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The smug style in American liberalism

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Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#131

Post by MisterBastahrd »

scarmig wrote: post #42
yummyfajitas wrote: post #35

This is definitely the preference falsification election. Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shouted down, called racist/evil/etc, downmodded and flagged on HN. I also get a steady stream of private emails: "I wouldn't say this publicly cause of the bullies, but that .gov link with all the data does seem to support you. I think you might be right, I need to…

Full disclosure: I'm a Hillary voter, after much internal fretting about voting third party or writing in Obama. Looking at the reactions on my Facebook feed, the large majority of people seem to be taking from this experience the learning that Trump voters are all disgusting misogynistic racist pigs, and America deserves to be damned for its sins against the pro-Clinton media orthodoxy. It's tiring, because in terms…

I've yet to meet a Trump voter who didn't meet that criteria. Just because people don't like to be described in a certain way doesn't mean that it doesn't describe them. Trump didn't win because of any sort of liberal catechism. He won because the media has done a bang up job of scaring the crap out of the average citizen about immigration and terrorism while pimping his brand because he's a perverse curiosity in a suit.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#132

Post by lintiness »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #105
cafard wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We" (an editorial we) ran on "Trump will do for the United States of America what he did for the United States Football League; and that he will be no better president than he was a businessman." I don't remember anyone saying that Romney was racist. I remember many saying that he represented the very wealthy rather than the middle and poorer classes.

Here's people calling Romney racist: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/8/27/1124649/-Romney-Goes... http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/07/romney-accused-... https://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/romney-faces-challenge... https://thinkprogress.org/romney-dog-whistle-obamas-philosop...

the true irony of the romney hatred is he's probably the best qualified and most moral candidate the country's ever seen.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#133

Post by lintiness »

CalChris wrote: post #60
jhoechtl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting the deficit? Which one? If you are referring to the National Debt you are grossly wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_St...

Of course, if you look up in the dictionary you'll find that deficit and debt are distinct words: debit: something that is owed or that one is bound to pay to or perform for another deficit: the amount by which expenditures or liabilities exceed income or assets http://www.dictionary.com/browse/deficit http://www.dictionary.com/browse/debt The Federal deficit was about $1.4T when Obama started and its about $600B now…

you are out of your mind. the only reason the deficit is south of a trillion is interest rates are HALF what they were in 08.

2008 fed debt: ~10T

2016 fed debt: ~19T

2008 int exp: ~450M

2016 int exp: ~450M

he's spent like a lunatic, and his aca has just gotten started.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#134

Post by jacobolus »

lintiness wrote: post #129
scarmig wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I do have plenty of foreign policy disagreements in particular with him. But he's the best we've had in living memory. Liberalism has had a smug aspect as long as I've been alive, but at this point that aspect has metastasized to something worse. The norms that have developed are toxic to progressive movements. They certainly alienate people, but beyond that they make it so you don't even have the institutional c…

"He's the best we've had in living memory." uh, WOW. you must have a short memory because reagan, bush sr, and clinton were all superior in almost every way, and none will eat a terrible policy failure like the aca.

You might be interested to read http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myt...

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#135

Post by usmeteora »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #35

This is definitely the preference falsification election. Those who know me on HN know that I'm an outspoken proponent of unorthodox ideas. I'm regularly shouted down, called racist/evil/etc, downmodded and flagged on HN. I also get a steady stream of private emails: "I wouldn't say this publicly cause of the bullies, but that .gov link with all the data does seem to support you. I think you might be right, I need to…

I actually agree with you in some cases here. I'm not a huge fan of Hillary. However, as a young women working in technology and male dominated environments, it's really hard for me to believe the pathological sexism isnt a fundamentally limiting component in making everything better. I don't believe women should get free rides and everything should be equal overnight. I'm not a man hater. I know many educated male programmers I work with who agree both work and college culture and the products made in technology would be better if there were an equal gender ratio in the workforce.

As a woman who has been spoken to in previous workplaces the way Trump has spoken poorly of women, it's too much for me to overlook. It may seem like a one off issue for intelligent men who are (and you should) looking at all the contributing components, not just focusing on the pieces targeted media ads bring to light, but to me its a fundamental component for economic and technology depressions that women are not making money and contributing to technological advances and product creation geared for the masses.

It's fundamentally hypocritical to be a proponent for economic growth and treat 3.5 billion people in the population as potential girlfriends instead of opportunity for economic growth beyond buying diamonds on TV (the business his ex supermodel wife has).

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#136

Post by lintiness »

jacobolus wrote: post #134
lintiness wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He's the best we've had in living memory." uh, WOW. you must have a short memory because reagan, bush sr, and clinton were all superior in almost every way, and none will eat a terrible policy failure like the aca.

You might be interested to read http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myt...

not the least bit interested in partisan "journalism". i was alive then.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#137

Post by pmyteh »

s_kilk wrote: post #120
gadders wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar thing happened with Brexit, and the last UK General Election. Right-leaning voters just can't be bothered to identify themselves and get involved in debates about it. They just vote.

The "Shy Tory" problem. I'm continually amazed at how pundits brush it aside.

It's really not clear it actually exists. Both the 2015 general election and Brexit misses were primarily due to turnout modeling problems: people accurately reported which candidate they preferred, but different groups turned out in different numbers than had happened historically, so the (educated) guess about who would actually vote turned out to be wrong.

The British Polling Council postmortem is a very interesting read. They considered 'shy Tory' but once again ended up ruling it out.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#138

Post by [deleted] »

s_kilk wrote: post #120
gadders wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar thing happened with Brexit, and the last UK General Election. Right-leaning voters just can't be bothered to identify themselves and get involved in debates about it. They just vote.

The "Shy Tory" problem. I'm continually amazed at how pundits brush it aside.

[deleted]

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#139

Post by [deleted] »

s_kilk wrote: post #120
gadders wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar thing happened with Brexit, and the last UK General Election. Right-leaning voters just can't be bothered to identify themselves and get involved in debates about it. They just vote.

The "Shy Tory" problem. I'm continually amazed at how pundits brush it aside.

[deleted]

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#140

Post by Asdfbla »

Pretty hard to not look down on those people when you know that the facts are on your side, since for certain things there are established facts. I wouldn't be ready to be patient with someone who thinks the moon is made out of cheese or something.

But I suppose the article is still right and competent politicians should have the empathy to relate even to those people. I couldn't do it.

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