First: even it's correct that 15% of people in the US have "no opinion" about Trump's comments on the Khan family, that's still a "significant fraction", the phrase BS used. Significant fraction means different things in different contexts; 1% of the speed of light is a significant fraction, for example. In this context, I would say 5% is significant, as a statistically relevant number.
Second: I seriously doubt the people polled by Fox News or ABC News includes the most news illiterate people in the country.
First: even it's correct that 15% of people in the US have "no opinion" about Trump's comments on the Khan family, that's still a "significant fraction", the phrase BS used. Significant fraction means different things in different contexts; 1% of the speed of light is a significant fraction, for example. In this context, I would say 5% is significant, as a statistically relevant number.
Second: I seriously doubt the people polled by Fox News or ABC News includes the most news illiterate people in the country.
The question BS was answering was why people are voting for Trump. If the reason he gives is applicable to 5% or even 15%, then it's not really the answer, is it?
You're absolutely correct that the people polled are not the most news illiterate - the people who are the most news illiterate are not likely voters. Their level of knowledge is irrelevant when seeking to explain why people will vote for Trump.
I mean, its not like the folks out there don't indulge in a bit of *****talking amongst friends. Take when a group of us ended up at a strip club because one of the girls in our pack suddenly decided "hey, let's go to the hustler club!" There were a couple of working girls that had obviously had some c-sections or two in their lifetime - and the ladies in our group were making cracks about "this is why we can't have nice things" while they worked the poles. We were pretty much groaning at the larger workers, but they could get downright vicious lol.
edit
I do get the outrage over the tax loophole - I assume most of those outraged weren't sharp enough to look for loopholes to save a bit of money.
It was not the vulgarity it was the fact that he said as a rich man he could kiss and grab the ***** of women whenever he wanted, without consent. The guy is simply a misogynist. Look at treatment of Miss Universe, Megan Kelly and his feud with Rosie.
I mean, its not like the folks out there don't indulge in a bit of *****talking amongst friends. Take when a group of us ended up at a strip club because one of the girls in our pack suddenly decided "hey, let's go to the hustler club!" There were a couple of working girls that had obviously had some c-sections or two in their lifetime - and the ladies in our group were making cracks about "this is why we can't have nice things" while they worked the poles. We were pretty much groaning at the larger workers, but they could get downright vicious lol.
edit
I do get the outrage over the tax loophole - I assume most of those outraged weren't sharp enough to look for loopholes to save a bit of money.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Lots of people like Taheen here simply don't find Donald Trump's comments unacceptable. He isn't suffering from a "lack of news literacy". He isn't ignorant of what Trump said and did. There's a large swath of America that is perfectly okay with misogyny and racism, and it's about time we stopped pretending like that's not true.
So far, my read is that Trump's camp is composed of four groups:
1. People who are indeed racist, sexist, xenophobic, and bigoted, who have found in Trump a mainstream candidate willing to reflect their own bigotry and xenophobia.
2. People who are legitimately news ignorant, OR who actively reject any news that does not fit their biases.
3. People who are so locked in a partisan mindset that they will vote Republican automatically.
4. People who specifically hate Hillary Clinton, and who may or may not think she is actually Satan. (No, I'm being serious, Google it.)
The thing that is important to remember is that these camps definitely have overlap.
Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. But given what the country has shown in the past, it's reasonable to expect ignorance over malice.
Why do you think it's an either/or?
If you're going to say ignorance causes hate and fear, then that's fine, but it's like arguing over the chicken and the egg. The point is we have ignorance AND malice, and by no means are they mutually exclusive.
It was not the vulgarity it was the fact that he said as a rich man he could kiss and grab the ***** of women whenever he wanted, without consent. The guy is simply a misogynist. Look at treatment of Miss Universe, Megan Kelly and his feud with Rosie.
I don't know if it's quite that simple. Being a misogynist doesn't just mean bad treatment of women, there has to be a conscious targeting of women in general terms.
Trump is a straight male, so any issues regarding sex and relationships with him will be directed towards women. If Trump has a warped view on the issue of consent in general, say, that's not the same as being prejudiced towards women, even if as a result of that issue women are the ones affected. In the same way people who advocate just bombing the middle east all the time aren't necessarily racist towards the ethnicities of that region or bigoted against the broader cultural associations of it, because it may be that are simply a very violent person who advocate very violent solutions to our problems.
It's doubtful he's not at all misogynistic, that he doesn't have any tendencies, but that doesn't mean he's simply misogynistic. I don't think any of us really know the person well enough to say.
