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wakefresh

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Posts posted by wakefresh

  1. Posted

    He won those counties because turnout was depressed, and turnout was depressed because Clinton sucked. We know the people who stayed home voted for Obama: that's how he won those counties in 08 and 12.

     

    And no, Trump's racism did not turn out more voters than Republicans usually do. Again, he got fewer votes than both McCain and Romney did.

     

    Really? We know that how? People being registered to one particular party doesn't make them beholden to vote for that party's candidate in the general election. Turnout was lower but margins by which Trump won those counties point to new people deciding to vote Rethug. Turnout was lower because you had new restrictive voting laws passed. Turnout was lower because, yeah, maybe people were not so enthused by Clinton. But make no mistake that people who voted for Obama in 2012, suddenly went Trump. Obama was never a choice for these people in 2008 or 2012.

  2. Posted

    I didn't say he ran unopposed, I said the Democrats didn't put any real effort into opposing him. His opponent was a no name with no backing by the party.

     

    Donald Trump ran a terrible campaign where he was accused of sexually assulting 12 women and still won. If the voters want something, they are going to vote for it regardless. The voters want Ryan -- former VP pick -- back in Washington. The facts don't mesh with your narrative.

  3. Posted

    I didn't vote for Trump, or Clinton, for that matter, and I appreciate cracked making an effort to urge people to be civil toward Trump supporters, and not to act like it's a worse disaster than 9-11.

     

    Trump supporters are anything but civil.

    http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/trump-supporters-ram-sign-holding-war-veteran-with-truck-in-politically-motivated-hit-and-run/

     

    http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/go-back-to-your-country-this-is-trump-land-usps-driver-busted-for-harassing-hispanic-man/

     

    http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/alt-right-founder-trump-is-the-first-step-in-turning-america-into-a-vast-safe-space-for-whites/

     

    I guess my main criticism about this podcast episode, is that Jack and Jason still seem to have this "we need to educate our opposition" attitude. Well I think you need to hold your own representatives accountable. And you should be trying to demand improvement in their policies, and be honest enough to criticize them when they exercise too much authority and violate people's rights. Hold their feet to the fire, and don't let up, until they reverse their own crimes.

     

    A lot of us out here have decided to avoid the ballot box, not caring if Trump gets elected or not, because from our perspective, Tyrants have been in the oval office for decades. We're used to it. What's one more to add to the list?

     

    You can't possibly believe any of what you said. How do reconcile holding elected officials feet to the fire, if you avoid the ballot box? So the "tyrants" are only in the White House, huh? Not in the Senate or the House that brings them the bills to sign? And if they are tyrants in the White House, what good would it be to lobby the Congress, since tyrants, by definition, do whatever the hell they want? This sort of stupidity is why Trump is in the White House.

  4. Posted

    They did, but they did at a much lower margin than they did for Obama over either Romney or McCain.

     

    You're making the same mistake liberals always do when looking at the working class: ignoring non-voters. When the Democrats lost white workers, it wasn't because most of them started voting Republican. It's because most of them stopped voting at all. Clinton just exacerbated this trend.

     

    This is what Wong misses. This wasn't a wave of voters raising Trump into office. In fact, Trump got less votes than Romney did in 2012. This was Hillary Clinton running a tone deaf, negative campaign where she moved to the right to try and attract "moderate" Republicans who were never going to vote for her, where she refused to attack Republicans or talk about the Ryan budget was going to do to the poor, and where she ranted about Russian plots instead of telling people how she was going to improve their lives. And people stayed home. And she lost.

     

     

     

    The counties in the Rust Belt that swung the election by voting for Trump went for Barack Obama twice. Obama is not, I don't think I have to remind you, a white man. Your explanation doesn't make sense.

     

    Trump won those counties by a wide margin. Wider than what Bush got in 2000. And those non-voters that sat out previous elections -- there is no reason to think that they would have voted for Obama at all. There is though very good evidence that stirring up pre-existing racial hatreds motivated them to get out. The biggest campaign promise that Trump is going to have to keep is kicking out all immigrants and building a wall on Mexico while Mexico pays for it.

  5. Posted

    Oh, and Tariq, no, McConnell did not "win back his seat." He won't be back up for reelection until 2020. The Democrats did not bother to contest Ryan's seat with any kind of real effort. Helps to know what you're talking about if you want to understand what happened.

     

    The name is Shariq, not Tariq.

     

    And Ryan did not run unopposed. There were three other choices in that race. Cantor lost his seat in 2014 because you can credibliy make a point that Rethug voters wanted something different. In this case, Ryan won and so did Rand Paul -- the other Kentucky dipshit establishment senator that has been in there for long time.

     

    During neither of their previous terms, did they pass a jobs bill, so don't tell me that there was huge economic factors at play.

