02-23-2021, 10:42 PM
(02-23-2021, 04:42 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(02-23-2021, 03:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(02-22-2021, 04:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-22-2021, 09:05 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(02-21-2021, 08:43 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'm a loyal American who supported Trump who will support Trump again if decides to run again in 2024. You're a loyal Democrat who will be stuck voting for Harris and stuck with a party on the brink of imploding by then. We got a rough and challenging road ahead of us with an old dude who forgets where he's at, who loses his train of thought and sounds like an imbecile who can't answer hard questions or hop on a plane at anytime. I told you that this wasn't the time to elect a weak leader like you did any way. So, I hope you'll be ready to accept the consequences of doing that in or within the next four years depending on how bad things get before then. You f---ed up and you and every other (offensive cat-call) are going to pay the price for doing it at the wrong time in history. You talk a lot but you don't pay attention to what you say or what you say you believe or the obvious signs associated with the kinds of government that you fear the most and claim that you would never support.
I do not deny that you are loyal to America in the sense that you would never serve in an occupying army or in a puppet government by an occupier, and that you would never divulge state secrets to a foreign power or make propaganda broadcasts -- even if you ever got the opportunity.
I hope you are right, but at this point I am not so sanguine about Classic's loyalty. I rather see him as more likely to join the Jan.6th crowd, who must be considered traitors.
He is more dangerous in the context of a civil war, perhaps what Ben Klassen (a founder of the fascist Church of the Creator) described as RaHoWa, or "RAcial HOly WAr" in which white Christians wage war against everyone else who does not submit to extreme subordination. As his business fails he would find opportunity as a harsh enforcer of the "Aryan" struggle.
Maybe he either could not believe that the January 6 insurrection would work or something (family members?) talked him out of attending it.
Lets pretend the nasty racism of old directly associated with the Democratic party was reversed and imposed on white people by the Democratic party of today, what would you do about it? I know what I would do about it but what would you do about it? Would you place your social benefits at risk and switch parties or ignore it and continue voting Democratic? You don't see what we see or hear what we hear or use your logic or common sense to read in between the lines and connect the dots either.
No, let us instead look at the realities of political life in the elections involving Eisenhower and Obama. Although political orientations of the two main Parties almost inverted completely over roughly sixty years, it is more likely that the political cultures of the states did not change that much. The only big change in American demographics between Eisenhower's time and Obama's time is the rapid growth of the Hispanic population, especially in the American Southwest (Mexican-Americans, largely), Florida (Cuban-Americans, largely), and some large Northeastern cities (Hispanics other than Cubans and Puerto Ricans). Asian-Americans are not a large enough block of voters to decide any state except in elections with very narrow margins. (OK, Georgia was close enough that just about any group that is significantly more D than R could decide the 2020 Presidential election, and I saw the statement that American First Peoples -- I like the Canadian term -- made the difference in Arizona.
One of the more interesting general histories of the United States is Albion's Seed (David Hackett Fischer), which relates much that is true about the institutions and public attitudes was established by the first large wave of European settlers or their descendants in an area, and this is true even if another group of settlers supplanted the ones who originally settled. As an example of that, southern New England was settled largely by people from southeastern England who in many ways had more in common with the Dutch and the peoples of northwestern Germany than with people from other parts of England. They established institutions, including the first university in the English-speaking part of the New World (Harvard... in 1636, only fifteen years after the Pilgrims settling in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These people valued learning, and they insisted upon an orderly society complete with the oldest freely-elected legislature (originally the Massachusetts General Court) in the world... and an expectation of people solving their disputes in courts of law instead of in fist-fights and duels. They quickly established commerce and banking. To be sure, people of New England moved west (if you wonder about the Dutch colony in the Hudson Valley, it was similar and it was never even majority-Dutch) for better land in the west (basically anywhere north of what is about today's Interstate 80) to better land (New England had thin, rocky soils). Replacing the early Puritan settlers of New England were the large wave of Irish Catholics who adopted the institutions of the Puritans except for the Congregational Church (they remained Catholics)... later immigrant groups did much the same, keeping their religion and cuisine.
I could go into details about other groups -- Quakers from the English Midlands and much of Wales and Mennonites (practically identical in values, except that the Mennonites were German-speaking Swiss) in southeastern Pennsylvania, Cavaliers settling from Virginia to Georgia with nearly a fendal tradition intact , and the backwoods people from the wild English North and southern Scotland (as opposed to Highland Scots who are undeniable Celts). If one is from one or these cultures one might expect one to bring disputes to a court of law and in another one, one might be fully understood if one fought it out... but take a dispute to the street in places under Puritan cultural influence and you will likely end up in a court of law -- a criminal court.
Parties can change their political constituencies, but the political culture of states are much more stable. How is this for an unlikely situation?
100 years apart, overlay between William Howard Taft and Barack Obama, 1908/2008.
