The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Classic-Xer]

(06-24-2020, 05:34 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-20-2020, 06:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Boy are you way off track with the your understanding of the RW, 2nd Amendment folks and what it is that gets them all up in arms these days? Nope, they're weren't your typical light security mall cops like the liberal Democrats seem prefer and want to replace most of our city cops with these days. Those were our kind of our RW cops that a couple of your LW radicals gunned down in cold blood that caught the attention of the FBI who as we know as concerned about stepping up and doing the job that liberal Democrats either willingly refuse to do or afraid to do due to their relatively close political ties with the Left these day or fears of their cozy blue being basically over run and looted those we seen on TV. Right now, the American right is still recognized as being the authority and the upholders of American law and defenders of the US Constitution, American establishment and all its people/citizens and it's government. In all the years of of us posting, I've rarely seen an American view, an American position or an understanding or an acceptance or an embrace of American values and the American way of life. Whether we split or go to war and  take part in a major bloodbath is largely on the Democrats ability to keep the peace and resolve their major problems. You don't speak for me or  the American government. You speak for yourself, the Left and the kind of government that the Left prefers to have instead of ours and once that becomes apparent to most Americans these days, the more we are going see more of what we've seen taking place (the spirals of large scale violence) in blue cities since Obama entered his second term in office and tried to move America backwards to a time when the big government related Democrats/ the old social conservative Democrats  pretty much called the shots.

I'm not at all clear on what your last long sentence is predicting, exactly.

You talk about American this and American that, but I would like to see you define just what being "American" means to you. 

What is the "American" law, establishment, view, position, values, way of life or government?

I'll put it to you this way. America has got an army of its own, a flag of it's own, a nation/republic of its own, a Constitutional government of its own, an economic system of its own and there is nothing that people like you can do about that unless you are willing to start a war with America and experience what it was like for those who were dumb enough to do it before you. In short, we'll crush you and there's nothing your movie stars, TV show hosts, Obamacrats, Bernie Bro's. musician's, artists, radical leftist groups can do or say at that point to stop us from crushing you.

I thinks it's funny that you are asking me what American means to me when I've been showing you what it means to me and showing you the power associated with being an American and defeating you with the freedoms and rights that all Americans have these days for the last fifteen years. Right now, half the country is more like me than you and half the Democratic party would prefer someone more like me than most of their politicians or someone like you. That's how messed up that Democratic party is right now.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-24-2020, 11:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'll put it to you this way. America has got an army of its own, a flag of it's own, a nation/republic of its own, a Constitutional government of its own, an economic system of its own  and there is nothing that people like you can do about that unless you are willing to start a war with America and experience what it was like for those who were dumb enough to do it before you. In short, we'll crush you and there's nothing your movie stars, TV show hosts, Obamacrats, Bernie Bro's. musician's, artists, radical leftist groups can do or say at that point to stop us from crushing you.

I thinks it's funny that you are asking me what American means to me when I've been showing you what it means to me and showing you the power associated with being an American and defeating you with the freedoms and rights  that all Americans have these days for the last fifteen years. Right now, half the country is more like me than you and half the Democratic party would prefer someone more like me than most of their politicians or someone like you. That's how messed up that Democratic party is right now.

Um. Did you notice that in prior crises it was the progressive new values that triumphed, and when racism was involved it lost?

I know the S&H theory. It is your perspective that you should be explaining. Same thing, I guess. You just identify so much with the old values that you fail to understand or accept the new.

[Classic-Xer]

(06-25-2020, 12:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-24-2020, 11:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'll put it to you this way. America has got an army of its own, a flag of it's own, a nation/republic of its own, a Constitutional government of its own, an economic system of its own  and there is nothing that people like you can do about that unless you are willing to start a war with America and experience what it was like for those who were dumb enough to do it before you. In short, we'll crush you and there's nothing your movie stars, TV show hosts, Obamacrats, Bernie Bro's. musician's, artists, radical leftist groups can do or say at that point to stop us from crushing you.

I thinks it's funny that you are asking me what American means to me when I've been showing you what it means to me and showing you the power associated with being an American and defeating you with the freedoms and rights  that all Americans have these days for the last fifteen years. Right now, half the country is more like me than you and half the Democratic party would prefer someone more like me than most of their politicians or someone like you. That's how messed up that Democratic party is right now.

Um.  Did you notice that in prior crises it was the progressive new values that triumphed, and when racism was involved it lost?

I know the S&H theory.  It is your perspective that you should be explaining.  Same thing, I guess.  You just identify so much with the old values that you fail to understand or accept the new.

