The Turn When I saw the left give up everything I believe in, I changed politically. You can, too.

[homersapien 12,265]

30 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

Don’t worry, I knew you’d turn a blind eye to it. After all she isn’t the evil Trump right? 

No she's not.  (So you got that right.)

So do you want to make a direct comparison point by point to examine the difference between their post election behaviors?

Edited December 23, 2021 by homersapien

[wdefromtx 3,641]

6 minutes ago, homersapien said:

No she's not.  (So you got that right.)

So do you want to make a direct comparison point by point to examine the difference between their post election behaviors?

No need to, I already said their behavior was different. But both were an attempt to undermine our democracy and create doubt. And it wasn’t just Hillary on that side, it was practically the entire DNC. You can decide which is worse, what they (DNC and the MSM) tried to do for four years or the events that culminated in the actions on 1/6 that had no real chance of ever succeeding in the first place. 

[homersapien 12,265]

11 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

No need to, I already said their behavior was different. But both were an attempt to undermine our democracy and create doubt. And it wasn’t just Hillary on that side, it was practically the entire DNC. You can decide which is worse, what they (DNC and the MSM) tried to do for four years or the events that culminated in the actions on 1/6 that had no real chance of ever succeeding in the first place. 

Good grief.

You seriously think Hillary and the DNC represented a more overt, calculated threat than did Trump and his henchmen?? 

And I don't get the "four years" part.  Can you provide examples of what Hillary and/or the DNC did to overturn the election during the next 4 years?

 

 

[wdefromtx 3,641]

26 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Good grief.

You seriously think Hillary and the DNC represented a more overt, calculated threat than did Trump and his henchmen?? 

And I don't get the "four years" part.  Can you provide examples of what Hillary and/or the DNC did to overturn the election during the next 4 years?

 

 

I believe 78 has already addressed this in another thread. No sense rehashing it again only for you to brush it off as no big deal. 
 

 

[bigbird 60,942]

1 hour ago, wdefromtx said:

No need to, I already said their behavior was different. But both were an attempt to undermine our democracy and create doubt. And it wasn’t just Hillary on that side, it was practically the entire DNC. You can decide which is worse, what they (DNC and the MSM) tried to do for four years or the events that culminated in the actions on 1/6 that had no real chance of ever succeeding in the first place. 

Did the efforts the the previous 4 years have any contribution to what happened on the 6th?  Cause/effect?

[wdefromtx 3,641]

Just now, bigbird said:

Did the efforts the the previous 4 years have any contribution to what happened on the 6th?  Cause/effect?

I’m sure they did. They set the stage in a way for him to play off from. 

[wdefromtx 3,641]

@icanthearyou

[Grumps 3,706]

On 12/23/2021 at 3:07 PM, homersapien said:

No you are wrong.  Make America Great AGAIN clearly implies that we were once greater than we are now. 

I don't believe that.  I think we have made steady progress throughout our history - with a few set backs.  But generally speaking we've made progress in most categories. (Although what happens over the next decade or so could certainly change my mind.)

Regardless, there is a lot of difference between the slogan "Make America Great" and Make America Great Again". 

The former is straightforward and has no implied or subliminal messaging.  The latter implies we need to revert back to some point when we were greater than we are today.  The begs the obvious question of what exactly was great in our past which is not great today. 

It also provides subliminal messaging to people who fear loss of power that is rooted in racism,  xenophobia, immigration etc.  This is no accident.  If Trump's message was simply intended to say "make America great" he wouldn't have added the "again".  He was obviously catering to the crowd that are dissatisfied with what is happening now.  So what, exactly, is it that made America "great" then and less than great now?   Is it wealth, technology, society, justice?  What do you think Trump had in mind by saying "again"?

I have witnessed a lot of our history first hand, both good and bad, particularly regarding racism. I have witnessed white supremacy and blatant, legal racism. (And it wasn't that long ago.)  We still have a lot of issues related to race as many statistics illustrate.

So if my acknowledgement of the reality of our past "says a lot about me",  then I am proud to agree.

 

 

 

What if MAGA was a marketing slogan to get people fired up to vote for the candidate who paid for the marketing campaign?

What if MAGA just happened to be WAY more successful than BBB or Hope and Change?

When people refer to the "Good Old Days" do you think they are being racist and homophobic as well?

Do you not ever look back fondly at a time in your life when things were simpler and happier and more pure?

Do you remember when the right wing idiots were saying the Obama's "Move Forward" campaign was a socialist movement initiated by Hitler?

Do you see any similarities between what he left wingers say about MAGA and what the right wingers were saying about Move Forward?

