Have you noticed that Biden and company are acting like rebellious kids doing the opposite of whatever Trump did…
…whether it makes sense or not.
When therapists work with children, teens, or young adults who are acting up, it’s often useful to point out that doing things just because they are the opposite of what parents do is still a form of being controlled by those parents. It’s not thinking independently and it’s not being smart.
Of course, for the Biden administration, there are also huge differences in ideology and goals between them and Trump, and this is a large part of what drives their decisions. Trump put America first; they did not. Trump tried to thwart the left; they are the left. Trump was a friend of Israel and a foe of Iran; they are not. Trump wanted to discourage illegal immigration; they want to encourage it. Trump was anti-woke; they are in league with woke. Trump was against the racism of anti-racism; they are for it.
In my youth, the two parties used to have some differences but were united on many of the basics. No more.
I think the issue is that the modern Dem party seems to have made a sort of Faustian bargain with radical lunatics in order to aquire and maintain power. I don’t believe that characters like Biden and Harris actually have any kind of real ideaology (other than to themselves), they just adopt whatever the current Left position is. And the current Left position is pretty much do the opposite of what Trump did.
Of course the problem for Biden and the rest is actually doing the opposite of what Trump did often leads to disasters, like what’s currently going on along the border of course. And while small disasters can be hidden and suppressed for a little while by the compliant media in concert with the social media overlords, over time it becomes more and more difficult to hide them.
It’s sort of like when a dog lays a pile of turds on the carpet and people pretend that it’s not there so they don’t have to clean it up. Sooner or later you have to address it.
The point is, these people got a lot of votes. Did the voters decide that doing the opposite of Trump’s policies was sufficient, whatever it was and whatever the results were, or did they actually think the likely results were desirable in themselves?
We hear from activists, politicians, academics. And a lot of them are nuttier than a fruitcake….but…how many literally approve of the border crisis and hoped it would happen? Likely those who hate America as generally perceived by the rest of us did.
But the folks we don’t hear from?
I know people who, while they didn’t look for higher gas prices–didn’t think that far ahead–will retroactively justify it as reducing fossil fuel usage. Poor folks….? Trump’s fault.
Did the folks we don’t hear much from vote against Trump with no thought for what they were going to get, or did they want what we’re getting?
I hear what the left says all the time. The rest of the Biden voters….
And Bidet has once again began financial aid to the Palestinian Authority.
As if bribing these people, using the $$$ of the American citizenry, will make them not hate the USA.
Yep, I guess there are not enough US citizens who are struggling with medical bills, tuition bills, tax bills etc.
If a dozen atomic bombs fell upon the USA, the palestinians would declare one full year of celebrations; they would be dancing in the streets and partying for one full year (as would the Iranians).
Yep, let’s just give them tax dollars from working American citizens.
Just another example of the incredibly stupid, moronic, naive, arrogant, incompetent F’heads like Bidet and those within “our” govt.
This is really absolutely incredible.
Trump realized how incompetent and stupid they were; one of many reasons they declared war on him.
Meanwhile the Russians, Chinese and Iranians are besides themselves with joy and glee; they cannot believe their luck.
If they had installed a US president, he would have been following the policy of Bidet.
It’s more like Obama acting out. I’m convinced he’s the one with his hand in the Biden sock puppet. He’s pissed about what Trump did to his legacy and is hell bent on reversing everything Trump did and to restore all his cherished programs. And now that he is behind the scenes he can get on with his radical agenda much more easily than before.
I read Biden is removing sanctions on Iran.
First, the Biden administration asked Iran to stop enrichment and the sanctions would be dropped. Iran said no. Now, the sanctions will be removed without any Iranian concessions, because that will bring them to the table. Right…
Isn’t the saying of the Strong Horse and Weak Horse from the Middle East? I’m quite sure which kind of horse Iran, China and Russia see us as.
Unfortunately, in a crisis, who knows how our “leadership” will be perceived or even how they will react.
But, we are going down in the world’s eyes, which is exactly where the left wants us to be.
Commenter “I am Sparticus” posed some questions for Democrats some months back. I didn’t record the link, and as NewNeo doesn’t do Advanced Google Search, I can’t locate it, but I did copy/paste it.
I may have added to what Sparticus originally wrote.
“Did the voters decide that doing the opposite of Trump’s policies was sufficient, whatever it was and whatever the results were, or did they actually think the likely results were desirable in themselves?”
You are assuming they know what’s going on. I just checked an old blog I used to frequent. It used to be very Bush Republican and, of course, turned NeverTrump in 2016.
Since the start of the new year, this blog has had…
Two posts on gender issues.
Two posts on immigration.
Zero posts on gun control.
One post on the Middle East.
Three posts on military affairs.
Four posts on business-related issues
Forty-one posts on Donald Trump.
One hundred twenty-nine posts on U.S. politics.
This from a blog that usually averages five to eight posts a day. The people who post there would claim to be well-informed and thoughtful but it’s pretty clear that 99% of the time they just blather about whatever is vomited at them by their social media feed that day.
Mike
I have a daughter who is 53, single, a lawyer and an FBI agent. She hates Trump. I walked past her one morning about two years ago when she was visiting. As I passed her she shouted at the TV “Trump is such an incompetent.” I asked her if 3% unemployment and the Dow at 25,000 was evidence of incompetence. “Yes !”, she said. End of discussion.
