How US Presidential Politics Guarantees Inevitable Decline

(The saddest thing is that as flawed as he was, I’d take Nixon in a heartbeat over any President from Reagan on. Yes, including Clinton and Obama. It isn’t even close.)

I voted for Nixon. It was my anti-war vote.
I quit voting in the very late 90’s because I realized it was a fraud, a cruel joke.
Obviously the U.S. is in serious decline; the wounded beast is most dangerous.
When one listens to the Putin-Lavrov team juxtaposed with the Obama-Kerry-Powers team; it is impossibe not to see the utter hubris and diplomatic incompetence exhibited by the U.S..

The reality is that the United States has a bad habit of electing mediocrities to be President, regardless of the century. Or do you seriously consider Calvin Coolidge and Millard Fillmore to be paragons of Presidential virtue? What has changed in recent times has been the repercussions of having a mediocre President. As society has become increasingly complex the requirements of government have increased, but we’re still stuck with the same system for selecting Presidents that was put into place when the population of the entire United States was less than the population of Manhattan.

It is arguable, in fact, that the entire notion of having an executive elected at large rather than elected from within the legislature (i.e. parliamentary government) has resulted in an ossified system that cannot grow to meet the demands upon it. The mathematical requirement of 50%+1 to elect a President means that the system mathematically converges upon two parties that are coalitions of what would be minor parties in a parliamentary system, and furthermore, that these minor “parties” have less voice than they would have in a parliamentary system where they can topple a government by bolting from a coalition government. Fewer voices means less ability to change and adapt.

Not that parliamentary systems have been performing particularly well recently either. See: the entire cock-up that is British politics right now. Or the continual mess that is Israeli politics, where their adoption of a proportional representation system means that fringe parties are even more empowered than in a normal parliamentary system to the point where the lunatics basically can get anything they demand upon penalty of toppling the government if they don’t get it. It may be that post-industrial society has achieved a level of complexity that overwhelms the ability of any currently known form of government to cope with it. What is quite clear, however, is that even within this range of possible forms of government, the current American system is uniquely prone to complete lockup and thus complete inability to cope with the challenges we face.

The U.S. is the clearest case and the furthest gone, but it is the same everywhere in the West, and the same as it was many times previously throughout history – the forces in motion go far deeper than U.S. presidential politics.

+1 for the Thomas Cole illustration c. 1836

From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:

There is the moral of all human tales;
‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First freedom and then Glory – when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption – barbarism at last.
And History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page…

This current hell-ride was announced on November 22, 1963.

Cycle of rise and decay. Well documented in Cannibals and Kings under the discussion of River Valley cultures.

I think that systemic problems are more central to our situation than specific individuals, and suggest that a little 118-page book, “National Security and Double Government” by Michael J. Glennon, explains quite a bit about this.

hairhead wrote: “I agree with Ian that Nixon, despite being a paranoid, bigoted, vengeful creep with little regard for the law, was an extremely intelligent individual who actually did some good things (EPA, Clean Air Act) in office, and who, if he were US President right now would not be doing near the amount of evil of the current and anticipated officeholders.”

tell that to the carpet-bombed cambodians.

>tell that to the carpet-bombed cambodians.

They did have a choice.

One quibble–it is a bit much to say Carter was a “bad” president. Ineffective, yes. Was responsible for the Carter Doctrine, no doubt. But Carter tried to warn Americans that their were limits, and that they could not have their cake and eat it as well. He also pushed the most humane foreign policy of any president since Kennedy, schizophrenic about The Shaw as it might have been.

And the guy who beat him was a fucking monster whose hubris really set the decline in motion.

I won’t in any way make excuses for Nixon. He was a criminal, a gangster, and a mass murderer on a scale we had not seen since Korea. He was unapologetic to his dying day — despite his admission of errors.

He was instrumental in the passage of some progressive legislation, but he also originated the Imperial Presidency. Revenge for driving him from office was a prime motivator for criminal actions by Rumsfeld and Cheney.

No, Clinton is not worse than Nixon.

“No, Clinton is not worse than Nixon.”

Come on now, give her a chance, she’s not even president yet.

Nixon did evil things, but the didn’t start/escalate Viet Nam; he was just clueless on how to end it on less than humiliating terms…clueless. Hillary sought to start a war with a peaceful and prosperous nation so that her donors could profit, it’s in the emails, that is a PROVABLE war crime. The fact that Hillary accomplished the war using racists Jihadies who then went on to commit genocide against all the negro* blooded people in Libya was also known to Hillary, she is the worst racist to run for US President in my lifetime. No other President, in my time, supported the murdering of approximately 20,000 black people.