Having a warped view on consent isn't any better really when we are talking about explaining the same behaviour, so why is this important? Because these arguments are already hard enough to win without jumping to conclusions about the motivation/thinking behind behaviour. Simplifying these issues in such a way, I think, only serves to discourage people who are at risk of taking on some of these traits from ever listening. Look at all the controversy around the PC issue, for instance.
Well, Donald Trump talking about how he wanted to bang some chick, then she said "nah" and he was like "okay" and walked away is somehow evidence that he's a rapist. And this controversy is bigger than the one where he doesn't pay more taxes than he has to (as opposed to everyone else who throws away their tax refund checks, I guess).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard: [leftovers from booster drafts]
Modern: U M'Olk; B Goodstuff
I don't know if it's quite that simple. Being a misogynist doesn't just mean bad treatment of women, there has to be a conscious targeting of women in general terms.
Trump is a straight male, so any issues regarding sex and relationships with him will be directed towards women. If Trump has a warped view on the issue of consent in general, say, that's not the same as being prejudiced towards women, even if as a result of that issue women are the ones affected. In the same way people who advocate just bombing the middle east all the time aren't necessarily racist towards the ethnicities of that region or bigoted against the broader cultural associations of it, because it may be that are simply a very violent person who advocate very violent solutions to our problems.
It's doubtful he's not at all misogynistic, that he doesn't have any tendencies, but that doesn't mean he's simply misogynistic. I don't think any of us really know the person well enough to say.
Having a warped view on consent isn't any better really when we are talking about explaining the same behaviour, so why is this important? Because these arguments are already hard enough to win without jumping to conclusions about the motivation/thinking behind behaviour. Simplifying these issues in such a way, I think, only serves to discourage people who are at risk of taking on some of these traits from ever listening. Look at all the controversy around the PC issue, for instance.
So in other words, it might be that Trump has no respect for humans in general, but we mostly see it come out when he's talking about women? Well, that certainly puts my mind at ease.
Oh, wait, actually your proposed alternative is just even worse. I don't understand why you would even offer it. Are you under the impression that it somehow would be less bad if he thought this way about men too? It'd be twice as bad!
Well, Donald Trump talking about how he wanted to bang some chick, then she said "nah" and he was like "okay" and walked away is somehow evidence that he's a rapist. And this controversy is bigger than the one where he doesn't pay more taxes than he has to (as opposed to everyone else who throws away their tax refund checks, I guess).
I don't know if it's quite that simple. Being a misogynist doesn't just mean bad treatment of women, there has to be a conscious targeting of women in general terms.
Trump is a straight male, so any issues regarding sex and relationships with him will be directed towards women. If Trump has a warped view on the issue of consent in general, say, that's not the same as being prejudiced towards women, even if as a result of that issue women are the ones affected. In the same way people who advocate just bombing the middle east all the time aren't necessarily racist towards the ethnicities of that region or bigoted against the broader cultural associations of it, because it may be that are simply a very violent person who advocate very violent solutions to our problems.
It's doubtful he's not at all misogynistic, that he doesn't have any tendencies, but that doesn't mean he's simply misogynistic. I don't think any of us really know the person well enough to say.
Having a warped view on consent isn't any better really when we are talking about explaining the same behaviour, so why is this important? Because these arguments are already hard enough to win without jumping to conclusions about the motivation/thinking behind behaviour. Simplifying these issues in such a way, I think, only serves to discourage people who are at risk of taking on some of these traits from ever listening. Look at all the controversy around the PC issue, for instance.
So in other words, it might be that Trump has no respect for humans in general, but we mostly see it come out when he's talking about women? Well, that certainly puts my mind at ease.
It's not supposed to, it doesn't have to in order to be a relevant point.
EDIT: reworded that because it didn't say what I meant
Oh, wait, actually your proposed alternative is just even worse. I don't understand why you would even offer it. Are you under the impression that it somehow would be less bad if he thought this way about men too? It'd be twice as bad!
Did....did you read that last part? I have already addressed this.
You say
are you under the impression that it somehow would be less bad if he thought this way about men too?
When I already said
Having a warped view on consent isn't any better really when we are talking about explaining the same behaviour
And you say
I don't understand why you would even offer it.
When I already said
Because these arguments are already hard enough to win without jumping to conclusions about the motivation/thinking behind behaviour.
Well, Donald Trump talking about how he wanted to bang some chick, then she said "nah" and he was like "okay" and walked away is somehow evidence that he's a rapist.
The part where he sounds like a rapist is where he said he can just walk up to women and grab them by the ***** because he's so rich people will let him get away with anything.
You know, the part where he says he doesn't need consent before he initiates sexual contact.