Mike+K I haven’t heard that exactly. But lots like it. Point is….don’t follow up. Rationality is long gone and self-righteous outrage fills the entire narrative.
And just for some perspective, that same blog had 123 posts on immigration in 2019 and 5 posts on immigration in 2020. How do you go from averaging 10 posts a month on a subject less than that for the entire year?
Answer: Your social media feed stops feeding you stories on immigration because they either made Trump look good or the Democrats look bad.
Mike
Richard Aubrey:
I was surprised at the number of people who absolutely HATED Trump in 2020, and voted for Biden on that account alone. Then I remembered just how much I hated Hillary, and how I voted for Trump even though I had serious reservations about his ability to govern. That made me realize how much negative impressions of a candidate can sway an election, and I found it a little bit easier to understand how people could vote for an empty suit like Biden.
You might question my doubts about Trump in 2016, but he was pretty much an unknown quantity. He was very much a known quantity in 2020, and the legacy media had had five years to poison minds against him. That’s a hard handicap to overcome.
“In my youth, the two parties used to have some differences but were united on many of the basics. No more.” neo
Yes, “politics stops at the water’s edge” was a given. However, at base the two party’s main focus is power. The GOPe’s focus is the retention of the political power that financial support provides. The Democrat Party’s focus upon fundamental transformation requires
financial and political power. So though the motivations differ, power is what its about for both parties.
“Did the folks we don’t hear much from vote against Trump with no thought for what they were going to get…” Richard Aubrey
Sheep do not question the destination to which the sheepdog directs them.
“Bidet has once again began financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. As if bribing these people, using the $$$ of the American citizenry, will make them not hate the USA.” JohnTyler
It is not the reduction of hate that is the goal. It is in fomenting a deep reluctance to stop the offered bribes that is the goal. As with the Pakistanis.
Employing bribes reveals a willful blindness to the Islamic terrorist’s base motivation, which is in nature a theological imperative. Yet as long as Israel exists, it will appear to work. Once “the little satan” is exterminated, Islam’s focus will turn to the extermination of “the Great Satan”.
physicsguy, I believe you have the right of it.
eeyore, we know exactly how the Iranian, Chinese and Russian “strong horses” percieve the Xiden administration and, they also know that nothing beyond a reaction of empty bluster will occur.
Taiwan and Ukraine are living on borrowed time and Iran has to see its dream of a nuclear blockaded Strait of Hormuz approaching.
F (5:51 pm), totally on target, especially your first paragraph.
Regarding the 2016 Trump, at that point, we did know that he was a former donor to both Democrats and to Republicans*, and nobody knew at that point just what we’d be getting if he were actually elected.
* although in Trump’s native Noo Yawk, Democrats hugely outnumbered Republicans
What we did know was that he was an outspoken loudmouth, and that made those opposing him detest him even more than what would otherwise be the case. In turn, being thin-skinned, he reacted against the newborn hate, and (from where I sit) that caused him to move rightward, and then sharply rightward, in response. The rest, plus F’s second paragraph, is history.
Trump was essentially a third-party candidate who knew enough that a third party candidate stands no chance in a national election [see Perot, H. Ross]. But now I’m veering ever more off-topic, so . . . adieu, good folks.
This afternoon I was listening to Janet Parshall on the radio. A female guest called in saying how her white Christian son has come home from college apologizing for being male. This is what we are up against. The left is brainwashing whites to hate themselves , especially white males. That translates into how young people vote. Whites who hate or feel bad about being white is part of globalism. Making them no longer want to unite with their fellow Americans at the waters edge. They will be ok with Chinese hegemony or a caliphate. https://www.moodyradio.org/programs/in-the-market-with-janet-parshall/
Geoffrey Britain on April 8, 2021 at 6:04 pm said:
“It is not the reduction of hate that is the goal. It is in fomenting a deep reluctance to stop the offered bribes that is the goal. As with the Pakistanis.
Employing bribes reveals a willful blindness to the Islamic terrorist’s base motivation, which is in nature a theological imperative.”
I don’t think so.
The folks that are pulling Bidet’s strings (i.e., Obama ) hate everything about the USA, everything about Israel and believe ALL the problems in the ME (if not around the world) stem from the past policies of the USA and Israel.
Thus, Bidet’s / Obama’s main goal in the ME; to have the USA and Israel suffer maximum harm and make sure the entire world recognizes this.
Bidet / Obama are motivated by hatred of all things USA, and ALL their policies are
focused on diminishing the influence and power of the USA.
I simply do not understand how everybody does not see this.
Recall that Bidet / Obama are firmly in the “woke” camp; where the USA is a racist, homophobic, imperialistic , capitalist cancer controlled by evil white folks. This attitude of theirs is simply extended into their foreign policy decisions.
Bidet / Obama know EXACTLY what they are doing. They are fully aware of what they are doing.
And they have a specific set of outcomes they are striving to achieve.
What would that be?
To diminish in every way possible – economic, militarily, politically- the USA.
F. I submit that hating Hillary and hating Trump were two different kinds of hate.
People hated what Hillary and Bill had done. People hated what they stood for. Hated what they’d likely do. Wanted to avoid that. If Hillary were inconvenienced, that was icing on the cake.
