Trump's America

[zoogs]

http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/11/18/in-wake-of-election-wilmers-bill-lee-reveals-troubling-incident/?cmp=share_twitter&slreturn=20161019154243

 

“Where does a guy like you get a car like that?” the man said to Lee, looking at the litigator’s vehicle.

 

Lee, whose parents came to this country from China in 1948, tried to defuse the situation. “From Herb Chambers,” he said, referring to a local car dealer.

 

“Why don’t you go back to your own country,” the man said, according to Lee.

 

“I don’t understand you,” Lee said.

 

“You mean, you don’t understand English,” the man said.

 

“I don’t understand ignorance,” Lee replied.

Deplorable.

[Moiraine]

http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/11/18/in-wake-of-election-wilmers-bill-lee-reveals-troubling-incident/?cmp=share_twitter&slreturn=20161019154243

 

 

Where does a guy like you get a car like that? the man said to Lee, looking at the litigators vehicle.

 

Lee, whose parents came to this country from China in 1948, tried to defuse the situation. From Herb Chambers, he said, referring to a local car dealer.

 

Why dont you go back to your own country, the man said, according to Lee.

 

I dont understand you, Lee said.

 

You mean, you dont understand English, the man said.

 

I dont understand ignorance, Lee replied.

Deplorable.

 

Maybe I shouldn't go here... racism is unacceptable regardless of the reason. But this is doubly stupid because Asian-Americans are ahead of Caucasians in most key areas in the U.S., e.g. Income.

[Danny Bateman]

Wouldn't we all agree that white insecurity is one of the chief drivers of a President Trump in the first place, Moiraine? Regardless of the veracity of what they're claiming, when they're clearly wrong, like above?

I guess those of us are going that find this disgusting are going to have to try to work against it, hope it dies down before too long, and try again in four years for a President that actually cares about it.

[zoogs]

Yeah, I think that's true, although I think it's also a little self-selecting in that many of the ones who have come here in recent decades did so through postgraduate programs, etc. You could offer similar reasons for a lot of these statistics, since such advantages carry across generations.

 

In terms of representation higher up in corporate ladders, there's still a "bamboo ceiling", which seems to me at least like a bit of an unfortunate name, but the kind that would catch on, I suppose. Mostly I think these are the types of numbers that of course given the starting point are where they are, but will even out as we cross generations, provided we continue being a culture that values our diversity and multiculturalism.

 

But I digress. I wouldn't have believed this stuff happens in places like MA or NY, but a few weeks ago an NYT reporter wrote a piece about the same thing happening to him (i.e, being told to go back to his country). When you look at Steve Bannon, it's less surprising. In his comments about "Asian or South Asian" CEOs in Silicon Valley and "a culture thing", it was abundantly clear that he simply did not view these people as also American, and just as much so as he himself. He got those views from somewhere, and he's not alone.

 

He's also the incoming White House Chief Strategist. This seems like something worth protesting, really.

[teachercd]

Ummm...no bannings/vacations why?

[Danny Bateman]

I agree, Zoogs. Bannon is human garbage, and we should not give people who believe in the inherent superiority of a certain race or caste of people while seeking to wield bigotry against others a pulpit to say ANYTHING from. Bannon's beliefs carry no more weight for me than that of David Duke or your common clan member. But, Trump has given him his pulpit, and here we are.

 

Here is an interesting piece on the similarities between Trump and Silvio Berlusconi. A pretty apt comparison, IMO. The point of the article is that only a couple of people were able to defeat Berlusconi during his time as Prime Minister, and they followed the same blueprint: They treated their opponent like any generic political opponent, despite their wealth, fame, and histrionics. If you focus too much on trying to manufacture outrage at their behavior, they engender sympathy from people and it strengthens their support. Clinton definitely did that and again, here we are.

 

So my thought is that we have to oppose and decry racism and bigotry wherever it exists, and certainly if it emanates from this administration. But if we take the bait every time Trump tries to do something controversial and go into full-fledged attack mode convincing everyone how awful it is, it may backfire.

 

The article posits this is the best political course of action for those opposed to Trump:

 

1. Don't get caught up chasing your own tail overtime he does something controversial. A lot of the time he's just trying to bury something even worse currently in the news under another media storm. Condemn it if it is bad enough and move on. If it truly is detestable enough, people will know and respond accordingly.
2. Focus on policy. Goes hand in hand with not taking the bait in #1. Spending time trying to attack him detracts from trying to help people.
3. Work with him when it aligns with your goals. Test Trump on things he said he supports that are outside GOP orthodoxy, like Glass-Steagall. If you support it and he can't get it passed, he can't blame you.
4. Come 2020, don't get sucked into building another campaign around Trump's personality flaws or lack of social graces. Again, condemn if he does something truly deplorable, but don't get sucked into making that the focus. He got a huge pass this time because he had no public record in politics. He will not get that pass next time. Focus on what he said he'd do-- what did he botch? What did he fail to do? What did he not even try to do?
5. Find a good candidate. Simple, but necessary. Both candidates that beat Berlusconi were political outsiders. Clinton, though a competent candidate, was a horrible fit in today's polarized environment.

Thoughts?

[zoogs]

I haven't read that piece yet, but have seen it passed around pretty widely.