[homersapien 12,265]

19 hours ago, Grumps said:

What if MAGA was a marketing slogan to get people fired up to vote for the candidate who paid for the marketing campaign?

What if MAGA just happened to be WAY more successful than BBB or Hope and Change?

When people refer to the "Good Old Days" do you think they are being racist and homophobic as well?

Do you not ever look back fondly at a time in your life when things were simpler and happier and more pure?

Do you remember when the right wing idiots were saying the Obama's "Move Forward" campaign was a socialist movement initiated by Hitler?

Do you see any similarities between what he left wingers say about MAGA and what the right wingers were saying about Move Forward?

Unlike "move forward", the phrase "MAGA" is backward looking by definition.

These political slogans don't just happen casually.  They are well considered.

The "again" was no casual accident, especially considering we just had a two term president who was black.

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by homersapien

[Grumps 3,706]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Unlike "move forward", the phrase "MAGA" is backward looking by definition.

These political slogans don't just happen casually.  They are well considered.

The "again" was no casual accident, especially considering we just had a two term president who was black.

 

I agree with you on all of that except for what "again" was intended to mean.

I think "again" was intended to get us to look back fondly at a time in our life when things were simpler and happier and more pure, but I also think that if Trump thought he could win by using a racist slogan then he would use it.

[homersapien 12,265]

5 minutes ago, Grumps said:

I agree with you on all of that except for what "again" was intended to mean.

I think "again" was intended to get us to look back fondly at a time in our life when things were simpler and happier and more pure, but I also think that if Trump thought he could win by using a racist slogan then he would use it.

Nevertheless, the slogan implies that the past - at some point and for whatever reason - was better than it is today. 

It's backward looking.  It implies we need to return to that point in the past. (And Trump never specified at exactly what point in the past we were better off.) 

It's not a healthy perspective, especially if you are trying to make a case for leadership - which is about where we are going, not where we have been. 

 

[wdefromtx 3,641]

Or it could be just a slogan, that invokes different feelings with every different individual. Just like every other campaign. Just like “Hope and change.” 

[Grumps 3,706]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

Nevertheless, the slogan implies that the past - at some point and for whatever reason - was better than it is today. 

It's backward looking.  It implies we need to return to that point in the past. (And Trump never specified at exactly what point in the past we were better off.) 

It's not a healthy perspective, especially if you are trying to make a case for leadership - which is about where we are going, not where we have been. 

 

Again, I agree with you. MAGA looks to the past. But I think you are giving Trump and his team way to much credit. It was a marketing slogan.

[homersapien 12,265]

7 minutes ago, Grumps said:

Again, I agree with you. MAGA looks to the past. But I think you are giving Trump and his team way to much credit. It was a marketing slogan.

Right.

A marketing slogan that just coincidentally appealed to white supremacists and conservatives who resented what the majority of Americans considered to be progress in social issues and addressing challenges like AGW.

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by homersapien

[Grumps 3,706]

21 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Right.

A marketing slogan that just coincidentally appealed to white supremacists and conservatives who resented what the majority of Americans considered to be progress in social issues and addressing challenges like AGW.

 

Trump may be the evil genius you think he is. I hope you are wrong!

[aubiefifty 18,322]

On 12/9/2021 at 9:25 AM, DKW 86 said:

The Turn

When I saw the left give up everything I believe in, I changed politically. You can, too.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-turn-liel-leibovitz

or many years—most of my politically cognizant life, in fact—I felt secure in my politics. Truth and justice, I believed, leaned leftward. If you were some version of a decent human being, you cared about those less fortunate than you, which meant that you supported a whole host of measures designed to even the playing field a little. Sometimes, these measures had unintended consequences (see under: Stalin, Josef), but that wasn’t reason enough to despair of the long march to equality. Besides, there was hardly an alternative: On the other end of the political transom lurked despicable creeps, right-wing orcs who either cared for nothing but their own petty financial interests or, worse, pined for benighted isms that preached prejudice and hate. We were on the right side of history. We were the people. We were the ones giving peace a chance. And, no matter the present, we were always the future.

This belief carried me through high school, and a brief stint in a socialist youth movement. It accelerated me in college, sending me anywhere from joint marches with Palestinians to a two-week hunger strike in Jerusalem trying (and failing) to lower tuition for underprivileged students. It pulled me to New York, to Columbia University, to more left-wing politics and activism and raging against Republicans whose agenda, especially in the 2000s, seemed like nothing more than greed and war.