Um...Maybe, just maybe, you should pull your head out of your ass and listen to what a fellow Yankee has to say about you and the Democratic party these days. The Democratic party can no longer own or whip their blacks or hang their blacks or support groups that terrorize their blacks or support their cops who beat their blacks or discriminate against blacks like they could in the past. The Republican side put an end to all of it. As far as progressives prevailing, you better come to grips with what the term progressive or Marxism is associated with today. Yep. The new USSR managed to survive about 4 score and seven years which is much longer than the Third Reich survived. The new democratic version of the new USSR that most of western Europe and a portion of America embraced after World War II  is now approaching four score and seven as well.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(06-25-2020, 12:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-24-2020, 11:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'll put it to you this way. America has got an army of its own, a flag of it's own, a nation/republic of its own, a Constitutional government of its own, an economic system of its own  and there is nothing that people like you can do about that unless you are willing to start a war with America and experience what it was like for those who were dumb enough to do it before you. In short, we'll crush you and there's nothing your movie stars, TV show hosts, Obamacrats, Bernie Bro's. musician's, artists, radical leftist groups can do or say at that point to stop us from crushing you.

I thinks it's funny that you are asking me what American means to me when I've been showing you what it means to me and showing you the power associated with being an American and defeating you with the freedoms and rights  that all Americans have these days for the last fifteen years. Right now, half the country is more like me than you and half the Democratic party would prefer someone more like me than most of their politicians or someone like you. That's how messed up that Democratic party is right now.

Um.  Did you notice that in prior crises it was the progressive new values that triumphed, and when racism was involved it lost?

I know the S&H theory.  It is your perspective that you should be explaining.  Same thing, I guess.  You just identify so much with the old values that you fail to understand or accept the new.

Um...Maybe, just maybe, you should pull your head out of your ass and listen to what a fellow Yankee has to say about you and the Democratic party these days. The Democratic party can no longer own or whip their blacks or hang their blacks or support groups that terrorize their blacks or support their cops who beat their blacks or discriminate against blacks like they could in the past. The Republican side put an end to all of it. As far as progressives prevailing, you better come to grips with what the term progressive or Marxism is associated with today. Yep. The new USSR managed to survive about 4 score and seven years which is much longer than the Third Reich survived. The new democratic version of the new USSR that most of western Europe and a portion of America embraced  after World War II  is now approaching four score and seven as well.

Side with the team that is for police violence and racism?  I don't think so.  The Republicans are the party of white supremacy, and they are risking sinking by it.  Trump is leaning that way for sure.

And neither I nor any progressive I know favors a Marxist revolution.  That is a red obsession.  Continue to bark up the wrong tree if you must.  When the New Deal was perceived of as succeeding, the possibility of revolution receded from all but a few.  For a while  it was quite viable to claim democracy and capitalism was flawed and failed and you could not change the system from within the system.  For now, that belief is limited pretty much to the Boogaloo Bois.

[Bob Butler 54]

Where can a president go to hold a rally these days? Tulsa was regarded as site of a great white supremacy atrocity. Arizona was in the middle of a rampant COVID crisis. Now there are allegedly plans for Trump to visit Mount Rushmore, which has the local native Americans again labeling the site as one where the white supremacy of the times stole and blasphemed against a holy site.

I guess everywhere Trump chooses to exalt his values is being used to lambast his values lately. Is it that hard to find a place in America that hasn't also a historical event tied to white supremacy or some other Trump failure?

[Eric the Green]

(06-25-2020, 03:57 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Where can a president go to hold a rally these days?  Tulsa was regarded as site of a great white supremacy atrocity.  Arizona was in the middle of a rampant COVID crisis.  Now there are allegedly plans for Trump to visit Mount Rushmore, which has the local native Americans again labeling the site as one where the white supremacy of the times stole and blasphemed against a holy site.

I guess everywhere Trump chooses to exalt his values is being used to lambast his values lately.  Is it that hard to find a place in America that hasn't also a historical event tied to white supremacy or some other Trump failure?

That's a good question. Where COULD he go?

Maybe to the Hollywood Bowl? Or Madison Square Garden? Times Square? How about Miami? That's close and convenient for him. Anti-Castro Cubans like him.

[Eric the Green]

(06-24-2020, 11:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(06-24-2020, 05:34 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-20-2020, 06:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Boy are you way off track with the your understanding of the RW, 2nd Amendment folks and what it is that gets them all up in arms these days? Nope, they're weren't your typical light security mall cops like the liberal Democrats seem prefer and want to replace most of our city cops with these days. Those were our kind of our RW cops that a couple of your LW radicals gunned down in cold blood that caught the attention of the FBI who as we know as concerned about stepping up and doing the job that liberal Democrats either willingly refuse to do or afraid to do due to their relatively close political ties with the Left these day or fears of their cozy blue being basically over run and looted those we seen on TV. Right now, the American right is still recognized as being the authority and the upholders of American law and defenders of the US Constitution, American establishment and all its people/citizens and it's government. In all the years of of us posting, I've rarely seen an American view, an American position or an understanding or an acceptance or an embrace of American values and the American way of life. Whether we split or go to war and  take part in a major bloodbath is largely on the Democrats ability to keep the peace and resolve their major problems. You don't speak for me or  the American government. You speak for yourself, the Left and the kind of government that the Left prefers to have instead of ours and once that becomes apparent to most Americans these days, the more we are going see more of what we've seen taking place (the spirals of large scale violence) in blue cities since Obama entered his second term in office and tried to move America backwards to a time when the big government related Democrats/ the old social conservative Democrats  pretty much called the shots.