The man who ended the Viet Nam agony was named Jerry Ford who the nation regarded as a buffoon, in spite of his being House minority leader for 9 terms. LBJ resented Ford and thought him dumber than a bag of rocks because he was straight laced and wouldn’t get involved in the corruption/[horse-trading] that was LBJ’s stock & trade.

Ford, like Carter had the misfortune to take over the economy in the post Viet Nam years and he paid dearly for being in the wrong chair when the deluge came.

Anybody who does any reading on the man will see he was anything, but stupid, wrong perhaps, but not stupid…I will add, he was an outstanding man in his accomplishments and integrity.**

Had I not voted for Carter in 1976; and had Ford won in 1976, Reagan; and more importantly his staff would not have attained the Presidency and much of our bad history would have been avoided. From that lesson I learned to not see the choice in terms of who would be better for 4 years or 8, or the lessor of two evils, but for who they might prevent from taking office.

Ford respected the US Constitution, thought war wasteful and was a FDRist, albeit like all Republicans of the time, a tightfisted minimalist on government spending who had moral and physical courage to do what the thought was right. I regret my vote in 1976, the media played me for a sap.

*some there since Roman times, others since the cessation of Libya’s participation in the still active Muslim slave trade

**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford#College_and_law_school

Carter appointed Volcker to head the Fed in 1979. Volcker’s high interest rate policy brought inflation under control, but with him began the Fed’s use of interest rates to suppress real wages of American workers. Volcker’s high Fed rate policy was itself made possible by the 1980 Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which repealed usury limits on what banks could charge in interest. We still see the effects of this law in pay day lenders and credit card rates.

Carter also signed into law important anti-union legislation, such as the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act deregulating the airlines, the
1978 Civil Service Reform Act set up the Federal Labor Relations Authority to oversee collective bargaining with federal workers (It was this entity which Reagan used to decertify the air traffic controller union Patco in 1981), and the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 which deregulated trucking.

As for Ford, isn’t he the guy who pardoned Nixon, a critical victory in the establishment of the doctrine of Presidential impunity and still one of the clearest examples of our two-tiered justice system?

Volcker is also the man most singularly responsible for inflating the price of housing rent/ownership. Volcker abused his office with his artificially high interest rates to undermine labor, in the process, he stopped housing from being built just as peak demand from the baby was ALREADY inflating the sector and he knew he was INFLATING an asset class.

As you point out, Carter was the 1st right wing neoliberal, not Reagan, which is why I have repeatedly used 1978 as my start point for the decline of the lower 80 percentile in my comments and not 1981 as indoctrinated “liberals” do.

I’d like to point out Nixon wasn’t taken down by the left as some would have it and many clueless “liberals” believe, he was taken down by savage right-wing extremists who felt betrayed. As for Ford’s pardon of Nixon, it had no effect, indeed, incarcerating him would have turned him into a martyr after creating an effing mess that served no useful purpose.

If you need me to spell it out for you, then you’re not worth conversing with.

@Lisa

What these numbers tell us is that higher education is a horrible waste for some people as it leads them to be susceptible to cult like identity politics and PC groupthink. If they had developed any real analytical skills while being educated they might reject the Red Queen along with Trump but then they might not be invited to the next Leisure Class get together in the Hamptons.

Badtux permalink
October 3, 2016
– – The reality is that the United States has a bad habit of electing mediocrities to be President, regardless of the century. Or do you seriously consider Calvin Coolidge and Millard Fillmore to be paragons of Presidential virtue? – –

While I agree that Coolidge and Fillmore were underwhelming Presidents, these two do not support the (correct) argument that that we elect marginally qualified Presidents.

It is important to recognize that neither Fillmore nor Coolidge were ever elected President. Both were serving Vice Presidents when their respective Presidents (Taylor and Harding) died in office.

Both Fillmore (lost nomination) and Coolidge (did not run at end of term) left office after their partial & unelected presidential terms ended.
-cl

Oh and just to debunk the fantasy that Trump would somehow stop the upcoming war with Russia…not a chance. Sure he might not be as hawkish as Clinton (who is) but he wouldn’t be able to get control of all the agencies and Pentagon who are determined to have war.

They would just do it anyway and he hasn’t the organisation and pool of people to do a big clear out and replace them with some who are sane. Sanders did and could have changed things but Trump hasn’t the ability or the resources…see how quickly he got co-opted by the insane religious right.

Think he is going to stand up to all the neo-cons in the US establishment? Not a chance.
Think he is going to stand up to all the neo-liberals on economic matters? Not chance either.