I mean, It's probably true that he'll get away with it. Look at what happened with Brock Turner.
Disregarding consent is still not behavior we want Presidents to display.
EDIT: Oh, John McCain officially withdrew his support for Trump just now. That's more than I expected would happen. [link]
EDIT: Disturbing realization time: maybe republicans are abandoning Trump not because of sexual harassment, but because of sexual harassment of other people's wives?
The more politicians turn their back on Trump the more I want him to be president. First the media and Democrats try their best to turn people from him. Then a bunch of rich elitist celebrities try to sway people away from him. Now his own party is abandoning him.
Everyone has said vulgar things in their life when they are in private or among friends, anyone who says otherwise is lying. All this does is make him more human and less establishment.
I feel the opposite. I've joked with friends lewdly, but I've never bragged about using my social status to casually rape women... or even had an ex-wife testify under oath that I raped her. I've also cut people out of my life who have done similar things to Trump.
The fact it came out the same day as wikileaks releasing more of Clinton's emails proving she hates middle and lower class Americans is like a shining beacon of guilt. They must've had this video for years and waited to throw it down and try to take the spotlight of Hillary.
Could you source this please? Everything I've read indicates that Hillary Clinton struggles with being out of touch with Middle to lower classes, not hating them, and that's not what I read in the leaks themselves.
The funny thing about this whole election is right now, had the DNC not cheated Sanders, he would be crushing Trump in the polls. The only reason it's close is that most Americans do not trust Clinton. Sanders being so different from Trump would be gathering voters in droves. Solely based on the fact that he isn't hated as much as trump, or distrusted as much as Hillary.
I'm not entirely sure. He'd have an edge because so little of his support defected to Jill Stein, but since so much of his support defected to Gary Johnson, a man who has the literal opposite economic and political reform platform, makes me wonder how many of them were truly going to never bail in the first place. Also, I've read studies where when pollsters pressed Bernie's weaknesses, such as when he praised Cuba's regime for their healthcare (it's not hard to spin that into praising Cuba's regime), Bernie's massive lead begins to dwindle. Part of Bernie's appeal was in fact manufactured by the fact everyone pulled punches against him. The left because they knew that sooner or later they would either need Bernie's support in winning the general election, and the Right because if they gave Bernie a free pass in the Primaries, they could try and tear him a new one come August because they viewed him as a weaker candidate than Clinton.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
So far, my read is that Trump's camp is composed of four groups:
1. People who are indeed racist, sexist, xenophobic, and bigoted, who have found in Trump a mainstream candidate willing to reflect their own bigotry and xenophobia.
2. People who are legitimately news ignorant, OR who actively reject any news that does not fit their biases.
3. People who are so locked in a partisan mindset that they will vote Republican automatically.
4. People who specifically hate Hillary Clinton, and who may or may not think she is actually Satan. (No, I'm being serious, Google it.)
The thing that is important to remember is that these camps definitely have overlap.
To the jab in #4: yes there are some wacky criticisms of her but then there are some who earnestly compare Trump to Hitler, so whatever. These are the two most reviled candidates in modern POTUS history. This is not just about typical partisan bias. Why was Gary Johnson ahead of her in the independent vote as of a couple weeks ago? If it's true that Johnson is a loon then there's really no excuse for a major party nominee to be trailing among independents.
To the jab in #4: yes there are some wacky criticisms of her but then there are some who earnestly compare Trump to Hitler, so whatever. These are the two most reviled candidates in modern POTUS history. This is not just about typical partisan bias. Why was Gary Johnson ahead of her in the independent vote as of a couple weeks ago? If it's true that Johnson is a loon then there's really no excuse for a major party nominee to be trailing among independents.
The question is whether those who say they will vote for a third-party candidate are really non-voters who are just expressing dissatisfaction with the major party choices. Past survey research has shown that explicitly naming third-party candidates on questionnaires considerably overstates their actual support on Election Day.
The more politicians turn their back on Trump the more I want him to be president. First the media and Democrats try their best to turn people from him. Then a bunch of rich elitist celebrities try to sway people away from him. Now his own party is abandoning him.
Everyone has said vulgar things in their life when they are in private or among friends, anyone who says otherwise is lying. All this does is make him more human and less establishment. The fact it came out the same day as wikileaks releasing more of Clinton's emails proving she hates middle and lower class Americans is like a shining beacon of guilt. They must've had this video for years and waited to throw it down and try to take the spotlight of Hillary.
It's not about saying vulgar things, it's about boasting about committing sexual assault.