I'm not at all clear on what your last long sentence is predicting, exactly.

You talk about American this and American that, but I would like to see you define just what being "American" means to you. 

What is the "American" law, establishment, view, position, values, way of life or government?

I'll put it to you this way. America has got an army of its own, a flag of it's own, a nation/republic of its own, a Constitutional government of its own, an economic system of its own  and there is nothing that people like you can do about that unless you are willing to start a war with America and experience what it was like for those who were dumb enough to do it before you. In short, we'll crush you and there's nothing your movie stars, TV show hosts, Obamacrats, Bernie Bro's. musician's, artists, radical leftist groups can do or say at that point to stop us from crushing you.

I thinks it's funny that you are asking me what American means to me when I've been showing you what it means to me and showing you the power associated with being an American and defeating you with the freedoms and rights  that all Americans have these days for the last fifteen years. Right now, half the country is more like me than you and half the Democratic party would prefer someone more like me than most of their politicians or someone like you. That's how messed up that Democratic party is right now.

Well thanks for trying to answer my question, at least. After 15 years, your version of "America" is still rather vague, and I don't think you have sufficiently distinguished what you mean by America from what I and other lefties mean by it. Yes, the USA (as I prefer to call it) has an army, a flag, a nation, a republic, a constitution and an economic system. We don't question the existence of these things. We need those things. But we think that the real America is one that is willing to grow, progress and change to make it better for all its citizens, not just for the privileged view that your side favors.

That constitution permits us to burn that flag in protest if we want. Even your guy Scalia said so. That constitution can be amended, and has been a number of times. I would support abolishing the Second, and you would not. That is a perfectly constitutional question. Our economic system is fine and brings prosperity as long as it is reformed, regulated, taxed and supplemented with social programs and state enterprises, as it has always been. I may disagree with your Reaganomics program of dismantling much of this, but much still survives, and can be brought back, so that our economic system is fair and enables opportunity for all, instead of allowing a few to hog all the riches and despoil our land, seas and air.

And we lefties don't want to disband the army, but we want an end to needless imperial interventions like those in Vietnam and Iraq, or today's support for bin Salman's attacks on Yemen. We support the right of protest against unnecessary and immoral USA war policies, and your side does not. What "America" means to you guys is to crush and stop any dissent or any movement to make America more of what it is supposed to be, as stated in our Declaration, our Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg address, FDR's 4 freedoms, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream, etc. That is what "America" means to you: an America that stands pat. Your side screams at Jane Fonda and brings guns to god bless america rallies. It wants to bring confederate flags to them too, while our side considers the Confederacy to be a failed and immoral uprising by racist traitors.

America is a great country, and the republic is great. Nevertheless, the USA has some original sins. Slavery and white supremacy is embedded in our election and government system, and its heritage remains. Our conquest of Native peoples was not fair or just. Our rape of the land and environment was catastrophic. Our imperial wars left scars upon our nation and its people. Working people have often been exploited and cheated. America is an unfinished project, not a set of established powers and follies to maintain. The real America is the one that is willing to grow and change with the times and aspire to be even greater than it is now, not to return to some never-existing nation from the past.

[pbrower2a]

(06-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(06-25-2020, 12:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-24-2020, 11:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'll put it to you this way. America has got an army of its own, a flag of it's own, a nation/republic of its own, a Constitutional government of its own, an economic system of its own  and there is nothing that people like you can do about that unless you are willing to start a war with America and experience what it was like for those who were dumb enough to do it before you. In short, we'll crush you and there's nothing your movie stars, TV show hosts, Obamacrats, Bernie Bro's. musician's, artists, radical leftist groups can do or say at that point to stop us from crushing you.

I thinks it's funny that you are asking me what American means to me when I've been showing you what it means to me and showing you the power associated with being an American and defeating you with the freedoms and rights  that all Americans have these days for the last fifteen years. Right now, half the country is more like me than you and half the Democratic party would prefer someone more like me than most of their politicians or someone like you. That's how messed up that Democratic party is right now.

Um.  Did you notice that in prior crises it was the progressive new values that triumphed, and when racism was involved it lost?

I know the S&H theory.  It is your perspective that you should be explaining.  Same thing, I guess.  You just identify so much with the old values that you fail to understand or accept the new.

