Was Hillary Clinton Right About the Deplorables?

[Edge-]

You see if you have missed anything, and re-asses and try again.

Is there a stopping point where you realize your efforts are futile? Or is it on literally everyone else to treat increasingly extremist right wing reactionaries with kid gloves for all eternity let we accidentally trigger them?

You should be working towards winning, not futile symbolic victories.

And you can do that while correctly calling out extremists.

Hillary Clinton allegedly claims that using the phrase helped her lose and Trump win. Do you question her analysis?

It was a factor, sure. But I'd argue the late re-opening of her case regarding emails by the FBI was a bigger factor. Also Americans voting on "who they like personally" more than voting on platforms and competency, as we clearly saw when Americans elected arguably the least qualified individual to the highest office in the land instead of arguably the most qualified candidate who has ever run for that position.

And since her comment, she's only been proven right time and time again. I'm all for persuading the persuadable voters. But eventually you have to acknowledge that there are some who can't be persuaded, and consequently you stop wasting time on them until they're ready to open up their minds a bit.

[Endus]

Wrong. I wasn't talking about appeasement, but about finding common ground.

In many cases, there is no common ground. If someone's a literal Nazi, there is no "common ground" to be had, and suggesting I find some with a Nazi is, itself, deeply offensive.

Feel free to replace "Nazi" with any other abusive creed, like the KKK or any flavor of ethnonationalism or religious extremism. We can talk about "common ground" when their abuses have been stopped permanently and disavowed by all remaining.

[Forogil]

Is there a stopping point where you realize your efforts are futile? Or is it on literally everyone else to treat increasingly extremist right wing reactionaries with kid gloves for all eternity let we accidentally trigger them?

I didn't say that you should treat them with kid gloves, but pick up those gloves if you find that little league helps you connect.

And you can do that while correctly calling out extremists.

Doubtful - as it mostly entrenches views.

It was a factor, sure.

Exactly - so was it worth the symbolic victory? Or would it have been better to not call out extremists and be more likely to actually win?

[Ghost of Cow]

In many cases, there is no common ground. If someone's a literal Nazi, there is no "common ground" to be had, and suggesting I find some with a Nazi is, itself, deeply offensive.

Feel free to replace "Nazi" with any other abusive creed, like the KKK or any flavor of ethnonationalism or religious extremism. We can talk about "common ground" when their abuses have been stopped permanently and disavowed by all remaining.

But see, this is where someone has to ask...then what's your plan? I would remind you that you're not talking about a foreign power or someone we can go to war with.

You've decided that half the nation are "Nazis" and that you cannot deal with them. So...now what? What do you want to do from there? What's your plan for the future if you just say that half (Or 40% whatever) of US citizens are irredeemable Nazis?

[Endus]

But see, this is where someone has to ask...then what's your plan? I would remind you that you're not talking about a foreign power or someone we can go to war with.

You've decided that half the nation are "Nazis" and that you cannot deal with them. So...now what? What do you want to do from there? What's your plan for the future if you just say that half (Or 40% whatever) of US citizens are irredeemable Nazis?

Time. That's the plan. They'll die off, and their kids are increasingly progressive.

Sure, it's possible they're a large enough bloc they can seize democratic control, but if that's the case, that's how the country as you know it ends. Which happens. Modern Germany isn't the Weimar Republic, after all. I'm not proposing pre-emptive action to forestall this, or something, if that's what you're driving at. I don't need to have a "plan" on how to deal with the existence of people whose views I find untenable.

In the interim, I'm perfectly satisfied exposing their malice publicly, to invite ridicule and mockery and opposition. That's a perfectly serviceable "plan". Why would we need anything further?

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Doubtful - as it mostly entrenches views.

Calling out extremists isn't intended to change the extremists. It's meant to marginalize and ostracize them.

[Levelfive]

Wrong. I wasn't talking about appeasement, but about finding common ground.

MAGA Republicans are welcome to make that effort at any time.

Hillary Clinton allegedly claims that using the phrase helped her lose and Trump win. Do you question her analysis?

Yes. Republicans and conservative Democrats were never going to vote for Hillary Clinton.

[Cthulhu 2020]

If we're talking on the national scale, that's the approach Neville Chamberlain pushed for with appeasement.

Ask France how that worked out for everyone.



Why? Because the deplorables might get angry enough to get violent?

