(03-10-2017, 12:47 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:(03-10-2017, 11:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The "alternative right" really is fascist. You know... White Power! Sieg heil! Duce! Duce! Duce! The KKK forever!
Actually this proves only that you've not listened to Richard Spencer or Jared Taylor amongst others. They are certainly white identitarians but they are hardly fascists as they also make the case for less state power and not more. Fascism has a meaning, it is an ideology and it has various forms that are universal. Don't be confused by the absence of of swastikas and hoods--if you want American Fascism it will come wrapped in the disguise of anti-racism and social justice.
I have seen enough about Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer to recognize that I don't want any part of them. It's about like seeing sulfuric acid attack sugar or cellulose. You do not want to touch sulfuric acid.
Quote:Quote:Fascism remains an evil cause, and the only reason to accept a certain fascism is that another is even worse... Schuschnigg over Hitler, which is like saying "Better Kadar than Pol Pot".
PBR let us suppose for a second you're right--you aren't of course but just for the sake of argument--if the entirety of the Right is fascist then you should be glad that Donald Trump is in charge and I'm not.
Years ago there was a forum in the New York Times about the rise of the Far Right in Europe, and I frequently used the term "nutcase Right" Someone asked me why I put the two words together in that Forum, as if the Right consists only of lunatics. I responded that I was not talking about George Herbert Walker Bush or Margaret Thatcher, both of whom were sane and humane by contrast to the racists, religious bigots, and conspiracy peddlers.
Fascists are generally on the Right, but not everyone on the Right is fascist.
Quote:Quote:There has been a predictable pattern in every midterm election beginning in 2006: that when the President has approval ratings below 50%, his Party loses seats in the House If you want to believe that Donald Trump will turn his popularity around and have approval ratings in the high 50s by the autumn of 2018 then such is your prerogative. Maybe because I am a partisan Democrat I can't ever catch on to what a wonderful President we have and need a stint in some labor camp in which I learn how great the Leader is or die for my failure.
Firstly, during the election, and for the past several years the poll organizations have made it clear that they are over sampling Democrats--and likely partisan Democrats at that (we're not talking about people merely registered to the Dems, like myself though that is likely to change I have to renew my voter stuff before 2018). They were doing this to the tune of 20% during the election, and HRC was still losing!
That applied to Dubya and to Obama. What causes you to believe that it won't happen this time? Note well that even if the pattern allows Democrats to pick up ten House seats (far from enough to give the Democrats a majority in the House) the pattern still holds.
For Trump to get Republican gains in the House he will need to become very well perceived. When you consider that the economy is still in the Obama bull market and there haven't been any overt calamities in foreign policy... it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong, and the strength and appropriateness of his problem-solving skills get tested.
Quote:Secondly, because of this over sampling it makes the polls suspect. That being said, I think it will matter if most people think the Prez is doing a good job or not. And if he is not doing a good job, how does one get Congress to play ball with him. Bear in mind as I said previously to Odin Daddy isn't picking fights with the Democrats (they've made themselves irrelevant) rather it is with the Globalist wing of the GOP.
I expect that GOP losses in the House and Senate will be largely Nationalist GOP victories over Globalist GOP candidates. That is to say, the war will be fought out in the primaries rather than the General.
Survivors of primary challenges find that the Other Side then throws the dirt left over from the primary challenge. Think at the extreme of Blanche Lincoln.
Quote:Quote:The polls show Americans getting accustomed to the reality of Donald Trump... but they remain very low. Out President is far better at creating ideological walls than in building pragmatic bridges. If the Republicans have an economic meltdown or an international calamity to deal with, then they would be hard-pressed to win the sorts of districts that they won 57-43 in 2016.
Polls also showed HRC having a 98% chance of taking the electoral college, but she was trounced instead. I think we can put polls to bed now.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Unfortunately she won the wrong vote and we Americans all end up with a bigot and a crony capitalist who governs so far like a dictator. Should the economy collapse under Trump or should we get drawn into a War for Profits that bloats the debt and sends lots of American youth back in body bags, then we almost all lose. All but the profiteers, that is.