Um...Maybe, just maybe, you should pull your head out of your ass and listen to what a fellow Yankee has to say about you and the Democratic party these days. The Democratic party can no longer own or whip their blacks or hang their blacks or support groups that terrorize their blacks or support their cops who beat their blacks or discriminate against blacks like they could in the past. The Republican side put an end to all of it. As far as progressives prevailing, you better come to grips with what the term progressive or Marxism is associated with today. Yep. The new USSR managed to survive about 4 score and seven years which is much longer than the Third Reich survived. The new democratic version of the new USSR that most of western Europe and a portion of America embraced  after World War II  is now approaching four score and seven as well.

Well, here is how the Parties have changed. I do not see it as coincidence that despite huge differences in curricula vitae  between them that Obama and Eisenhower could win elections that better resemble each other's than any others. (OK, Ike won much that Herbert Hoover won in the landslide win of the latter in 1928). The difference between a great general and a keen legal mind may be less than one thinks. 

The political cultures of the various states have not changed much, but the partisan identity of the states often has. What used to be the states of core racism have gone Republican while states once reliably Republican in all but Democratic blowouts are now the opposite. Is the map perfect? No. It does not show the intensity of the match in both cases. Even so:

 I suggest this thread for contrasting elections or sets of elections. We can show, for example, how states trend. In this case I suggest that  even if the partisan identities of the states are almost opposite in the elections involving Eisenhower and Obama, the blocks of states involved suggest that Ike and Obama got (and lost) many of the key constituencies in their elections. This, if you are aware of my posting history, is one of my favorite contrasts. 

..........................

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. 

...if you wonder about Tennessee, then eastern Tennessee has been firmly R in most elections since the Civil War. Western Tennessee was firmly on the Confederate side in the Civil War, but eastern Tennessee had no desire to defend the plantation way of life in western Tennessee.

[Classic-Xer]

(06-25-2020, 03:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Well thanks for trying to answer my question, at least. After 15 years, your version of "America" is still rather vague, and I don't think you have sufficiently distinguished what you mean by America from what I and other lefties mean by it. Yes, the USA (as I prefer to call it) has an army, a flag, a nation, a republic, a constitution and an economic system. We don't question the existence of these things. We need those things. But we think that the real America is one that is willing to grow, progress and change to make it better for all its citizens, not just for the privileged view that your side favors.

That constitution permits us to burn that flag in protest if we want. Even your guy Scalia said so. That constitution can be amended, and has been a number of times. I would support abolishing the Second, and you would not. That is a perfectly constitutional question. Our economic system is fine and brings prosperity as long as it is reformed, regulated, taxed and supplemented with social programs and state enterprises, as it has always been. I may disagree with your Reaganomics program of dismantling much of this, but much still survives, and can be brought back, so that our economic system is fair and enables opportunity for all, instead of allowing a few to hog all the riches and despoil our land, seas and air.

And we lefties don't want to disband the army, but we want an end to needless imperial interventions like those in Vietnam and Iraq, or today's support for bin Salman's attacks on Yemen. We support the right of protest against unnecessary and immoral USA war policies, and your side does not. What "America" means to you guys is to crush and stop any dissent or any movement to make America more of what it is supposed to be, as stated in our Declaration, our Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg address, FDR's 4 freedoms, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream, etc. That is what "America" means to you: an America that stands pat. Your side screams at Jane Fonda and brings guns to god bless america rallies. It wants to bring confederate flags to them too, while our side considers the Confederacy to be a failed and immoral uprising by racist traitors.

America is a great country, and the republic is great. Nevertheless, the USA has some original sins. Slavery and white supremacy is embedded in our election and government system, and its heritage remains. Our conquest of Native peoples was not fair or just. Our rape of the land and environment was catastrophic. Our imperial wars left scars upon our nation and its people. Working people have often been exploited and cheated. America is an unfinished project, not a set of established powers and follies to maintain. The real America is the one that is willing to grow and change with the times and aspire to be even greater than it is now, not to return to some never-existing nation from the past.

Dude, opportunity is available to all and has been for quite a while now. So, what's wrong with the Left and the lack of opportunity mainly pertaining to them these days? The American left seems to be doing about as good as the American right these days. So, what's wrong with the Left? You're on the Left. So, what's going on with the Left? Why is the Left so fucked up and immoral and so into radical Marxism these days? I mean wasn't the complete destruction of Nazi Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union enough to teach the higher educated to ignore or stay away from getting involved with Marxism and the Left all together.

Do you know what I did today? I had a discussion with a long time Democratic voter/ fellow American and avid CNN watcher for many years who is now on board with the American right and no longer emotionally attached to the Democratic party. Yes, the Left's war with America has created some deep wounds that will never heal and some scars that will never go away and pretty much created a natural divide that's damn near impossible to overcome without a miracle. So, I guess we'll see which side is right and comes out on top in the long run. Personally, I don't see the Left being able to overcome all the losses that we inflict and I don't see the losses that we take in the short term as things are being settled with the Left mattering that much in the long term. Like I've said, I think the entire American right has been pretty tolerant and relatively non violent so far compared to the Left. The way I see it, if you prefer to be governed by hardened criminals and prefer to be largely influenced by angry mobs and spend what's left of your life trying to survive in a lawless world that's fine with me. It's a major step back to me but if you view it as progress and progressive that's fine with me too.