Just look at the far more competent Obama, he lost control of the military, CIA, etc now.

So people might as well vote on their own self interests and hope the nukes don’t fly.

Just to show the ‘good old days; are well over, women are just not going to put up with this crap any longer:

“Poland’s abortion ban proposal near collapse after mass protests”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/05/polish-government-performs-u-turn-on-total-abortion-ban

Ian, I recall you mentioned you may write an editorial post here on “not voting for either HClinton nor Trump”. You may consider writing it ASAP; IIRC ~40% of the vote this time is projected to be early voting (in person or mail ballot), which has already started in several states.

I am in a safe state, I’ll vote for Dr. Jill Stein. If I were in a swing state, it would be a tough decision. This is a bizarre election, in that there are smart Social Democratic-type, Sanders primary voters, concluding all 3 of the possible options for swing state voting: Stein, HClinton as Lesser Evil (LE), & even a few Trump as LE.

This editorial makes a decent case for HClitnon LE voting
https://theprogressivecynic.com/2016/09/30/an-honest-argument-for-hillary-clinton-from-a-bernie-supporter/

Ford’s biggest sin as President was pardoning Nixon when he should have let the criminal charges go forth and Nixon get his day in court to answer for Watergate.

By not doing that, Ford set in motion a terrible precedent that has made Presidents immune to the law.

The ur- problem with the Democratic party in its abstract, is that human beings contain a larger swathe of violence then is really called for by a modern, and certainly postmodern, Democratic state. Europe has had a not so gentle reminder of this, and has given its government tools to virtually annihilate such impulses as become present – this is also true of Japan.

It however is not true of the two main powers on the globe – the United States and China.

How it relates specifically to Clinton and Obama, is that once inside the I-495 Beltway, they hear a great deal of the people who are rich, or hope to be rich, or expect to leave the military and become rich – by means of the military. and once inside that bubble, the only thing that they are reliably going to do – is keep the military funded. now at some point in time, the United States will not be a major power, and once about a generation passes by, we will settle down to a normal contemporary democratic state. until then we have this agglomeration where even the peaceable party is in fact a party of war.

The key problem is that everything goes through the presidency, and the only things that the presidency will allow our the most vicious impulses of international state – and a few good impulses from the regions of race and political – so long as they do not interfere with the military state. That is why half our budget is spent on military things, when it does not have to be. Clinton is a warmonger, and we get to see this in her actions, but she is also a great deal nicer than most Democrats in being a peacemaker – but that will not be shown until she gets into the top job. Basically, she is a redux of Johnson – and their are plenty of places for her to get her war on, as she tries to rebalance the older set of elder women – which she is indeed quite devoted to.

she is not the best president, by a long shot, and she has disadvantages that will preventer from being merely good. but in a bad lot of presidential material, she was the second of them – Bernie easily beating her in this regard, but no one else who had a chance ( because that is basic Lessing and others did not have a chance) was any better. One can understand crying someone better – but that is not going to happen as long as the baby boom is in charge.

@ ProNewerDeal Oh, my; how like the alleged ‘decent case’ Rebecca Solnit made addressing the Rancid Left:

‘The Rain on Our Parade; A Letter to My Dismal Allies’.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175598/

Me, I’m votin’ for the Red: Ajamu Baraka, after considering not voting the top line at all. Christ, what if all the putative left luminaries decided to announce they were votin’ Green? ‘Oh, only narcissists not vote for Clinton’, says Angela Davis, Chomsky has other reasons.

The Ovian Queen’s been given her marchin’ orders courtesy of the Military/Intel & Security States/deep state/and…Henry Kissinger, lol. OTOH, Trump’s a no-nothing blowhard. Will he have access to actual power? Hard to imagine.

@ ProNewerDeal

This election is just like every other one since at least 1968. Here’s Doug Henwood from 2012 that could be written today with the names of the candidates changed: https://www.thenation.com/article/why-should-left-support-obama/

We can wait, it is just go to be ugly. But the baby boom would not want it any other way. Enjoy the trip down the River Styx.

Sigh, the consensus here is that the US election is being decided only on the issues that white, educated older males are interested in and that all the many other parts of society, like women, young people or LGBTI people don’t matter…minor insignificant issues.

The trouble is they don’t agree and their issues are just as important to them as your issues are to you….and there are more of them (along with their supporters) than there are of you lot. Moreover they are organised and long used and bloodied in political lobbying .. and they are fighting for their lives, which tends to be a motivator. It may not matter to anyone here that a Trump Govt would eliminate all trans people or end abortion, but it sure as heck matters to us.