Taft ® 51.6/321 - Bryan (D) 43.0/162 - Debs (S) 2.8/0
Obama (D) 52.9/365- McCain ® 45.6/173
Similar percentages of the electoral vote for the winners.
Taft/ McCain blue
Taft/Obama yellow
Bryan/Obama red
Bryan/McCain green
Bryan won all of the former secessionist states, Colorado, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Nevada. Bryan won seven states by 9% or less; Taft won six states by 9% or less. Other states were blow-outs.
....It is simply weird. Obama, a Democrat, did well in the states that Taft (a Republican) won but badly in the states that Bryan (a Democrat) won on the whole. Obviously Taft and Obama did well with somewhat-similar constituencies... well as similar as they could be a century apart. Taft did very badly among the Southern racist agrarians... well, so did Obama with the political heirs of the Southern racist agrarians. (Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, and New Mexico were not yet stats in 1908).
More recently, but still 52 to 60 years apart...
When all is said and done, I think that the Obama and Eisenhower Presidencies are going to look like good analogues. Both Presidents are chilly rationalists. Both are practically scandal-free administrations. Both started with a troublesome war that both found their way out of. Neither did much to 'grow' the strength of their Parties in either House of Congress. To compare ISIS to Fidel Castro is completely unfair to Fidel Castro, a gentleman by contrast to ISIS.
The definitive moderate Republican may have been Dwight Eisenhower, and I have heard plenty of Democrats praise the Eisenhower Presidency. He went along with Supreme Court rulings that outlawed segregationist practices, stayed clear of the McCarthy bandwagon, and let McCarthy implode.
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once
No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.
What is amazing is not so much what Obama did (in 2012 Obama may not have won nearly all the states that Ike won twice, but aside from the District of Columbia and Hawaii which were not voting in the 1950's... but he still won the Presidency decisively), but what Ike did... winning three states (Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island) that Republican nominees since Ike have found difficult to win. Republican nominees have won those three states a total of five times beginning in 1960; Ike won those three states twice.
Obama is unique among the Presidents, so one can hardly see anyone as a perfect analogue to him. Someone has to be most similar to him in temperament, personal conduct, style, and curriculum vitae. Obama has no experience in the military, so that makes him dissimilar to Ike on that... but otherwise if I am to find the President most similar to Obama I am stuck with Eisenhower. Neither succeeded at strengthening their Party's hold on Congress, neither had a populist bent, both were particularly cautious (which goes with the territory with the better of Reactive leaders) both deferred to expertise, and both recognized the value of precedent and protocol. Except for being a liberal, Obama is a wonderful model of a conservative President. I can say this without hesitation: the next conservative President of the United States will almost certaqinly be more like Obama than like Trump.
Quote:What percentage of the Democratic party is white today?
Does that even matter? Are "white" votes more precious or legitimate? We need remember that the definition of "whiteness" can change. As an example, Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans can be very white. No "one-drop rule" applies to Mexican-Americans, and identity as a Mexican-American in the Southwest is more a matter of cultural identity than anything else. Yes, Mexican-Americans can assimilate white Anglo people.
The Democratic Party used to be much "whiter" before the Mountain and Deep South went Republican.
Quote:What percentage of New York or LA is white today?
New York City? It is safe to assume that the Irish-American, Italian-American, and Jewish populations of New York City are predominantly white. There's more ambiguity about Latino populations in Greater NYC. With Greater Los Angeles the Hispanic population is more Mexican-American... go figure.
If I am to make any guesses on people of East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans) they are on the brink of being considered white.
One vote means as much as another, and Republicans have every right to kick themselves about doing so badly among black and Hispanic voters.
Quote:I think its pretty obvious that the Democratic party is anti-white and anti-male and anti-American these days.
Vermont is one of the strongest D states now and it is also one of the whitest. It i snot so much anti-male as it is pro-feminist... and if you want the more successful and engaging women you might as well expect to end up with a feminist.
Do you know what is really un-American? Not since church bombings in Birmingham and sundry other violence against black people asserting their rights according to the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments have I seen such an exercise of anti-American activity as the disruption of Congress on January 6. The Democrats there were members of both Houses of Congress, their staffers, maybe some Capitol police, and journalists. The rally outside the Capitol was all pro-Trump. There were no Democratic counter-protesters.
Quote:I will also say that the Democratic party is becoming more anti-American worker too these days. The American MLK believers (the minorities who believe in the American way) have already begun switching sides and joining forces with the American (Republican) side. Dude, we are on the cusp of a nation splitting and another Civil War being fought with the Democratic party.
No, you cannot speak on behalf of Martin Luther King, Jr. He has been dead far longer than he was alive. I'd like to believe that he would have been on the side of LGBT and handicap rights... but he is mute on those. He was a man of his time, and for that we must recognize his legitimate achievements.
It is up to all of us to decide what the American way is. Of course the Constitution and statutory law establishes some of the expectations for us all. Mob violence to which you allude as a possibility is not acceptable.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.