[Classic-Xer]

(06-25-2020, 07:11 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-25-2020, 02:11 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(06-25-2020, 12:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-24-2020, 11:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'll put it to you this way. America has got an army of its own, a flag of it's own, a nation/republic of its own, a Constitutional government of its own, an economic system of its own  and there is nothing that people like you can do about that unless you are willing to start a war with America and experience what it was like for those who were dumb enough to do it before you. In short, we'll crush you and there's nothing your movie stars, TV show hosts, Obamacrats, Bernie Bro's. musician's, artists, radical leftist groups can do or say at that point to stop us from crushing you.

I thinks it's funny that you are asking me what American means to me when I've been showing you what it means to me and showing you the power associated with being an American and defeating you with the freedoms and rights  that all Americans have these days for the last fifteen years. Right now, half the country is more like me than you and half the Democratic party would prefer someone more like me than most of their politicians or someone like you. That's how messed up that Democratic party is right now.

Um.  Did you notice that in prior crises it was the progressive new values that triumphed, and when racism was involved it lost?

I know the S&H theory.  It is your perspective that you should be explaining.  Same thing, I guess.  You just identify so much with the old values that you fail to understand or accept the new.

Um...Maybe, just maybe, you should pull your head out of your ass and listen to what a fellow Yankee has to say about you and the Democratic party these days. The Democratic party can no longer own or whip their blacks or hang their blacks or support groups that terrorize their blacks or support their cops who beat their blacks or discriminate against blacks like they could in the past. The Republican side put an end to all of it. As far as progressives prevailing, you better come to grips with what the term progressive or Marxism is associated with today. Yep. The new USSR managed to survive about 4 score and seven years which is much longer than the Third Reich survived. The new democratic version of the new USSR that most of western Europe and a portion of America embraced  after World War II  is now approaching four score and seven as well.

Well, here is how the Parties have changed. I do not see it as coincidence that despite huge differences in curricula vitae  between them that Obama and Eisenhower could win elections that better resemble each other's than any others. (OK, Ike won much that Herbert Hoover won in the landslide win of the latter in 1928). The difference between a great general and a keen legal mind may be less than one thinks. 

The political cultures of the various states have not changed much, but the partisan identity of the states often has. What used to be the states of core racism have gone Republican while states once reliably Republican in all but Democratic blowouts are now the opposite. Is the map perfect? No. It does not show the intensity of the match in both cases. Even so:

 I suggest this thread for contrasting elections or sets of elections. We can show, for example, how states trend. In this case I suggest that  even if the partisan identities of the states are almost opposite in the elections involving Eisenhower and Obama, the blocks of states involved suggest that Ike and Obama got (and lost) many of the key constituencies in their elections. This, if you are aware of my posting history, is one of my favorite contrasts. 

..........................

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. 

...if you wonder about Tennessee, then eastern Tennessee has been firmly R in most elections since the Civil War. Western Tennessee was firmly on the Confederate side in the Civil War, but eastern Tennessee had no desire to defend the plantation way of life in western Tennessee.

You can say what you want about Obama but there is a major difference between a great general with chest full of merits who was in charge of winning the war in Europe and a small time lawyer working as a community organizer who sued and threatened people that he and others associated with racism or exploitation for a living and served a short stint as a Senator of a heavy blue state prior to becoming President of the United States.

[pbrower2a]

Abraham Lincoln and FDR were both trained attorneys, too.

It is ironic that I would find Obama more similar to Eisenhower in his electoral appeal than to any other President, but the temperament is much alike (OK, both were Reactive types more pragmatic than preachy... and if it is career choice, I could hardly think of someone better suited to be a senior military officer than Obama. He is a spit-and-polish, go-by-the-book leader who recognizes that at times the book must be edited to meet the times and that the book must be bypassed under extreme situations. Eisenhower also looks like good legal material, and had he not become the superb general that he became I could imagine him as a high-ranking member of a federal or state judiciary. Note that his biggest decisions as President were to uphold decisions of the US Supreme Court.

The big difference in their political careers is that Obama was on the fast track to the Presidency and Eisenhower wasn't -- and that for Eisenhower the Presidency is the obviously the end of a distinguished career while Obama would be a very active President Emeritus if the fool now President recognized what a treasure Obama is. Think of Nixon once the sting of Watergate was gone, Carter after his bad-luck Presidency was over, and the elder Bush when the focus was on what everyone recognized that he did well: foreign policy.