If it's because it bothers them, their positions involve far more abusive attacks on innocents, so they can put up with being correctly and properly described until they voluntarily stop being abusive dickweeds to innocent people. You seem to be ignoring that this is all a response to pre-existing malicious conduct and abuse by these individuals. Calling them "deplorable" isn't firing the first rhetorical shot.

Let's not forget that even Orwell wrote about how "pacifism" in the face of fascism is just enabling fascism.

https://matiane.wordpress.com/2019/1...george-orwell/

Seems like a "no duh" moment, but so many people believe that just rolling over and attempting to appease fascists will make their violent and hateful world views go away.

Hint: It won't.

Fascism has to be snuffed out.

Picking up the little league gloves and playing baseball with them isn't magically going to make their violent and hateful ideology go away. It may make one another less hostile towards the other, but as we've seen the right isn't into compromise. They preach compromise, then demand the left "compromise" by giving them everything they want.

[Ghost of Cow]

Time. That's the plan. They'll die off, and their kids are increasingly progressive.

Sure, it's possible they're a large enough bloc they can seize democratic control, but if that's the case, that's how the country as you know it ends. Which happens. Modern Germany isn't the Weimar Republic, after all. I'm not proposing pre-emptive action to forestall this, or something, if that's what you're driving at. I don't need to have a "plan" on how to deal with the existence of people whose views I find untenable.

In the interim, I'm perfectly satisfied exposing their malice publicly, to invite ridicule and mockery and opposition. That's a perfectly serviceable "plan". Why would we need anything further?

So "do nothing" which is somehow better than discourse or anything else.

[Edge-]

So "do nothing" which is somehow better than discourse or anything else.

What other alternatives do you think exist that haven't been explored?

[Endus]

Let's not forget that even Orwell wrote about how "pacifism" in the face of fascism is just enabling fascism.

https://matiane.wordpress.com/2019/1...george-orwell/

Seems like a "no duh" moment, but so many people believe that just rolling over and attempting to appease fascists will make their violent and hateful world views go away.

Hint: It won't.

Fascism has to be snuffed out.

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of State-level programs to purge fascism violently, in the sense of execution.

But State-level violence in terms of criminalization of certain abusive actions, like spreading hate propaganda, sure. That "violence" is just law enforcement, like it is with literally every other crime. That's what the "State monopoly on violence" means, for those who don't get that; it isn't that violence is "bad", it's that the State is the only one entitled to institutional practices of violence, like law enforcement.

And on a personal level, punching a fucking Nazi in the face is the kind of thing that shouldn't even be prosecuted. See a swastika armband and it's not Halloween, and you should be permitted to defend yourself violently against the genocide they are explicitly advocating by wearing that garb or pushing that rhetoric. It's self-defense.

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So "do nothing" which is somehow better than discourse or anything else.

Like I said above; I'm uncomfortable with State doctrines that go further than the kind of hate speech laws we already have in Canada. They push too close to the same villainy that fascism touts for comfort. I don't see that such methods are ever justifiable.

But there's a lot of room around that. Plus, you seem to have completely skipped the last paragraph you quoted, for some reason. If free speech and ridicule weren't so effective at suppressing and marginalizing fascism, fascists wouldn't oppose free speech so strongly. It's hard to pull the "macho defender of all that's good and right" when people are pointing out how tiny and pathetic your little fascist weiner is.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I'm uncomfortable with the idea of State-level programs to purge fascism violently, in the sense of execution.

But State-level violence in terms of criminalization of certain abusive actions, like spreading hate propaganda, sure. That "violence" is just law enforcement, like it is with literally every other crime. That's what the "State monopoly on violence" means, for those who don't get that; it isn't that violence is "bad", it's that the State is the only one entitled to institutional practices of violence, like law enforcement.

And on a personal level, punching a fucking Nazi in the face is the kind of thing that shouldn't even be prosecuted. See a swastika armband and it's not Halloween, and you should be permitted to defend yourself violently against the genocide they are explicitly advocating by wearing that garb or pushing that rhetoric. It's self-defense.

I'm not advocating for state level violence. But it needs to be made harshly clear that hateful and violent ideology are not welcome in public discourse. There is no "compromise" with the kinds of people who refuse leases to minorities and call immigrants rapists.

[Ghost of Cow]

What other alternatives do you think exist that haven't been explored?

I don't know the one right answer, naturally. Clearly no one does.

It's just that I don't see how, "40% of the nation is awful and I don't think anyone should talk with them, reason with them, or try to expose better ideas and concepts." (Which has historically worked.)