Trump hate was irrational. There was nothing he’d done in the political sphere to which one might object. The hate fed a market for his earlier actions which could then be hated. But the hate came first.
It’s not easy to believe that the media and activists can cause rational people to become irrational in their Trump hate. As we see above, there were no issues on which one might rest such hate. What had to be done was misrepresent what Trump had done….but I’m not seeing previously rational person buying the falsehoods. You had to be nuts to start with.
And, as I said sometime earlier, such haters reacted to facts as if brandishing a Crucifix at a pack of werewolves. They didn’t get there with facts.
As I say, not getting it.
Geoffrey Britain:
” …. Iran has to see its dream of a nuclear blockaded Strait of Hormuz approaching.”
China may not appreciate Iran trying to hold them by the short hairs.
Bidet and the Ho will have to kill fracking well and truly dead for Iran to be the masters of the world’s major supplier petroleum, that part that ain’t controlled by Vlad.
And when it doesnt work and they HAVE to reverse course and do what Trump did, it makes Trump look a lot better, stronger, and smarter than ALL of them together… It only SEEMS that the collective is better and stronger, but its not, as the best it can be is AVERAGE… or less… it can never excel because that is not allowed by its own ideas and structures which are foundational no matter what else changes..
So I see these comments about Biden, Obama, Harris et al hating America, hating Israel, deliberately trying to weaken America with malice aforethought.
And something about these comments reminds me of people on other blogs saying that Trump, or Romney, or , or Republican voters in general, hate gays, hate women, hate minorities and wish to oppress and weaken them with malice aforethought. And none of us commenting here recognize ourselves in these caricatures.
It might be an instructive exercise to try to articulate the reasons for some of these actions by Obama, Biden, Harris in words that those people, or their supporters, might agree was a fair characterization.
And once that is done, explain what is we disagree with about either those reasons or their underlying premises, or that the consequences may not be as foreseen, that sort of thing.
Just something we might think about trying, because I do think it would make us more effective opponents and be more likely to change minds among those who might not be committed ideologues.
“Have you noticed that Biden and company are acting like rebellious kids doing the opposite of whatever Trump did.”
Um, er…
Have you noticed that Biden and company are acting like Machievellian Bolsheviks doing the opposite of whatever Trump did…
…because their goal is to destroy the polarity that a strong US represents and the force—for good (though they would frame it as evil)—that it can mount against its totalitarian enemies (communist, Islamist and bureacratic); and thus weaken the US to the extent that they hope and expect it will necessarily HAVE TO yield to a—so-called—“one-world” government led by such international structures (AKA bureacratic disasters) as the—so-called—UN and the—so-called—International Court of Justice…and, to a lesser extent, the EU, etc.?
(There, fixed it for you….)
File under: George Soros’ (and like-minded international arsonists’) wet dream…
“…it makes Trump look a lot better,…”
“…more likely to change minds…”
Um, seems to me that the only way these “minds” (such as they are) might be “changed” (and even, perhaps, view Trump more favorably) is when they:
1. witness the disasters that MUST result from “Biden” ‘s policies;
and
2. are cognitively/ideologically capable of connecting these utter disasters to THE POLICIES that “Biden” initiated (IOW, come to the realization that “Biden” is lying about EVERYTHING and has done so from the get-go).
Although 1 and 2 might seem to be practically identical or at least related they are in fact two different things. This is why “Biden” and his untiring, unstinting spin machine MUST continue to work in overdrive to hammer home the message that EVERYTHING BAD (e.g., the curent border disaster) is the fault of Trump—as they’ve been doing for the past four plus years… keeping in mind that many myriads of people who have been mesmerized by this message for these past four plus years will have lots of trouble jettisoning the Trump hate and recalibrating toward reality.
This is why it may likely—unfortunately—take a total and utter disaster before they, as it were, “wake up”.
File under: Berlin 1945, Chernobyl 1986…e.g.,
Barry wrote:
“witness the disasters that MUST result from “Biden” ‘s policies”
Look at the border crisis now. Not only is the media BARELY covering it, much of the commentary that does is this was all caused by Trump’s policies and actions.
Unfortunately, the Left looks at this as never their fault and if only more money had been spent or their policies followed better, the results would have been spectacular.
Their ideas are perfect and any bad results or unintended consequences were never caused by them.
Therefore, the Left will not witness any bad results of their policies.
Woopsie…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-commerce-secretary-admits-trumps-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs-saved-american-jobs
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-says-rejoining-open-skies-would-send-wrong-message-russia-after-bashing-trump
https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-restart-border-wall-construction-trump-pledge-gaps-2021-4
Heh…
It’s been said or illustrated in so many ways, but it seems to come down to that Trump Derangement Syndrome makes otherwise rational people raving lunatics. I have family members whose education and backgrounds one would think lead them to understand the binary choice between a man whose personal style may grate and annoy but whose policies are generally sound and another whose personal style is more conventional (although in my opinion frankly more grating and annoying than Trump’s) and accepted by “decent society” but whose policies and political party are to say the least insane.
Why can’t people understand? So much is social and class driven.
“Why can’t people understand? So much is social and class driven.”
Yes. A thousand times yes!
If we’re to avoid a Race War, we’re going to have to fight a Class War stat in order to head it off at the pass.