It is not that we don’t understand or care about other issues that you all worry about (in fact we care deeply about them, unlike the reverse), it is just that we know we can do little about them, but can affect those important issues that directly impact us (for some like trans people it is literally life or death). It is called focus, which is why we have had successes…something all those other ‘activists’ in other areas cannot claim (total failures in fact). The Archdruid made that very same point in an article a bit back.

I said Trump’s embracement of the religious right was a massive strategic mistake that would lose him the election, one of the few ways he could lose, because (a) it would piss off many women and LGBTI people and their supporters, (b) motivate them (holding their noses) to get up and vote for HRC, rather than staying at home or voting for Stein.

Here is some proof:

“Inside Planned Parenthood’s $30 Million Ground War to Stop Trump-Pence
How an army of thousands could tip the balance in as many as half-a-dozen swing states”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/inside-planned-parenthoods-huge-ground-war-to-stop-trump-w443404

“”Donald Trump wants to overturn Roe, and appoint Supreme Court justices who will do that. He has said that he would like to punish women who have abortions. And he’s picked, as vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence – a man who has made it his life’s mission to do exactly those things,” she says. “We are taking that very seriously.””

“The Planned Parenthood campaign is active now in six swing states – Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Planned Parenthood tells Rolling Stone that the ground campaign is ramping up to 800 paid staff and 3,500 volunteers, focused on door-to-door outreach to targeted swing voters.

These are prominently middle-aged suburban women, but also include many men for whom a candidate’s opposition to basic reproductive health care access is a dealbreaker.”

Read that last part again.

“The size of the Planned Parenthood door-to-door army is extraordinary. Though not an apples-to-apples comparison – because hundreds of Clinton-supporting field staff are paid by the Democratic Party – consider that the Clinton campaign itself counted fewer than 800 people on payroll in its September FEC filing. “We are running the largest persuasion canvas in the country on the independent side, to give you a sense of scale,” says Schifeling.”

Trump could have avoided all that quite easily, by simply staying (as he started) small ‘l’ liberal or even small ‘c’ conservative on such issues. But by cementing his religious right support (and picking Pence) he self created this opposition. Hopefully the next populist that comes along won’t make the same mistake.

Lisa, we get the lesser evil argument you are making for Clinton. She’s bad, but OMG, Trump. We have heard it a thousand times. We get too the appeal to standard Democratic identity politics. As I have written, neither Trump nor Clinton can be believed on almost anything they say. Trump, like Clinton, has a long history of throwing people under the bus as soon as he thinks he no longer has a use for them. He made the phrase “You’re fired!” famous doing it.

On the subject of Roe v. Wade, many conservatives decided that it could NOT be directly overturned and so they adopted a strategy of killing it with a thousand cuts, or so weaken it that a direct reversal of it would become possible. Now Pence is still old school in his opposition to Roe, but Tim Kaine is very much a practitioner of the new assault on it. He says he “supports” Roe even as he has done everything he can to limit it out of existence for most women. Some might see some kind of a lesser evilist distinction that could be made between the two. I don’t. If any distinction could be made, the more apt would be that of the more effective evil of Kaine and the Democrats.

So anyone who doesn’t support Hillary Clinton doesn’t get it? Well all right then. I’m glad we cleared that up. Does Brock pay you by the word or the comment?

Look I have long posted here my detestation of HRC and the US neo-con, neo-liberal establishment. That Trump if he had half a brain could easily win if he stayed in the middle on social issues, hammered on about trade pacts, was anti-war and pro US jobs (etc). Romp it in.

Hated by both the GOP and Dem establishment his only threats were (a) Sanders being the Dem candidate who would win hands down or (b) self destructing.
He chose (b).

Worse by totally caving to the religious right he showed he’d cave just as much to the neo-cons and neo-liberals if he got into power and hence be no different to HRC on economic and foreign affairs issues.

But that caving has cost him the election because it mobilised opposition to him from left and liberal areas that (a) didn’t like or trust Clinton, (b) hate neo-liberals and neo-cons (c) would probably not vote at all or vote Stein.

Now we can see that Trump would be no different to HRC on nearly all issues except on women and LGBTI people. Those said women, LGBTI and all their supporters are now going full on to make sure Trump doesn’t get in, because he REALLY is worse than Clinton on those issues. His appalling sexism, heck outright misogyny just adds to that.

To those here who are white middle class males our issues are so secondary to you it is not funny and some want Trump get in to piss on said establishment elites…the fact that we all get thumped (in trans people’s case we get eliminated from society) means nothing to you. ‘So what’ is what I hear.