Trump and his crew are trying to spin the Republican reaction as just being about vulgarity, but it's not about that. It's nothing to do with the words he used. If he'd used technically correct terms for the anatomical regions he described, it would still be sexual assault and people would still be reacting this way. He's boasting about sexually assaulting women, and getting away with it because he's rich and famous.
Republicans are withdrawing their support because, while Trump disparaging foreigners and LGBT people doesn't impact them all that much, the idea of Trump assaulting women strikes much closer to home, made more visceral by being video/audio rather than a quote.
You think this makes Trump more human; I feel the reverse.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from MD »
I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
Trump represents rugged individualism, the height of the American Dream. He raised his kids "right" and people are looking at their success. Trump had an older brother die as an alcoholic. There is a part of his American story that is correct and great to emulate.
The problem is that he comes out of some other traditions that aren't so great. Hilary Clinton has a vision, but can't express it well.
Obama vs. McCain both were valuable people. Either one of them had a great vision. McCain would have been best during the War on Terror. Obama's vision for a more just social conditions and economic reforms were necessary.
Mitt Romney wanted to return to the 1980's once more, people voted for Obama.
Trump represents a version of masculinity of rugged individualism and self determination. Hilary Clinton represents the ideal of the woman of the 1970's feminist revolution. Both of those visions of American individualism do not coincide with a new compact that has emerged in the new generation.
One that accepts the value of the individual, but also that the brokeness of our institutions cannot persist. There are bad rich people that have abused the system and need to have those way end once and for all. We need to return to an older form of conservativism, called Whiggism at the local level while at the federal level return to aspects of the New Deal economically with the social reforms of the Warren Court along with the individualism of what came about during the Industrial Revolution.
It's a strange way of looking forward and backwards at the same time. The ideals of globalization where America would remain innovative and on top didn't happen. Innovation isn't enough, the same with tradition.
Balance is overused, so I'll just place it into a large context. It's called adaptation, awareness, and organization. We have been disorganized and sloppy with our own personal lives and that of our public lives and have become more and more aware of it. We need to adapt to the new realities, while look at cohesive societies such as the Japanese, the stronger aspects of the European Union, the stronger blood ties that we have in America.
We took the low hanging fruit and made it our own. Enough of idealism, build for the future and conserve our resources and money. Rebuild what we have to do, and move on.
Trump is Trump, he has a few great messages. Hilary Clinton has also a lot of great messages.
Neither of them are the ideal. We ourselves must become our own ideal. We had the "ideal president" in Obama, a quiet moderate who was willing to work with the other side to reduce the size of government in some aspects. A smart conservative movement could have co-opted him like the New Dealers co-opted the strengths of Eisenhower to make America stronger.
Instead, we have this ridiculous idealism that federalism is a failed concept. It needs reformed, a good slaughtering of whole sale programs that no longer work that keep getting reinstated like the Javits programs. But to think we're getting rid of food stamps, Medicaid, and Social Security? You have another thing coming Freedom Caucus.
The reason why there is no massive Libertarian Party is that Libertarianism isn't a good ideal because Rothbard's ideals are built on the same foundation as Marx. Intellectualism without intellectual history. There is a reason why Social Justice Warrior ideas are mocked, because they create nothing in their wake except for social strife as moralizers.
The ideal doesn't exist, but perfection does. That lays within the realm of having enough to worry about without being totally overwhelmed, to have things have enough order without having to be in constant worry and strife. Bad stress kills.
People want change, yet they don't want change. People try to compromise. In time, our society has deteriorated, because we let things go.
We need the police. We need the firefighters, teachers, and we also need the moguls like Trump. The point is convection and conviction.
In this time we have been at war for so long and in economic strife some consider even from 2002 dotcom bust. The promises of the 1990's have led to the curses of today. Death has come to us all. I think at the end, Trump will rally the nation to a concept of greatness. Clinton will offer a different world, probably a more hawkish worldview than offered by Obama. Both are change.
I'll miss Obama, I won't miss the Tea Party or the Social Justice Warriors.
Clinton is plastic, but she has at least some of a vision I share with what the future needs.
Trump is something I like, rugged individualism at its best but lacks the capacity to see a real future where we seek not war on this Earth but rather to explore the depths of space.
More than 90% had heard about the video. Among Republicans, less than half said the video made them feel less favorably about Trump (after being shown the video).
Trump represents rugged individualism, the height of the American Dream. He raised his kids "right" and people are looking at their success. Trump had an older brother die as an alcoholic. There is a part of his American story that is correct and great to emulate.
I... what? The American Dream is to be born rich but be smart enough to avoid dying of alcoholism? That's a pretty weird and low bar to clear.