  6. Posted

    What is hell is this?! One minute he says the polls got it wrong about Trump because it underestimated rural Americans and now he says these same polls show that Americans support gun control and gay marriage? This is some mind bogginlgy stupid shit. Does he not realize that the people who oppose those very same things mean now control all three branches of government? Damn, what a dumbfuck.

  8. Posted

    Can we stop with the made up narrative about the working class? The breakdown of Trump voters were older and wealthy. People who make under 50k broke heavy for Clinton. And Jason, this was not a rejection of establishment politicians. McConnell and Ryan both won their seats back as did most of the Republican politicians. If that was the case, then McConnell and Ryan would have been out on their ass.

     

    What you are selling is not what reality is. The reality is that they wanted another white man in charge. That is what they meant when they said they were going to "take their country back."

  12. Posted

    Wow, I wasn't expecting to see THIS negative a reaction. It's like you're trying to prove them right about how everyone dismisses and dehumanizes rural America. It is possible to humanize and understand them without condoning them.

     

    The fact of the matter is that rural America has been getting screwed. Every downturn in the economy has hit them the hardest, and the recovery always benefits them less than most of America. All over America industries collapsed in the late 70s and early 80s, and when they did come back it was in fewer places and hiring fewer people. Then we had Wal-Mart leeching off of them for decades, slowly choking out local businesses and lowering GDP by bringing wages down. And when recessions came in the 90s it just killed the rest of those local economies, leaving towns as decaying shells of empty storefronts and houses, and more people moving to trailer parks. Then the real estate crash of 2008 which, once again, urban areas have recovered from but not rural ones.

     

    They used to be quite a cultural force. Even in the 70s there were lots of shows and movies centering on them. But in the 80s culture gradually moved away from them. In the 90s and 2000s they had stuff like Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy but it was less and less mainstream. Niche programming for "those people" mocked by the rest of pop culture.

     

    I'm not denying that there are good reasons to criticize them. The homophobia and racism are real. But maybe we should try to be less self-righteous.

     

    Because they are right about one thing: the democrats will not help them. And I think even the conservatives are starting to wake up that the republicans ain't helping them either. That's why Trump appeals. They're not getting help anyway, so at least they'll go with the guy who tells them what they want to hear and makes them feel good. It's how con artists and cults work. They find the desperate people and prey on them.

     

    But in the end I don't know what to do. I think the future will be that almost no one lives in rural areas. Just a tiny number of people watching and maintaining the largely automated agricultural equipment.

     

    The times, they are a-changin'. And they better start swimming or they'll sink like a stone.

     

    I don't know if empathy will help anything. They aren't giving it to other people, and they aren't asking for it either. But I think it means a lot to admit that if we had been born and raised in the same bubble that they were, we would probably think a lot like them. And that our not sharing their bigotry isn't the result of us being smarter or better than they are, but rather us growing up around different people.

     

    This podcast isn't asking you to agree with them, or excuse them, or say that they aren't totally wrong in supporting Trump who would be a terrible president. They're just asking you to open up your mind enough to see things from their point of view and see them as human beings. But most of you seem unwilling to even try that.

     

    Every downturn in the economy has hit black Americans the hardest. Even in good economies black unemployment is higher than rural white people. In fact, during the times when these factory towns existed, those rural whites colluded to make sure to cap the number of black people working in the factory and excluded them from the unions.

     

    The negative reaction is because this a group of people whose entire "way of life" was sustained by actively keeping others down. It was based on myth and fairy tales about a self-reliant white guy battling the world and winning. IT IS NOT TRUE.

     

    Those factory jobs stayed as long as there was cheap labor. When that cheap labor could go to other countries, it left. It was never about the "craftsmanship" and "quality" of work these people were doing. IT WAS A POLITICAL CALCULATION

     

    When women and minorities can compete with them for jobs, they lose a little and freak out. Remember that all of the board of directors and C-suite people are mostly white male, but these people act as if black person getting a promotion is the end of the world. They were fed a myth about them being the smartest and IT IS NOT TRUE.

     

    I disagree that they aren't asking for empathy. They are ALWAYS asking for empathy. They are always asking for a special spotlight on them because this is the first time in history when there hasn't been a spotlight on them.

     

    This podcast isn't asking you to agree with them, or excuse them, or say that they aren't totally wrong in supporting Trump who would be a terrible president. They're just asking you to open up your mind enough to see things from their point of view and see them as human beings. But most of you seem unwilling to even try that.

     

    You obviously have an idea of what you consider "seeing them has human beings" to mean, and disagreement is not it. All I have been doing is disagreeing with the very premise that they are "forgotten" and "downtrodden". They are not. They have had the ear of one of the two parties of this country since the 1980s. The only other group that can make a claim like that are rich white people, who have had the ear of both parties since the very beginning.

  13. Posted

    Jason,

     

    You just said that the racism and homophobia is a part of their culture and that they would rather die than change it. So how exactly do you change their views when they don't want to change. You say that it is on the liberals to reach out to them, but what is the responsibility of the conservative in this? The world is changing and they are being left behind. It would seem to me that the responsibility is on them to understand how they can fit into this new world?