We who are involved in all this are just as knowing about HRC’s many faults, in fact many being so close to coalface even more so, many are burning in anger at what was done to Sanders. But..we have a crisis now and we cannot afford to let Trump in. So reluctantly, very much so in many cases, all people like that are now motivated and getting out there against Trump and that will turn the election. Worse for him, a lot of his constituency amongst the long done in poor and working class males are not socially conservative and are very disturbed about all this, many have wives and daughters and the attacks on women appall them…ditto many have LGBTI kids.

This is not identity politics (except what is forced on us as we are being attacked just on our identity), it is not being politically correct, or being those all so hated ‘SJWs’…it is sheer survival. Something we will have to ensure without a lot of white middle class male support …’as usual’ as we say, but the days of ‘taking one for the team’ and our issues being ignored while others get pushed forward first are long dead and gone.

Capelin: I have posted here several times about why, bit by bit, LGBTI people are getting successes while other ‘progressives’ fail at every turn.. one of the reasons is by NOT getting co-opted and being very strategic in what we do. The Archdruid did a whole article on this, one of the very few to really ‘get it’ which no others seem to be capable off due to their own sexism, homophobia and transphobia.

We have lots of stories about how we have tried to create political alliances with other progressive groups and been knocked back by them, them going on to failure we onto success.
Take an example, the US mainstream feminist elites are all white and middle/upper class who have nothing in common with 90% of women and have been totally co-opted…which is why US non elite women have been going backwards in every way (even with maternal deaths no less). But new groups and alliances are forming now with a lot of LGBTI support to counter that, as per that PP article.

Don’t tell us we have been co-opted when just about every progressive group around in the US has been …except LGBTI people.

The Archdruid being very perceptive on why the LGBTI movement had managed to clock up successes, which he compared to the total failure of the climate change movement. he identified some key factors and I added a few as well.

1. Piggybacking
One of the things that set the campaign for same-sex marriage rights apart from other movements for social change, in turn, is that it refused to fall for piggybacking.

2 The Partisan Trap
Both US parties have perfected the art of reducing once-independent movements for social change into captive constituencies, which keep on working to elect candidates for one or the other party, while getting essentially nothing in return.
The campaign for same-sex marriage rights managed to break out of that trap despite the strenuous efforts of both parties to keep it in its assigned place.

3. Purity Politics
The creation of a movement that included Republican as well as Democratic gays, lesbians, and sympathetic straight people also violated another commandment of contemporary left-wing activism, which is that movements for social change must exclude everyone who fails any of a battery of tests of ideological purity. It’s been pointed out, and truly, that the Right looks for allies to attract while the Left looks for heretics to expel; this is one of the reasons that for the last forty years, the Right has been so much more successful than the Left.

4 Pandering to the Privileged
A great many soi-disant radicals have thus ended up trotting meekly along after the privileged classes, begging for scraps from the tables of the affluent rather than risking so much as a raised eyebrow of disapproval from them.

The movement for same-sex marriage rights had a great advantage here, in that the policy changes it wanted to put in place were just as advantageous for wage-earning same-sex couples in Bowling Green and Omaha as for salary-class same-sex couples in Seattle and Boston

I added:
1) We police ‘sell outs’
(2) The mitochondrial of the movement is the large number of local groups, plugged into their communities.
(3) Having our own media.
(4) Passion. These are our lives we are fighting for.
(5) Volume. We didn’t let the haters run unopposed.
(6) Playing the ‘long game’. Despite tactical set backs (and there were many) we keep on track.
(7) Marginalise the bigots. Eventually they marginalise themselves.
(8) Unity. Despite our diversity we know with 100% certainty that there is a large and powerful minority that want us all dead.
(9) The intangible, the opposition is motivated by hate, we are not, we fight for positive things. So (using Boyd’s model) we have the Moral high ground, we know we are fighting for good things. Which in the end are very simple, just that we are treated like everyone else so we can have reasonable lives.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/learning-from-failure-modest.html

You can not build a society on identity politics, full stop. It’s a great tool of class war though, keeping us rubes at each other’s throats. Lesser evilism is another. It is what got us where we are now. How has that worked out for you? But rather than rejecting it, too many keep buying into it, that they are being responsible and sensible, even wise, for drinking poison out of a slightly less dirty glass. Well, you keep telling yourselves that and know that those in power love you. You are a grifter’s paradise and a guarantee of their job security.

The Democratic party is the party of the status quo nowadays even more so than the Republicans. And identity politics is their bread and butter. So even though progressives can see that identity politics and change are antithetical, they nevertheless dutifully line up and salute it. And they wonder why no one takes them seriously and they remain so marginal.

