The Political Thread

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

We're one of the last three or four generations of humanity as a species, maximum.  Only the anthropic principle stops that fact from sinking in.  I hope there's some other life left when we go; it'll be better off without us.

Humankind forever seems to be heading for destruction our culture is filled with doomsday scenarios but we are the great survivor outlasting Ice ages and sever climate change so we'll endure Trumpism.  Perhaps his success is an indication that the globalization as we have known it is either temporarily on hold, or indeed finished, it's contradictions and contrasts, extreme wealth at the top, very little at the bottom of the socio economic heap have done it to death. Resentment against the Political elites, anger at the top earners largess and a suspicion that mass immigration was really a way of downsizing host nations to provide a never ending cheap source of labour for the rich have been fatal for the current crop of politicians who spoke of a shared future for all.

[ZenArcade]

Are you refering to the Carter Catastrophy Jaysus? Z

[Frank]

"A boisterous braggart is given a TV show, where his unfiltered coarseness soon makes him a star. His audience regard him as a straight-shooter and man of the people, even as he looks down on them from his penthouse. Soon, his popularity is such that he begins to entertain political ambitions"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjO5jQy0wDI

MA-A-A-A-TLOCK!

Cheers, SOAP. Read about that, never seen it before.

Great movie; up there with Network and Ace In The Hole. The Trump parallels break down at the end, when [spoiler]his audience discover what he's like when the cameras aren't rolling[/spoiler]. Trump got over that one by acting like it never happened.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Are you refering to the Carter Catastrophy Jaysus? Z

Never heard of it till now, I'm afraid, but it's an interesting topic that I'll look at at length later today. 

Apart from the fact that my early morning thoughts are very pessimistic and frightening at the moment; I was reading interviews with Noam Chomsky regarding this election result (I can't bring myself to type the new President's name) - it's not looking good for us in terms of potential war or catastrophic climate change.

I also came across this:  https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2015/december/global-warming-disaster-could-suffocate-life-on-planet-earth-research-shows - and what with the most influential man in the world denying the existence of global warming, humanity's future is looking very bleak indeed.

Best we can do is lobby to try and change minds, impossible though it seems right now, and try to make the most of things while we still can.

[Modern Panther]

President Elect Trump's tweet from yesterday:

"Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!"

It's incredible the complete lack of selfawareness demonstrated by him and his loyal army of tweety followers.  If that wasn't bad enough, it gets followed this morning by...

"Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!"


This guy would be hilarious if he wasn't going to control the largest military in the world in a couple of months.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Fuck's sake. What happened to the election being 'rigged', anyway?

[ZenArcade]

If you're in bad form Jaysus, I'd avoid the Carter hypotheses. Z

[IndigoPrime]

Fuck's sake. What happened to the election being 'rigged', anyway?

It's never rigged when you win. Just as the Electoral College was a disaster that should inspire revolution, according to Trump last time round. Now he wins with it, despite losing the popular vote: silence. SURPRISE!

Modern Panther: clearly he's back tweeting himself now, but his staffers are too.

[JayzusB.Christ]

If you're in bad form Jaysus, I'd avoid the Carter hypotheses. Z

Thanks Zen. Maybe now is not the time for it.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

If you're in bad form Jaysus, I'd avoid the Carter hypotheses. Z

Yeah the Maths alone made my eyes hurt.

[ZenArcade]

It is a bit mathy but the hypothesis is sound....we're f**ked. Z 

[Muon]

An American guy who dislikes Clinton as much as he dislikes Trump sent me this scathing account of the role of "the left" in Trump's victory. It's pretty foul-mouthed so probably good to use headphones. I think I've seen this guy's vids before. Basically it's an actor who plays a news anchor who goes off on these satirical rants once he's done his report for the camera.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=GLG9g7BcjKs

[Muon]

I think there's a lot of truth in the rant I just posted although I disagree that "the left" is completely to blame (I mean, how could it???) and I'm pretty doubtful Sanders would have destroyed Trump. Overall I see Trump as the culmination of 30-odd years of selling people an aspirational dream and allowing them to despair when the dream doesn't come true for them and they find there's no safety net to catch them when they fall.

There's a great quote about the US in an article I read (in Rolling Stone, I think) about Trump's victory: "America is like a giant manor estate where the aristocrats don't know they're aristocrats and the peasants imagine themselves undiscovered millionaires." It's all the "undiscovered millionaires" (angry that they haven't been discovered yet) who were at the core of the vote.

But the guy in the video raises an important point about how the left tends to shut down debate and ridicule people if they have what seems to be an unacceptable view rather than debating with them. I guess it's a symptom of the Internet age. I admit I got a little like that when I was drunk and on the internet after the Brexit result 

These days it seems liberal-leaning discourse focuses way too much on calling people out for getting their identity politics wrong. These are all important issues but it distracts people from overriding issues like the predicament of the poor and healthcare. The confrontational nature of the discourse fractures the left. At the same time, the "left-of-centre" political parties have spent so long trying to imitate their counterparts on the right they can no longer come up with a credible alternative to what the right are offering.

It's so much easier for the modern right to have a simple, coherent message, ironically because of the sheer lack of thought that goes into the position. It's basically this: "I work hard so I deserve to be well off but the government and foreigners are stopping me from being well off."

[Frank]

There's a great quote about the US in an article I read (in Rolling Stone, I think) about Trump's victory: "America is like a giant manor estate where the aristocrats don't know they're aristocrats and the peasants imagine themselves undiscovered millionaires." It's all the "undiscovered millionaires" (angry that they haven't been discovered yet) who were at the core of the vote.

It's a Steinbeck quote/misquote: 'Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires'.

I agree with almost everything in your post. There are two kinds of people who discuss politics; those who wish to explain their reasoning to others and those who just want to inflict fulminating abuse upon those too stupid to already agree with them.

It is our tragedy that those in that latter group were born pish at sport, or they'd be somewhere else, hurling wildly accusatory, divisive invective at each other about football or cricket, or something else that doesn't have real life consequences for millions of people.

[ZenArcade]

You are making some sensible points there muon. The crass demagogue has stolen what should be the democrats core support grouping, that is the blue collar working class. When those Great Lake states turned red my heart dropped.
The shift of focus from fair distribution of wealth; fiscal regulation; real affordable health care and education towards a strict emphasis on identity politics (important as they are) and being seen as hand in glove with the '1%' and the organs of globalised corporate business and finance have cost the party dearly in the US; cost the left of centre dearly in the UK and disconcertingly will be repeated throughout Europe in a macabre domino effect.
Hilary Clinton as I have said many, many times before on this forum is closely linked with all of the negatives which I have outlined above. She paid the price for her sheer sense of entitlement, arrogance and worst of all her complacency.  People and groupings have said Bernie Saunders was too extreme for the US electorate (despite indications that his message connected with core working class views and was also impacting strongly on young motivated men and women); how was he adjudged to be extreme when the next encumbent president is to all intents and purposes an unqualified, misogynistic racist?
There is a new harder edge amongst voters in westren democracies.  The globalisation, neo-liberal experiment has failed and in my opinion as it was constituted and executed, a good thing too. The left must offer answers to the questions being put by this phase change and at the moment, in spite of the harsh lessons being handed out, they are still in utter denial of the facts and consequently are continuing to pay a high price. Z