And don't lecture me on appeasement, because "do nothing" isn't any better. I'm not saying to appease anyone anyway, I'm saying to try to educate. Like with abortion, we're actually seeing people in real time come to the realization that it's not about killing babes to power electric plants. That these policies actually do harm real people. Getting the ideas out in the air, bringing them to the people that need them, this actually works.

[Endus]

I don't know the one right answer, naturally. Clearly no one does.

It's just that I don't see how, "40% of the nation is awful and I don't think anyone should talk with them, reason with them, or try to expose better ideas and concepts." (Which has historically worked.)

Dude, no it hasn't.

The rise of abolitionism in the USA led inexorably to one of the bloodiest civil wars in global history, because the racist slavers didn't want to give up their abuses.
The rise of civil rights in the USA was similarly, inexorably violent. Martin Luther King Jr. came to terms, later in his career, that he movement wouldn't have had any chance of succeeding without the violence pushed by the likes of Malcolm X; his rhetoric would have fallen on deaf ears without that threat looming behind him.
Abortion, come the fuck on, we've had abortion clinic bombings, doctors murdered, and that shit's starting up again with a fervor in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned. And that's without acknowledging the State-sponsored violence against women that anti-abortion laws are. We've had 50 years, and Roe v. Wade's step forward has been more than reversed. So much for rhetoric and letting people "come to the realization".

You seem far too willing to ignore the very real violent consequences behind every civil rights movement, and how violence has fundamentally been needed in nearly every instance to shift the needle, even temporarily.

[Edge-]

It's just that I don't see how, "40% of the nation is awful and I don't think anyone should talk with them, reason with them, or try to expose better ideas and concepts." (Which has historically worked.)

Which has historically not worked in the US, hence why we're literally in this position.

I'm not saying to appease anyone anyway, I'm saying to try to educate.

Education requires willing pupils.

Like with abortion, we're actually seeing people in real time come to the realization that it's not about killing babes to power electric plants.

That's a gross misread of what's happened on that topic lately, which is a reflection of how grossly out-of-step with the mainstream that extremist Republicans are. And have been, for years, as there's years of polling backing up their extremist positions as deeply unpopular, often even amongst their own party.

That these policies actually do harm real people.

Honestly, the only effective "education" on this topic is largely when Republicans are personally involved in the issue through a family member. And even then it's fairly spotty - see the Rep. that voted against protecting gay marriage and then went to his gay sons wedding.

Remember those horror stories about the 10 year old girl who was raped and had to travel for an abortion? Republicans still refuse to engage with that reality. The stories about the women forced to carry dangerous pregnancies? They didn't change minds, and we saw Republicans similarly doubling down on, "Giving birth to the child of your rapist is a great way to begin the healing process."

So no, I don't buy what you're saying in the slightest. In any way, shape, or form.

Getting the ideas out in the air, bringing them to the people that need them, this actually works.

Honestly the whole notion of the "marketplace of ideas" is fairly bunk given that it doesn't actually exist, nor are ideas "winning" or "losing" based on their merits. They're "winning" or "losing" based on how effective algorithms are at directing people towards their interests and then feeding them content that reinforces their views to maximize their time on whatever platform they're on.

[Ghost of Cow]

Dude, no it hasn't.

The rise of abolitionism in the USA led inexorably to one of the bloodiest civil wars in global history, because the racist slavers didn't want to give up their abuses.
The rise of civil rights in the USA was similarly, inexorably violent. Martin Luther King Jr. came to terms, later in his career, that he movement wouldn't have had any chance of succeeding without the violence pushed by the likes of Malcolm X; his rhetoric would have fallen on deaf ears without that threat looming behind him.
Abortion, come the fuck on, we've had abortion clinic bombings, doctors murdered, and that shit's starting up again with a fervor in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned. And that's without acknowledging the State-sponsored violence against women that anti-abortion laws are. We've had 50 years, and Roe v. Wade's step forward has been more than reversed. So much for rhetoric and letting people "come to the realization".

You seem far too willing to ignore the very real violent consequences behind every civil rights movement, and how violence has fundamentally been needed in nearly every instance to shift the needle, even temporarily.

Ok, continue to lecture others on courses of action, Mr. Just Don't Do Anything.

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Which has historically not worked in the US, hence why we're literally in this position.

Education requires willing pupils.

