Voter Suppression and Why The Republicans Love It So Much?

[Al-O-Meter]

It’s pretty obvious that most of the hate AOC gets from the right is exactly because of this. Many are just angry that she’s hot as hell and they have no shot at her.

Now if you said that about all the hate Nancy Pelosi gets I might have to give that one to you. AOC is okay I guess but who among us can't admit that Nancy Pelosi is a smoke show? The idea of her popping those dentures of hers out into a little glass beside the bed makes me want to spout all kinds of things on twitter. Grrrr......grrrr....meow.

 

[The Thriller]

This is some pretty normal stuff…



What is this boot to their necks? A free and fair election that the republican president lost (House Repubs gained seats)?

Jan 6 is something to… Celebrate?

Who’s going to be Marie Antoinette? Liz Cheney? Dr Jill Biden? AOC?

The French Revolution and the subsequent dictators it created ended up killing thousands if not millions of French and caused unparalleled European suffering not seen until the world wars. And… the American right wants that?

Of Reichstags and Bastilles › American Greatness

The United States of America came to a crossroads on January 6, 2021. How we treat the events of that day will affect not only our politics, but our culture and our very way of life for the…

amgreatness.com

 

[babe]

CRT is not being taught to undergraduate teachers, nor is it being worked in any curricula below the post-graduate level.


Which ideas have I pushed that are specifically central to CRT, as opposed to other social theories about race and oppression? When you find it impossible to name any, will you acknowledge as much?

You're a committed ideologue, though you won't define "marxism" coherently in a manner that distinguishes between the hundreds of variants. You make up definitions for everything, and if you don't care to do all that work there are thousands of people out there doing it in their own ways. I don't believe there is a cogent, concise, or distinct definition of "CRT". It exists only in the variant skulls of political agenda wonks who transiently find it useful somehow for a specific near-term goal or the larger ideal of breaking down an objectionable society by essentially bullying everyone.

So, who the hell knows what "Marxism" or "CRT" or any other variant form of political preachery really is. The whole idea of "change" or political transformation is deliberately shrouded in multiple plausibly denialed gobbledygooks.

The methodology is endless, it never reaches a goal. The real goal is the process, making use of the tool, the means of exercising power over a sheepish or disinterested ignorant public that is not yet aware of what is going on.

Theo only consistent thing I find in any of it is the strange fact that lying is loved for its wonderful effectiveness, and the occasional dupe like yourself who may sincerely believe he/she is working on some fundamental universal truth is often so damned brainwashed they'll never see the fact for what it is.

Trying to stay on topic in a thread in here is like playing whackamoley, ya know.

 

[One Brow]

You're a committed ideologue, though you won't define "marxism" coherently in a manner that distinguishes between the hundreds of variants. You make up definitions for everything,

I'm not qualified to define Marxism, and most of the non-mathematical definitions are those I read, not invent.

I don't believe there is a cogent, concise, or distinct definition of "CRT".

There is, and it is easy to find. However, it's politically inconvenient for you, so you ignore it.

 

[babe]

I'm not qualified to define Marxism, and most of the non-mathematical definitions are those I read, not invent.


There is, and it is easy to find. However, it's politically inconvenient for you, so you ignore it.

Look, I find these kinds of intellectual strainings over politics too much like discussing witchcraft. The differences are more like toads vs. frogs, crows vx. buxzzards, and such. The reciipes of how to put it all together in the damn stew and which way it must be stirred, and what words must be recited.

Obviously, Marx is dead. If he were alive he'd argue with everyone today, and noboddy would be right but Marx.

Anything that makes statements about racial differences and lays out any theorem of guilt or innate unworth of any class, including whites, is racist and hateful.

 

[Red]

One Canadian scholar’s take at what he’s seeing south of his border.

Opinion: The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare

The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then?

www.theglobeandmail.com

By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.

We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine. In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.

Leading American academics are now actively addressing the prospect of a fatal weakening of U.S. democracy.

This past November, more than 150 professors of politics, government, political economy and international relations appealed to Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, which would protect the integrity of US elections but is now stalled in the Senate. This is a moment of “great peril and risk,” they wrote. “Time is ticking away, and midnight is approaching.”

I’m a scholar of violent conflict. For more than 40 years, I’ve studied and published on the causes of war, social breakdown, revolution, ethnic violence and genocide, and for nearly two decades I led a centre on peace and conflict studies at the University of Toronto.

Today, as I watch the unfolding crisis in the United States, I see a political and social landscape flashing with warning signals.

 

[Red]

Those social scientists who conducted the poll I linked earlier sure must feel silly now that you've said what they did is beyond human achievement. Here is the poll again that formed the statistical basis for the conclusions I said I had seen reported.

