This is a great point. There are many examples if you go back a few decades, and in many ways you could easily argue that we never had some of the norms we cherished or thought we had. A great example would be police brutality and the killing of unarmed minorities. It's extremely likely this went on dating all the way back to the 60's, but there weren't cell phone cameras to capture it and it was far easier for that stuff to be covered up. So the rule of law has probably been far more uneven and far more corrupt than we would have ever considered it.

I think it's cyclical in a way, but the problem is that the cycle isn't a smooth, gradual one going back and forth. When it goes to the hard-right and to fascism, it typically won't cycle back until there's a violent uprising and possibly a war to remove the fascist regime/party. It could also be done through massive protests, but there would likely be bloodshed by the protestors when the fascist state tries to shut them down.

As for the cancer/tumor/bandwagon analogy... I think there's plenty of reason for optimism in that it's not like a majority of the US wants this. It's not like it's more popular than not... It's just that we misunderstood how many people support this. In other words, if some Democratic norms are maintained or restored in terms of voting rights, gerrymandering, etc, we can easily defeat this hard-right populist movement at the polls. However, that's a pretty big if and we're running out of time... Like without winning and changing things, '18 will be fairer than '20 will be fairer than '22, etc... So the next election cycle is hugely important.

I don't think those people suck, especially not Rachel. And like I said, CSPAN is good.

The problem with cable news is they spend endless time covering a very few things. The result is making a big deal about big deals, but also about not-so-big-deals.

For example, the day Maddow dragged out a story on the page they had from one of Trump's tax returns she could have done a story about Nigeria, or Ocean Acidification, or Dakota Access, or the YPJ, or Tibet, had on David Graeber, or a story about the incredible salt water resistance of ancient Roman concrete. .....but the cable news format/ratings demands/audience/research staff etc makes it so cable news usually sucks.

Everyone knew this in like 1985 or whenever it all got started and it had nothing to do with party affiliation.

None of these places vote Republican. Why would they give a ****? Unless you hurt their own pocketbooks or votes they won't and don't care. Better strat is to march and block the gates of whatever the koch's own.

because he's some well off middle age white guy. Anyone else and name would've been instantly outed. tl;dr white rulez everyone else droolz

Because there would be so many people in the streets in those places that it would be clear some joined the protest from the suburbs, and it would be clear that if they didn't impeach they'd get crushed in the House in '18 and in the Senate seats that are remotely competitive. When a million people march in DC, they come from all over, and I think you'd see that in a bunch of major cities...

Like, what we saw over the Muslim ban would pale in comparison to what we'd see if there was smoking gun evidence of Trump-Russia collusion and the Republicans just shrugged it off.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I see it. I do agree that blocking the gates of anything/everything the Koch's own would be a good strategy as well.

Im glad you also recognize that they dont want poor ppl to die. It would be awfully odd if that were the case, i would imagine psychologists would have to throw all their books in the trash and rethink everything.

However i dont think they necessarily "care" about the rich in particular. Now first i will say that yes there is a substantial element of corruption in the US, so certainly one could think that both the republicans and democrats do policies that favor business more than individuals more than non corrupt politicians would do. However if we try to look outside of corruption. For example in my country the politicians are highly non-corrupt, and its still impossible for the left and the right wing to understand whats wrong with the other side.

I think many of the GOP policies are there because they want to protect or defend or strenghten a number of their favorite traditions, institutions norms and values. So for example i suspect that they think that giving free money to single mothers will weaken the tradition of the core-family (thats a term), the traditional familty, and the institution of marriage. They might believe that single mothers are incentiviced to remain single if they are given free money, or at least dont feel the pressures of getting a man and marry.

Another example, the working class whites are raging because alot of welfare clients have "given up" and are still able to have almost the same standard of living as themselves. Therefore the white workers will expand their identity by hugging the norm of "hard work" to show their disgust and distinguish themselves from those who have "given up". Many of them claim that they could just as easilty get access to the welfare goods these people have by "givng up" themselves, they know how "easy" this is, somehow.


And also i will say that a substantial part will be about Xenophobia. Like i have explained in a post a few pages down, alot of people get consumed by fear when their neighbourhoods undergo drastic demographic changes, something that got started pretty significantly in the 70s with the deindustrialization. This makes for something called welfare cauvinism, ppl are voting against their own economic interests because they want to deny the same goods to immigrants that are taking over their neighbourhoods. The power of Fear seems to be immense, there are ppl with cancer and sick family members that vote against welfare knowingly because of this (as well as the other reasons).


So outside of corruption i imagine conservatives dont actually "care" about lower taxes for the rich, everyone understands that the rich has enough, its more that they very often think that giving away free stuff will weaken a number of traditions, etc in society. Therefore the result is often tax breaks, but that doesnt mean that the tax break was the goal, the goal was all these other things.

