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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2947 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: So, What Can Be Learned?

Nobody read this. You're all dumbasses. Read it now.

I don't think it's useful to bring up a "filter bubble" when there were gobstopping amounts of polls that indicated a Clinton landslide. I also don't think it's useful in terms of selective information gathering when most of us live in cities, most cities went blue, and short of driving out to Redneckistan and saying "hey stranger why do you want Trump?" (and hoping to get an answer) there is no way to penetrate that veil.

Make no mistake - I spent last November hanging out with fuckin' Navy SEALs. For them, it was Bush, Fiorina or Christie and everything else was unthinkable. Those trump voters? That basket of deplorables? They have a subreddit. Go engage them. I dare you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: with no Fairness Doctrine, with the collapse of the public education system, with skyrocketing college tuition, with an all-volunteer army and with public broadcasting being gutted, we've created an electorate that sees what it wants to see, hears what it wants to hear and can easily believe that any rich bloviator can run the country better than the people they've elected so far because there is no possible way to connect with them in a way that isn't the Kick Me In The Balls channel.

My wife was crying last night because she felt she could have done more. I pointed out that she had a Democrating governor, senator, representative, mayor, treasurer and supreme court justice and she lived in a state with legal marijuana, the highest minimum wage in the United States (and we just voted it higher), a repudiation of Citizens United and gun protections while living in a county that approved mass transit and voted to limit gerrymandering. Short of hopping a plane to Oklahoma who, exactly, could she have reached out to? And why would they have listened to a liberal woman from FUCKING SEATTLE?

Piketty basically argued that the center cannot hold. Who would have thought that Bernie Fucking Sanders could have been such a threat to a Clinton? The populism vs establishment divide has long been a key issue; I think our collective miscalculation was in presuming that the populists would need someone coherent to rally behind in order to threaten the establishment.

Well then.

I think Occupy Wall Street crumbled because it was a movement of intelligent, college-educated liberals that were willing to evaluate solutions on their merits. I think Trump won because he represents a movement of the exact opposite of that.





rthomas6  ·  2947 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Can't it be both? I don't like to say this because it makes me an asshole, but I have a low opinion on the average person's critical thinking skills and intelligence, so I understand when you say there is no way to connect with Trump voters other than the Kick Me In The Balls channel. But I don't think that's all of them. There were just too many in the general election for there not to be a cross-section of normal, decent folks that rode the Trump Train, and I believe we ignore their voice at our peril. The DNC used to represent the working class, the union members, the blue collar folks. Can we honestly say they still do? Neither candidate would probably have done anything for them, but Trump at least said he would.

I do not believe that The_Donald is representative of all the Trump voters. Did the SEALs you hung out with all vote for Hillary? Or did some vote for Trump?

kleinbl00  ·  2947 days ago  ·  link  ·  

We don't actually disagree much. We have a difference of interpretation:

    I don't like to say this because it makes me an asshole, but I have a low opinion on the average person's critical thinking skills and intelligence...

Where you see a dearth of critical thinking skills and a low average intelligence, I see a steady corruption of "push" information to "pull" information. I watched it happen in 2001, 2002, 2003 - the Republican Noise Machine ground itself to a nib pushing the Iraq War such that nobody believed newspapers or media anymore. That, combined with the crash of television and the annihilation of newspapers, as well as the preposterously remunerated business structure of web crap, meant that if someone was going to hear about something, it was going to be through a source they sought out. No longer would the New York Times dictate what the world saw. No longer would the Wall Street Journal say business stuff while the Washington Post did investigative journalism. From here on out news would be where you found it, be that HuffPo, Infowars or loosechange911.com.

So I don't think "they" are idiots. I think that "they" are finding information we'd disagree with more easily than information we'd agree with because the dumb shit is so much easier to find.

And you're right - the DNC is, in many ways, completely up its own ass. I would argue that when one side is for concentration of wealth, and the other side is for distribution of wealth, the other side is gonna be fuckin' extinct in a few electoral cycles unless they start sucking up to rich people. Full stop. I would also argue that if the Republicans hadn't pursued the Southern Strategy they never would have made it to Reagan (I believe i have argued - it's on Reddit somewhere). So the party of "drown it in the bathtub" was forced to become the party of bread'n'circuses because if it were just rich white males, they'd never have the numbers. There's an inherent bait and switch in there; it doesn't work as well with Democrats because (surprise!) social liberals tend to be better educated and see the subtlety in the problem.

Simply put - "they" are not stupid. "They" are just easier to lie to. And we are in a lie-rich information landscape.

    The DNC used to represent the working class, the union members, the blue collar folks.

Got this this morning:

    The election for President of the United States is over. While we did not achieve the result we desired, I am extremely proud of the work of our Political Department, Local Union officers, International Officers and Representatives, and members for the significant efforts made to protect the interests of IATSE members and workers in general. Now we must move on. While I am skeptical for obvious reasons, it is my sincere hope that there can be some healing in our starkly divided nation. And while hope may seem an optimistic wish, it is clear that the country is unsatisfied with status quo in our political system. Unfortunately, that widespread feeling has manifested itself in a result that will likely compound the problem. The middle class and working people are in jeopardy of experiencing severe consequences based on the positions and proposed policies espoused by President-Elect Trump. Moreover, his anti-union statements virtually guarantee a rough road ahead for Unions and the members they represent.

    The tendency to be discouraged and lie injured licking our wounds must be resisted. Now is not the time to let defeat discourage us from facing head-on the tremendous challenges ahead. We must pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and stand strong. We must demonstrate solidarity in an unprecedented way by locking arms as Brothers and Sisters for the betterment of all IATSE members. We must continue to strengthen our bonds with other unions and the AFL-CIO to consolidate our voice and power. And we must identify and align with people and organizations that are likeminded in sharing our values.

    We have survived as a union since 1893 and we will survive this too. Know that your Union will remain active and vigilant in doing whatever can be done to protect your interests and further the causes that give security and prosperity to our members. As Benjamin Franklin wisely said “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." This statement may never be more true than it is now.

    In Solidarity,

    Matthew D. Loeb

    IATSE International President

ButterflyEffect  ·  2947 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Pluses:

We voted to increase minimum wage further.

ST3 passed!!!

Minuses:

Campaign Finance Reform didn't pass.

kleinbl00  ·  2947 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I actually voted against the campaign finance reform bill. We looked at that, and we hemmed and hawwed, and the argument that it basically provided an avenue for out-of-state money to charge through the back door ended up compelling.

Some of us do not remember Prop 8 fondly and it was largely paid for by Utah mormons.