Young Democrats more likely to despise the other party

37% of Democrats wouldn't befriend someone who voted for the other party.

www.axios.com

Well, there are some pretty fundamental differences seemingly built in to begin with. We discussed this, on this very forum, years ago when it was becoming clearer that extreme polarization was going to be a huge problem. I don’t think we should ignore things like this, since, I assume, sooner or later, we are going to have to find a way to live together in the same nation. Right now, that seems very unlikely. The Canadian scholar who is warning his countrymen that the US might be a right wing dictatorship before long is thinking along the same lines I am.

Studies: Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From Venus

How research in political psychology explains the fierce clashes between Republican and Democrats in our polarized system.

www.theatlantic.com

I’ll repost this, because I think both sides likely exaggerate how much the extremes of both parties actually represent the dominant points of view reflected by those who self identify with either party:

Conservatives and Liberals Are Wrong About Each Other

New research shows that Americans on both sides of the political spectrum overestimate how radical the other side is.

www.theatlantic.com

On the other hand, while I see much hatred directed at me on Facebook, by conservative friends who I refuse to unfriend, I would say students who feel the way your poll indicates they do, do so because they are perceptive, and recognize, as I do, that the Republican Party is attempting, and will continue to attempt, to create a tyranny of the minority in the United States. Since the Republican Party, at least the majority of its supporters, support an Orwellian-style Big Lie that is behind the Republican state level efforts to control the machinery of elections, no doubt in order to make 2024 a more successful effort to overturn the results of a free and fair election, should they lose the presidential election, then no surprise to me if a perceptive and intelligent college student would want to steer clear of any Republican classmate. The culture wars as well would make compromise very difficult. The low level civil war we are currently immersed in largely revolves around cultural issues at this stage. At any rate, when I see Republicans engaged by an allegiance to an alternative reality that bears no resemblance to actual reality, I’d steer clear as well.

I imagine part of me views your survey results as a crock, though. I imagine it makes you feel good to try and “prove” that liberals and Democrats are somehow more hateful people, more emotionally unhinged by our partisan divide. Bull****. How’s that for a well thought out response to your poll? Bull****. Lol, well, actually, it’s not that hard to fathom. It’s the MAGA Republicans who are going over the deep end after all. Who wants to date a conspiracy believing individual divorced from consensus reality?

 

[Red]

Majority of Americans think Jan. 6 attack threatened democracy: POLL

An overwhelming majority (72%) of Americans believe that the people involved in the attack on the U.S. Capitol were “threatening democracy,"

abcnews.go.com

Well, I guess if you’re biased enough to jettison reality…..

CBS News poll: A year after Jan. 6, violence still seen threatening U.S. democracy, and some say force can be justified

This is the first in a CBS News Elections and Polling series studying the state of democracy.

www.cbsnews.com

“The reality — and this won't allay all those fears — is that there are some Americans who generally view force or political violence undertaken by others as justifiable, depending on the situation. That applies to the violence on January 6, and to a few for whom 2020 remains unsettled, but also extends to other issues, from abortion to gun policy to civil rights. And it's partially related to beliefs that political opponents are an existential threat, or being convinced they'll do worse to you. We stress this is not how most people feel, and that those who do are a low number in percentage terms. But then, we've also seen that it doesn't take large numbers to provoke these wider concerns in the nation”.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

I would say students who feel the way your poll indicates they do, do so because they are perceptive, and recognize, as I do, that the Republican Party is attempting, and will continue to attempt, to create a tyranny of the minority in the United States. Since the Republican Party, at least the majority of its supporters, support an Orwellian-style Big Lie that is behind the Republican state level efforts to control the machinery of elections, no doubt in order to make 2024 a more successful effort to overturn the results of a free and fair election, should they lose the presidential election, then no surprise to me if a perceptive and intelligent college student would want to steer clear of any Republican classmate.

You appear to be saying the hate people on the political left have for the political right is justified and is a sign of being “perceptive and intelligent”. The authors of this piece in the Atlantic that you’ve now linked twice are talking about the exact view you are voicing. Here is a direct quote from their paper:

… revealing a pattern of cartoonish claims from both Republicans (I don’t want to work and I want cradle to grave assistance. In other words, Mommy!”) and Democrats (“I like a dictatorial system of Government, I’m a racist, I hate non-whites”) about their opponents

In the space of two posts you’ve hit all the “cartoonish claims” of Republicans wanting a dictatorial system of government, being racist, and hating non-whites. Those opinions weren’t labeled “cartoonish” by me but rather by the authors you’ve cited and they have an 88 page paper going into detail on how that isn’t “perceptive and intelligent” but is instead a false reality.