And let me also add that this is just my best theories to date. There is something that is called the empathy gap in politics. It means that the two sides just cant understand why the other side is doing what they do, we cant emphatize with them. But i have come to understand that there are differences in the heads of liberals and conservatives, particularly our morals works differently and theres not really anything we can do about that.

Flame, why do you think the majority of the GOP support things like the death penalty, shaming kids who can't afford a school lunch, taking healthcare away from children, not allowing refugee children in and so many other policies?

i think if you had read my post you might have been able to infer some answers by yourself.

let me also repeat that i dont know the answer to everything.

on the death penalty or penalty in general or concepts like karma in general are the topics where we are the most different from conservatives and therefore are the hardest parts to grasp. conservative brains score very high on measures on a moral value we call Proportionality. it basically means an eye for an eye. we liberals dont value this at all, we value the opposite, compassion and care, even for criminals. if you look at ted cruz personality its evident that hes huge on Proportionality, and so are his followers. to us liberals the people with these brains are extremely hard to understand, but its equally hard for them to understand us since we are the opposite.

No, no, no. The ONLY thing conservative politicians care about is tax breaks for the rich. If by corruption you mean donations from the rich with the expectation of getting tax breaks (our country considers that free speech, not corruption, even if it's stupid), then saying "Outside of corruption, conservatives don't care about lower taxes for the rich," is kind of like saying, "But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

I understand you're not from the US, so if you don't understand that expression, President Lincoln was assassinated at a play with his wife, so when you ignore the entire relevant circumstance to say everything is fine, then that's a saying that applies.

I recognize that their goal isn't to kill poor people and they'd rather they not die, but they want the tax cuts even if it means letting them die... So really, they don't mind it. You can dress it up however you like, it's still true.

That's pretty sexist, and I would assume not really how women actually think about things, but I agree that's how some conservatives think.

That's pretty racist, and not at all true, but I agree that's how a lot of conservatives think.

This one you nailed, it's xenophobic and horrible and it's happening to the detriment of our society.

Yeah, there's a difference between regular joe conservative and republicans in congress. Conservative politicians 100% want tax cuts for the rich.

I'm with fly on CNNmemegate.

There kind of is. Namely make sure everyone understands what is actually causing the difference in opinion. So for example if one says we shouldn't do x because the benefits of x don't make up for the fact that 20,000 will now die, we should make sure whether those who disagree think it will cause a lot less than 20,000 deaths rather than if they think 20,000 is a price worth paying. If it is the former the argument can become technical rather than moral. And if it is the latter we apply similar analysis to see if THAT disagreement is based on something else that can perhaps be pinned down and argued technically.

You have literally no insight beyond whining, though, so who the **** cares what you think about anything?

"Oh no the guy who can't figure out his ****ing shift key thinks the 'alt left' is being divisive against Republicans by accurately describing their policies"

P.S. Can you even imagine what it's like to be the sort of person who is capable of understanding policies at the level where you can describe them? I don't mean capable of understanding whether people support or oppose them, I mean understanding what they'd actually do in the real world?

Why do people respond to aflame as if he's serious?

I think Aflame is serious and I don't like to criticize people (as I did to him in an earlier post), but I don't think that his thoughts about politics and policy are as well informed as some other posters (who often have the equivalent of a poly sci or law degree or more). I'm all for him posting as I take him to be sincere and interested in politics.

The GOP is actively trying to kill people. To give tax cuts to Rich people.

Great thread on how the GOP today shouldn't really be called "conservative." Better descriptors would be fascist, authoritarian, Know-Nothing, or Radical Right.


https://twitter.com/kpanyc/status/882636418937434114

You really aren't American.

People have been making this point for at least thirty years.

Need tax cuts because our business overlords need CERTAINTY

So of course the OC investment tax repeal is retroactive

They don't even ****ing try

This is good stuff. Would like to see more of this type of analysis here. I think there's been good analysis of race, but there are other forces at work, though my current view of how Trump could get near 50% is pretty close to us vs them nationalism and fearmongering.

I answered most of this in another post, but here are shows that are much better than cable news (other than CSPAN):

https://player.fm/series/kpfa-letters-and-politics

https://www.democracynow.org/

http://www.kpfk.org/index.php/progra...n#.WV2u49QrKWg

http://www.suziweissman.com/

https://fdmedia.org/

I strongly recommend Letters and Politics and Suzi Weissman.

Just watch the PBS News Hour if you need teevee news. Cable news is ****. All of it. idgaf if Rachel Maddow is a good liberal or if Andersen Cooper is dreamy looking. Every single minute of every single show on every single cable news station is **** that makes people stupid and none of it should be watched by anybody ever for any reason.

I can't stand Amy Goodman (to borrow a quip, she has a voice well suited to the medium of print) but will check out some of the others.

Don't understand your comment about cspan, the shows where the nuts call in are unwatchable imo. Though booktv is great if you dvr the right events/talks. I mean the "real" news for the last 40 years is the pbs newshour.