[Discussion] Now is the winter of our discontent

This thread is for the discussion of voting demographics that feel disenfranchised by the current US political landscape. In the run up to the election I expect that there will be a lot of focus on the right-wing Trump supporters, but my impression is that there is widespread discontent across the political spectrum. Is there? And if so, how widespread is it and what are the causes?

(Despite the immediate focus on the US political landscape, examples from across the globe are welcomed, especially if you provide context.)

(Note: not about voter suppression, ID-laws, or the like. We have a different thread for that. Talking about why a group is afraid of that fits just fine, though.)

Akragard, thanks for your comments. I appreciate that you shared them.

I do want to say thought that IMO you've stated exactly why a lot of people are expressing so much disdain for the people that voted for Trump. Those people understand that Trump SAID a lot of racist, vile stuff but held their noses and voted for him anyway while saying "Oh well, none of it will actually pass". Then get defensive when people call you out by proxy.

It also seems from your post that you hold other ideals (budget, congress, emails killed people, bringing up Bill Clinton to compare to Trump vice HRC etc) that is in line with maybe other R views but that have proved false time and time again.

My question to you would be next year when a lot of crappy stuff starts getting passed by congress are you going to understand that you helped that happen or are you going to blame someone else?

RE: "promoting/not condemning violence"

Trump: "I will pay for the legal defense of anyone charged for punching a 'protester' at my rallies."

Obama: "Protest a protected First Amendment right."

*both quotes are paraphrased a bit, but not by very much.

Which side comes out looking worse?

(It seems, there is always a segment of the population that looks at any protest as an excuse to try to turn it into a riot. These instigators rarely join/believe in the founding message of the rally/protest. "We just won 'insert championship award here'! Let's smash windows and burn cars! Whooo!")

Akragard wrote:

There are foreign assets who may or may not make it home because we still as of yet don't understand the full depth to which those files may have been compromised.

This is a great boogeyman based on smoke and mirrors. It conveniently can't be assessed at all, even though there's been no public evidence that classified material was compromised. The problem with this type of thinking is that it is perfectly non-falsifiable. "Well we just don't know!" The same could be said, for instance, about the likelihood that my house is filled with silent invisible unicorns.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Akragard wrote:

There are foreign assets who may or may not make it home because we still as of yet don't understand the full depth to which those files may have been compromised.

This is a great boogeyman based on smoke and mirrors. It conveniently can't be assessed at all, even though there's been no public evidence that classified material was compromised. The problem with this type of thinking is that it is perfectly non-falsifiable. "Well we just don't know!" The same could be said, for instance, about the likelihood that my house is filled with silent invisible unicorns.

I've been to house. The unicorns there are neither silent or invisible.

They were a whole lot worse today.

Donald Trump, Friday morning, Nov 18 - “Love the fact that the small groups of protesters last night have passion for our great country. We will all come together and be proud!”

Akragard wrote:

I'm arguing that by not outright discouraging violent protesting he is, by proxy, lending unspoken support to those protests.

Why would this reasoning not apply to Trump as well?

Oh, and I see you don't condemn the over 800 acts of violence against immigrants and minorities since the election. Therefore, by proxy, you're supporting them. (Is this logic *really* where you want to plant your flag?)

I think we've covered most of what is in Akragard's actual posts. I know that you feel the impulse to correct errors that you see, but I don't think it helps as much without someone willing to constructively engage on both sides.

I still think it might be a good idea to start a thread specifically about news of protests (because I don't think they're going to decrease over the next four years). I don't have time to organize that right now, though.

Wow, this woman has put into words practically EVERYTHING that I've been thinking and feeling (but not completely saying), and says it much more eloquently than I could. I'm about as fed up as she is too.

Holy sh*t, the response videos... I'd say "just don't look at them," but they showed up in the related videos.

BadKen wrote:

Holy sh*t, the response videos... I'd say "just don't look at them," but they showed up in the related videos.

Every now and then I go looking for stuff like those response videos so I can feed them into Video Blocker and never have to run across them when I'm not expecting to.

I got to where she was complaining about the right painting the left with a broad brush and stopped.