Everything Old is New Again courtesy of that good old and reliable Commodius Vicus of Recirculation.
“Why…”
Dennis Prager had a very sobering column on this a short while back.
(I can only imagine that he thought a lot more than twice before he decided to publish it….)
https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2021/01/05/i-now-better-understand-the-good-german-n2582563
Frederick. Theres hate and there’s hate.
It was said that conservatives hate gays. Okay. Problem is…no evidence. Failing to do what an activist group wants in all its particulars is called “hate” in order to manipulate others. The leaders know better and the followers parrot it and believe it.
Conservatives think activists hate America. Evidence? Activists say so. They destroy monuments. They slander our heroes. They teach CRT and 1619. They sneer at the Constitution. The only thing important about the founding fathers is that they owned slaves.
So. Different.
“If we’re to avoid a Race War, we’re going to have to fight a Class War stat in order to head it off at the pass.”
I’ve heard this point before (most likely from you!), and while it sounds rather sophisticated (and therefore convincing?) I’m not sure I follow.
Seems to me that a class war has proven unworkable (i.e., unprovokable) in the US.
Therefore, it appears that the “resistance” concluded that it had to “retool”, that is, focus on “race” instead of “class” so as to more successfully launch social anarchy and foment the destruction of the Capilatist/Reactionary state.
IOW, they launched a race-based conflict to undermine society entirely only after concluding that class war was not a realistic way to destroy the country.
So how exactly are we supposed to put that (race) genie back in the bottle?
By redirecting the racial conflict to class conflict?
When precisely the opposite tack was deliberately chosen because a class war proved impossible?
Help me out here…
I’ve thought about this quite a bit (not that that helps a whole lot necessarily) and have concluded that the only effective way to “head these new racialists off at the pass” is for the general Black community and leadership (and, similarly, other ethnic communities) to take up the fight against such perverse distortions and dangers to the body politic. That is, I’m not sure anyone else can effectively defuse that level of race-based perversity.
(This in spite of the fact that “Biden” et al. might categorize such Blacks who are trying to resolve this as “not Black”….)
I personally think a Race War is most likely inevitable given that the Governing Classes have been working for a while now to weaponize Race against Flyover Joe Sixpack (to use their cartoonish characterization of normal legacy Americans and Westerners in general). In such a conflict, broadly generalizing everyone’s skin gets to be their uniform except that when two random White folk bump into each other in a dark alley there will be some extra game-theoretic fun features in play 🙂
That said, it *is* possible for different races to rub along in the same society provided that historical balances are not disturbed and provided that there is a clear and stable hierarchy and balance of forces. Still, Less is More. Doesn’t take much to set things off at the best of times. We are Killer Apes with a thin veneer of Civ as I’m sure you will agree and it’s best not to tempt fate.
I believe (Think perhaps too strong a word) that a combination of Protean/Promethean Tech Oligarchy coming out of nowhere in a historical blink of time plus Managerialist Bugpeople becoming self-aware and developing class consciousness in the past (say) century has hugely destabilized things. There are doubtless some Machiavellians amongst them, but most are just vain children playing with matches. Taking the hurt to these people and making them aware that there will be personal consequences for them and their families may be the last chance before the deluge.
Happy to hear arguments to the contrary.
“I’ve thought about this quite a bit (not that that helps a whole lot necessarily) and have concluded that the only effective way to “head these new racialists off at the pass” is for the general Black community and leadership (and, similarly, other ethnic communities) to take up the fight against such perverse distortions and dangers to the body politic. That is, I’m not sure anyone else can effectively defuse that level of race-based perversity.” – Barry
Some of the Black community are trying, as in Neo’s post today about the pushback of leaders and Civil Rights figures in this letter.
https://1776unites.com/essays/1776-unites-open-letter-to-smith-college/?mc_cid=b2d505a573
Another possibly still-influential person has also responded, but there is a reason the Left/BLM/CRT cabal has been devaluing MKL’s legacy.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alveda-king-georgia-voter-id-law
A third one, just encountered today:
https://justthenews.com/government/state-houses/herschel-walker-corporations-should-help-minorities-get-photo-ids-voting
However, as pointed out in the other thread, the Left’s leadership don’t care, and the people aren’t all getting the message.
But some of them are.
Cancelling the #Walkaway project’s website and videos did not make any of those people go away. They talk to others.
We need to do what we can to support them.
Gringo – Ah that list. Brings back memories. It is still a good list. I am thinking of creating a “You are proud that Biden” list. This one will be a in process as the lunacy goes on. I am particularly fearful about the Ukraine situation. If you haven’t heard my recommended listening on the “What are the Odds” podcast I reference in the VIVA FREI post two days back please do so.
Mike K – I feel for you. What your highly educated professional daughter is exhibiting is elitism. Hillary was using that term “basket of deplorables” for several weeks in private to great acclaim before she decided to use it in public. They are just so superior to us economic nationalists. If you haven’t seen the movie “Elysium” with Matt Damon and Jody Foster it might be good to view it with her and ask her if that is how she see society organizing.
Also feel free to use my Trump list and contrast with the Biden list I am starting up. Pound on the two systems of Justice theme. Hunter Biden vs. Michael Flynn. Ask about how her FBI could try and entrap a congressman in an extortion case. Ask her if she had any involvement in anything like it.