The map shows largely a partisan realignment of identity between states... and that Obama and Eisenhower obviously appealed to many people similar in demographics. Eisenhower overpowered Stevenson twice in winning the votes of highly-educated people, winning both college graduates (although there were fewer, and the older college graduates of Ike's time were almost strictly associated with the WASP elite) and high-school graduates... when high-school graduation was still an above-average level of formal education. Obama did very well among college graduates, if not people with "no college"... but high-school education and nothing more is now below-average education. Stevenson did well among high-school drop-outs and people with middle-school or lesser education, which may reflect educational performance in the states that he won. Just take a look at the states that Stevenson won... and those that he lost.

Attributed to Adlai Stevenson was his contention that he was the "thinking man's candidate". The state map suggests otherwise. If I am to see a pattern among the states of those that went to Eisenhower in the 1950's but not to Obama, then aside from Texas and Tennessee that those are largely states in which livestock ranching was a big part of the economy and still is. Where energy production is big, McCain and Romney did well -- as did Ike.

[Eric the Green]

(06-26-2020, 01:53 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(06-25-2020, 03:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Well thanks for trying to answer my question, at least. After 15 years, your version of "America" is still rather vague, and I don't think you have sufficiently distinguished what you mean by America from what I and other lefties mean by it. Yes, the USA (as I prefer to call it) has an army, a flag, a nation, a republic, a constitution and an economic system. We don't question the existence of these things. We need those things. But we think that the real America is one that is willing to grow, progress and change to make it better for all its citizens, not just for the privileged view that your side favors.

That constitution permits us to burn that flag in protest if we want. Even your guy Scalia said so. That constitution can be amended, and has been a number of times. I would support abolishing the Second, and you would not. That is a perfectly constitutional question. Our economic system is fine and brings prosperity as long as it is reformed, regulated, taxed and supplemented with social programs and state enterprises, as it has always been. I may disagree with your Reaganomics program of dismantling much of this, but much still survives, and can be brought back, so that our economic system is fair and enables opportunity for all, instead of allowing a few to hog all the riches and despoil our land, seas and air.

And we lefties don't want to disband the army, but we want an end to needless imperial interventions like those in Vietnam and Iraq, or today's support for bin Salman's attacks on Yemen. We support the right of protest against unnecessary and immoral USA war policies, and your side does not. What "America" means to you guys is to crush and stop any dissent or any movement to make America more of what it is supposed to be, as stated in our Declaration, our Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg address, FDR's 4 freedoms, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream, etc. That is what "America" means to you: an America that stands pat. Your side screams at Jane Fonda and brings guns to god bless america rallies. It wants to bring confederate flags to them too, while our side considers the Confederacy to be a failed and immoral uprising by racist traitors.

America is a great country, and the republic is great. Nevertheless, the USA has some original sins. Slavery and white supremacy is embedded in our election and government system, and its heritage remains. Our conquest of Native peoples was not fair or just. Our rape of the land and environment was catastrophic. Our imperial wars left scars upon our nation and its people. Working people have often been exploited and cheated. America is an unfinished project, not a set of established powers and follies to maintain. The real America is the one that is willing to grow and change with the times and aspire to be even greater than it is now, not to return to some never-existing nation from the past.

Dude, opportunity is available to all and has been for quite a while now. So, what's wrong with the Left and the lack of opportunity mainly pertaining to them these days? The American left seems to be doing about as good as the American right these days. So, what's wrong with the Left? You're on the Left. So, what's going on with the Left? Why is the Left so fucked up and immoral and so into radical Marxism these days? I mean wasn't the complete destruction of Nazi Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union enough to teach the higher educated to ignore or stay away from getting involved with Marxism and the Left all together.

The Left is not into radical Marxism these days.

The Nazis are on your side of the table.

Opportunity has diminished in America. Economic and social mobility has declined under Reaganomics.

Quote:Do you know what I did today? I had a discussion with a long time Democratic voter/ fellow American and avid CNN watcher for many years who is now on board with the American right and no longer emotionally attached to the Democratic party. Yes, the Left's war with America has created some deep wounds that will never heal and some scars that will never go away and pretty much created a natural divide that's damn near impossible to overcome without a miracle. So, I guess we'll see which side is right and comes out on top in the long run. Personally, I don't see the Left being able to overcome all the losses that we inflict and I don't see the losses that we take in the short term as things are being settled with the Left mattering that much in the long term. Like I've said, I think the entire American right has been pretty tolerant and relatively non violent so far compared to the Left. The way I see it, if you prefer to be governed by hardened criminals and prefer to be largely influenced by angry mobs and spend what's left of your life trying to survive in a lawless world that's fine with me. It's a major step back to me but if you view it as progress and progressive that's fine with me too.

We are now being governed by a hardened criminal, and you don't seem to mind so much.

Your definition of "American" remains vague. My theory remains intact that for you it just means the status quo and traditional values.