Most of the advances in gay rights, for example, began at the state level, and then at both the state and federal level, in the courts. The Executive and Legislative branches have mostly played catch up and bowing to the inevitable. Indeed their strategy at most appears to have been embracing a latter day version of “separate but equal.” But OMG, Trump. Whatever.

lisa wrote:
“This is not a ‘ lesser evil’ ..it is pure evil if you are a woman or LGBTI. There is nothing ‘lesser’ about it,…”

this is how your described the situation.

ks wrote:
“I mostly agree with you and it’s amazing to see the Identity Politics slur still being thrown around to dismiss and denigrate the concerns of other, always other, people. That fact those concerns are labeled Identity Politics while the concerns of others are not should be a clue that’s it a propaganda tool but apparently, our smarter than thou crowd here has a gigantic blind spot when it comes to it.”

speaking of slurs being thrown around.

identity politics works. obama was useful for attracting people of colour, but also attracting “liberal” whites, women, and youths. they got their 8 years out of that brand, it’s expired now, on to the perky experienced woman brand.

i’m not dis-ing anyone who looks like these brands, i’m dissing the use of these brands, and the ease with which people fall for it. if you don’t, well, great. lots of people do.

OK, one more go round. Identity politics is different from issue-related politics. Various groups have legitimate issues which they wanted addressed. Identity politics is not about that.

Identity politics is about a candidate or party treating certain groups as commodities defined not by the issues they are interested in but on the basis of their identity. Obama did nothing for African-Americans while in office, this despite the fact that African-Americans were the group that proportionally lost the most wealth in the 2007 housing bust and 2008 meltdown and still suffered from the effects of discrimination both past and present. So Obama’s appeal to them, as one of them, as an African-American, was one of identity politics. The same goes for Hillary Clinton’s appeal to women. She has done remarkably little for women in her political career for them. Her life has had little or nothing in common with the vast majority of women in this country. She has not led on any major issue, but her position remains that women should vote for her because she is a woman. This too is identity, not issue, politics.

If we look at the groups Democrats are targeting this election: women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and LGBT, it quickly becomes apparent that issues with specific and substantial responses to them play virtually no role in their appeal. This is identity politics writ large.

You may hate Donald Trump but his support among “angry” white males is issue, not identity, based. He is not appealing to them as a white male. Nor is he even targeting them as a specific group. They support him because he is anti-immigration and anti-free trade.

One of the things that progressives really need and substantially lack is clarity. They will pillory the wingnut right for running down insane rabbit holes, and then they will turn around and run down their own equally insane ones. They will castigate Trump for his obvious misogyny and racism and then go through all kinds of verbal gymnastics to explain away the Democrats’ cynical use of identity politics. It is an exercise which is, at the same time, transparent and unconvincing. If progressives wish to be something other than marginal, they should stop engaging in activities which trash their credibility and doom them to marginality.

Progressives when they play fast and loose with categories, ideas, and tactics, and then go all high and mighty on the right for engaging in the same deceitful anticks, when they cast aspersions on and belittle groups, as with “angry” white males, name calling they would never tolerate to describe their own favored groups, and when they can’t or won’t tell the difference between identity and issue politics are plain and simply being dishonest. And as I said before, they doom progressivism to remain marginal.

Let me be clear. I will not vote for any Democrat or any Republican. To do so is validate a corrupt system. Progressives really need to get over themselves. They think they are so much better and smarter than everyone because they only fall for 90% of the cant and propaganda they are fed and not the 100% they think everyone else does. Progressives should be using this election as a learning experience on what is real in our political system and what isn’t, what has substance and what doesn’t, and how to better organize and reach out to all groups, and in doing all this come up with a unifying vision for the society Americans want. But they aren’t. They are falling back into their usual and failed patterns, and wondering why nothing changes.

@ ks

“the “addressing the concerns that apply to everyone” line is silly as you can do that and help address the injustice others face in their daily lives. It’s not a zero sum game or mutually exclusive matters”

Firstly, I’ve been seeing your comments for years, here and at FDL, and you NEVER comment from anyplace but your little victimhood window, almost always just about race, but sometimes in support of what you perceive to be your fellow victims–that is identity politics and nothing else.

The proof is in your above-quoted comment, which is pure bullshit. As a lawyer, my prime concerns are about civil liberties, rule of law, and accountability, i.e.. issues that affect ALL of us citizens.