To be appended with more foolishness as time goes on.
• So, you are proud that you voted to allow dark skin children to be sent over the border to be prey for sexual predators.
o That Kids in Cages is back in vogue.
o That cruel heartless Trump’s wall construction has resumed.
o That untested COVID people are released into the general population. When Biden called Texas unmasking a Neanderthal move, what does that make this move and the people who support it? Apes?
• So, you are proud that the Chinese told the United States that we have no business discussing their internal affairs and China will tell the US what they are going to do from now on.
• You are happy that Iran demanded cash up front to talk with the Biden administration.
• So you are proud to be lead by a man who uses cartoons to get through press conferences. You have full faith that he is able to make tough decisions even though he hasn’t talked to world leaders.
• That he lied so bad to the American people about the Georgia voting bill that the Washington Post had to give him four Pinocchio’s. That makes you proud.
• You are proud that there are two systems of justice. One for the deplorables and a different one for the connected like Hunter Biden. Just like Elysium
• That the vaccines promised by Trump arrived ahead of schedule, but Biden said they didn’t. That he lied is a small detail and not worth noticing.
o That you regard lying as a form of competence and proud that he is using it.
• That sex is a societal construct and self-identifying females can compete for Title IX scholarships vs. biological females. You are proud that this administration is implementing this policy.
• And if they don’t answer you can always say, “Tough Questions. You will circle back with us like the White House does when they get a tough question.”
Other please feel free to suggest other things they have done. More will come as the foreign situation gets worse. Always remind her that she should be happy. She voted for it. Biden is competence exemplified in her vote. Make her own everything this administration does and allows to happen. When we get drawn into a shooting war then you can say:
“You are proud that you voted for this and have become a war monger.”
Change is a process and not a moment. Never relent. Keep it in front of them. Good luck and be of good cheer. We win in the end even if it is in heaven. All they have is the immediacy of NOW and all the despair that accompanies it.
“It might be an instructive exercise to try to articulate the reasons for some of these actions by Obama, Biden, Harris in words that those people, or their supporters, might agree was a fair characterization.” -Frederick
I agree with your comments that we should not ourselves be guilty of doing what we complain of, but Richard makes some good points about different kinds of hate, and I really don’t know what would be a “fair characterization” of their (shorthand for the vocal activists and the official administration) reasons for the great majority of their actions, because they have so debased the meanings of words and concepts.
I suspect they will never agree that the truth about them is “fair,” but I’m open to suggestions on how some particular subject might be characterized as you advise.
“And once that is done, explain what is we disagree with about either those reasons or their underlying premises, or that the consequences may not be as foreseen, that sort of thing.
Just something we might think about trying, because I do think it would make us more effective opponents and be more likely to change minds among those who might not be committed ideologues.”
When that’s possible, Spartacus and others have had some success. However, Neo and many others have described how difficult it is to get their friends to even listen to a fair (unthreatening, rational) attempt to have any discussion at all.
Not saying you are wrong to counsel this course of action, but it hasn’t been working out too well, unless the exchange is witnessed by third parties who really aren’t committed ideologues, and who might respond to the arguments and facts.
Somebody else posted this in another thread, and it’s representative of other changers in the last few years.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/nevada-mayor-leaving-democratic-party-john-lee
@Richard Aubrey:
It was said that progressives hate America. Okay. Problem is…no evidence. Failing to do what the right wing wants in all its particulars is called “hating America” in order to manipulate others. The leaders know better and the followers parrot it and believe it.
Progressives think conservatives hate minorities. Evidence? Conservatives say so. They restrict voting rights. They use dog whistles like “states rights”. They literally want to build a wall on the southern border. They sneer at lived experience of oppression. The only thing important about the Bible is that the parts about gays not the parts about sharing with the poor.
So. Different.
For those not following along, I don’t actually believe what I wrote there. I’m just illustrating that it is easy to caricature someone’s views.
Fredrick posits something that is related to straw-manning, Stockholm syndrome takes hold when surrounded by progressives in western Washington?
The Bible refers to trans/homosexual males in reference to social and evolutionary dysfunction, and perhaps they knew that the black hole… whore h/t NAACP is a primary transmission path for disease. Incest, too.
Woke and drowsy. Trump is lucid and does not exercise liberal license to indulge diversity dogma (i.e. color judgment), not limited to racism (e.g. color blocs including people of white).
Biden is a liberal, and diverges progressively (i.e. monotonically) from normal on principle. #HateLovesAbortion
Frederick’s satire makes the point that it is easy to target anonymous “theys” and describe their actions in a perceptual caricature instead of a “fair characterization” of their own assessment of their positions.
Two-way street, double-edged sword, pot & kettle, goose & gander: you all know the proverbs.
However, get back to me when you have an example of thiskind of malevolent mischaracterization of two specific conservatives by some very specific “progressives” aka the Wokerati.
https://notthebee.com/article/a-uva-medical-student-had-some-questions-about-microaggressions-and-for-that-he-was-required-to-see-a-psychologist-tossed-off-campus-and-ultimately-suspended
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/papa-john-was-railroaded/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=also-from-author&utm_term=first
These are not “he said, zhe said” spats: there are transcripts, recordings, and documents.