I'm not gonna bash someone for being born rich, that's just luck. Still, last time I checked, the American Dream was about coming here as a penniless immigrant and, through hard work, pushing your way up through the meritocracy. The promise on the Statute of Liberty combined with being able to move to the frontier. "Rugged Americans" were people who live hard lives with hard labor and tame the wilderness. Trump Tower's Vegas-Style Genital-Grabbing Emporium isn't exactly the Little House on the Prairie.
You're not an outcast. You're a decent human being.
I have been exposed to people who DO talk like this, and I had the same reaction as people are having to hearing Trump talk about it. It was offensive and made me think very negatively about the mindset of someone who would brag about violence against women in that way, true or not.
I think people's reaction to this is a bit of litmus test. If you came from a background where people DO talk like this, then you shrug it off and say "boys will be boys LOL." It's almost as if 34% (is that the right figure) of the country does talk this way, and they're falling all over themselves trying to argue that everyone does it. I imagine it's very uncomfortable when such a harsh spotlight is thrown on horrible ways of talking that most people who consider it normal just don't really think about. I've even read op-eds where the author strains to connect the lyrics of rap musicians to a libr'l agenda as a way of trying to claim that "everyone does it."
The funny thing to me is that by claiming Trump's comments are normal, the right is happily admitting that America has a huge problem with casual misogyny.
Yes, Trump's comments are normal for a lot of people. A lot of people are super sexist. If we hypothetically grouped them into some sort of basket, that basket would be pretty deplorable.
I've been around plenty of people who said ***** like that. It's just BS, pretend boasting among peers. I think that most men in the US have probably said something similar while among friends at some point in their lives[.]
Most men? How about most "people." Women say stuff like that all the time.
Some people come from backgrounds where bragging about sexual assault is common and taken in jest. I don't doubt the legitimacy of their experiences for one minute. Since that's what they're used to, they assume that "most people" must have had a similar experience. It's probably quite jarring to be told that, no, most people have NOT had a similar experience.
I don't want to get preachy about what it means that there are social groups OK with this kind of talk, but I would hope that people who are used to it at least entertain the idea that maybe -- just maybe -- this is not the normal, usual way for people to interact.
Most people, man or woman, have at some point in their lives expressed admiration for the physical attractiveness of a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex) in terms which they would not use at a formal dinner party. That's "locker room banter". That's fine.
Most people have not, I hope, boasted about being able to get away with overt sexual assault.
See the difference?
Obviously, some people don't. On both sides. On the anti-Trump side, I see the implication that Trump talking about making a pass at a married woman is just as bad as him talking about groping her without permission. It's not. Let's not get puritanical here. Trump is a disgusting human being and I get goosebumps just thinking about his ideas of flirtation, but taken in isolation, yes, people are allowed to make passes at other people, even other married people.
And of course, on the pro-Trump side, there are people implying that the groping comment is no worse than the making-a-pass comment. I trust I don't think I need to go into why this is a far more serious conflation. I said we shouldn't get puritanical above, but if I had to choose between puritanical and rapey, I'd choose puritanical any day.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Not everyone does, but I've met people from all walks of life that do make those sorts of comments. It's not just certain circles; it's a wide swath of wildly different people. Some people have a very dark and morbid sense of humor and can find it within themselves to laugh at such things because they understand it's intended to be morally shocking and not representative of how you treat real people. Sure, there are probably a lot of people who morally refuse to engage in that sort of humor for whatever reason. It's not something that perhaps everyone is comfortable admitting in public, but I think you are drastically underestimating how many people do engage in it.
That's ironic humor, though. To take an obvious example, Alec Baldwin was on SNL this weekend saying the same things Trump said, and worse, in order to mock him. Everybody understood in context that these were jokes and Baldwin was not expressing his real attitudes towards women.
Does anybody think that Trump himself was being ironic on that bus?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Most people, man or woman, have at some point in their lives expressed admiration for the physical attractiveness of a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex) in terms which they would not use at a formal dinner party. That's "locker room banter". That's fine.
Most people have not, I hope, boasted about being able to get away with overt sexual assault.
See the difference?
Obviously, some people don't. On both sides. On the anti-Trump side, I see the implication that Trump talking about making a pass at a married woman is just as bad as him talking about groping her without permission. It's not. Let's not get puritanical here. Trump is a disgusting human being and I get goosebumps just thinking about his ideas of flirtation, but taken in isolation, yes, people are allowed to make passes at other people, even other married people.
And of course, on the pro-Trump side, there are people implying that the groping comment is no worse than the making-a-pass comment. I trust I don't think I need to go into why this is a far more serious conflation. I said we shouldn't get puritanical above, but if I had to choose between puritanical and rapey, I'd choose puritanical any day.