I imagine it makes you feel good to try and “prove” that liberals and Democrats are somehow more hateful people

First, I don’t think either “liberals” or “Democrats” are more hateful people but I do think Progressives are by the very definition of what Progressivism is. The Democrats are a political party, not an ideology, and at times they have completely switched sides on issues. Liberalism is an ideology to which I count myself as belonging to. Progressivism, like Liberalism, is an ideology but unlike Liberalism it is primarily concerned with group dynamics which necessitates there being in-groups and out-groups. With intersectionality, modern progressives believe an individual can belong to multiple groups so one can be in-group sometimes and out-group sometimes but it is still a group-centric ideology and not an individual-centric one like liberalism is.

There are always progressives in both the Republican and Democrat parties but in the current year I see Progressivism stronger among those who identify with the Democrat party. That is what I see reflected in those stats and most similar stats contrasting the political right with the political left. It does not make me feel good. It makes me uneasy.

 

[Al-O-Meter]

We stress this is not how most people feel, and that those who do are a low number

^^^ This is the important part ^^^

 

[One Brow]

Obviously, Marx is dead. If he were alive he'd argue with everyone today, and noboddy would be right but Marx.

Agreed.

Anything that makes statements about racial differences and lays out any theorem of guilt or innate unworth of any class, including whites, is racist and hateful.

Also agreed, but that is not what CRT does.

 

[The Thriller]

One Canadian scholar’s take at what he’s seeing south of his border.

Opinion: The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare

The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then?

www.theglobeandmail.com

By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.

We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine. In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.

Leading American academics are now actively addressing the prospect of a fatal weakening of U.S. democracy.

This past November, more than 150 professors of politics, government, political economy and international relations appealed to Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, which would protect the integrity of US elections but is now stalled in the Senate. This is a moment of “great peril and risk,” they wrote. “Time is ticking away, and midnight is approaching.”

I’m a scholar of violent conflict. For more than 40 years, I’ve studied and published on the causes of war, social breakdown, revolution, ethnic violence and genocide, and for nearly two decades I led a centre on peace and conflict studies at the University of Toronto.

Today, as I watch the unfolding crisis in the United States, I see a political and social landscape flashing with warning signals.

Absolutely terrifying but sadly accurate

 

[Red]

No paywall on this Washington Post piece. Argues that American media must be much more proactive in pointing out how our democracy is endangered…

https://wapo.st/3mRNJis

In the year since the Jan. 6 insurrection, mainstream journalists have done a lot of things right. They’ve published major investigations, pointed out politicians’ lies and, in many cases, finally learned how to clearly communicate the facts of what happened leading up to that horrendous riot at the U.S. Capitol — and what is happening now as pro-Trump Republicans steadily chip away at the very checks and balances that saved American democracy last year.

Much of this work has been impressive. And yet, something crucial is missing. For the most part, news organizations are not making democracy-under-siege a central focus of the work they present to the public.

“We are losing our democracy day by day, and journalists are individually aware of this, but media outlets are not centering this as the story it should be,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar of autocracy and the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”

That American democracy is teetering is unquestionable. Jan. 6 is every day now,in the words of a recent New York Times editorial that noted the growing evidence: election officials harassed by conspiracy theory addicts, death threats issued to politicians who vote their conscience, GOP lawmakers pushing measures to make it harder for citizens to vote and easier for partisans to overturn legitimate voting results.

“The reactionary counter-mobilization against democracy has accelerated,” wrotehistorian Thomas Zimmer, a visiting professor at Georgetown. “It’s happening on so many fronts simultaneously that it’s easy to lose sight of how things are connected.”

 

[babe]

No paywall on this Washington Post piece. Argues that American media must be much more proactive in pointing out how our democracy is endangered…

https://wapo.st/3mRNJis

In the year since the Jan. 6 insurrection, mainstream journalists have done a lot of things right. They’ve published major investigations, pointed out politicians’ lies and, in many cases, finally learned how to clearly communicate the facts of what happened leading up to that horrendous riot at the U.S. Capitol — and what is happening now as pro-Trump Republicans steadily chip away at the very checks and balances that saved American democracy last year.

Much of this work has been impressive. And yet, something crucial is missing. For the most part, news organizations are not making democracy-under-siege a central focus of the work they present to the public.