[pbrower2a]

(06-20-2020, 06:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Boy are you way off track with the your understanding of the RW, 2nd Amendment folks and what it is that gets them all up in arms these days? Nope, they're weren't your typical light security mall cops like the liberal Democrats seem prefer and want to replace most of our city cops with these days.

It will be adequate to remove the bad cops. 

Quote:Those were our kind of our RW cops that a couple of your LW radicals gunned down in cold blood that caught the attention of the FBI who as we know as concerned about stepping up and doing the job that liberal Democrats either willingly refuse to do or afraid to do due to their relatively close political ties with the Left these day or fears of their cozy blue being basically over run and looted those we seen on TV.

Once someone guns down a police officer in cold blood, political orientations of the killer and the police officer become irrelevant. 

Quote:Right now, the American right is still recognized as being the authority and the upholders of American law and defenders of the US Constitution, American establishment and all its people/citizens and it's government.

Not in "Blue" America, where prosecutors and police chiefs are often Democrats. 

Quote:In all the years of of us posting, I've rarely seen an American view, an American position or an understanding or an acceptance or an embrace of American values and the American way of life.

Some of us have different ideas on what it means to be an American. Ethnicity, religion, class, party, region? It does not matter. I'm not going to use stereotypes to show you what all can consider itself "American".

Quote:Whether we split or go to war and  take part in a major bloodbath is largely on the Democrats ability to keep the peace and resolve their major problems.

When Donald Trump is off the scene, then the responsibility will be upon Democrats. Electins have consequences, and performance in office matters greatly. 

Quote:You don't speak for me or  the American government. You speak for yourself, the Left and the kind of government that the Left prefers to have instead of ours and once that becomes apparent to most Americans these days, the more we are going see more of what we've seen taking place (the spirals of large scale violence) in blue cities since Obama entered his second term in office and tried to move America backwards to a time when the big government related Democrats/ the old social conservative Democrats  pretty much called the shots.

... and how are you more American than someone who considers himself or herself American despite looking unlike you, praying in a way much unlike you, having a surname that you cannot pronounce, having a disability, being different in politics from you, or having a different sex life?

A bad society excludes. A good one includes.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-26-2020, 01:53 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Dude, opportunity is available to all and has been for quite a while now. So, what's wrong with the Left and the lack of opportunity mainly pertaining to them these days? The American left seems to be doing about as good as the American right these days.

The division of wealth has never been higher.  Jobs have been shipped overseas.  Younger people are often great in debt.  If you live in a fantasy dream, there isn't much to prevent you from spouting absurdities.

(06-26-2020, 01:53 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Why is the Left so fucked up and immoral and so into radical Marxism these days? I mean wasn't the complete destruction of Nazi Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union enough to teach the higher educated to ignore or stay away from getting involved with Marxism and the Left all together.

Such as the above.  First, Nazi Germany was not a big fan of the Soviet Union.  I would think a regular at a history web site would know that, would not show his obvious ignorance so blatantly.  Second, Marxism is dead except to the extent that reds keep it alive in their delusions.  It is easier to rant against their obsessions than to deal with the real world.  Even the Chinese Communist Party works hand in hand with capitalist these days.  

A real complaint please?  Something that has something to do with reality?  Enough of your dream world?

[pbrower2a]

(06-23-2020, 10:41 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't have the right to destroy public or private property that upsets me or the right to rob people and loot stores or the to block off/shut down a freeway system and so forth like other law abiding people who live in this country. I don't have a problem with free speech or a problem with peaceful protests or a problem watching a bunch of Democratic women walking around and looking silly with pink vaginas hats on their heads and acting like all their American rights were taken away or acting like they're all some how or another being oppressed.

Nobody is asking for the right to destroy public or private property. Tearing down the statues of people associated with a discredited regime 




The statue was of Josef Stalin...this is Hungary in 1956... all that remains is his boots. I think we can all excuse that, can't we? It's hard to determine whether the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was "left" or "right"

Likewise this:

 

Technically this too is the destruction of  public property. The statue being destroyed is of Satan Hussein, who ironically admired Stalin as a model of how to organize society. 

Quote:You (taramarie) don't seem to know much about the US or the growing political divide here. Covid19 didn't bring us together and the latest thingy that happened in my state isn't going to bring us together after (what) went on during and afterwards and is still going on in some places today's. You see, about half the country are done with the Left and their Democrats all together, about a quarter of it are stilling clinging to a working class party that no longer exists and about a quarter of it are done with the country, hate the countr  for whatever reason and want to destroy it and start over from scratch. It's not racism that's dividing us these days.

The political divide has been going on for some time, and the Hard Right has largely created and stoked it. The Hard Right has practically destroyed the more humanistic conservatism that most of us used to know if we are old enough. The Hard Right has been playing up ethnic and religious divisions in an effort to divide the working classes so that there be no meaningful and effective opposition to the imposition of a pure plutocracy that well serves entrenched elites and exploits everyone else. 

