The alt-right is outraged at being called “deplorable”. They’re right. The term is utterly inadequate. How about “despicable”? How about abhorrent, abject, abominable, awful, contemptible, detestable, disreputable, hateful, heinous, ignoble, ignominious, loathsome, low, mean, odious, reprehensible, shabby, shameful, and vile?
A spokesman for the alt-right just had a press conference, led by Richard Spencer, head of the National Policy Institute, an openly racist, white supremacist organization. He also had a couple of speakers to help him out — speakers who are known entities in “scientific” racism.
Spencer invited two prominent members of the movement to join him. One was Peter Brimelow, the founder of the website VDARE.com, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an “immigrant-bashing hate site that regularly publishes works by white supremacists, anti-Semites, and others on the radical right.” (Brimelow freely admitted during the event that he publishes white nationalists.) The other was Jared Taylor, a self-described “race realist” who explained why the white race is superior to all others (except for East Asians, he said, who are superior to whites). The audience was a mix of reporters and what appeared to be alt-right members and fans.
Good god. What did they have to talk about? Basically how wonderful Donald Trump is for their goals, and what a glorious leader he is.
Spencer continued, “It really is about him and it’s about, in a way, projecting onto him our hopes and dreams. There’s something called ‘me magic,’ and that is a self-fulfilling prophecy…We want to make Trump; we want to imagine him in our image. And that is maybe—you can see that in a meme of Trump as a Napoleon or Trump as some figure out of the Dune novels in an arcade of the future in a robotic suit of armor fighting enemies. All of that stuff is silly, all of that stuff is ridiculous, but it actually gets at something real and that is that we want something more, we want something heroic, we want something that is not defined by liberalism or individual rights or bourgeois norms. We want something that is truly European and truly heroic.”
Then they argued about whether Jews would be allowed to continue to live in the Aryan States of America. No, really.
What would this utopia look like? Spencer said it’s too far off to get into specifics. But he and Taylor, whose role at Friday’s event was to give academic assurances that the races of the world are not equal, disagreed on whether Jews would be welcomed into the white utopia homeland. Spencer took the position that they were not “European” and therefore would take their place in their own ethno-state. Taylor countered, “I don’t think that if a Jewish person identifies with the West and with Europe than that’s something that we should deny.” As Spencer acknowledged, the alt-right has yet to sort out these mere details.
“Mere details”. Poison gas, or bullets? Details.
It’s not all negative, in their minds.
But Spencer did offer up a vision of an alt-right society. “If the alt-right were in power, we would all have arrived here via magnetic levitation trains,” he said. “We would have passed by great forests and beautiful images of blond women in a wheat field with their hands, running them through the wheat.” The audience tittered. “It would be a wonderful sight.”
Jesus fuck. OK, what about the brunettes? Will they be deported to their own “ethno-state”? Will redheads be sequestered somewhere? I don’t even want to think about the fate of black women in Spencer’s utopia.
Like I said, “deplorable” is an unsatisfactory word to apply to Trump supporters. How about “Nazi scum”?
I think we’re well past the stage of needing to mince words anymore.
I love the way the special snowflakes who support the shrieking man-baby for his “brave” stance on political correctness then turn around and get their panties in a twist because Hillary Clinton called them a mean name.
But it’s not politically correct to call it “political correctness” when conservatives are offended.
Reads like a quote from a Nazi tract of the 1920s.
Only over my fat dead old white male body.
Again.
Dang, this is discouraging. Steve Kornacki looks at the 50% figure Clinton used to criticize Trump supporters, but also included Clinton’s numbers. Link is a Video. We are one racist society.
The most disgusting part of all these wannabe Klan member humanoids is Drumpfh has provided cover. They simply call it “not being politically correct” and act like they are normal humans. Filth. Then they make sure to go to church and loudly proclaim their “faith.”
May they get taken to the emergency room somewhere and have their life saved by a black E. R. doctor.
Sheesh, and I thought it was us SJWs who were offended by everything!
May they get taken to the emergency room somewhere and have their life saved by a black E. R. doctor.
You mean an E.R. doctor who happens to be a black, Muslim woman who recently immigrated.
I have a Facebook connection (I refuse to say friend for her) who is one of these nuts. I keep the connection around just to see how these people think. They are not only against modern feminism, they are against the entire history of feminism. She actively thinks that women should not be allowed to vote, or work (of course, she has a job).
They also think that right-wing authoritarianism is the “right” way to run the world, and they seriously believe they are the opposite of the Nazis. They view the Nazis as a socialist movement, in the sense of Fox news’ view of socialism.