If a majority of Republicans hear what Trump said, and aren't bothered by it, is it maybe time to stop "hoping" and start accepting the reality that a wide swathe of Americans are completely blasé about sexual assault?
I get that we'd all feel better if we believed this were a Trump problem and not an America problem, but that's just not the reality we live in.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Second: I seriously doubt the people polled by Fox News or ABC News includes the most news illiterate people in the country.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
The question BS was answering was why people are voting for Trump. If the reason he gives is applicable to 5% or even 15%, then it's not really the answer, is it?
You're absolutely correct that the people polled are not the most news illiterate - the people who are the most news illiterate are not likely voters. Their level of knowledge is irrelevant when seeking to explain why people will vote for Trump.
I mean, its not like the folks out there don't indulge in a bit of *****talking amongst friends. Take when a group of us ended up at a strip club because one of the girls in our pack suddenly decided "hey, let's go to the hustler club!" There were a couple of working girls that had obviously had some c-sections or two in their lifetime - and the ladies in our group were making cracks about "this is why we can't have nice things" while they worked the poles. We were pretty much groaning at the larger workers, but they could get downright vicious lol.
edit
I do get the outrage over the tax loophole - I assume most of those outraged weren't sharp enough to look for loopholes to save a bit of money.
It was not the vulgarity it was the fact that he said as a rich man he could kiss and grab the ***** of women whenever he wanted, without consent. The guy is simply a misogynist. Look at treatment of Miss Universe, Megan Kelly and his feud with Rosie.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Lots of people like Taheen here simply don't find Donald Trump's comments unacceptable. He isn't suffering from a "lack of news literacy". He isn't ignorant of what Trump said and did. There's a large swath of America that is perfectly okay with misogyny and racism, and it's about time we stopped pretending like that's not true.
1. People who are indeed racist, sexist, xenophobic, and bigoted, who have found in Trump a mainstream candidate willing to reflect their own bigotry and xenophobia.
2. People who are legitimately news ignorant, OR who actively reject any news that does not fit their biases.
3. People who are so locked in a partisan mindset that they will vote Republican automatically.
4. People who specifically hate Hillary Clinton, and who may or may not think she is actually Satan. (No, I'm being serious, Google it.)
The thing that is important to remember is that these camps definitely have overlap.
Why do you think it's an either/or?
If you're going to say ignorance causes hate and fear, then that's fine, but it's like arguing over the chicken and the egg. The point is we have ignorance AND malice, and by no means are they mutually exclusive.
I don't know if it's quite that simple. Being a misogynist doesn't just mean bad treatment of women, there has to be a conscious targeting of women in general terms.
Trump is a straight male, so any issues regarding sex and relationships with him will be directed towards women. If Trump has a warped view on the issue of consent in general, say, that's not the same as being prejudiced towards women, even if as a result of that issue women are the ones affected. In the same way people who advocate just bombing the middle east all the time aren't necessarily racist towards the ethnicities of that region or bigoted against the broader cultural associations of it, because it may be that are simply a very violent person who advocate very violent solutions to our problems.
It's doubtful he's not at all misogynistic, that he doesn't have any tendencies, but that doesn't mean he's simply misogynistic. I don't think any of us really know the person well enough to say.
Having a warped view on consent isn't any better really when we are talking about explaining the same behaviour, so why is this important? Because these arguments are already hard enough to win without jumping to conclusions about the motivation/thinking behind behaviour. Simplifying these issues in such a way, I think, only serves to discourage people who are at risk of taking on some of these traits from ever listening. Look at all the controversy around the PC issue, for instance.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Modern: U M'Olk; B Goodstuff
So in other words, it might be that Trump has no respect for humans in general, but we mostly see it come out when he's talking about women? Well, that certainly puts my mind at ease.
Oh, wait, actually your proposed alternative is just even worse. I don't understand why you would even offer it. Are you under the impression that it somehow would be less bad if he thought this way about men too? It'd be twice as bad!
Said "okay" and walked away, or tried to have her fired for turning him down? Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
It's not supposed to, it doesn't have to in order to be a relevant point.
EDIT: reworded that because it didn't say what I meant
Did....did you read that last part? I have already addressed this.
You say
When I already said
And you say
When I already said
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
You know, the part where he says he doesn't need consent before he initiates sexual contact.
I mean, It's probably true that he'll get away with it. Look at what happened with Brock Turner.
Disregarding consent is still not behavior we want Presidents to display.
EDIT: Oh, John McCain officially withdrew his support for Trump just now. That's more than I expected would happen. [link]
EDIT: Disturbing realization time: maybe republicans are abandoning Trump not because of sexual harassment, but because of sexual harassment of other people's wives?