Under Obama, you got to0 big to jail banks (and other corporations, as POLICY); lost habeus corpus; got constantly increased surveillance; continuation of the entire Bush police state regimen (including all those kooky US Attorneys Bush appointed after firing ALL the previous ones en masse); massive increases and diversifications of war activities; and the regularization of free speech zones which are actual cages. Those are the things that destroy all of our freedoms.

Yet, no protests have been heard about ANY of that from the blacks, gays, and women who perceived Obama to be on their side because of their identities. Least of all from YOU!!!!!

So, no, we can’t do it all. Or, at least, we WON’T. We only do one or two things at a time in this country. Limited attention span, and all that. So, we must sometimes choose whether to fight for the most basic freedoms for ALL OF US, or settle for getting this or that smaller squeaky wheel greased. Your particular squeaky wheel has been greased enough for the time being. How about the freedoms being taken away from people like me and the majority, as well as you? Not worth getting upset about?

Why should we in the mainstream give a damn anymore about your “concerns” and “feelings,” why should we defer our concerns and, instead, support you, when you and other identity politics afficionados so obviously DO NOT GIVE A DAMN about our mutual liberty issues, even while overall freedom is disappearing? (Or even give a damn about your own freedoms/issues, whenever they diverge from your sacred, specifically tribal, issues?)

Your place in this universe, sir, since you are obviously still searching for it, is to help populate the circular firing squad that has always been the left side of the political spectrum. And you know what? OUR MASTERS LOVE YOU FOR IT!!!!!

Bravo.

realitychecker(?): “Firstly, I’ve been seeing your comments for years, here and at FDL, and you NEVER comment from anyplace but your little victimhood window, almost always just about race, but sometimes in support of what you perceive to be your fellow victims–that is identity politics and nothing else.”

That is the voice of privilege talking … though of course you don’t see that as such.

I’m part of the LBBTI community and do some activism on behalf of that.
We are a small part of the population, long attacked, vilified, been 2nd class legally, economically many are at the absolute bottom of the heap, hated by many, often attacked and even murdered. Politicians lining up and shouting out all the time how they will eliminate us. Not something you will ever experience.

We have to look after ourselves, because you lot won’t. Our issues are literally life and death to us.. your issues about your levels of comfort or discomfort. So we tend to be a bit more motivated.

And we get a bit pissed off when we get lectured to about ‘why don’t we do something about X’…right.

What about the vast majority, like yourself, who created all the problems in the first place and who could fix it if they got off their fat arses?

Don’t see you out there fighting for our lives, we have to do that ourselves .. and then you have the gall to criticise us because we won’t go and fix the issues you care so much about and do nothing about????

And as for that ‘more important things first’ nonsense .. remember the ‘life or death’ bit, and if we waited for you lot to do something for us we’d might get a (small) bone thrown our way maybe in the next millennium or two…

You know what we hear when people say that? This: ”Go and die you perverts, but before you do it can you fix climate change, the economy, economic inequality, war and the environment for us first”…..

Lisa,

Re your response to my comment: Yes, well said especially the important clarification regarding rightwing “identity politics” that too many here refuse to see. About Trump, perhaps but, he never had the discipline to stay on message and his current gambit seems to be to go down in flames spectacularly and monetize his followers later probably via a “Trump TV/media” sort of brand. With Ailes and Bannon on board, he could out Fox Fox TV. The timing is right too as Glen Beck, Rush and even Fox are either fading or starting to do so.

Re your response to realitychecker: The self centered arrogance is astounding. It would be hard to name a “more important things first…” issue that minorities, women, LGBTI, etc. haven’t been actively involved in. Somehow the people like him/her who can’t even get a majority population of straight white folks to join the cause but yet refuse to call them out for fear of offending them (oh noes, can’t have that!) have no problem “punching down” and deriding, insulting minorities, women, LGBTI, etc. who have been their allies but also have the nerve to attend to the issues that are often immediate life and death issues for them.

A conversation between Eric Garner and a realitychecker type would have gone as follows:

Eric Garner – I can’t breathe!

realitychecker – Well yes, climate change is a problem.

Eric Garner – I can’t breathe!

realitychecker – Well yes, if there was a decent living wage you wouldn’t have needed to sell cigarettes on the corner.

Eric Garner – I can’t breathe!

realitychecker – Well yes, but remember police lives matter too so we wouldn’t want to offend the white working class by making too much of a fuss about it.

Eric Garner – I can’t breathe!

realitychecker – Well yes, you’ve told me that already several times. Give it a rest will ya!? After all, there are more important things we have to deal with first.

Ks: Well said. I will shamelessly steal that ‘Garner’ bit and recycle it elsewhere….sums it up beautifully.