I'm not sure if this offers a fair rebuttal or not: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/the_democrats_are_already_screwing_up_the_trump_resistance.html

Warren and Sanders are wrong, and in a way that signals a significant misreading of the landscape on the part of the most influential Democrats. The simple truth is that Trump’s use of explicit racism—his deliberate attempt to incite Americans against different groups of nonwhites—was integral to his campaign. It was part and parcel of his “populism” and told a larger story: that either at home or abroad, foreigners and their “globalist” allies were cheating the American worker, defined as a white working-class man with a factory job. To claw back the dominion he once enjoyed—to “make America great again”—Trump promised protectionism and “law and order.” He promised to deport immigrants, register Muslims, and build new infrastructure. This wasn’t “populism”; it was white populism.

But I do agree that it's important not merely to be right, but to achieve a political victory.

I feel like this is the worst possible outcome from a health of the nation standpoint, though. The party that needed blowing up is more likely to consolidate with the worst impulses leading the way. The party that was a largely sane defense against the above has instead been the one to implode, and it's not clear to me that the right voices will carry the day in the rebuild.

May the change be productive.

[NM11046]

This is good dude. I think I read an article this week that said in retrospect as the Dems reviewed their campaign missteps they determined they spent too much time focusing on his flaws and not enough time on her actual policies and plans. I'm not sure how that would have worked to be honest - he had so much momentum with the negativity.

 

I'm curious now with 4 years to plan really aggressively, after being terribly upset who we end up seeing put forward for the potential frontrunners. They should be grooming them now.

[Danny Bateman]

Hmmm. It seems intuitive to me that Trump combined working-class populist appeal with his racist undertones... I can buy that. I'm sure there is some overlap in those groups, but overall he used both to consolidate a larger group than if he had gone after just one or the other. That "rage against the globalist" streak was actually straight out of the Bannon playbook. He was preaching that long before Trump came on the seat-- he was trying to pitch that to those that would listen to use it as a weapon to unseat Paul Ryan, whom he apparently views as the puppet of said globalists.

 

But again, the Bannons of the world had a distinct advantage: Trump 2016 had nothing to be measured by. He was free to criticize anything and everything and for whatever reason, people did not view his only slightly checkered history of stepping all over the little guy in the private sector as damning enough to not elect him. They believed Trump's words and promises over his history, which I guess makes sense because he pitched himself only as a political outsider. Come 2020, he will have a definitive governance record.

 

If my thoughts are correct, the Berlusconi plan could still work. Work with Trump when you can if it is truly in the people's best interests, and hang him out to dry for every unfulfilled promise.

 

I largely agree with your synopsis of things, Zoogs, but even if the Sanders and Warren wing seizes power and doesn't have quite the appeal Trump did, it won't matter if Trump goes full blown White Nationalist. He'd bolster the case against him for minorities on his own, and if the new Democrats can siphon enough working class support from Trump, he can have the racists and white nationalists. There aren't enough of them to reelect him if he takes on water with the working class.

 

NM, I know what you mean. Clinton had a struggle because every time she wasn't trying to savage Trump, no one would cover her. Trump's media dominance put her in a position where it was impossible to attract media coverage UNLESS she was going negative. That is a shame, and an indictment on the media, IMO. Really sucked the air out of the room when trying to build a positive case. They did that during the DNC, and the gap between her widened to it's largest point of the general election. But then, give it a week or two, and we're back to talking emails again.

A lot can change in four years. As of right now, I think I'm on Team Booker.

[Danny Bateman]

Just read that article, btw. Man, I'm going to miss Harry Reid.

Trump's infrastructure is distinctly Republican, isn't it? Wouldn't he offer tax breaks to private companies to create infrastructure for us, which they then privatize and turn into toll roads and bridges? Hurray. More of those. I'm a fan of infrastructure spending, but not like that.

[zoogs]

Follow-up to a few posts ago; today from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/19/the-real-secret-to-asian-american-success-was-not-education/

 

 

 

Asian Americans — some of them at least — have made tremendous progress in the United States. But the greatest thing that ever happened to them wasn't that they studied hard, or that they benefited from tiger moms or Confucian values. It's that other Americans started treating them with a little more respect.

[NM11046]

I often think Olbermann is too strong with his words in order to be more dramatic, but honestly I find this and other things he's put out of late to be exactly what i'm thinking.

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

Follow-up to a few posts ago; today from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/19/the-real-secret-to-asian-american-success-was-not-education/

 

Asian Americans some of them at least have made tremendous progress in the United States. But the greatest thing that ever happened to them wasn't that they studied hard, or that they benefited from tiger moms or Confucian values. It's that other Americans started treating them with a little more respect.

The fact that they studied hard and had Tiger moms with Confucius values played a major roll in gaining respect from other.

[zoogs]

I'm not sure how to respond to that. I'm sure you mean none of the following by the statement, but to unpack it:

 

It recasts racism in America as not ignorance and discriminance, but as the accurate arbitration of other cultures' values.

 

It implies that those who do face racism don't have a culture that has earned otherwise. Blacks just don't have the same admirable values is an ugly subtext not separable from the stated thesis.

 

It ignores all the arguments made to refute this connection, which was the point of the article.

 

And it relies on this archaic, exotic, typecasting stereotype that, while it has considerable and obvious benefits, that is nonetheless otherizing and not universally appreciated.

 

The history of discrimination in my view is the gradual washing away of harbored prejudice (however that happens), not that of minority self-improvement in a world where all respect must be justly earned.

[BigRedBuster]

You're trying too hard.

 

If you have two families of the exact same race (no matter what that race is) and one family values education and hard work and the other one doesn't, one is going to get more respect than the other.

 

Kind of goes back to the old saying of ....respect is earned.