Art is life itself.
I feel the opposite. I've joked with friends lewdly, but I've never bragged about using my social status to casually rape women... or even had an ex-wife testify under oath that I raped her. I've also cut people out of my life who have done similar things to Trump.
See also Tiax's comment on rape culture.
Could you source this please? Everything I've read indicates that Hillary Clinton struggles with being out of touch with Middle to lower classes, not hating them, and that's not what I read in the leaks themselves.
I'm not entirely sure. He'd have an edge because so little of his support defected to Jill Stein, but since so much of his support defected to Gary Johnson, a man who has the literal opposite economic and political reform platform, makes me wonder how many of them were truly going to never bail in the first place. Also, I've read studies where when pollsters pressed Bernie's weaknesses, such as when he praised Cuba's regime for their healthcare (it's not hard to spin that into praising Cuba's regime), Bernie's massive lead begins to dwindle. Part of Bernie's appeal was in fact manufactured by the fact everyone pulled punches against him. The left because they knew that sooner or later they would either need Bernie's support in winning the general election, and the Right because if they gave Bernie a free pass in the Primaries, they could try and tear him a new one come August because they viewed him as a weaker candidate than Clinton.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
To the jab in #4: yes there are some wacky criticisms of her but then there are some who earnestly compare Trump to Hitler, so whatever. These are the two most reviled candidates in modern POTUS history. This is not just about typical partisan bias. Why was Gary Johnson ahead of her in the independent vote as of a couple weeks ago? If it's true that Johnson is a loon then there's really no excuse for a major party nominee to be trailing among independents.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/data-points/poll-how-third-party-candidates-could-affect-2016-race-n648266
Trump and his crew are trying to spin the Republican reaction as just being about vulgarity, but it's not about that. It's nothing to do with the words he used. If he'd used technically correct terms for the anatomical regions he described, it would still be sexual assault and people would still be reacting this way. He's boasting about sexually assaulting women, and getting away with it because he's rich and famous.
Republicans are withdrawing their support because, while Trump disparaging foreigners and LGBT people doesn't impact them all that much, the idea of Trump assaulting women strikes much closer to home, made more visceral by being video/audio rather than a quote.
You think this makes Trump more human; I feel the reverse.
The problem is that he comes out of some other traditions that aren't so great. Hilary Clinton has a vision, but can't express it well.
Obama vs. McCain both were valuable people. Either one of them had a great vision. McCain would have been best during the War on Terror. Obama's vision for a more just social conditions and economic reforms were necessary.
Mitt Romney wanted to return to the 1980's once more, people voted for Obama.
Trump represents a version of masculinity of rugged individualism and self determination. Hilary Clinton represents the ideal of the woman of the 1970's feminist revolution. Both of those visions of American individualism do not coincide with a new compact that has emerged in the new generation.
One that accepts the value of the individual, but also that the brokeness of our institutions cannot persist. There are bad rich people that have abused the system and need to have those way end once and for all. We need to return to an older form of conservativism, called Whiggism at the local level while at the federal level return to aspects of the New Deal economically with the social reforms of the Warren Court along with the individualism of what came about during the Industrial Revolution.
It's a strange way of looking forward and backwards at the same time. The ideals of globalization where America would remain innovative and on top didn't happen. Innovation isn't enough, the same with tradition.
Balance is overused, so I'll just place it into a large context. It's called adaptation, awareness, and organization. We have been disorganized and sloppy with our own personal lives and that of our public lives and have become more and more aware of it. We need to adapt to the new realities, while look at cohesive societies such as the Japanese, the stronger aspects of the European Union, the stronger blood ties that we have in America.
We took the low hanging fruit and made it our own. Enough of idealism, build for the future and conserve our resources and money. Rebuild what we have to do, and move on.
Trump is Trump, he has a few great messages. Hilary Clinton has also a lot of great messages.
Neither of them are the ideal. We ourselves must become our own ideal. We had the "ideal president" in Obama, a quiet moderate who was willing to work with the other side to reduce the size of government in some aspects. A smart conservative movement could have co-opted him like the New Dealers co-opted the strengths of Eisenhower to make America stronger.
Instead, we have this ridiculous idealism that federalism is a failed concept. It needs reformed, a good slaughtering of whole sale programs that no longer work that keep getting reinstated like the Javits programs. But to think we're getting rid of food stamps, Medicaid, and Social Security? You have another thing coming Freedom Caucus.