Here is some interesting cognitive dissonance, they mistrust all government completely, but they want an authoritarian government that exerts fine control over people’s lives.
Grifters, con men and poor white trash also come to mind.
Recommend “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg
OK, that’s posted to my FB page. Perhaps it will enlightened some folks in my life who seem to think racism is an OK idea. Doubtful, but I can hope.
I’d be in the wheat fields too if my hands were running off like that.
They piss and moan about Hillary lying, but then when she tells the truth, they piss and moan about that too. Come on guys, show some consistency.
During all the history and prehistory, apart from some upper-class women have worked, hard, by necessity. And then these conservatives say women shouldn’t work.
I don’t see what demonization accomplishes. Better to calmly engage and
debunk the ideas.
The intellectuals behind the movement are likely corrupt and dishonest, but
their support comes from those with real grievances.
I recall Volodymyr Kolychev had nothing to say after we debated him in good
faith.
penalfire:
Read the title. I am fucking DONE ARGUING.
Sit down, shut up, and stay out of this thread.
Trump is first and foremost a conman.
The impression I get from the earnest support the alt-righters are giving him and the description of the alt-right “vision” is one of off-of-the-charts delusion.
Or maybe Spencer is another professional troll. I’m sure that’s fertile terrain for them, since authoritarians are immune to logic, consistency and reality.
No. Spencer & Brimelow & Taylor are long-term, unabashed, vocal racists. They’ve been writing this shit for years. They’re not trolling. This is actually who they are and what they firmly believe.
“Troll” is not a get-out-of-jail free card. These people are not trolls. They are American Nazis.
Or do you want to argue that Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Goebbels were just “trolls” who let the game get carried away a little too far?
If you actually read Clinton’s speech, she is pretty much saying the exact same thing that penalfire said. She wasn’t attacking half of Trump’s supporters, she was defending the other half and saying they needed to be reached out to.
When half the country says the number she gave is too low and the other half says it’s too high, that probably means it’s about right.
How about “shitty”? Shitty works for me.
Wait, What? Did he just say that Trump (and the rest of them) are a bunch of Baron Harkonnens? (I would agree.) BUT, As a good thing?!?! WHAT?!?
all joking aside, i do despair.
“When half the country says the number she gave is too low and the other half says it’s too high, that probably means it’s about right.”
No. Halfway between two opinions/stances/whatever is not any real indicator of correctness. It may look like a nice place to plant a fence, imagine two equally wrong sides, and claim moral superiority. But outside the false equivalence in one’s own imagination, it’s useless.
Because, as we all know, Sam Harris is really well-regarded by PZ and the Commentariat 9_9
Why should PZ or anyone else care about an odious bigot’s views on psychedelics?
penalfire
farewell
penalfire@21
I am so fucking sick of this argument. There is no practical difference between an actual fascist and someone who merely uses fascist rhetoric to gain political advantage, unless you’re stupid enough to believe that once the latter gets into power they’ll ditch all the fascist hangers-on and start acting non-horribly.
Maybe I would need shrooms to see the connection to white nationalists and their ilk, which was the subject of this thread, because I don’t see it. Which is not to say that I need shrooms.
— Psychedelics would make PZ [1] less high strung (is that so?) or [2] more accepting of nonsensical dumbfuckery (more plausible).
— And like good old Sam Harris says, they’re not all bad.
— So that’s why he needs to take them….??
The goals of these Nazis-KKK-racists are incoherent.
They always say they want a homeland for white culture.
White culture is a meaningless term. I have nothing in common with these deplorables. Their values and culture are the opposite of mine.
As many have noted, the White Supremacists are anything but superior in any way.
The average white racist has minimal education and no real accomplishments in life. They have spotty employment histories, frequent domestic violence histories, and almost always criminal records for pointless crimes.
The Bundy gang at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge would be a good example. And they are in their appropiate homeland right now. Prison.
Snoof @28:
Yeah, same here. I’ll buy that Trump doesn’t actually have plans to build a wall, but he has played the racist, sexist shithead card too fucking much for it to be any sort of act.
I think these folk need to take the stage more often.
I suggest the forum be a stage over the La Brea tar pits.
The stage “waxed” to a fine sheen, axle grease sealing the KY in.
Would constructing the final steps to the stage out of banana peels be excessive?
Likening these to scum or slime is a major insult to scum and slime everywhere.
I wonder if the trains are more from Hitler or Rand? Real Americans (TM) hate public transportation.