  17. Posted

    Nope, this is all bullshit. Jason is talking bullshit. He just said that it was ok for these rural whites to not show any empathy for anyone else in an bad situation. These people want a trait -- empathy -- that they don't extend to anyone else. Conservatives say they don't like "political correctness" but get all offended when someone calls them deplorable. They want empathy for themselves, but everyone else needs to stop whining and bring themselves up by their bootstraps.

  19. Posted

    They don't have to try to make Trump supporters look stupid. They say things like, "Hillary Clinton is a demon" or say that they are going to cause bloodshed if Trump doesn't win. And that racism and homophobia are not side effects. They are the bread and butter of that culture. These people never forgave the Supreme Court for integration, remember. Jesus, these people are racist against the rural black folks as well. What in the hell are you talking about?

  22. Posted

    Man, the problem with your premise is that it is not true at all. These rural conservatives have always been at the front of the American psyche. They were at the front in the 1980s -- Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and bunch of other rock artists made their whole careers appealing to this demographic. In the 1970s, they had whole programming dedicated to them -- the Waltons, Little House on the Prarire, Beverly Hillbillies, Dukes of Haazard, etc. Hell, they were even so popular that the U.S. Senate threatened to investigate the TV networks if they pulled those shows.

     

    They have a whole government party that tells them that they are only true "REAL AMERICANS". What is going on is a blacklash from these people about having to share the national dialogue. They have to share it with the numerous other groups that live and have lied here since the beginning. What is a more applicable comparison, is the Southern whites who complained about their rights being taken away when black folks could sit anywhere on the bus. Rural conservatives clearly view dominating the national culture as one of their "rights".

  23. Posted

    Listening to this now and I had, HAD to comment.

     

    These poor white conservatives' values do not matter. They still support Trump. They don't care that he insulted the Khans because they are Muslim. They don't care about sexual assaults because women always lie about rape and sexual assaults anyway. They don't care that he has been married several times because that means he's so honest (in their warped view).

  24. Posted

    The part about the pedophiles was overlooking one thing. A heterosexual who is not having sex will masturbate, that is true, but what will they masturbate to? Porn? Do you know that children who are displayed in child porn are still being abused? It sounds like these two are accepting of pedophiles who "control their urges" but that "control" is still at the expense of a kid somewhere.

  25. Posted

     

    Thank you! So glad to be here! (Let me know if I'm posting too much. I'll settle, I promise).

     

     

     

    I just went back and watched the 'homework' scene for the three, with specific interest in what the set dressers have done to personalise each of their 'dorm rooms' (as described on the ep). It's pretty hilarious seeing what each character is pigeonholed as: first, we see Josh Lucas, with a fairly spartan room but with a handful of indistinct photos of random football games up, emphasising that he's a man's man. Okay. Cool. Then we go see Jessica Biel: she sits on a yoga ball (or a Fitness Orb, as Dwight Schrute calls it) and is surrounded by flowers, photos of children, and hand-drawn pictures (including one of a plane that says 'my aunt'). Then, we go to Jamie Foxx's room, where the less said about his situation the better - he dances around in suspiciously Ray Charles-invoking sunglasses, surrounded by hundreds of photos of beautiful young women. So, we have the three archetypes: the man's man sportsman; the sensitive spinster aunt; the irrepressible ladykiller. THEN, when Josh goes to visit Jessica, she (for some reason) is the only one who has laundry hanging in her room (including a slip, which I guess she was wearing in the bar scene under her dress whites?), meaning that not only is the 'one of the boys' angel undermined by the excellent points raised above, but she cares about 'dumb things' like laundry and family. Which somehow makes her weak? I guess? Why do we have to see the scene about Josh Lucas's foster mother while Jessica Biel's gitch hangs artfully around the room? And then she very conspicuously makes reference to her 'c cup' for no real reason.

     

     

     

    I agree - when i first heard this I figured it was supposed to be along the lines of 'you just barely escaped a hostile environment in Russia where you thought you were toast, but now you're back on American soil, so you're safe', but it just comes across as a heavy-handed reminder to the audience about where we are. A 'welcome back to America' or 'welcome home' line might have done the same job.

     

    Rob Cohen movies have the subtlety of a porno. What you have is Josh Lucas plays the All-American white dude, Jessica Biel plays the virginal white girl who is ready for Lucas peen, and Jamie Foxx plays the oversexed black man. It is very obvious that Biel and Lucas are going to hook up from the beginning and Foxx is going to die. Shit, make this thing interesting. They are trying to rip off Top Gun, make Lucas and Foxx the couple. Hell, switch it up and make Foxx and Biel the couple. Do something interesting Cohen instead of this Trump-level bullshit.

     

    How in the world does this guy get money for these movies?

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