That's a gross misread of what's happened on that topic lately, which is a reflection of how grossly out-of-step with the mainstream that extremist Republicans are. And have been, for years, as there's years of polling backing up their extremist positions as deeply unpopular, often even amongst their own party.

Honestly, the only effective "education" on this topic is largely when Republicans are personally involved in the issue through a family member. And even then it's fairly spotty - see the Rep. that voted against protecting gay marriage and then went to his gay sons wedding.

Remember those horror stories about the 10 year old girl who was raped and had to travel for an abortion? Republicans still refuse to engage with that reality. The stories about the women forced to carry dangerous pregnancies? They didn't change minds, and we saw Republicans similarly doubling down on, "Giving birth to the child of your rapist is a great way to begin the healing process."

So no, I don't buy what you're saying in the slightest. In any way, shape, or form.

Honestly the whole notion of the "marketplace of ideas" is fairly bunk given that it doesn't actually exist, nor are ideas "winning" or "losing" based on their merits. They're "winning" or "losing" based on how effective algorithms are at directing people towards their interests and then feeding them content that reinforces their views to maximize their time on whatever platform they're on.

I mean, I know people personally who have changed their stance on the topic recently. Just from having the facts about it explained to them. (When most abortions happen, why they happen, typical health issues, etc)

So yeah, you can do that. If nothing else, it's better than the head-in-the-sand approach.

[Endus]

Ok, continue to lecture others on courses of action, Mr. Just Don't Do Anything.

There was a whole lot of "doing something" in what I just listed off, so you're clearly just baiting at this point.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I mean, I know people personally who have changed their stance on the topic recently. Just from having the facts about it explained to them. (When most abortions happen, why they happen, typical health issues, etc)

You seem to be friends with a lot of unicorns.

The consequences of abortion bans and restrictions were explained to conservatives. The vast majority of them still ignore it. The only reason some of them are even giving a micrometer on the issue is because the fallout and the horror resulting from some stories (10 year old rape victim anyone?) are actually managing to reach what little conscience they have. It's not because the consequences were explained to them. It's because the consequences they wrote off as liberal overreaction actually came true.

[Kaleredar]

You seem to be friends with a lot of unicorns.

The consequences of abortion bans and restrictions were explained to conservatives. The vast majority of them still ignore it. The only reason some of them are even giving a micrometer on the issue is because the fallout and the horror resulting from some stories (10 year old rape victim anyone?) are actually managing to reach what little conscience they have. It's not because the consequences were explained to them. It's because the consequences they wrote off as liberal overreaction actually came true.

I wouldn't even give them the benefit of "their conscience" reaching them. More like "turns out robbing women of their bodily autonomy isn't as popular a campaign issue as they believed." So they wouldn't publicly say they support the abortion ban, but they aren't going to do anything to overturn it.

[Dezerte]

It is difficult to find common ground with a person that does not accept reality (i.e. believes in multiple conspiracies that are disprovable). It is difficult when they refuse to look at and/or accept evidence. It is difficult when no matter how much you try to show them, to educate them, they refuse.

And when it comes to shaming, sure - it does not work on everyone, but it works on some people. I also think it's important to be aggressive against these sorts of beliefs and behaviours due to how dangerous they are. We can't necessarily afford to go "easy" on them.

[Forogil]

Time. That's the plan. They'll die off, and their kids are increasingly progressive.

Another bad plan based on false assumptions.

That's not how opinion develop in the US - at least not if you want anything done in less than a century. For instance: since the 1980s the Gallup polls show that support for abortion has been fairly constant, people rejecting human evolution has possibly declined from 44% to 40%; the number in favor of the death penalty went from 60% to 54% (it was 59% back in 1937) - and it peaked in 1953 and again in 1995.

Some opinions do change - but it is not because people die off and are replaced by more progressive ones, but because the general mood changes - like same-sex marriage - more than a third even say they changed their opinions in the polls. That's what happens when people actually engage with others.

It's also similar to another previous bad plan: the idea circulating a few decades back that democrats would soon be winning everything due to the demographic shift.

In the interim, I'm perfectly satisfied exposing their malice publicly, to invite ridicule and mockery and opposition. That's a perfectly serviceable "plan".

Laziness is the proper name.

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It is difficult to find common ground with a person that does not accept reality (i.e. believes in multiple conspiracies that are disprovable).

One of the biggest predictors of people believing in a conspiracy theory is that they believe in other conspiracy theories.