And of course, they answer it by bashing immigrants and people of colour, vilifying Muslims, and degrading women. Elite neoliberalism has nothing to offer that pain, because neoliberalism unleashed the Davos class. People such as Hillary and Bill Clinton are the toast of the Davos party. In truth, they threw the party.

Trump’s message was: “All is hell.” Clinton answered: “All is well.” But it’s not well – far from it.

Neo-fascist responses to rampant insecurity and inequality are not going to go away. But what we know from the 1930s is that what it takes to do battle with fascism is a real left. A good chunk of Trump’s support could be peeled away if there were a genuine redistributive agenda on the table. An agenda to take on the billionaire class with more than rhetoric, and use the money for a green new deal. Such a plan could create a tidal wave of well-paying unionised jobs, bring badly needed resources and opportunities to communities of colour, and insist that polluters should pay for workers to be retrained and fully included in this future.

It could fashion policies that fight institutionalised racism, economic inequality and climate change at the same time. It could take on bad trade deals and police violence, and honour indigenous people as the original protectors of the land, water and air.

People have a right to be angry, and a powerful, intersectional left agenda can direct that anger where it belongs, while fighting for holistic solutions that will bring a frayed society together.

Such a coalition is possible. In Canada, we have begun to cobble it together under the banner of a people’s agenda called The Leap Manifesto, endorsed by more than 220 organisations from Greenpeace Canada to Black Lives Matter Toronto, and some of our largest trade unions.

Bernie Sanders’ amazing campaign went a long way towards building this sort of coalition, and demonstrated that the appetite for democratic socialism is out there. But early on, there was a failure in the campaign to connect with older black and Latino voters who are the demographic most abused by our current economic model. That failure prevented the campaign from reaching its full potential. Those mistakes can be corrected and a bold, transformative coalition is there to be built on.

That is the task ahead. The Democratic party needs to be either decisively wrested from pro-corporate neoliberals, or it needs to be abandoned. From Elizabeth Warren to Nina Turner, to the Occupy alumni who took the Bernie campaign supernova, there is a stronger field of coalition-inspiring progressive leaders out there than at any point in my lifetime. We are “leaderful”, as many in the Movement for Black Lives say.

So let’s get out of shock as fast as we can and build the kind of radical movement that has a genuine answer to the hate and fear represented by the Trumps of this world. Let’s set aside whatever is keeping us apart and start right now.

 

[immortalmike]

I'm going to pull a friend's facebook post because I think it neatly sums up the problem with the criticisms of Trump and why he and others like him have galvanised support behind then (note, I do not agree with the last paragraph).

I think racism and misogyny almost everything else Trump has said and is responsible for is deeply wrong, and I could like you lay out the reasons for this in intricate detail. However, I'm not going to resort to abusive terminology first up any more, I'm going to engage with people and discuss the issues, without being dismissive and reactionary. Trump is still a human being, as are those who hold these viewpoints. The strategy of dehumanising people with terms like that and not engaging with them is precisely what is giving people like Trump and others (Brexit, Zuma, Duterte, Hanson, La Pen) support.

We need to aggressively argue against their viewpoints, but I think we need to fundamentally reevaluate how we treat those who hold them. Obama does this the right way, look at his approach - I think it is the way forward. Ridicule and downright dismissal isnt working. I feel like we are acting like the socialists who laughed at and spat on Mussolini, and we saw what happened there.

On a side note, the sexual assault issue is a different one entirely, and if he is responsible I hope he gets impeached and jailed.

"In light of the U.S election results as they stand at the moment, I feel some contemplation and reflection is needed alongside instinctive partisan reactions. There will no doubt be plenty of reactionary commentary about how "stupid" Americans are to have elected Trump. But, this sort of response only serves to highlight the very same feelings of disenchantment and disenfranchisement with the political system that have propelled Trump into a winning position to begin with. In other words, it is precisely *because* the concerns and views of Trump's largely 'blue-collar' working-class voter base in the U.S have been derided as "stupid" and so on by the decidedly anti-Trump political and media classes, that they have felt drawn to someone (that is, Trump) who they feel is listening to them. So, when this kind of derision is expressed in response to the election result, I feel that what some people are actually doing (in some cases, seemingly unwittingly) is simply reflecting the very attitude of dismissive contempt from "the elites" that Trump has exploited and led a mass uprising against, with obvious parallels to be drawn with "Brexit" in the UK and the deriding of those on the pro-Brexit side as idiotic "little Englanders", and so on - and we all know how well that turned out. In an Australian context, supporters of Pauline Hanson are routinely painted as red-neck bumpkins, but that has by no means made her supporters less inclined to vote for her; if anything, it has only strengthened their resolve.

Simply put, the more people are told that only idiots would or could think as they do, the more likely they are to say "Up yours, then!" to their detractors, by supporting the exact opposite position.

I am not a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that it is necessary to consider carefully the perception of elitism on the part of those seeking to oppose him, from the perspective of his supporters. I feel that certain people who opposed Trump were so convinced of the righteousness of their views that they thought of themselves as being "better than", or otherwise "above" those holding pro-Trump views, and this has led in turn to Trump being able to position himself as a "champion of the masses" against "the elites", despite his enormous wealth. Trump's opponents needed to position themselves as *part of* the masses working against "the elites" (including Trump himself), but instead many seemed to place themselves on some supposed higher moral ground, from which Trump's supporters clearly felt they were being 'looked-down upon'. In short, Trump's opponents came off as seeming more elitist than Trump himself - a considerable achievement! in so doing, they effectively helped to facilitate one of the great deceptive Class reversals in political history.