And it wasn’t just an ideology, some abstract set of convictions that were accessible only through cracking open dusty old books. It was the animating spirit of life itself: The dinner parties I attended on the Upper West Side required dismissive comments on President Bush just as much as they did a bit of wine to make the evening bright, and there was no faster or surer way to signal to a new acquaintance that you were a kindred spirit than praising the latest Times editorial. It wasn’t performative, exactly. At least, it felt real enough, the reverent rites of a good group of people protecting itself against the bad guys.

I embraced my people, and my people embraced me. They gave me everything I had always imagined I wanted: a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university; a professorship at NYU, complete with a roomy office overlooking Washington Square Park; book deals; columns in smart little publications; invitations to the sort of soirees where you could find yourself seated next to Salman Rushdie or Susan Sontag or any number of the men and women you grew up reading and admiring. The list goes on. Life was good. I was grateful.

 

And then came The Turn. If you’ve lived through it yourself, you know that The Turn doesn’t happen overnight, that it isn’t easily distilled into one dramatic breakdown moment, that it happens hazily and over time—first a twitch, then a few more, stretching into a gnawing discomfort and then, eventually, a sense of panic.

You may be among the increasing numbers of people going through The Turn right now. Having lived through the turmoil of the last half decade—through the years of MAGA and antifa and rampant identity politics and, most dramatically, the global turmoil caused by COVID-19—more and more of us feel absolutely and irreparably politically homeless. Instinctively, we looked to the Democratic Party, the only home we and our parents and their parents before them had ever known or seriously considered. But what we saw there—and in the newspapers we used to read, and in the schools whose admission letters once made us so proud—was terrifying. However we tried to explain what was happening on “the left,” it was hard to convince ourselves that it was right, or that it was something we still truly believed in. That is what The Turn is about.

You might be living through The Turn if you ever found yourself feeling like free speech should stay free even if it offended some group or individual but now can’t admit it at dinner with friends because you are afraid of being thought a bigot. You are living through The Turn if you have questions about public health policies—including the effects of lockdowns and school closures on the poor and most vulnerable in our society—but can’t ask them out loud because you know you’ll be labeled an anti-vaxxer. You are living through The Turn if you think that burning down towns and looting stores isn’t the best way to promote social justice, but feel you can’t say so because you know you’ll be called a white supremacist. You are living through The Turn if you seethed watching a terrorist organization attack the world’s only Jewish state, but seethed silently because your colleagues were all on Twitter and Facebook sharing celebrity memes about ending Israeli apartheid while having little interest in American kids dying on the streets because of failed policies. If you’ve felt yourself unable to speak your mind, if you have a queasy feeling that your friends might disown you if you shared your most intimately held concerns, if you are feeling a bit breathless and a bit hopeless and entirely unsure what on earth is going on, I am sorry to inform you that The Turn is upon you.

The Turn hit me just a beat before it did you, so I know just how awful it feels. It’s been years now, but I still remember the time a dear friend and mentor took me to lunch and warned me, sternly and without any of the warmth you’d extend to someone you truly loved, to watch what I said about Israel. I still remember how confusing and painful it felt to know that my beliefs—beliefs, mind you, that, until very recently, were so obvious and banal and widely held on the left that they were hardly considered beliefs at all—now labeled me an outcast. The Turn brings with it the sort of pain most of us don’t feel as adults; you’d have to go all the way back to junior high, maybe, to recall a stabbing sensation quite as deep and confounding as watching your friends all turn on you and decide that you’re not worthy of their affection any more. It’s the kind of primal rejection that is devastating precisely because it forces you to rethink everything, not only your convictions about the world but also your idea of yourself, your values, and your priorities. We all want to be embraced. We all want the men and women we consider most swell to approve of us and confirm that we, too, are good and great. We all want the love and the laurels; The Turn takes both away.

 

But, having been there before, I have one important thing to tell you: If the left is going to make it “right wing” to simply be decent, then it’s OK to be right.

Why? Because, after 225 long and fruitful years of this terminology, “right” and “left” are now empty categories, meaning little more than “the blue team” and “the green team” in your summer camp’s color war. You don’t get to be “against the rich” if the richest people in the country fund your party in order to preserve their government-sponsored monopolies. You are not “a supporter of free speech” if you oppose free speech for people who disagree with you. You are not “for the people” if you pit most of them against each other based on the color of their skin, or force them out of their jobs because of personal choices related to their bodies. You are not “serious about economic inequality” when you happily order from Amazon without caring much for the devastating impact your purchases have on the small businesses that increasingly are either subjugated by Jeff Bezos’ behemoth or crushed by it altogether. You are not “for science” if you refuse to consider hypotheses that don’t conform to your political convictions and then try to ban critical thought and inquiry from the internet. You are not an “anti-racist” if you label—and sort!—people by race. You are not “against conformism” when you scare people out of voicing dissenting opinions.