“We are losing our democracy day by day, and journalists are individually aware of this, but media outlets are not centering this as the story it should be,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar of autocracy and the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”

That American democracy is teetering is unquestionable. Jan. 6 is every day now,in the words of a recent New York Times editorial that noted the growing evidence: election officials harassed by conspiracy theory addicts, death threats issued to politicians who vote their conscience, GOP lawmakers pushing measures to make it harder for citizens to vote and easier for partisans to overturn legitimate voting results.

“The reactionary counter-mobilization against democracy has accelerated,” wrotehistorian Thomas Zimmer, a visiting professor at Georgetown. “It’s happening on so many fronts simultaneously that it’s easy to lose sight of how things are connected.”

I think this line of scholarship is ridiculous.

First of all, the Civil War ended one of the most important features of the original constitutional system, the sovereignty of states in a federal scheme that depended on local power to balance national power. "Democracy" is local. Any time you have some faraway honchos making decisions for people against what those people would support locally, you have replaced democracy with tyranny.

Secondly, with the "Robber Barons'" ability to buy influence, democracy has been decimated. The true "progressive" movement of the 1890s to 1920s attempted to curtail that power of interests over democratic representatives, both R & D. It was not a well-organized movement, and European meddlers pushing Brit-backed global schemes got in the mix, and used it to insinuate all kinds of centralized programs that could not really fit with the original Constitution. It all added to central power and reduced local control or democracy.

The thesis that all democracy is local contains the notions of individual rights, and that strong local governance that is closer and more accountable to the people is a value that trumps expertise operating in central government offices. Basically, if you can't smell the garbage at hand, you've got no business in it.

globalization, in this light, is antithetical to democracy.

Globalization is essentially a Brit operation, a new sort of pretend democracy, that enables the "Masters" to manipulate everything, everywhere, mostly influenced by interests. It is Fascist.

 

[The Thriller]

First of all, the Civil War ended one of the most important features of the original constitutional system, the sovereignty of states in a federal scheme that depended on local power to balance national power. "Democracy" is local. Any time you have some faraway honchos making decisions for people against what those people would support locally, you have replaced democracy with tyranny.

Federalism doesn't give states the right to secede from the constitutional system if they wish.

What's hilarious about this whole local control vs federal control is that historically in this country, state or local control has led to far more tyranny, violence, and death than federal control. Slavery, Civil War, Jim Crow, and the current tyranny of gerrymandering and overthrowing election counts all stems from the tyranny of local control.

Literally, local control enabled slavery to flourish. Individual rights were trampled because of local control. Do rights to treat blacks as merely property exist because local governments say so?

You're being a hypocrite here. If local control supersedes federal control, why did slave owners push for the Fugitive Slave Act? This forced free states to return runaway slaves to slave states. Why did southern slave owners celebrate the Dred Scott Decision, which gave the federal government control to force freedmen back into slavery even if their owners moved to a free state? "lOcAl cOnToL" right?

Secondly, with the "Robber Barons'" ability to buy influence, democracy has been decimated. The true "progressive" movement of the 1890s to 1920s attempted to curtail that power of intere4sts over democratic representatives, bothR & D. It was not a well-organized movement,and European meddlers pushing Brit-backed global schemes got in the mix, and used it to insinuate all kinds of centralized programs that could not really fit with the original Constitution. It all added to central power and reduced local control or democracy.

This is a weird claim to make, especially since Roosevelt was hated for waging wars against Robber Barons/trusts.

How else can multi-state and international businesses be broken up or regulated if not by a centralized government agency? Local control proved to be ineffective against the rise of Robber Barons, hence why progressives acted to do something about it.

The thesis that all democracy is local contains the notion of individual rights, and strrong local governance that is closer and more accountable to the people.

That's a weird definition of democracy. We have centuries now of individual rights being trampled by local governments. Hence, why the Civil War even started.

globalization, in this light, is antithetical to democracy.

Globalization is essentially a Brit operation, a new sort of pretend democracy, that enables the "Masters" to manipulate everything, everywhere, mostly influenced by interests. It is Fascist.

Turn off 8chan. Brit operation? lol.

I'd love to know how Trumpers think we can end Globalization in America. Like let's just make them kings for one day. How do you end Globalization?

I love how cheap my Iphone is. It would cost thousands more to be made here. The minerals needed to manufacture one aren't found in America either. So I guess I'd give up my cheap IPhone?
I love my Toyota car. It's really dependable. So I guess I'd have to buy some crappy domestic one?
I love tropical fruits from South America. So I guess I'd have to give those up for fruits that can be made here?
I love chocolate. Can cocoa beans be grown here? So I guess I'd have to give chocolate up?
I love American allies and alliances that have kept the west safe since WWII. If we give up our alliances will we go back to individual countries waging war against each other? So could we see Germany wage war against France or Russia again? How about Spain vs the UK?