May they find themselves living in a country which supports their views. I hear North Korea is nice this time of year…
(The central delusion these people hold is they’d be regarded as important in a country where the people in charge agreed with them. They’re incorrect, of course – most delusions are incorrect – but they’re never going to believe otherwise, because their delusions are an ego-necessity for them. If they didn’t have the power of their beliefs, they’d never get out of bed in the morning.
While I can agree this might be a preferable result for everyone else, I have a little too much experience of the personal hell which is depression to ever want to wish it on another sentient being).
That’s a very good point. The people who today are neo-nazis would have been the cannon fodder in actual nazi Germany, not the ones running the show.
@PZ #18: very happy to take your word for it.
A bit less happy of being accused of defending the alt-righters, but I guess it’s the internets.
For the record, if they were trolling (or pandering) I’d consider it just as vile: they know the consequences of their actions, whether they do it out of genuine conviction or to exploit the deluded for personal gain is irrelevant.
I largely agree with @Snoof #28, with one difference I think it’s important: to fight your enemy you want to understand it. Calling Trump out as a fake and a swindler might be as important as calling out his racism.
@Meg Thornton #35: These people might actually *like* to live in an authoritarian dictatorship.
I think many of them would find themselves perfectly at ease being part of Hitler’s Germany (their rhetoric is pretty much the same) up to the point where they were sent to die on the front line, but maybe not even then.
In Italy there is to this day a lot of nostalgia for fascism, and we didn’t even win any war.
OMFG all Utopias look the same, don’t they? Their vision of an alt-right society looks a lot like pictures I’ve seen in the Watchtower. Pretty pictures but oh what a lot of evil do they hide.
So they want something “truly European”, but not something “defined by liberalism or individual rights or bourgeois norms”?
Have they ever been to Europe?
<cartomancer
When they say “European”, they actually mean “Europe around 1750, long before the French Revolution”.
Of course they’d all be rich Aristocrats, right?
Damn, I didn’t want to be predictive with my “what about the poor KKK member” yesterday.
I’ve found some of the images they seem to be thinking of.
White supremacist scum sure do like stealing from Hinduism.
penalfire, #15
Nah. That’s old shit.
You calmly debunk wrong ideas about evolution, climate change, etc. It’s like telling black people to calmly debunk ideas about desegregation and lynching. Please don’t demonize people who have said they want you eliminated. That would be mean.
Bye bye, penalfire.
From the article:
It may very well be the foundation of his identity. I prefer relationships, accomplishments, and thoughts. But then that’s just me.
– – – – –
I have never figured out why not being upset at actual Nazis is considered a point of pride among some people.
How about “evil”?
Anri, #44
Well put.
“I don’t know why you’re angry about white supremacists congregating. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Penalfire has been banned.
It is sad that Hillary Clinton has walked back her statement about half of Trump’s supporters being “deplorable”. That’s the kind of “career politician” move that fucking frustrates people who are most likely to vote for her. Why should she care if the feelings of alt-fucking-right is hurt? They are not going to vote for her and they are already busy spreading ridiculous conspiracy theories about her health and making sexist jokes about her appearance. She should have backed it up with evidence and poll numbers of which many are available: https://thinkprogress.org/is-hillary-clinton-right-about-trump-supporters-this-is-what-the-polling-data-says-2b37625a1df3#.p2ydnr1as
Instead of deplorable, let us not mince words and use a perfectly crafted description by Christopher Moore: Festering piles of camel snot.
Gilleil @ 40, I’m not a fan of what you’re saying. Much like some criticism of Wahabbis blurs into criticism of Muslims, some criticism of the KKK blurs into criticism of poor people (Bill Maher is frequently guilty of both). Aside from ravens comment at 31, however, this thread hasn’t done that.
We want an adolescent power fantasy!
That is OK.
I agree with Giliell And stand by my point in #31.
I don’t recognize your nym, qwints, although I don’t spend much time on FTB’s. Must be newish.
But I’m not impressed so far. All I remember is you celebrating ignorance in a presidential candidate
Being ignorant is a choice, but not one I’ve ever made.
Well, considering they want to found their white ‘enthno state’ on land their ancestors* stole from Native Americans and developed via enslaved Africans and poorly-paid Chinese and immigrants that weren’t ‘white enough’ until recently, I think they want to emphasis the ‘army of murderous colonizing jerkasses’ part of European heritage. I’d say maybe they would be improved by ‘self-deporting’ to Europe to go find their white homeland, except I wouldn’t wish them on Europe (which shouldn’t have to deal with our xenophobic racist nationalists in addition to the home-grown ones).