When “the left” becomes the party of wealthy elites and state security agencies who preach racial division, state censorship, contempt for ordinary citizens and for the U.S. Constitution, and telling people what to do and think at every turn, then that’s the side you are on, if you are “on the left”—those are the policies and beliefs you stand for and have to defend. It doesn’t matter what good people “on the left” believed and did 60 or 70 years ago. Those people are dead now, mostly. They don’t define “the left” anymore than Abraham Lincoln defines the modern-day Republican Party or Jimi Hendrix defines Nickelback.

So look at the list of things supported by the left and ask yourself: Is that me? If the answer is yes, great. You’ve found a home. If the answer is no, don’t let yourself be defined by an empty word. Get out. And once you’re out, don’t let anyone else define you, either. Not being a left-wing racist or police state fan doesn’t make you a white supremacist or a Trump worshipper, either. ONLY SMALL CHILDREN, MACHINES, AND RELIGIOUS FANATICS THINK IN BINARIES.

Which isn’t to diminish the anger, hurt, and confusion you’re feeling just now. But it’s worth understanding that your story has a happy ending. The freedom you feel on the other side is so real it’s physical, like emerging from a long stretch underwater and taking that first deep breath in the cool afternoon air. None of it makes the lost friends or the lost career opportunities any less painful; but there’s no more potent source of renewable energy than liberty, and your capacity to reinvent—yourself, your group, your life—is greater than you realize.

So welcome to the right side, friend, and join us in laughing at all the idiotic name-calling that is applied, with increasing hysteria, to try and stop more and more normal Americans from joining our ranks. Fascists? Conspiracy theorists? Anti-science racist TERFs? Whatever. We have a better word to describe ourselves: free.

this will shock some folks but i am not real big on any of them. but the right crossed the line with trump so i became very vocal. at the same time i am not big on the left or indies either. this country has gotten where it is ok to be stupid and self serving in politics instead of taking care of the country. but when one side lies and causes folks to storm the capital they can go screw themselves. people died. trump made his white house staff watch a power point presentation on how to change from a democracy to an autocracy. this is fact. to me this is treason. the election was not stolen and even most of the repubs believe it but will not say so because they are using this to fill their coffers and prey on the misinformed. rolling stone did a huge article on it and probably other sites as well. this is why i am not a repub tho i have a lot of conservative values. the left? they remind me of the keystone cops. and the indies? last time i checked they had a clown for their main guy. personally i think our country is screwed and beyond repair.

[aubiefifty 18,322]

12 minutes ago, Grumps said:

Trump may be the evil genius you think he is. I hope you are wrong!

he is not. and i am not above voting for a conservative if he meets most of my standards. i would vote for dennis kucinich in a heart beat.

[homersapien 12,265]

16 minutes ago, Grumps said:

Trump may be the evil genius you think he is. I hope you are wrong!

No, I don't think he's a "genius".  He's a narcissistic, psychopathic demagogue who knows exactly how to appeal to the worst instincts of people and is very, very good at it.

IMO, narcissistic psychopaths - people who are incapable of empathy, no sense of right and wrong and see the world solely through self aggrandizement are pretty much "evil" by definition.

Edited December 27, 2021 by homersapien

[aubiefifty 18,322]

37 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Right.

A marketing slogan that just coincidentally appealed to white supremacists and conservatives who resented what the majority of Americans considered to be progress in social issues and addressing challenges like AGW.

 

lets not forget trump gave them shout outs and made the supremacists normal.

[Grumps 3,706]

27 minutes ago, homersapien said:

No, I don't think he's a "genius".  He's a narcissistic, psychopathic demagogue who knows exactly how to appeal to the worst instincts of people and is very, very good at it.

IMO, narcissistic psychopaths - people who are incapable of empathy, no sense of right and wrong and see the world solely through self aggrandizement are pretty much "evil" by definition.

You give him more credit than I do, but I agree that he is very good at appealing to the worst instincts of people.

[cbo 8,836]

4 hours ago, homersapien said:

He's a narcissistic, psychopathic demagogue who knows exactly how to appeal to the worst instincts of people and is very, very good at it.

 

You nailed it. Trump is a complete goof in many ways, but we should know not to underestimate him by now. He is very good at the only thing he actually cares about, which is getting certain people to worship him. 

Unfortunately, this comes at a time when the other side is terrible at invigorating its base or appealing to the undecided. 