And if we give all of that up, our lives are supposed to be better off? How?

 

[babe]

Slavery in America evolved along with other forms of servitude, such as the apprenticeship system in european guilds. A lot of people came here on the system of seven years, or whatever time, in exchange for paying for the trip and most living expenses while learning the new place and a new trade. Labor was needed, people were desperate to get it. I think it was mostly British ships that brought the slaves here. That trade created a "market" for captured people from Africa, which was supplied by locals who could exercise that power over others. Slavery was never "local". Some states had religious settlement originally that didn't believe it doing that, and these states gave care for escaped slaves generally.

I really don't know much about slavery, aside from being something of wage-slave myself sometimes. Which is like nothing compared to the reality of being a slave in America. Treatment varied a lot. One obstacle to just giving a slave liberty was no support system readily available. No jobs with a wage in that area, no home, and no community, stuff like that. So a lot of slave-holders were somewhat "trapped" in holding slaves. Some of these more conscientious people tried to treat the slaves better, but often faced recrimination if they did.

The thesis I advanced that "democracy is local" pertains to a situation where people have some essential rights and a culture that support certain liberties. It contains the notions of equality of people under the law, equal treatment in the culture. Obviously, a class of people, like the native Americans or other races which were routinely denied their human rights is not what I am saying.

You have no real evidence in any kind of well-studied report about the distinctions of local vs state or federal incidence of corruption and cronyism. It is a universal problem with human nature, but if the problem is localized, people can address it locally if they will. If it is happening thousands of miles away in a bureaucracy that nobody can track, there's little you can do. If you elect a congressman, a senator or a President who wants to do something about it, he is outflanked, outnumbered, and derailed by the crooks quite easily.

If your vote becomes worthless because of a system like this, it is not "democracy" at all.

 

[Gameface]

The Civil War did not end state's rights. The supremacy clause has always existed. The Civil War made clear that 1) states did not have the right to enslave their fellow humans, which was the primary issue leading to the war and 2) states could not secede from the union in order to keep slavery legal.

The Civil War was about slavery. That's the "State Right" in question. There was no broader ideological movement regarding State's Rights involved. To claim otherwise is absolute revisionist history.

babe just had the good sense to make an argument that there was nice slavery and not quite as nice slavery and so it was more complicated than just saying the keeping humans as slaves is wrong. Ahh babe.

 

[The Thriller]

I really don't know much about slavery

I stopped right here. And honestly, that’s probably all you needed to write. You should probably learn about the topics you want to discuss.

 

[gandalfe]

I stopped right here. And honestly, that’s probably all you needed to write. You should probably learn about the topics you want to discuss.

I assume that was babe?

 

[babe]

The Civil War did not end state's rights. The supremacy clause has always existed. The Civil War made clear that 1) states did not have the right to enslave their fellow humans, which was the primary issue leading to the war and 2) states could not secede from the union in order to keep slavery legal.

The Civil War was about slavery. That's the "State Right" in question. There was no broader ideological movement regarding State's Rights involved. To claim otherwise is absolute revisionist history.

babe just had the good sense to make an argument that there was nice slavery and not quite as nice slavery and so it was more complicated than just saying the keeping humans as slaves is wrong. Ahh babe.

Don't be an idiot. People are always gonna be people, and always with some degrees of attitudes and manners of difference. Saying there are variations in how people act within societies or systems is virtually impossible to deny, except that when critics call out a society or a race, the rhetoric generally takes on aspects of hate speech, and the critics imply people are all bad or all good.

I could also argue that there were good slaves and bad slaves in various respects. It's like saying there are good bosses and bad bosses, good workers and bad workers. People cope. In any situation, in every circumstance, in every kind of government, in every religion, in every science, in every activity;. It's a survival mode. When you can't change things, you cope.

So black conservatives tend to speak more harshly against slavery than white liberals, did you notice?

But they are decrying the system more than the people who were in it, the institution more than the humans. And then they hoot about why reparations are nonsense, and how they have everything they need to succeed They are painting a pc of how despite the worst. the world or people can do, they don't have the attitude of being a victim. Times have changed. People changed things. Almost everybody changed. Now they have liberty and they are not about to let the stupid fascist globalist/Democrat cronys take it and make them slaves to socialism. Or communism.

Remember how many times I've said that as an ideology, nobody who is anybody really significant, especially the likes of Obama or Hillary, really believe in the ideas? They use the ideas. They are corrupt as hell, and bent on taking advantage of people to their own enrichment.

I could throw in McConnell too. And Pelosi.

These folks are tyrants, and they want the power.