Cool filter though.

Jayhawker wrote:

Donald Trump's America

Vertical video. Typical Hillary supporter.

Jayhawker wrote:

Donald Trump's America

This is what passes for "normal" in Trump's America.

BadKen wrote:

Holy sh*t, the response videos... I'd say "just don't look at them," but they showed up in the related videos.

My blocker extension (Chrome) got disabled by Google because it messes with YouTube's UI.

This is worth a read.

Matt Lees / The Guardian wrote:

The strangest aspect of Gamergate is that it consistently didn’t make any sense: people chose to align with it, and yet refused responsibility. It was constantly demanded that we debate the issues, but explanations and facts were treated with scorn. Attempts to find common ground saw the specifics of the demands being shifted: we want you to listen to us; we want you to change your ways; we want you to close your publication down. This movement that ostensibly wanted to protect free speech from cry bully SJWs simultaneously did what it could to endanger sites it disagreed with, encouraging advertisers to abandon support for media outlets that published stories critical of the hashtag. The petulance of that movement is disturbingly echoed in Trump’s own Twitter feed.

Looking back, Gamergate really only made sense in one way: as an exemplar of what Umberto Eco called “eternal fascism”, a form of extremism he believed could flourish at any point in, in any place – a fascism that would extol traditional values, rally against diversity and cultural critics, believe in the value of action above thought and encourage a distrust of intellectuals or experts – a fascism built on frustration and machismo. The requirement of this formless fascism would – above all else – be to remain in an endless state of conflict, a fight against a foe who must always be portrayed as impossibly strong and laughably weak. This was the methodology of Gamergate, and it now forms the basis of the contemporary far-right movement.

The original essay is worth reading too:

In 1942, at the age of ten, I received the First Provincial Award of Ludi Juveniles (a voluntary, compulsory competition for young Italian Fascists—that is, for every young Italian). I elaborated with rhetorical skill on the subject “Should we die for the glory of Mussolini and the immortal destiny of Italy?” My answer was positive. I was a smart boy.

My fav quotes because that essay is too great.

There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: “I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land."

Hot take I've been trying out: Because of the way that social networks and current journalism work, every phrase tweeted or otherwise conveyed by a politician (or surrogates) gets parsed and distributed, independently of any context, to those who are most likely to react strongly to it, especially to those who are most likely to strongly appreciate it. Therefore the most effective online campaign is one that literally says everything, and lets the filters take care of the rest. Trump's the closest we've seen to that. He took a lot of stances, and made plenty of claims and promises that, taken in a group, appear to contradict themselves, or at least strongly imply contradiction, but that wasn't seen by his supporters as negative—in large part, I think, because they weren't received as a group.

That's a good hot take, and I can buy that as part of the story. And a potent part too, when combined with the fact that supporters of any politician are prone to ignoring the warts and the things that don't jive with the stuff they already like to begin with. Once you choose a team, that team can rarely do wrong. Though it is also important to note that Trump supporters had moments where they were forced to reconcile with some of his contradictions. "Nobody respects women more than me" comes to mind right away... and they still mostly opted for putting on the blinders and rooting for the home team when it came down to casting the ballot.

Relatedly, the economy is doing great right now, just in time to be savaged by the new administration. I think when things are more or less fine, Americans are prone to voting for charlatans and fantasy peddlers. We hit our lowest unemployment in 9 years just in time for the GOP to come in slash taxes, balloon the deficit, and tank the economy. Fortunately we do tend to go for sober and grounded leaders when things fall apart. So there's that to hope for once everything goes to pot (provided voter suppression doesn't totally damn us there.)

We hit a particularly bad moment where our current social networks and journalistic structures were especially prone to be taken advantage of - as per your hot take - while our country was in the middle of putting on the most elaborate partisan uniforms we've donned since the mid-1800s. Toss in the fact that things are going mostly well for us, and that puts us squarely at the apex of a our potential collective foolishness. We ripe for Trump and he had the right tools for the right moment.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Though it is also important to note that Trump supporters had moments where they were forced to reconcile with some of his contradictions. "Nobody respects women more than me" comes to mind right away... and they still mostly opted for putting on the blinders and rooting for the home team when it came down to casting the ballot.