Horse racing wouldn't be so interesting if 50-1 long-shots didn't win on occasion, like about one time in 50. Unfortunately for us we Americans had far more running on the 2016 election than whether our $5 bets might pay off $250. With a really-bad President, and I already see Donald Trump making Dubya look like a wise, principled, benevolent, and flexible leader by contrast.
Quote:Quote:Yes, it is true that far more Democratic seats in the Senate are up than are Republican seats in the Senate, and the Republicans have only two in non-swing states. I have little cause top believe that Democrats can make Senate gains. But they can make big gains in State houses. There will be open gubernatorial seats in Michigan and Florida, and should Democrats win those two, Donald Trump will have no help in the form of voter suppression in those states. Gubernatorial races could be even more important than the Senate races for the upcoming general election of 2020.
Unlikely. Dem leadership nation wide is largely in their 60s and 70s. The participation of younger people in the Democratic Party is waning as it dawns on them that "Free Shit" has to be paid for by someone, so even the Sanders wing is collapsing. On top of that Conservatives are making strong inroads into culture--which has shifted from Hollyweird and the Tee-Vee to the internet. Let me tell you, conservative youtubers outnumber liberal ones 5 to 1. And this doesn't count defections.
Free $#!+? No thanks. I am at the point in which I will need to downsize my possessions. The classical CDs stay. My video collection largely stays, but I have already culled it significantly. Furniture? If I must make a long-distance move I can replace the old stuff at Goodwill or Salvation Army -- you didn't think that I was going to a rent-to-own-schlock place, did you?
Part of the economic mess is that the productivity of the world is high enough that we can no longer rely upon greater output of manufactures to make people happier. I know one way to live much more frugally than many others -- be what demographers call a "late adapter". In non-inflationary times buying five-year-old technology is a good way to save about 40%. Wait about two years on video, and the Blu-Ray disc that sold for nearly $30 at Wally World now sells for about $10.
(OK, if I had a job in which being technologically up-to-date made me better at the job, I would be an early-adapter. But I am not buying a K-Cup coffee maker, and I know the inevitable direction of most electronic devices. My new jo0b will require a smart phone, but not one of the $600 models. More like $60).
The 5-to-1 ratio of conservatives to liberals on YouTube are on politics... and four of the five 'conservatives' are right-wing trolls. On culture and science the ratio is more like even. There's much garbage emanating from Hollywood, and TV has never been a patrician medium. Does it say something that one of my favorite cable channels is Turner Classic Movies?
Quote:Quote:Quote:The only wishful thinking on my part is that patterns that have been true under Barack Obama operate just as hard with Donald Trump,which is no more unreasonable than an Iowa corn farmer ordering seed corn in February despite the raging blizzard that on its own terms suggests a return to the Ice Age.
It is good to see you understand nothing about farming, this despite living in a 'hick town'. An Iowa corn farmer ordering seed in February is ordering it far too late--typically they do that in January and even December. Seed companies have to process the order, pick the seeds, load them on to a truck and then it has to be hauled to the farmer--a process that can take months, and corn is typically planted in March or April, baring a late thaw or wet early spring. Secondly a blizzard no more indicates an ice age than a really hot summer indicates global warming. It is called weather, and sometimes it is random.
Nitpick. But I think you get the idea. Climate in Iowa typically involves a brutal winter and a sweltering summer. I recall that an issue of Places Rated gave the worst rating for climate for a place not in Alaska, a high-mountain, or a desert location to Waterloo, Iowa. Harsh winters and steamy summers in Tornado Alley? Not somewhere I would want to live. Record temperatures for April in Waterloo include -4F and 100F, so one could get frostbite and heatstroke in the same month. But it is great farm country.
Quote:And speaking of global warming I find it intriguing that NASA has recently discovered that Venus, Mars and Jupiter are all having global warming issues too. I bet it is caused by all the Martian coal fired power plants, and Venusian SUVs.
OK, smarty-pants. Venus is as hot as it is because of the high atmospheric pressure; Mars is cold because of the low atmospheric pressure. Take a sample of the atmosphere of Venus and let it decompress to earthly temperatures and it would get brutally cold, unless the sulfuric acid vapor condenses to make contact with organic matter. Take a sample of Mars atmosphere and let it compress to the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere, and the Martian atmosphere would get brutally hot.
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.