* In ideology, if not in genetics.
The absurdity and incoherency of these people is obvious.
1. There is no such thing as European culture.
Europe has been soaked in blood since before the Roman empire arose until the present day.
It slowed down after WWII but recently groups of closely related Slavics in former Yugoslavia massacred each other for obscure reasons. And right now, two other closely related Slavics are fighting for some reason, the Ukrainians and Russians.
2. Culture isn’t static. It changes rapidly, borrows all the time, and adapts in real time. The culture I was born into, Eisenhower era grayness, is mostly gone and it wasn’t missed. I helped in a small way to get rid of it.
3. And the white race isn’t “dispossessed”. We run the USA and almost run the world still.
Annoyingly, Hillary did herself injury of late. Bad enough working while ill, in her position a necessary evil, but the current quote:
“Hillary Clinton said she did not disclose her pneumonia diagnosis earlier because she “didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal” and called on the press to hold Donald Trump to the “same standard” of transparency.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/12/hillary-clinton-didnt-think-pneumonia-big-deal/90287614/
So, let’s see, ignore doctor’s orders to rest 3 – 5 days, be opaque until collapse, demand the same level of transparency.
This is why one has a spokesman handle things while one is recovering from an illness. It prevents one from doing a Trump, as few can avoid falling over when they insert their foot that far inside of their mouth.
Now, a field day ensues, as few would agree that pneumonia isn’t a big deal. None would agrere that she was transparent. Only an idiot asks for an opponent to be equally transparent when one was opaque.
One retains spokesmen to avoid saying idiotic things when one feels like shit warmed over. She knows better.
Now, while Trump’s campaign has been firing blanks and lies, she gave them live rounds to fire back at her.
Still, whatever happened to candidates opposing each other on issues? Remember those days?
This entire election has more resembled a circus. The clown running against the juggler…
How about “despicable”? How about abhorrent, abject, abominable, awful, contemptible, detestable, disreputable, hateful, heinous, ignoble, ignominious, loathsome, low, mean, odious, reprehensible, shabby, shameful, and vile?
But, but – they are despicable, abhorrent, abject, abominable, awful, contemptible, detestable, disreputable, hateful, heinous, ignoble, ignominious, loathsome, low, mean, odious, reprehensible, shabby, shameful, and vile Americans, and according to the impeccably groomed Governor of Indiana, they therefore deserve your respect.
@raven, I’ve been commenting for a couple years. My point is that the problem with the Alt-Right and similar bigots is that they are racist fascists not that they are poor. Using poverty or lack of education as an insult causes splash damage.
I too tire of the “it’s just trolling” line. At a certain point there is no difference between “trolling” and being a legitimately shitty person.
qwints
That’s OK, I don’t have opinions for the sake of popularity.
Your analogy is fucked up and completely backwards.
The correlation between being poor and being racist is weak at most. To declare that racism/fascism are a problem of the poorly educated economically disadvantaged is a form of denialism used by the middle class to shed their own responsibility.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t poor white supremacists, which gets me to a more general point:
I’m sick and tired of being told that I must “understand” those people.
There’s understand and understand. One of them is the scientific understanding of why poor white people organise and vote against their own best interest. Turns out that hey, no matter how shitty and miserable your situation is, white supremacism gives you something that makes you special. That’s understanding that we need.
The other understanding is the sympathy and declaring something to be reasonable kind of understanding as in “oh, I totally understand that you kicked out john after he spent the rent money on a Playstation”. And that’S fucked up.
This isn’t about you and your comment in particular but a ton of those comments that always come up:
Fascists are the enemy. End of story. There’s no common ground, no agreeing to disagree, no live and let live. History tells us clearly that not demonizing fascists does not fucking work.
So, what’s your bone with my comment? I didn’t do what you are afraid might happen but you took the time to chastise me for something other people might do? WTF?
@Giliell, I obviously misunderstood the meaning of the word “poor” in your prior comment. I see now you meant ‘pitiable’ rather than ‘impoverished.’ I was confused by the contrast with ‘rich aristocrat.’ I strongly agree with this:
It must suck to live a life where your sole and greatest accomplishment is being born white…
qwints
Sorry for the confusion. Those were two separate thoughts and I should have made that clear by using some sort of break.
Like…
++++
ck
But that’s the beauty* of it. That’s not what white supremacy is advertising. Current capitalist dogma teaches you that you can be i>anything and if you fail you only have yourself to blame, right? If women don’t get pay rises it’s because they don’t ask. If they don’t get them despite asking, they asked wrongly. If you’re unemployed it’s a personal failure and not a socioeconomic problem.