A final personal thought: As someone who identifies strongly with Left-wing politics, I would have struggled to vote for Clinton in good conscience if I were a U.S voter. My political views are much closer to those of someone like Bernie Sanders, who was treated appallingly by the Democrat party machine, in my opinion. But, the election of Trump has certainly placed many of the failings of left/progressive political campaigning in the U.S in sharp relief: Trump's primary support base, as I have said, are white, working class 'blue-collar' voters. This demographic would once have been the 'bread and butter' of the Left, and yet, as I have said, certain sections of the Left have seemingly disowned this demographic in favor of other social identity groups. I can't help but think that Trump's rise says more about the state of the Left in general than it does about the state of politics per se. If this is the case, the Left would appear to be a terminal state."

I agree with the last paragraph most. Brilliant post.
The left forgot what they are about and it partially resulted in Trump.

 

[immortalmike]

 

[immortalmike]

The left continue to take the wrong lessons from Trump's win. They shouted racist, sexist, homophobe and idiot throughout the whole race. Now they think shouting it louder will change people's opinions. They are wrong, regular people are sick of being told what to think, say or do, regular people don't care about your identity politics, regular people only care about who you are not what you are. Stop this nonsense and understand that the rise of Trump is partially your (our) fault, stop demonizing white people, stop demonizing men, stop demonizing the rich, middle class and poor, and stop demonizing the police. These people are sick of us judging them for what imaginary group we say they belong to and they voted for a moron in protest. Be glad it wasn't a politics savy monster and let's move forward with a better left side of politics.

 

[LittleG]

Left got hoodwinked by the right into embracing a globalized free market. The political leaders got corporate sponsorship and forgot their own supporters.

 

[immortalmike]

Left got hoodwinked by the right into embracing a globalized free market. The political leaders got corporate sponsorship and forgot their own supporters.

True.
Personally I think they also got hoodwinked into embracing identity over nuanced, reasoned discourse. You see it every time a person from the side of supposed liberty and anti racism and bigotry shuts down an opinion because the speaker is a "privileged white male" as opposed to the content of that opinion.

 

[Igloo]

You going to that pokemon store in Tokyo?

Already been, haha. Will go to the one in Osaka too when I get there.

 

[Ant_]

Already been, haha. Will go to the one in Osaka too when I get there.

Awesome wife loved that place, was a bit lost on me

Did you go to that amusement park thing upstairs from it? It's an anime themed fun park.

Man I loved japan, totally going back there

 

[Igloo]

Awesome wife loved that place, was a bit lost on me

Did you go to that amusement park thing upstairs from it? It's an anime themed fun park.

Man I loved japan, totally going back there

Nah, didn't go upstairs. Amusement park things aren't really on my list of stuff I wanted to do.
Plus I didnt know it was there.

Been awesome so far. My horrible diet is struggling though.

 

[Ant_]

Nah, didn't go upstairs. Amusement park things aren't really on my list of stuff I wanted to do.
Plus I didnt know it was there.

Been awesome so far. My horrible diet is struggling though.

Oh yeah.. so much good food and cheap beer there.

 

[hujsh]

Probably true. But there's not much he can do after the Supreme Court ruling.

Decisions can be appealed can't they? One or two Supreme Court appointments and who knows what will be possible

What are his actual views on minorities?
He's walked back almost everything he's ever said. Personally I think he was playing the heel so he could win.

But overall meh. For once the greater of two evils finally won.

The 'Law and Order' rhetoric has been pretty consistent. Basically black people deserve what they get and the police need more power. (and the black people getting killed by cops aren't an issue go away)

True. And Hillary calling Trump supporters "deplorables" when she's funded by Saudi Arabia. Own goal right there!

Saying a certain section of his support is deplorable is nothing but accurate. Dismissing the whole thing as just racism is misguided but ignoring the racism, islamophobia and even anti-semitism from his campaign and supporters isn't going to end well either.

It's quite telling that the representative of the hard left side of US politics couldn't bring herself to support Clinton:

Representative of about 1-3% of the vote more accurately. Sanders and Warren are closer to representing the 'hard left' and they were right behind Clinton over Trump the whole campaign.

 

[BEaston]

That's not what I'm saying and I'm pretty sure you know that.

Ok we'll agree to disagree then. I simply don't think it's hyperbole to label sexual assault as vile. Each to their own I guess.

Another thing, if people voted this way thinking his election will stop such labeling... well...

 

[JiggaDog]

It's just plain sad. 48% of USA citizens are ignorant fools. They do not care that their countries reputation has taken a huge hit yesterday. Trump has no policies of real substance to assist the middle class or rust belt states. A click of the fingers on his little hand is not going to reverse globalisation.

What is concerning to me is the conversations that I have had with conservative voters in Australia about Trump. They see their Coalition support morph into a natural alignment with Trump. Trump does not reflect the GOP or natural conservatives in general. He is a vial sexual deviant, a narcissist like no other (maybe Putin, but he has more political nous than Trump), a hideous racist - and now leader of the free world.

For someone who seems to dislike intolerance so much, you sure like to label people .....

 

[immortalmike]

Ok we'll agree to disagree then. I simply don't think it's hyperbole to label sexual assault as vile. Each to their own I guess.

Another thing, if people voted this way thinking his election will stop such labeling... well...

Well we can just continue down this rabbit hole, maybe next time with someone who isn't a moronic reality television star, maybe it'll be a real monster.