You're right that our minds do some filtering, but there's more pre-filtering (or at least very different pre-filtering) than before. As much as my feed was full of that "respect" discussion, I bet it got a lot less play on my parents' feeds.

I tend more to the idea that once a Populist hits on a *theme* that's popular - "Make America Great Again" - that itself becomes the filter. Things that fit with it in the listener's mind reinforce it; things that don't agree with it are discarded for any number of justifying wave-hands reasons. Trump says racist things? To racists, that's "making America great again". To non-racists, that's just [boys being boys] [locker room talk] [media exaggerations] [everyone does it]. And the more Trump says, the more opportunities there are to find the one thing that justifies voting for him even with the disagreeable stuff that outnumbers it.

Really, it's a mixture of hope and fear that's driving this. It's feeding off of prejudices and bottled-up anger and desperation and idealism and above all, a massive propaganda system in development since the late 80's. Remember, Trump's victory hinged on the electoral votes of 3-5 *counties*, out of 3,143 in the US (ie, in close states, as few as 3 counties switching could have put Clinton in the White House). In spite of appearances, he won via a particular, tightly calculated *political* strategy that was put together very carefully. His was not the victory of the screaming masses filling stadiums. It was the victory of the backroom tacticians.

Remember this when you analyze the election, because assumptions based on the overwhelming appeal of Trump himself will be seriously flawed, and will not predict the future well. Trump's victory was below average for a president. He's no Reagan. He's not even GHW. He's at the mercy of the RNC and Congress, whether he realizes it or not, and if they decide to sweep out the White House, they can lay the groundwork in the propaganda machine and go after him very, very easily.

Here's another interesting angle, from the Guardian again. Super depressing and upsetting, again.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Here's another interesting angle, from the Guardian again. Super depressing and upsetting, again.

...progress?

Seth wrote:
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Here's another interesting angle, from the Guardian again. Super depressing and upsetting, again.

...progress?

This map of the propaganda sites is chilling:
IMAGE(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dbae5cf4cf587226815a1e111c94dddbc41019bd/121_82_4129_3764/master/4129.jpg?w=1920&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=3c555abf04f2239ff6e1cc4ada921ee0)

Robear wrote:

Remember, Trump's victory hinged on the electoral votes of 3-5 *counties*, out of 3,143 in the US (ie, in close states, as few as 3 counties switching could have put Clinton in the White House). In spite of appearances, he won via a particular, tightly calculated *political* strategy that was put together very carefully. His was not the victory of the screaming masses filling stadiums. It was the victory of the backroom tacticians.

Remember this when you analyze the election, because assumptions based on the overwhelming appeal of Trump himself will be seriously flawed, and will not predict the future well. Trump's victory was below average for a president. He's no Reagan. He's not even GHW. He's at the mercy of the RNC and Congress, whether he realizes it or not, and if they decide to sweep out the White House, they can lay the groundwork in the propaganda machine and go after him very, very easily.

Sorry for being unclear. I was talking about the rise of the "discontent", communities of resentment, etc., not trying to blame one thing for election results. I take this thread to be about the cultural discussion, and am trying to leave the electoral/political discussion in other threads.

But I think the way that news is reported and the way that content (news or otherwise) is disseminated by social media has been a contributing factor to the cultural evolution we've seen. That said, it's still in many ways a continuation of the way that human minds and societies have always worked—but it is an important acceleration and amplification of those human dynamics.

Absolutely agree with you, Wordsmith. And I think the research above is key to understanding how networks of influence are being used today, and are evolving to predictive capabilities, to be used *before* critical events like Congressional votes, state/national elections and the like, to influence people who are influencers in their social circles.

It's very, very dangerous. It's not at all easy for the regular person to understand, either. That makes it harder to discredit.

IMAGE(https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15349651_10154071515521179_6060387276694471535_n.jpg?oh=1fb6728636ccb7157b602df420941e09&oe=58F3FE29)