We here know of course that it’s not. That systematic oppression is real and that Capitalism needs poor sods to make profit. But it’s working hard to make you forget this.
In come white supremacy. It doesn’t say “you’re a poor blue collar worker with absolutely no prospects because you individually suck (Capitalist dogma)/there’s systematic oppression and others benefit from putting you down (Socialist). It doesn’t say “you’re a poor blue collar worker with absolutely no prospects but here’s a cookie because you’re white and that’s totally the greatest thing on earth.”
What it says is “you’re a poor blue collar worker with absolutely no prospects because the blacks are stealing your jobs. Because of political correctness. Because of affirmative action.”
It tells the person that they are individually great because they have the right genes but that big fat liberalism conspiracy is holding them down.
*for a craptastic value of “beauty”
Like, the thing is, even if it is an act, Trump has shown that he’s quite willing to pretend to be a fascist to get a hold on power and keep it. To emphasize what someone upthread said: there’s no important difference between an actual racist fascist leader, and someone who pretends to be racist, but is still actually employing racist and fascist tactics as a leader. The end reuslt is entirely the same.
…
How so? Please explain yourself. The correlation of poverty, education, and being conservative is quite well demonstrated, I thought.
To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes: “I never meant to say that Conservatives are generally ignorant and uneducated. I meant to say that ignorant and uneducated people are generally Conservative. I believe that this is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any reasonable person will deny it.”
It seems quite obvious an inarguable that the diminishing middle class is a hugely significant factor in the current rise of fascism in the United States.
Agreed, of course.
Enlightenment Liberal
It’s because those statistics like here only look at the socioeconomic distribution among the supporters but not within society.
Yes, poor white men make a huge part of Trump supporters, and then people focus on the “poor” aspect. It is, in itself, a form of white male supremacy: poor white men get to be “The Poor”.
And then you’ve got a hell lot of well off to obscenely rich people supporting Trump without whose support this whole thing would have been over long ago.
Women* don’t like Trump as much, there’s like a 19% gap, but women are on average poorer than men. Black people don’t like Trump at all. Are they all rich? What about Latin@s?
Remember Brexit? That was blamed on the poor in the poor regions of England and Wales as well, making poverty white once more, ignoring all the poor BAME voters who voted “Remain”.
And then you get the German AfD where you cannot even say that proportionally more poor white people than middle class white people support them, but their success still gets blamed on the poor.
*And again we’re acting as if “Women” meant “white women”.
Giliel @ #60:
Q. F. M. F. T.
EnlightenmentLiberal #64
What about all the poor, uneducated black voters?
To Giliell
Thank you. However, I’m sorry, I don’t understand your point. Could you please explain it to me more clearly?
I agree that that poverty is not the only story, and it’s perhaps not even the primary story. I think poverty is an important and significant element in the story, one which we should not discount. I think you would probably agree with me on that.
To Saad
What about them? I am unfamiliar offhand with the statistical breakdown of black voters vs poverty and lack of education vs likelihood of being conservative and Republican. I would be surprised if the same pattern did not hold, but of course I also expect far less conservative Republicans blacks for all levels of education and economic status. Is that fair? Sorry – I feel like I’m missing something. Please explain it to me.
EL
The point is that poverty only comes into the story once one (or usually two) other prerequisites are met: being white and being male.
Just because the amount of poor people among Trump supporters is high doesn’t mean that Trump has a lot of support among poor people, especially given that poverty is usually non-white, non-male.
Poverty is obviously not the deciding factor here.
Yes, Trump’s rhetoric resonates well with poor white guys because they have grievances (some real, some imagined) and because he promises them a significant advantage over others. That’s bound to be less successful with people who have a secure existence, but you’ll notice that there quite some of them who support Trump because they can’t bear the thought that somebody not like them might be happy.
@Giliell #64
It’s a divide and conquer.
It’s incredible how we fall for it.
Split the poor, make them blame each other rather than those with money, who actually wield power.
Also, thank you for your #65, it forced me to think deeper about things I would have barely noticed.
To Giliell
That seems like a mighty biased analysis. I could use the same kind of logic to argue: “Well, there are plenty of white male people who don’t like Trump, so obviously being white and male isn’t a deciding factor either.” I have no idea why you’re placing more importance on “white and male” compared to “poor and uneducated”. If you want, we can split the difference and say that both factors are vitally important, and with one but not the other, then the Trump-effect is unlikely to manifest, but with both, then the Trump effect is likely to manifest.
there are no poor blacks who support Trump. Your analogy fails. But it’s not unusual for white men to reduce everything to class because that’s the only axis of oppression they’re likely to be familiar with while discounting the enormous privileges and entitlements that come with the job.