For such a large dominant majority they are so sensitive to anyone even questioning them .. reminds of all those anti-LGBTI people who seem to think that heterosexuality is so fragile that if someone sees or even hears about someone who is gay or trans they will immediately turn themselves…. “got to keep those pooftahs down and in the closet because if we don’t we will all become pooftahs” sort of thing (yes people actually say that, unreal) .

@ ks
@ Lisa

You two should get a room. You could make beautiful mewling together.

Neither of your identity groups would ever have gotten off the floor without the support of people like me, and both groups have always had my support. ALL THE WAY.

So, how very charming it is to see now how comfortable you both are to stereotype me based on “white”and use that stereotype to launch a bunch of completely inaccurate speculations. I guess that must be part of the “victim privilege.”

When people like me supported your groups, it was because we looked beyond our own selfish concerns, and had a community-based ethic. What I see is that you have a selfish identity tunnel vision that is so absolute that you mock the idea of ever thinking in terms of an overall community concern. Even when the concern is about the rule of law and civil liberties in general. Even when those are the very things that provide the fundamental societal infrastructure that allows your identity groups to even talk openly about things like justice and inequality. You both appear to find it more profitable to be the victms demanding justice from the community, than to defend the interests of the community itself.

ks, I refer to your history at FDL to let you know that I have seen you foaming-at-the-mouth batshit crazy over Trayvon, where you called me a racist for pointing out that it is legal to shoot anyone who is on top of you and banging your head on concrete, period.

And Lisa, any time I see your name, I am pretty sure the letters LGBT will be prominently featured in the following comment. (Now, the “I” is added; I must be horrible for not knowing what that denotes lol.)

Thought experiment: The trial evidence clearly showed that Trayvon left the safety of his father’s house to double back and beat up Zimmerman because he thought Zimmerman might be gay. How does that affect your beautiful budding partnership?

I’ll go get the popcorn.

@ Hugh

Not that you need my affirmation, but after many years, I just want to thank you for being you. I sometimes need you to remind me by example that not everybody has completely lost their minds. Some still know how to do a competent analysis.

((Hugh))

My political consciousness awoke with the 1960 election. It was blown on 11-22-63. One thing I’ve learned is that looking in the rear view mirror at ‘history’ is not the same as living through it. Nixon was my generation’s trump. Make no mistake about it. We knew he was in bed with the mob, we knew 2 years before the press announced it that the u.s. had been bombing Laos and Cambodia. We were not surprised by Watergate or the plumbers because we knew about nixon’s involvement with the house committee on un-American activities and support from the texas right-wing- we knew about Hoover- christ I was interviewed by the fbi after a protest on campus and they knew everything about everyone. Army intelligence and fib’s were everywhere. And, lest you fail to recall, there was the fucking draft and the beloved lottery. nixon was not okay, he was very, very bad because he was smart and trump is maybe crafty.

@ Lisa

Let me just add that the vast majority of clitoral mutilations take place in the Muslim countries that Hillary can’t say anything bad about. I think they are all atrocities.

But she is the pro-woman candidate? Touching a pussy (or just talking about one) is worse than cutting off a piece of it? How do you do the math on that incongruity?

My head spins from the stupidity of where we are now. We can’t survive with this level of stupidity.

@ Lisa

Hey Lisa, guess what? I’ve had a whole bunch of very difficult issues thrust upon me in my life that you probably don’t know OR CARE A DAMN about.

Get over yourself–your pet issues do not have to be the most important issues for those of us who don’t experience your issues. Learn to have a sense of proportionality, why don’t you?

Clarification: My lady, the sex education specialist, would want everybody to know that she did guess that “I” meant “intersex” when I queried her about it; she just didn’t seem to me to be sure of herself when she said it.

Yes, Lisa, we all know what Google is–how many important things do you think exist that you don’t know anything about but never Googled because they just didn’t trigger a “need to know” impulse in you?

Might I suggest the small numbers of intersex mutilations you focus on are at least an attempt to do right by the child, BUT the many genital mutilations in the Muslim world are intended to remove any chance of sexual gratification, clearly not a friendly thing to do.

How do pro-women advocates call Hillary a womens champion when she is silent on this and so relentlessly and uncritically pro-Muslim in her policy positions?

The problem with pro-identity activists like yourself is you have no sense of proportion or perspective, but simply demand that the whole world make your top concern into their top concern. What makes you so special? Why is it OK for you to ignore my top concern, the rule of law, which affects each and every one of us?

@ nihil obstet

Bravo. You said it much more gracefully than I did in my last response to Lisa which Ian, in his finite wisdom, chose to delete. 😉