Could we dredge up from the distant past (pre-Civil Rights Act of1964 for instance) some examples where conservatives (or some reasonable subset) are on the delivery end of the abuse?
Certainly. But, as a country, we are already involved in too many legacy feuds, so let’s stick with something current.
I can’t think of any cases off hand, but it’s worth putting them out if they do exist, to get a grasp of the problem and its vectors.
Note that random comment threads and sub-redditors don’t count; the examples have to have, in some degree, participants from leadership positions or institutional sources such as the above, or having some other social prominence.
Best selling books at Target do count as examples, this one from the Left.
Is there an equivalent non-satirical entry from the Right?
https://notthebee.com/article/this-devotional-has-a-prayer-that-literally-says-dear-god-please-help-me-to-hate-white-people
Contains photos of the text in the book.
Not only noticed it, it was stated it was going to be their operating procedure
Frederick. Nice inversion. Problem is not that caricatures can be run up without difficulty. Problem is, I’m right as to evidence and the caricature is not.
Progs are seen to hate America due to things they say, do, and promote. As in “death to America”.
To say conservatives want to restrict voting or keep minorities from voting is a lie. It’s not evidence. Progs want to make minority voters a non-entity by fraudulent votes cancelling theirs. They actually work to increase fraudulent votes. It’s the “actually work to” thing which makes the difference.
And see Aesopfan’s examples.
But, to get back to my puzzlement about “hate”. Trump haters hated Trump FIRST and were given bogus reasons–to which they glommed instantly–to justify the hate as if they had those reasons first, not second.
The “so you think it’s fair” exercise is interesting and I suppose we might get a kick out of doing it or imagining doing it. But would any libs you know listen to you for more than maybe two iterations before, at the very least, changing the subject? I picture stomping off, enraged ad hom, some kind of explosion. This exercise backs them into a blind alley from which, some rational part of their mind says, there is no escape. They MUST hate; they MUST believe. At the very least, it’s Trump’s fault and no questioning as to how will be accepted.
As I say, it’s a puzzlement. The only characterization that seems general is a kind of…lack of rigor. Heck of a term for pre-dawn, half coffee…. Or…mush headed. I can enjoy a sunset without thinking that it means Nature is Good and Glorious. There were times when I desperately wanted to not lose the light. I can sympathize with the homeless and do what I can without thinking they have a kind of special grace to which we must listen. Intelligent people; in at least one case a high school valedictorian.
One accomplished woman unfriended me on FB when I said that women who were outraged when some guy said women shouldn’t wear yoga pants were fortunate to not have worse things on their plate. “You don’t know what it’s like….” True. I also don’t care, or wouldn’t care if I had the occasion to care.
I’ve kind of wondered about this sort of thinking for a long time. But I’ve really been flailing since the advent of Trump when it seems to have exploded. Rational thought, fact-based thought, seem to be missing if not actively opposed.
Richard Aubrey on April 8, 2021 at 9:20 pm
EXACTLY right. There IS a difference.
I think they are obsessed with doing to Trump, what the cinematic Pharaohs tried to do to Moses …
Yet, like those Pharaohs, they can’t get away from Trump’s accomplishments and example … and the message Trump sent via policy: Let my people go!
Jester. Good point. As Trump is supposed to have said, “I’m just in the way. They’re coming after you.”
And once that is done, explain what is we disagree with about either those reasons or their underlying premises, or that the consequences may not be as foreseen, that sort of thing.
Frederick, many of us have done just that … some as the owners of blogs, the rest of us as members of their commentariat and around the professional and personal neighborhoods we find ourselves in.
But in doing so we are fighting a century of conditioning, imposed upon us all from the very first day we walk into the schoolhouse, to embrace the confessions of the Progressive faith:
As I’ve said before, we’ve been led to sell ourselves short as though we’re shares of GameStop. Reversing that will require unpleasant confrontations with our neighbors, that will have the appearance of validating the second confession above for a while …
… until our neighbors, be it through our words or through being overtaken by reality, question the assumptions they have come to accept as The Way Things Are and beyond question.
Then, take back their decision-making authority from The Pedestaled elite, as they return to trust in their own insights and view The Pedestaled – at best – as merely all-too-human advisers to them, and treat them just like they should treat me.
After all, I’m nothing special either … I’m Jester Naybor.
Jester. I think you’re right. But our hostess, wth her professional background, might want to weigh in on just how much reality it takes.
“I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong. You’re right.” IMO, it would be infinitely more likely that you’d hear…Trump’s fault. Or reichwingers’ wanted this all along. Or…pick one-Jews, corporate bosses, etc…..
This is not a matter of looking at issues outside oneself. The prog followers build their self-worth around it. They will not be saying, should they come around, “The idea I had of how those factors would play out was incorrect.” They’ll have to be saying, “I’m an idiot, an emotion-driven idiot who visited a great deal of misery on people who didn’t deserve it and, to the extent I knew about it, I figured they deserved it. I was so aggressive about being easily led by crooks and corrupt politicians. I’m a terrible person. I’m stupid.”
This is the obama third term. Joe is the puppet.
Joe has never been in charge of anything other than the biden crime family
The modern left is the most singularly arrogant political movement that I’ve ever personally encountered or can recall reading about. I think that was Obama’s contribution to the mainstream of the Democratic party. I remember remarking around 2012 that I wanted to know what it felt like to be as supremely self-assured as Obama and his team, just for a day.