[DKW 86 7,914]

18 hours ago, homersapien said:

IMO, narcissistic psychopaths - people who are incapable of empathy, no sense of right and wrong and see the world solely through self aggrandizement are pretty much "evil" by definition.

homer, you just described 98% of the politicians in this world.

[DKW 86 7,914]

14 hours ago, cbo said:

You nailed it. Trump is a complete goof in many ways, but we should know not to underestimate him by now. He is very good at the only thing he actually cares about, which is getting certain people to worship him. 

Unfortunately, this comes at a time when the other side is terrible at invigorating its base or appealing to the undecided. 

Absolute truth here: I think the Dems are all but blind to anything that doesnt appeal to their donor class. They have been doing little more for four years than SCREAMING RUSSIANS!!!!!! & TRUMP!!!!!

They have totally forgotten the middle class, the Indies, the Progs. They serve their masters on Wall Street and nothing more. They cant see this at all. This is why McAuliffe can run in Blue VA and lose and the DNC blames the voters. If the DNC keeps going the way they are now, NO POLICIES, just screaming TRUMP!!!! for the 2022 Cycle, I am afraid that they are going to be on the correct side of history, but still get wiped out in 2022 and inadvertently setting the stage for Trump to possibly run and win again in 2024. Right now, I am hoping that trump succumbs to his poor health asap. That may be the only way that trump doesnt get back to the WH. The DNC is making every possible mistake they can because they only listen to their donors these days. They dont care what the Deplorables need or want. You cannot win elections by screaming that "the other guys are worse!"

You have to give people reasons to vote FOR you. "We arent trump." is a losers campaign.  

The Progs are so mad that the Dems betrayed them over Minimum Wage, M4A, etc that they may just sit this one out. Both of these issues got thrown under the bus without a whimper. 

Edited December 28, 2021 by DKW 86

[cbo 8,836]

14 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Absolute truth here: I think the Dems are all but blind to anything that doesnt appeal to their donor class. They have been doing little more for four years than SCREAMING RUSSIANS!!!!!! & TRUMP!!!!!

They have totally forgotten the middle class, the Indies, the Progs. They serve their masters on Wall Street and nothing more. They cant see this at all. This is why McAuliffe can run in Blue VA and lose and the DNC blames the voters. If the DNC keeps going the way they are now, NO POLICIES, just screaming TRUMP!!!! for the 2022 Cycle, I am afraid that they are going to be on the correct side of history, but still get wiped out in 2022 and inadvertently setting the stage for Trump to possibly run and win again in 2024. Right now, I am hoping that trump succumbs to his poor health asap. That may be the only way that trump doesnt get back to the WH. The DNC is making every possible mistake they can because they only listen to their donors these days. They dont care what the Deplorables need or want. You cannot win elections by screaming that "the other guys are worse!"

You have to give people reasons to vote FOR you. "We arent trump." is a losers campaign.  

The Progs are so mad that the Dems betrayed them over Minimum Wage, M4A, etc that they may just sit this one out. Both of these issues got thrown under the bus without a whimper. 

I completely agree with everything you said. Dems are in the pockets of their donors as much as the Republicans. They have no ability to govern and are not following up on campaign promises. 

I'm hesitant to get into politics on here, because there's a good chance no one will agree with me, and I'm mostly here to talk about football, make dumb jokes, and argue with people without repercussion. 

But I am a staunch leftist. Not a liberal or a Democrat. Off the top of my head, here are items I would add to your progs list, along with the minimum wage increase:

Medicare for all

Cancel student loan debt

Defund (not abolish!) the police

Legalize marijuana

Tax the hell out of the 1%

Quit bombing other countries

Open the borders or at least treat immigrants with some modicum of respect

Modify or eliminate corporate campaign contributions

I don't think any of these ideas are wild or repugnant to half of the country. Some of these ideas got Biden elected. 

For the record, I believe we are better with Biden in office than Trump. But that's an incredibly low bar. 

Time for the Democrats to step up and actually do something. 

 

 

 

[DKW 86 7,914]

32 minutes ago, cbo said:

Medicare for all 

Cancel student loan debt (Cancel the first $20K?)

Defund (not abolish!) the police (We need to REFORM the Police)

Legalize marijuana 

Tax the hell out of the 1% 

Quit bombing other countries 

Open the borders or at least treat immigrants with some modicum of respect 

Modify or eliminate corporate campaign contributions 

I don't think any of these ideas are wild or repugnant to half of the country. Some of these ideas got Biden elected. 

For the record, I believe we are better with Biden in office than Trump. But that's an incredibly low bar. 

Time for the Democrats to step up and actually do something. 

Man, that felt like a nice cool shower on a hot summer day.