If one is black one has every right to see Confederate military and political leaders as unmitigated evil. Maybe not as evil as Nazis who came close to annihilating people for a religious heritage... take note that Nazi-era statues of Nazi political figures were demolished and often disposed of in trash heaps along with the rubble of war after the Allied liberation of a German city or town. 

We are of course free to loathe those people who in economic or political power see the rest of Humanity, including fellow Americans, solely as the means of achieving their power, indulgence, and gain. Economic inequality to the extent that it encourages people to develop and use valuable skills, adapt to market realities, eschew waste, and of course do productive work, is necessary for the smooth functioning of capitalism. If solely to enrich and pamper a corrupt and cruel elite, then such inequality is destructive of human qualities. 

Capitalism without human values is as vile as feudalism, fascism, and Commie rule. 

Quote:I (patronizing treatment of submissive blacks while endorsing police brutality, complete with profanity)  In America, white cops killing black dudes makes big drama and increases rating. It's funny, in the liberal world, blacks can kill each other by the thousands and abort each other by the millions but if a white cop happens to kill one we all have to know about it and the world has to know about it too. But, we don't know or hear a damn thing when a Hispanic cop or an Asian cop or a black cop kills one them. one of their own  or one of us or a criminal kills a cop. As far as violence, I will resort to violence like most people and I've made that clear to liberals with dreams of grandeur that include fundamentally changing the United States.

Should fugitives try to shoot it out with police and get killed, then nobody cares about the identity of the crooks. Contrary to your myth, cop killers have no support in any community (aside from the misguided sympathy for Mumia abu-Jamal.... but he has done much of the cheerleading on his behalf, and prominent people have lapped it up. 

We liberals do not want violence. We want resolution in favor of justice and equity. Donald Trump is an intransigent barrier to such, and he goes down on November 3. Take heed, Classic X'er; your state will disappoint you as a quick call for Joe Biden.

[Bob Butler 54]

OK. Former VP Dick Cheney reportedly switched parties to promote wearing a mask.

Do we want him?

Do I have to register as a Republican now?

[pbrower2a]

Gee, this thread suddenly got quiet. didn't it? Maybe the defense of monuments to Confederate leaders is beginning to look about as pointless as the defense of Commies and fascists.

Just think of what a statue of Jefferson Davis, let alone Nathan Bedford Forrest, means to some black child in the South... yes, these are the heroes. These people fought to keep your fourth-great-grandparents (the black ones, at least) in bondage.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-27-2020, 10:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We liberals do not want violence. We want resolution in favor of justice and equity.

More equity?

[pbrower2a]

(06-27-2020, 09:59 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-27-2020, 10:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We liberals do not want violence. We want resolution in favor of justice and equity.

More equity?  

Economic equality is a pipe dream, but we certainly need to end poverty. We just can't afford it!

[Classic-Xer]

(06-27-2020, 05:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Such as the above.  First, Nazi Germany was not a big fan of the Soviet Union.  I would think a regular at a history web site would know that, would not show his obvious ignorance so blatantly.  Second, Marxism is dead except to the extent that reds keep it alive in their delusions.  It is easier to rant against their obsessions than to deal with the real world.  Even the Chinese Communist Party works hand in hand with capitalist these days.  

A real complaint please?  Something that has something to do with reality?  Enough of your dream world?

Nope. The Fascists weren't fans of their Communist rivals. If Marxism is dead, then why are we watching so many of them tearing down statues us famous Americans associated with our history. Are you deaf, dumb and blind? Deaf, dumb and blind is the only acceptable excuse that you and others have right now. So Bob, if your Marxist nuts start terrorizing and oppressing southern Americans what do you think is going to start happening to liberal clowns in the American north. America is a big country that has a lot of American people who know the difference between them and what they stand for and the naive movie stars, the musicians, liberal pop culture folks, liberal posters/support like PB and the quasi socialists/Marxists who are attacking them now in areas where they can get away with it. Like I said, you better wise up and take a big breath because there is an American onslaught that's building right now and a lowering of tolerance that will be coming your way soon.

Eric keeps asking me to explain the difference between he and I, the Marxist who happens to live in America and the American, Marxist belief and American belief, Marxist values and American values and so forth. Right now, Marxist Minneapolis is surrounded by Americans. Do you want to know the difference between Minneapolis and St Paul. One is the state capital and the other isn't and therefore expendable. I don't know what the bend over, bow down, sway with the political wind corporate elites and political elites associated with DC and the northeast are going to do when America decides that they're not going to pay for their products or their tickets or their stadiums or their condo's or their trains or their bailouts and accept temporary losses and inconveniences and financial implosions and violence for the greater good of America and the American future like their ancestors did four score and seven years ago. You preach a lot, you talk a lot, you promote you're spin of history, you promote your spin of theory and you do and say whatever you can to exclude yourself from the Marxist age mess that we can clearly see today.