The problem is that once person reaches a certain level of arrogance, he or she disables the little part of their character that prompts self-doubt and causes reexamination and recalibration. When a whole group reaches that level of arrogance, it becomes self-reinforcing.
I think that is why the Biden administration is doing so many things that appear bonkers to the uninitiated. I don’t think it ever occurred to many of them that they should consider whether Trump’s policies were working before reversing them.
(Also, I don’t want to flog a dead horse too much, but to the commenters who express amazement and dismay that people couldn’t look past Trump’s manner – I hope we can at least agree that because we now know that people won’t look past that stuff, running him again in 2024 would be madness.)
Nothing is going to change if we assume that something like half the country is stupid, evil, impervious to reason and literally the enemy.
For two reasons. The first is if these assumptions are false, as I believe that they are. You can’t fix the real problem if you think you have a completely different problem. You will always be, as Screwtape says, “running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.” It is extremely implausible that Team Red and Team Blue are different kinds of humans, with only one side able to see things clearly and act out of good motives. There are people who benefit from encouraging these notions, and these people are not found exclusively on one side… and these people are the real problem, with encouraging the Team Red / Team Blue war as the way they keep their access to taxpayer money. In reality they conspire against both teams, while throwing bones to the ideologues of the team that is nominally in charge but not really allowing true change. I don’t have a good name for them except maybe “the party of DC”.
The second reason is that if the caricature of the Left and its supporters is really true then there’s nothing for it but war. (A lot of us here already believe that elections are rigged now and going forward, but free elections don’t help much if 50% – 1 are actually the enemy.) Nobody knows what that’s going to look like, how bad it’s going to be, or what we’ll end up with when it’s done or have left when it’s over. The American Revolution is the one time in history that mostly worked out okay but a lot of bad things get swept under the rug in what most of us know of that history. First you have the people who die, then you have the economic consequences, and in the end? A Putin, a Franco, a Pinochet, that’s the best you’re likely to get out of it in the short run, and potentially decades to get back to something like republican government.
Bauxite. Good insight about Obama and his followers.
Frederick. Think what you will about the Other Side. Try the “so you think it’s fair….” exercise on a couple of them and let us know how it works out.
They got where they are for a reason and it can’t possibly have been by rational assessment of actual facts.
tl, dr; version of what I wrote is that assuming that half the country is literally and knowingly your enemy is not only wrong, but counter-productive to achieving our ends: it a counsel of despair, it is strategically and tactically dumb, and it keeps us from seeing and solving the real problem, and I believe it is designed and implemented to keep us from seeing and solving the real problem: that the national government is serving only itself and its cronies, helping them to our money, while we vote them in on their promises to “fight” one another when they really work together and “fix” problems they deliberately keep going.
Frederick – we seem to have forgotten as a country that, historically, change has happened not when one party fights hard enough for it, but when the other party comes to agree. That’s really how we’ve pulled off a stable democracy for as long as we have.
Your points are well taken, but there’s a prisoners dilemma aspect to the whole thing now too. I suspect people want someone who really will try to split the difference. I don’t see now how either party can run such a candidate, though.
@Bauxite: Thanks for engaging. There’s a big gap between my position and yours which I think you are not seeing:
we seem to have forgotten as a country that, historically, change has happened not when one party fights hard enough for it, but when the other party comes to agree.
What I think has happened, is that the change that both national parties– the people who live and work in DC–want is something that has already happened and is what they agree on they want. That is to siphon tax money from us to their cronies, who kick it back in various ways.
I think you think the Democrats in Congress really want what the Left wants and that the Republicans in Congress really want what the Right wants. I think that while this is true of a few of them on each side, this not largely true of the whole. I think Washington DC has mostly worked this way but since FDR has assumed far more power than it used to have and so this more of a problem, and it’s been a growing and accelerating problem, aggravated by the “discovery” if you like that culture war is a way to gain and hold national office.
The candidacy of Bernie Sanders is I think instructive. Why does he go along with it? The way I’m looking at it, it makes sense. He’s part of the theater; he helps the Democrats retain the progressive part of their base, and in return they take care of him. He always gets so close but never put up a real fight and then it’s party unity…
The situation at the state and local level is very different. The governments there are much closer to the people, and the smaller the state population the closer they are. Where I live in Washington State, yes the Left is in power and yes it gets its way, tempered somewhat by the need to pay people off and so retain some of kind of tax base. Other states have elections less one-sided and there are of course states where the Right really gets its way, tempered somewhat by the need to pay people off.
Frederich can’t seem to grasp that the left has no interest in what he or 7.5 x 10 x 6 other deplorables want. Submission, compliance, obedience, or consequences; that’s their game. TLDR?
Politics used to be a club. They were all jerks regardless of Party and they agreed on pretty much 80% of the things that politics required. It was the 10% on each side that they argued about. At the end of the day they all sat down together for a scotch and cigar. It’s like that cartoon with the wolf and the sheep dog. They punched out and five and walked away friends until the next morning.
Now the only thing they both agree on is that Trump is not a member of the club. There is no 80% as is the point here.
… they [the DC-ocrats] agree on [what] they want. That is to siphon tax money from us to their cronies, who kick it back in various ways.