The reason why there is no massive Libertarian Party is that Libertarianism isn't a good ideal because Rothbard's ideals are built on the same foundation as Marx. Intellectualism without intellectual history. There is a reason why Social Justice Warrior ideas are mocked, because they create nothing in their wake except for social strife as moralizers.
The ideal doesn't exist, but perfection does. That lays within the realm of having enough to worry about without being totally overwhelmed, to have things have enough order without having to be in constant worry and strife. Bad stress kills.
People want change, yet they don't want change. People try to compromise. In time, our society has deteriorated, because we let things go.
We need the police. We need the firefighters, teachers, and we also need the moguls like Trump. The point is convection and conviction.
In this time we have been at war for so long and in economic strife some consider even from 2002 dotcom bust. The promises of the 1990's have led to the curses of today. Death has come to us all. I think at the end, Trump will rally the nation to a concept of greatness. Clinton will offer a different world, probably a more hawkish worldview than offered by Obama. Both are change.
I'll miss Obama, I won't miss the Tea Party or the Social Justice Warriors.
Clinton is plastic, but she has at least some of a vision I share with what the future needs.
Trump is something I like, rugged individualism at its best but lacks the capacity to see a real future where we seek not war on this Earth but rather to explore the depths of space.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/politico-morning-consult-poll-229394
More than 90% had heard about the video. Among Republicans, less than half said the video made them feel less favorably about Trump (after being shown the video).
Told ya so.
I... what? The American Dream is to be born rich but be smart enough to avoid dying of alcoholism? That's a pretty weird and low bar to clear.
I'm not gonna bash someone for being born rich, that's just luck. Still, last time I checked, the American Dream was about coming here as a penniless immigrant and, through hard work, pushing your way up through the meritocracy. The promise on the Statute of Liberty combined with being able to move to the frontier. "Rugged Americans" were people who live hard lives with hard labor and tame the wilderness. Trump Tower's Vegas-Style Genital-Grabbing Emporium isn't exactly the Little House on the Prairie.
I have been exposed to people who DO talk like this, and I had the same reaction as people are having to hearing Trump talk about it. It was offensive and made me think very negatively about the mindset of someone who would brag about violence against women in that way, true or not.
I think people's reaction to this is a bit of litmus test. If you came from a background where people DO talk like this, then you shrug it off and say "boys will be boys LOL." It's almost as if 34% (is that the right figure) of the country does talk this way, and they're falling all over themselves trying to argue that everyone does it. I imagine it's very uncomfortable when such a harsh spotlight is thrown on horrible ways of talking that most people who consider it normal just don't really think about. I've even read op-eds where the author strains to connect the lyrics of rap musicians to a libr'l agenda as a way of trying to claim that "everyone does it."
Reality check time. No, everyone does NOT do it.
Yes, Trump's comments are normal for a lot of people. A lot of people are super sexist. If we hypothetically grouped them into some sort of basket, that basket would be pretty deplorable.
Modern: U M'Olk; B Goodstuff
Some people come from backgrounds where bragging about sexual assault is common and taken in jest. I don't doubt the legitimacy of their experiences for one minute. Since that's what they're used to, they assume that "most people" must have had a similar experience. It's probably quite jarring to be told that, no, most people have NOT had a similar experience.
I don't want to get preachy about what it means that there are social groups OK with this kind of talk, but I would hope that people who are used to it at least entertain the idea that maybe -- just maybe -- this is not the normal, usual way for people to interact.
Most people, man or woman, have at some point in their lives expressed admiration for the physical attractiveness of a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex) in terms which they would not use at a formal dinner party. That's "locker room banter". That's fine.
Most people have not, I hope, boasted about being able to get away with overt sexual assault.
See the difference?
Obviously, some people don't. On both sides. On the anti-Trump side, I see the implication that Trump talking about making a pass at a married woman is just as bad as him talking about groping her without permission. It's not. Let's not get puritanical here. Trump is a disgusting human being and I get goosebumps just thinking about his ideas of flirtation, but taken in isolation, yes, people are allowed to make passes at other people, even other married people.
And of course, on the pro-Trump side, there are people implying that the groping comment is no worse than the making-a-pass comment. I trust I don't think I need to go into why this is a far more serious conflation. I said we shouldn't get puritanical above, but if I had to choose between puritanical and rapey, I'd choose puritanical any day.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Does anybody think that Trump himself was being ironic on that bus?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
If a majority of Republicans hear what Trump said, and aren't bothered by it, is it maybe time to stop "hoping" and start accepting the reality that a wide swathe of Americans are completely blasé about sexual assault?
I get that we'd all feel better if we believed this were a Trump problem and not an America problem, but that's just not the reality we live in.