To go back to some basics: Somebody being white and male is a much better indicator for them being a Trump supporter than a person’s socioeconomic status. This means that talking about class as the primary factor is nothing but a way to derail the conversation and analysis.
PS:
Ok. I guess the statistics are that it’s about 2 to 1 odds of a random white male adult in the US preferring Trump to Hillary. I may have to concede the point. I still feel that this is a very superficial level of analysis. In particular, I still want to argue that the political rhetoric is using “othering” and tribalism in order to gain support about a voting block, an the voting block chosen just happened to be white and men. I argue that a similar phenomenon might happen if the rhetoric instead targeted black and men, but that tactic was not taken, for numerous reasons. On this slightly deeper, but controversial analysis, I still think that “poor and uneducated” are hugely influential elements in the explanation of the phenomenon, and “white and male” are accidental for the reasons just laid out, of course with some important and non-negligible historical effects too that are tied to “white and male”.
Thank you for your time and input and conversation.
Yeah, totally random.
Nothing in history or culture behind that choice.
Could have been black men or Asian grandmas or people with dogs smaller than 20 inches.
To Giliell
Yes, but why is that true? Surely you will agree with me that white men are not more susceptible to fascist politics than black men on a genetic or innate level. They’re equally susceptible on that level.
White and male is the best indicator, because the fascist rhetoric is setting up the in-group out-group of “white male” vs “everyone else”, which is standard fascist tactics. If someone tried the same tactics with “black male” vs “everyone else”, surely we would see similar results. Then again, maybe we wouldn’t, because of existing facts of our history and cultural. Then again, given the relative success of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, I think that it’s not entirely out of the question. (I am going out on a rather long and tenuous limb here, but I still think I’m within the realm of reasonableness and reality.)
To Giliell
Final point: Do you really think that other cultural groups are that immune to fascism? My final point will be to point out the rise of of Jewish fascism in Israel, where the Jewish fascism is based on the in-group out-group of Jews vs Palestinians / Arabs, where less than 70 years ago, many of the direct ancestors of the Jews in Israel were one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world. How quickly things can change.
I guess I just have a much lower opinion of humanity at large than you do. Yes the culture is important, but I think that in the right economic and social conditions, fascism can easily arise in any cultural, ethnic, and sex-gender group.
Maybe I’m downplaying the importance of recent cultural facts. You are right. I’m just arguing about degrees. Any disagreement between us is probably small.
Can you point to anything in my argument that would make it reasonable to infer this?
We’re not talking about some “possible scenarios”, we’re talking about actual reality.
People actually have looked at the demographics of Trump supporters in quite some detail… 91% of them are white, and 58% of them are male, 50% are between the ages of 45 and 64, 33% of them make less than $50K, and 43% of them have only a high school diploma (or less).
As for why white men are more susceptible to fascist impulses in America today, consider the various points made in Umberto Eco’s Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, particularly those around traditionalism, “the cult of action for action’s sake” (in relation to the construction of masculinity in the modern USA), and “the appeal to a frustrated middle class”… The last point is especially relevant:
The people most likely to support Trump are middle-aged white men with relatively low levels of education. It’s probably not a co-incidence that this is also the demographic currently experiencing an exceptional increase in early mortality, largely due to a combination of suicide and alcohol or drug abuse.
I just got out of bed when I realized this (and I’m about to go back into bed).
Here’s one final example for you: The voter turnout for California proposition 8.
http://www.madpickles.org/California_Proposition_8.html
I think we all know the facts.
I claim this is a great and wonderful example where the fascist politicians could use that poverty, lack of education, and especially US conservative Christian religion to get everyone, and especially blacks, to vote in quite a fascist and discriminatory manner.
Here is one time where the leaders of US Christian fascism could co-opt the blacks into it. Normally, the fascism in the US works by putting the white male Christian against everyone else, and especially against racial minorities, atheists, and Muslims. However, in this one particular case, they found another boogeyman, the gays. With this new boogeyman, they could unite the poor, uneducated populations of white and black alike to work together to oppress the boogeyman.
At this point, we’ll probably just have to disagree. I am definitely not convinced that a history of privilege makes a group more susceptible to fascism, and AFAICT, you haven’t even tried to make an argument why this might be the case. In fact, I would suspect the opposite, because fascism IMHO comes from the poor, uneducated, and desperate, and the privileged group tends be not that.