—
The candidacy of Bernie Sanders is I think instructive. Why does he go along with it? The way I’m looking at it, it makes sense. He’s part of the theater … — Frederick
I mostly agree with the above. I think it is obvious how the Dem DC-ocrats siphon tax money. With the traditional GOPe it is slightly different.
It used to be the case that the Fortune 500 leadership provided much of the GOPe funding. Some of what they were buying back then was the right to be left alone. But to some extent the traditional role was to buy crony capitalism, and increasingly so now.
I believe it is an underappreciated fact that those in the Fortune500 hate genuine competition. So why not buy some politicians that can eliminate most of it? A newer factor here is that while a substantial minority of the GOP won't fully sign on to crony capitalism, the new Democrat party is 100% on board. As Dillinger said, "It's where the money is."
I agree that Bernie Sanders brings very useful theater to electioneering and that's part of the reason he does it. But, as I've said before, if Bernie spends $100M on campaign advertising, his wife takes home 20% of that or $20M. I don't know how much he spent on advertising in 2020, but it's got to be a lot more than that. I don't know why other pols don't do this, except maybe because Bernie occupies such exalted moral high ground, he can get away with it with his base.
I disagree with Frederick’s notion that there aren’t any (psychological?) differences between people on the left and on the right. On a fundamental level, those differences may be slight or even zero. It might be mostly a environmental or acclimatization issue.
I think the notion of truth and a pragmatic and serious look at reality is something that most of us on the right care deeply about. For many on the left, they only care about truth or accuracy or science to the extent that it helps them win an argument for their side.
Biden is so lifelike !
I think you think the Democrats in Congress really want what the Left wants and that the Republicans in Congress really want what the Right wants. I think that while this is true of a few of them on each side, this not largely true of the whole. I think Washing ton DC has mostly worked this way but since FDR has assumed far more power than it used to have and so this more of a problem, and it’s been a growing and accelerating problem, aggravated by the “discovery” if you like that culture war is a way to gain and hold national office.
I agree with this and I believe this is why Trump had to be removed BAMN. He was the kid who mentioned the lack of the Emperor’s clothes. He was totally alone in the presidency. He had no idea that DC was so corrupt and that people like Mattis and Tillerson would stab him in the back. I fear we will not see a free country again until there is a revolution.
TommyJay – Do you realize that the left has long considered itself to be the “reality-based” community? I can’t disagree that there are differences between right and left, but there’s clearly more going through on than our side seeing reality and theirs not.
Frederick – I’m not sure that we’re really that far apart. Sadly, I’m afraid the local/federal distinction that you raise is also breaking down. Look at the woke prosecutors being elected around the country. We had a woke slate of school board candidates last year in my district. We’ll see if there is a backlash against the woke prosecutors as crime goes up.
I would also offer a (very limited) defense of the DC establishment. I think that a lot of them have no idea that what they’re doing is wrong or selfish. If you’ve worked at a federal agency for 15+ years or gone straight from an elite law school to a white shoe law firm, your view of the world is probably a lot different than that of those of us in flyover country. If the mission of the agency is to regulate, tax, and spend to do good, how would such a person understand that regulating, taxing, and spending can do harm too?
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The left advertises itself s the reality based community. The leaders have their reality and they read it really well. Their goal is absolute power. They lie, they know they lie and they don’t care they’re found out if it’s too late. See how many apologies the MSM is doing about having gotten the ownership of Hunter’s laptop wrong.
Point is, however, their followers, who are the people we meet. These are the people immune to inconvenient facts, who choose positions which–they are told–make them morally superior and virtuous. And, once those positions are taken, challenging them with facts is not challenging an argument. It’s challenging their righteousness, their moral superiority. This triggers powerful resistance including insisting that we are…not very nice.
Early in the Korean War there was an attack on UN positions in which the North Korean army drove masses of civilians ahead of them. The civilians were slaughtered–it was at night which would have made things worse. I see the gullible, lefty followers sort of metaphorically in the position of the unfortunate civilians in the NKPA attack. Who suffers from unrestricted immigration? High energy prices? Who gets Section 8 housing stuck next door? Who is assaulted by catch&release felons? Miseducated? And in between the Left bosses and the masses are the gullible, superior types who are situated so as not to suffer the effects. Not yet. But who talk of a price we have to pay.
Yeah, what Richard Aubrey said in his first paragraph. That’s what I meant. (Ha!)
No, that was good Richard. I was in fact referring to the masses or base of the left and not the leadership. And while I don’t doubt many of those in the base also think they are well connected to reality, they do so without any appreciation of the difficulty and effort required to pull it off. It’s particularly difficult with media outlets that are awash with propaganda.
Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act. — George Orwell
Tommy. Thanks. And when reality is presented to them….
This reminds me of a Seinfeld: The Opposite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y_6fZGSOQI
@Jack:
Good you’re back. How’d it go?
@Zaphod
They just poked a whole, inserted scope and trimmed off bone spur. In and out in a couple hours. Sore for a couple days but fine now.
Thanks for asking. See we do have a community here at neos.
Good to hear!
It’s kind of similar to much of what’s left of Reform Judaism.
Grandpa was forced to go to Hebrew School. Wahhh. Three generations of teenage rebellion ensue.