So agreed.

Birdman -- I think we could have very interesting discussions.

Because my journey is the exact opposite of yours. I was a Marxist and have come to my current positions over time.

I did so because I view Marxism as being ultimately limited and straight-jacketed. It is also prone to orthodoxy and being quasi-religious in ways that do not mesh well with my natural temprement.

Mostly though, it's about that tin of sweetcorn.

That is not what me being ok with walking with a pro-lifer in a women's suffrage march means. Lol.

In the 19th century, women were not in control of their own reproductive health or choices.

The tightening of the cilice is delicious agony.

I know what that word means because it was In The Da Vinci Code.

Me too!

Maybe kioshk is right when he criticizes higher education.. You might be proof, in more ways than one..

Actually, this is not right. I don't think it's "set in stone". Nothing of the sort. I am broadly speaking against deterministic modes of thinking. I do think humans can adapt and change.

However, there are limits to what is and is not possible. And we need to be clear on what those limits are.

For example, I do not believe human beings have the capacity of think of their in-group as being "all of mankind."

We can try to move in that direction, but nature will keep pulling us back from it.

Look at Trump, Brexit, Scottish independence, etc. etc.

Why are any of those things happening?

I think one of the reasons -- at base -- is that there's something in people that pulls them towards a narrower definition of the in-group.

Nationalism is an intense -- almost sick -- love of home, of family, of one's own childhood etc. Some people gravitate towards it.

I think we -- those of us who in the broad scheme of things are "on the left", or at least who are educated to the point where we aren't likely to be nationalists like that -- need to come to an understanding of that.

We can't just push ahead with a globalist agenda willy nilly blind to what people are like.

There will ALWAYS be a populist backlash against a governing class who attempts to do that.

Even the communists figured this out, which is why most of those regimes knew to tap into patriotism in their various state progandas.

Sure, I'll try. Why are you against the anti-Trump marches? And what should I be doing about it ideally?

(Before you state the obvious answer of "vote him out in 4 years", I think that this week proves that the situation is very dire and can't wait that long)

You are the one who said it, not me.

I'm against the marches because they were a hodge-podge, and ran the risk of appearing to anyone not on them as being anti-democratic. It's a bit weird to march against someone who was legally elected.

I'd have preferred greater focus.

One of Trump's greater "super powers" is his chaos. He doesn't just give one issue to send people into a tizzy, he gives like fifteen, all at once. The media gets scrambled, the counter messaging gets scrambled. No one can focus on any one thing fully. No one can deal with all fifteen.

These marches that took place tried to tackle all fifteen at once -- and more. There were socialists there. There were all sorts of disparate groups there. So it wasn't clear EXACTLY what this march was against.

Problematic. Why? Because it then started to look like a circle jerk to lots of people who weren't already part of that bubble. I listened to a lot of coverage on it, and more sceptical voices -- none of them particularly Trump fans -- had every opportunity to question the marches and shrug.

It would have been more powerful to focus on just one thing, whatever that thing was.

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More broadly speaking, I've always been a bit sniffy about protests and marches. Do you go on any? Have you ever been on any?

Do you think they ever achieve anything?

I don't see myself as any kind of victim and it's a lie to say all I want to change is who is victimizing who

justify this accusation

I agree there is definitely a risk of message dilution, but you didn't really answer the question of "what should I be doing now to resist Trump". Keep in mind that the most recent march was technically a women's march, but it definitely did turn into an catch-all anti-Trump event.

I didn't go on the march on Saturday. Wish I did though, just for the catharsis.

Solidarity is a thing.

I did not march but I had my spiritual pussy hat on.

I have once been compared with a ratchet

I'm not familiar with these events, so please forgive me if I'm misunderstanding the nuances.

What you essentially seem to be saying is that May did well by being entirely disingenuous. You then criticize people who made highly public pleas for her to do otherwise. Is it not possible that those highly public pleas were aimed more at the public than at the one official they were supposedly addressed to? In other words, it's unclear to me why you would assume that those you criticize didn't have their own strategic calculations in mind.

I had been thinking this marxism thing was a strange decline and didn't realize it represented progress

I would actually like to see a greater effort made towards this.

It makes for a better discussion if people don't circle back from arguments to attack people.

I would also kindly ask people to stop attacking my line of work, continuously. It does get to me occassionally. You know, I had to work hard and have worked hard -- it can be dispiriting to see that devalued and mocked as much as it is. I see attacks along those lines as being a little more personal than your common-a-garden "moron".

Furthermore -- and this is not directed at anyone in particular -- but I'm not sure that everyone here understands just how insulting and damaging it is to call someone else a sexist, racist, white supremacist or anything else along those lines. To me it's one of the very very worst things you can call someone, and when someone calls me any of those things a kind of rage and sense of injustice boils up. Things escalate very quickly when those sorts of labels are flung around. I really really think everyone would be helped if greater discernment was applied when it came to these words.

Not the first time Lord has urged appeasement.

Let's say I grant this point. This is not the case of all people, obviously, so why is it a necessity to cater to those who are drawn to this message? You can't say that humans as a species are drawn to this type of nationalism, when just as many (in fact more, here in the states) people voted against the idea of nationalism. That being the case, why must those who cling to nationalism be catered to?

Lord, you are the one who keeps bringing up your line of work. No one brings up kokiris line of work. You have unrelentingly insisted, even earlier today, that your opinions must be correct because of your line of work.

So which is it.

Do you feel your rage at being called such is any more righteous than the rage felt by those who believe you make statements that can fit those labels?

This is a very good point, and there is something like this going on from certain Labour politicians.

For example, Diane Abott going on TV and angrily denoucing Trump and saying that May should call him out is going to go down well with a certain type of voter.

Jeremeny Corbyn's appeal is in a certain type of ideological purity.

On the video I linked previously, Nick Clegg made quite a good point about this. That for some people now, the purity is more important than the actualy practice of politics.

In my view, however, that's just the luxury of opposition, and it's partly irresponsible. When you are the Prime Minister, you have to be pragmatic.

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From the American side, it's going to be interesting to see if Trump can be pragmatic. He's certainly not an ideologue, since he shifts his positions so much he can't be. And he's certainly shown he can change what he says to suit the situation.

But what I've not seen from Trump AT ALL is an ability to be flexible. He tends to double down and double down again.

This is a weird paradox. How can someone be at once a non-ideological pragmatist AND totally inflexible?

I haven't got the answer. Trump is a fascination to me, and at the same time I'm as scared as everyone else is.