Also certain forms of conservative religion are a good indicator of fascism – cannot forget that. Examples include the effective religion of Maoism, Lysenko, the modern state religion of North Korea and its leaders.
You know, EnlightenmentLiberal, I find it interesting to see the great effort you’re making right now to give white men the benefit of the doubt, considering how unwilling you seem to afford the same courtesy to Indians here. I think you need some introspection, because right now I can’t conclude anything else than that you are a huge racist bigot.
EnlightenmentLiberal, #68
You were missing the racial component in the list. Saying there’s a correlation between poverty and lack of education and conservatism/voting Republican doesn’t capture the true nature of what’s going on. You have to consider the intersection with being white too.
Indeed. As the New York Times has amply documented, he seems to have been a racist since his earliest days (almost certainly influenced by his father, who was probably(this has never(?) been confirmed) a KKK member) — the “seems to” qualifier is only because it’s difficult, in those early days, to assign the origin of family company’s policies to him or to his father. Similarly, again documented by the New York Times, and apparently also influenced by his father, he’s been closed aligned with various Joe McCarthy loons (and it is known his father was a John Bricher).
EL
Are you really asking me to demonstrate the connection between fascism, white supremacy and misogyny?
What is it now? Are white men privileged or are they not?
Remember what I said about white men only seeing class as an axis of privilege?
Also, fuck that “fascists are just desperate people” shit.
I don’t suppose it would be worth the effort to develop a formal measure of deplorability for testing its correlation to strength of support for Donald Trump.
@83ish, blf:
Not exactly 100% confirmed; however, the Internet turns up this, which recounts the evidence of a couple old news stories from 1927, which accounts (IF all were accurate) would together point to Donald’s father Fred Trump having been arrested in 1927, while wearing Klan garb, and detained on a charge of refusing to disperse from a Ku Klux Klan parade in Queens when ordered to do so. This would seem enough to consider his membership more likely than not.
What? My entire position rests on the obvious fact that a majority of white people in America are fucking racist bastards, scum. I’m not denying that. It’s undeniable.
However, Giliell and I are arguing about: To what extent has this history of slavery, Jim Crow, and white supremacy movements contribute to the modern phenomenon of xenophobia against Muslims and Mexicans, and the rise of fascism of Trump.
I currently argue that the particular xenophobia against Muslims and Mexicans, and the rise of Trump fascism in particular, has relatively little to do with the history of white oppression of blacks in this country. I argue that basically all racial and cultural groups on the planet would be just as susceptible to this kind of xenophobic reaction to outsiders, and consequent fascism, if the right economic, education, and religious factors are in play. We see fascism in recent history, and in other contemporary countries. Ex: the black turnout and voting patterns in California prop 8. Contemporary Israel. Contemporary Europe. In contemporary Europe as a strong but minority political movement (except in England with the Brexit where it may constitute a majority). All of these countries do not have an immediate history of slavery and Jim Crow to fall back on to explain it away. What can explain it much better is education, economics, religion, and general preexisting conservativism. IMHO. I can go on and on. India. Burma / Myanmar.
…
To Giliell
I think the above reply also addresses your concerns.
Correction:
> What? My entire position rests on the obvious fact that a majority of white men in America are fucking racist bastards, scum. I’m not denying that. It’s undeniable.
PS: Sorry, I don’t meant to say that white supremacy and racism and entirely irrelevant. They’re very relevant. However, I’ve been trying to argue that it’s not the only piece of the puzzle that’s worth talking about for what has lead and what leads to fascism, e.g. hyper-nationialism, fueled by xenophobia, with a strong police state and suspension of basic civil liberties. Again, I think several of you have too high of an opinion of the human race, whereas I want to emphasize just how quickly just about any culture can slip into fascism when the perfect storm hits if the culture is not careful and vigilant about countering it.
Hopefully E.L. has demonstrated his deep, nuanced, philosophical point that impoverished black women could be fascist too, in a perfect storm in a different reality.
EnlightenmentLiberal:
Crank magnetism, EL. You have that in straight white male bourgeois Christians in the US. There are many different routes for such people into fascist bigot territory. And it’s such a wide open expanse of ignorant hate that they can spend the rest of their horrible lives wandering around in it like lost bigot puppies looking for their next tree to piss on.
We don’t live in that alternate universe where some other group of people are in that kind of situation. And I don’t trust that anybody here can have many reliable, responsible intuitions about it. But we don’t need to do much armchair conceptualizing to understand much about counterfactuals like this, when there is abundant empirical evidence to use in our little corner of reality.
