The smug style in American liberalism • Hacker News Board

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#161

Post by cafard » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #107

cafard wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't wrong, or not all wrong. However, you must consider a) that Nader made a very large difference in 2000, and b) that Trump got to run against Hillary Clinton. She is intelligent and able, but she has been a handy target for conservative media for twenty years now, and a good deal of that stuck with voters. "Both of them went to school with the Smug"; well, yes, and some would find it curious that our populi…

Johnson seems to have gotten more votes than Nader; Johnson and Stein together definitely did so. In many of the "battleground" states, Trump's margin is totally swamped by third-party numbers. The observations you've made about Clinton aren't news to anyone. The fact she was nominated anyway , with her only primary opposition coming from outside the party, after the DNC had let it be known to all potential opponents…

I upvoted you. However, I think that Clinton was seen as the safe candidate: she had name recognition, she didn't scare Wall Street. That is not wholly the same as being the candidate of Smug.

I trust that the Democratic Party will understand that it has run out of ideas. Will the Republicans know what to do? It strikes me as quite possible that Trump's qualities could be those of a one-term president.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#162

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #93

yummyfajitas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using 'racist' in the context of criticizing Republicans is just name-calling. Bush displayed no open racism, bullied no one, and was not xenophobic. Same for Romney. Yet the anti-Trump language is just a more hysterical version of the anti-Bush and anti-Romney language. At some point the term "racist" came to mean "insufficiently left wing". This happened because left wing types called every Republican "raaacciiiiis…

Trump is looking to get about the same amount of votes as Romney. Clinton is getting a lot less votes than Obama got. So there is an alternative explanation there, that rather than one group of people getting sick of shrill accusations of racism, a different group of people just doesn't like Hilary Clinton all that much.

Or that different group of people weren't as afraid of Trump as Clinton needed them to be.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#163

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #23

M_Grey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only claim of a moral highground here is implicit in that shitpost of an article.

The article gave advanced warning of 6 months. That nobody heeded ...

In fairness, there were lots of advance warnings of why Trump would lose as well. Someone had to be right...

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#164

Post by artimaeis » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

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.

Alright - so we are two people that have very different views of the past 50 years it sounds like.

So, in your perspective, what was something that made Bush Sr a superior president to Obama? Or any of the others you listed? Help me understand your perspective.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#165

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

codeonfire wrote: post #17

codeonfire wrote: post #6

Well tens of millions of "stupid hicks" are about to lose their health insurance. How is that for a "good fact"? Sorry for being smug.

Trump and the GOP could absolutely repeal Obamacare — and 22 million people would lose health insurance http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/healthcare/trump-and-the-gop-...

Why not just put them on Medicare?

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#166

Post by foldr » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

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...

Romney being a racist was not a major (or even minor) theme of Obama's campaign. I don't think you can really be suggesting that alleged racism on the part of the Republican candidate was as big an issue in the previous election as in the present one (where the Republican candidate made widely publicized explicitly racist statements).

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#167

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:40 PM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #70

ant6n wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Huffpost did a round-up: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-exam... For example there were proposals to not allow Muslims to immigrate to the US. There was calling Mexicans 'criminals' and 'rapists'. Beating of black people at Trump rallies (which he endorsed). This shows up this night on my twitter feed: "I am at a Trump rally in Manhattan, and thousands are chanting 'We hate Muslims, we hat…

Fair enough if the stuff with Trump Management Corporation and his action at the casino are correct I'd say it's a fair call he's probably a bit racist. Not allowing Muslims in could be seen as racist, but I don't know that was at the core of what he was trying to do. Don't get me wrong I don't think it's a good idea. But 100% of radical Islamic terrorist are Muslim so banning them would have made people less afraid…

[deleted]

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#168

Post by dkrich » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

Bravo. Full disclosure, I voted for HRC. However, I've been saying this to my liberal friends for the entire election cycle. The message from of all of my liberal Facebook friends has been some derivative of:

"Hear me out. We know Hillary isn't the best candidate, but you have to vote for Trump. If you don't you're a racist misogynist. Also, if you vote for a third party candidate, you are basically voting for Donald Trump."

There are so many things wrong with that message, that I won't go into it, but the last bit about a third party vote == a vote for Trump is dismissive, condescending, wrong, and rude. The assumption is that the third party voters are reasonable people who would otherwise vote Democrat but for the fact that they have a few misgivings about HRC.

However that is a very poor assumption.

Not once did I hear any of those same people listen to anybody, Trump supporter, third party voter, no voter. They shouted over everyone else and smugly and overconfidently assumed everyone was listening to them.

I am as shocked as anyone Trump won, but I had been telling my liberal friends for months that people just don't like HRC. I have my reasons for why I think that's true and it has nothing to do with emails or Bill Clinton's past indiscretions. Her primary run against Obama in '08 is proof positive of this, and in many ways this general election is a near repeat of that process.

She and her supporters were overly confident, refused to believe that they weren't connecting with mainstream America, and then got blindsided when the votes were counted.

I truly hope that the democratic party learns something from this, but from what I've seen on my Facebook feed this morning it certainly doesn't feel like it's going in that direction.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#169

Post by vinceguidry » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #112

wojcech wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As I pointed out above, the status quo is actually pretty good. For you. And me. But we are not the majority. The majority does not benefit from automation, globalisation etc. as much as you and me. And it doesn't matter if in absolute terms we are all better of(for which citation would be needed, specifically for the lowest income bracket), it matters that the benefits of this new age are not spread around to thos…

"I love the poorly educated." This wasn't about the economy at all which is pretty good. This was a demagogue preying on gullibility. Y'all just elected him, citation unnecessary.

Trump, in my estimation, hacked his way into the White House. He recognized key vulnerabilities in the way the media handles politics and exploited them for all they're worth, putting his meagre resources where they counted, and ignoring everything else. This allowed him to remain the underdog right up until he won the election.

These vulnerabilities are going to be fixed in the next four years. There's just too much at stake for it to be otherwise.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#170

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:45 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #162

maxerickson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is looking to get about the same amount of votes as Romney. Clinton is getting a lot less votes than Obama got. So there is an alternative explanation there, that rather than one group of people getting sick of shrill accusations of racism, a different group of people just doesn't like Hilary Clinton all that much.

Or that different group of people weren't as afraid of Trump as Clinton needed them to be.

A whole coalition of groups with different reasons for not voting for Clinton.

I'm just pushing back against the "unprecedented Trump blowout" narrative. So far he's got less popular votes than the loser of the last presidential election (Romney got 60,933,504 votes. Trumps at 59,088,517 with 98% of precincts reporting. He probably won't pick up another 1.8 million votes).

A different argument is that Trump attracted new people to the polls. I'd be more inclined to believe that many of those people are sick of establishment politics and their tactics. But I don't think they are actually a majority of Trump's support.