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David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

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Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#71

Post by ZeteticElench »

tathougies wrote: post #20
ZeteticElench wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is obviously racist and divisive.

I mean... I thought so in 2016, but four years later, I simply do not believe this. There is no evidence to support this. He has constantly condemned white supremacy. He obviously is a nationalist, but for America, being a multi-racial nation, saying one is a nationalist does not mean you are a racist. Trump has delivered insane results for minority groups, and has done things even supposed 'progressive' candidates w…

"There is no evidence to support this."

There is tons of evidence to support this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-r...

"He has constantly condemned white supremacy. "

He has spent his entire Presidency dog whistling to white supremacist groups.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-history-of-support-fr...

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonar...

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-09-30/la-na-pol-...

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#72

Post by forest_dweller »

ZeteticElench wrote: post #70
forest_dweller wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also an outsider and it isn't obvious to me how he is both. Divisive sure (most politicians of note are), racist though? I personally don't see it. It suits some people to conflate immigration policy and racism. It then allows them to then label anyone opposed to immigration as racist. It is further confounded by the fact that those people that are deeply racist are almost always opposed to immigration. They do…

Evidence of Trump's racism. He has been racist for a long time. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-r... "Divisive sure (most politicians of note are)," Has any other President actively tried to harm states he didn't like? Trump has.

[dead]

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#73

Post by rawgabbit »

rendall wrote: post #39

From the article: But a lot of people on the Clinton campaign tricked themselves into the idea that they didn’t have to placate the social views of racist white people. This seems like a pretty important insight and I really wish the interview could have unpacked this a lot better. It seems to be an operating assumption of the Democratic campaign, and I imagine if one is locked into this view (by implacable statistic…

David Shor is a pollster and cannot admit that fact that polls do not tell the whole story, especially with a unpopular candidate like Hillary. Hillary, in America, is loathed by many as a pretentious Marie Antoinette who rode her husband's coat tails and looked down upon the working class. I personally know several folks who voted Democrat their whole life and voted for Trump in 2016. i.e. her infamous deplorables speech. https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorabl...

Working class voters saw their manufacturing jobs shipped overseas. They were told to "retrain" to get high tech jobs. They took on a mountain of student loan debt and still could not find jobs that were as good as their manufacturing jobs. Even white collar workers are angry with what they see as corporate malfeasance. e.g. H-1B programs that make it legal to replace American citizens with low paid foreign workers. Under Title 8, of the US Code, you can be imprisoned for six months for hiring an unauthorized alien but with H1-B, the corporations can get away with it. What David Shor and other Democratic Party Elitists describe as "racist white people" are the working class who feel abandoned by the Democrats. I think the working class mostly voted out of frustration in 2016. What worries me is that the Democratic Party Elite still don't get it and will continue to foist tone-deaf candidates on us, who only know to toe the corporate line and ignore the working class who are becoming more and more desperate.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#74

Post by rendall »

rendall wrote: post #61
davidshor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi - “racially charged” meant commonly used racial slurs against African Americans, not anything about immigration.

Hey, thanks for weighing in, David Shor. That puts a new spin on it.

Still, if it's possible, could you walk through the thinking, step by step, when you get a chance? Links to relevant results are fine, no need to write an essay.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#75

Post by finnthehuman »

jmeister wrote: post #48
forest_dweller wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the company you keep ... What is that supposed to mean? > As if the Republican side didn't have enough bombings, drone strikes and so on. I have a few friends at work that are from Pakistan. They prefer Trump over Obama because he isn't droning their homeland. So they think Trump is an improvement. > But choosing Trump of Clinton was just plain stupid, face it. This is why everything is becoming polarised. Thi…

It boggles my mind that there is still no sensible “establishment” understanding of why Trump was elected. There was no honest post-mortem after 2016, only blaming sexism, racism or Russian interference. No lessons learnt. This column by Russ Douthat from a couple of days back summarizes the failure: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/opinion/trump-republican-...

Any explanation approaching accuracy undercuts the establishment and can not be acknowledged. It's not the kind of tactical mistake they can own up to, but one that cuts uncomfortably close to admitting they're doing the country a deliberate disservice.

The explanation is there if anyone wants to see it. The Rolling Stone's political editor was calling it 6 months before Trump was even elected.

>It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go. [...] [Trump] likes being famous, which got him into reality TV. He knows show business. That put him in position to understand that the presidential election campaign is really just a badly acted, billion-dollar TV show whose production costs ludicrously include the political disenfranchisement of its audience.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#76

Post by Tomminn »

This is interesting from the perspective of showing a particular ideological blindness very, very clearly. He claims that Obama to Trump voters are motivated by racism and cannot see any problem with the idea that a racist would vote for a black man to have the most powerful job in the world.

If that is something a racist can do in your categorization of the world, than juuuuust maybe your categories are broken.

Otherwise we're in a world where racists would happily pick Barack Hussein Obama over Mitt freaking Romney, but couldn't bring themselves to pick Hillary over Trump.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#77

Post by webmaven »

insickness wrote: post #45

This article gives a perfect, if unintentional synopsis of why Trump is in power. The left has embraced hook-line-and-sinker Critical Theory and Identity Politics. All power and victimhood is seen through the lens of identities, causing the left had to abandon class because it is not an immutable category. The working class abandoned the Democratic party because the party abandoned the working class and then poured s…

> All power and victimhood is seen through the lens of identities, causing the left [...] to abandon class because it is not an immutable category.

I don't think that really captures the motivation or pressure to stop talking about class.

Rather, class in the US is really really messy (compared to, say, Britain, where despite the additional complications of social vs. economic class, you can describe yourself as 'lower upper middle class', and be understood), and the fact that speaking about class at all got you branded as communist (in the past), or socialist (currently), or elitist (always). America is largely branded as a classless society rather than trying to get to grips with class. Confusing the issue even more is the denigration on the right of "coastal elites" that are largely middle class.

As far as US political rhetoric is concerned, socialism seems to be the new communism.

Meanwhile, though speaking using the lens of racism isn't exactly easy (eg. "That's racist!" "No, you're the racist!"), it is at least somewhat possible.

Is it any wonder that politicians on the (US) left don't talk about class? Confusing your audience isn't exactly going to win elections. They can talk about creating jobs and inequality, but that's about it.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#78

Post by webmaven »

rayiner wrote: post #58
pjc50 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, but you could project the same argument backwards: "why is this King guy talking about race when it's incredibly unpopular with white voters?"

That fails to distinguish between politics and activism.

> That fails to distinguish between politics and activism.

Activism is politics. I think the distinction is between activism and running for office.

Re: David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

#79

Post by webmaven »

finnthehuman wrote: post #75
jmeister wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that there is still no sensible “establishment” understanding of why Trump was elected. There was no honest post-mortem after 2016, only blaming sexism, racism or Russian interference. No lessons learnt. This column by Russ Douthat from a couple of days back summarizes the failure: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/opinion/trump-republican-...

Any explanation approaching accuracy undercuts the establishment and can not be acknowledged. It's not the kind of tactical mistake they can own up to, but one that cuts uncomfortably close to admitting they're doing the country a deliberate disservice. The explanation is there if anyone wants to see it. The Rolling Stone's political editor was calling it 6 months before Trump was even elected. >It turns out we let o…

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