We’re also not talking about some other existing culture here in this world, where other groups have similar privileges. When you want to explain the behavior of this group or that group, its specific circumstances are what matters. But if you’re looking for some neat, clean, universal thing to say about what all human beings would do under all possible circumstances, I don’t think I understand what you’re looking for or what the point of it is.
So if support for Trump is so driven by poverty, how come his supporters have a higher average income than Clinton’s?
jefrir #91
a hypothetical:
At the local coffee shop, at 6:34 AM on Monday, there are:
the employee at the till,
the employee in back cooking stuff,
the customer nursing their one cup a day,
the customer just going on shift at the clothing store,
the customer just going off shift from the Plant.
average wage of all those in the store:
$9.99 / hour.
.
Bill Gates comes in to buy a coffee.
average wage of those in the store:
a bazillion /hour?
.
fuck “
To jefrir
Citations please?
And as chigau said, by “average”, do you mean “mean” or “median”?
And to tkreacher
I don’t think this is useless philosphical masturbation. We need to identify the causes of our social problems, in order to fix them. On my hypotheses, improving education and economic opportunity for all will lessen the odds of a successful Trump 2.0.
On Giliell’s hypotheses, I’m not sure. Giliell, what sort of plans do you believe would be effective at combating these problems? Do you think that a general improvement of education and economic opportunity, and lowering religion, would be effective at combating Trump-like fascism, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny?
What other sorts of plans are there? Particular education campaigns in public schools to students about the patriarchy, feminism, rape culture, racism, and privilege?
Of course, we can have both, and I would support both.
Again, in order to craft effective policy (governmental and non-governmental), we need to understand the causes that underlie our shared enemy, so that we can defeat our shared enemy.
Maybe I’m entirely wrong on these points, and I’m sorry for being wrong, and thick-headed, and privilege-blind, in that case. However, in order to convince me, you’re going to need to do better. Hopefully, I can quickly end participating in this thread, so that I can end annoying people in this thread on this topic, because it seems that nothing further productive will come of it. ~sigh~ I’m really not out to be an ass or a troll.
EnlightenmentLiberal #94
Does this mean you’re leaving?
’cause that would be nice.
No asshole, you need to do better to convince us. And you can’t, and you know that. You’ve show that for months. Your logic won’t get you there. You need empathy, which you fail to show.
Here you go: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/
Data is from May, but I doubt it’s changed hugely. The figures reported are for median household income of supporters of the various primary candidates; Trump’s are lower than those for the other Republican candidates, but higher than both the national average, and those of Clinton or Sanders.
I’m happy to accept that economic vulnerability, or a perception of such, is a factor in Trump’s support, but this doesn’t seem like a working-class uprising. It looks a lot more like people who are used to being privileged are seeing that privilege being threatened.
To jefrir
Fascinating. That does go a long way to show I’m full of shit on this topic.
I think the two points are actually closely related – we have a class of people who were not historically subject to the sort of economic vulnerability endemic to other, less privileged people, who are now finding themselves in (or sliding towards) much the same circumstances as those they traditionally consider their inferiors.
tkreacher
I would read that book. And watch the TV show. You know why (and you probably do)? Because it’s a concept so out-of-this-world it would actually be interesting and refreshing.
Honestly, EL, it’s frustrating to see you dismiss the race/racism angle so completely. It’s not longer disappointing, though. Slowly getting used to it. Your earlier claims of having compassion and humanity seem to be poorly founded, considering the written evidence here and elsewhere.
@Enlightenment Liberal, you might find the latest Intelligence Squared US on the subject of Trump interesting. I’d also suggest looking at historical support for fascism more generally – it hasn’t been predicated on class in the way you’re claiming.
To qwints
Thank you for the suggestion.
rq 100
I’d read that book or watch that show as well. Hmm.
Ideas are brewing.
tkreacher
I’m up for collaboration!
@Giliell, 63:
Of course. Race itself was invented as a divide and conquer tactic; that white supremacy says that is the entire reason “white” even exists as a social category.
It worked in Virginia in the late 17th century, it worked throughout many other colonial endeavors, and it’s worked for America’s aristocrats for as long as the country has been around.
And now, we’re going into an election in which the Republicans say: “We work for the 1% and don’t care about you, but vote for us and we will protect your job from being stolen by black people through affirmative action” and the Democrats say: “We work for the 1% and don’t care about you, but you have to vote for us anyway because otherwise the racists will win.”