The Latest Potentially-Explosive Racially-Charged Murder

[Gaius Octavius]

Dunno, the GOP is screwed demographically. In 20 years, you could see that data turn on its head and the GOP struggling to be a relevant party. Dems may hate the EC now, but it is a double-edged sword. Dems are on a clear track towards directly benefitting from the Electoral College in the coming years.

The popular vote thing is an issue, and it makes it more difficult to predict the outcome. It is difficult to say "We shouldn't have mob rule because of the constitution" when we rig the Electoral College in the first place. The current system is an abomination and not working as intended.

The GOP keeps letting its voter base (primarily older voters) die from COVID, effectively castrating itself in the longer-term.

We are at an inflection point where the political direction of this country will change radically over the next 10-20 years due to demographics, and that trend does NOT favor Republicans at all. By refusing to work with Democrats, they are signing their own death warrant. Victories in the SCOTUS will be very short-sighted and not lasting. Old GOP senators may benefit from their base, but when they die, the younger politicians are fucked.

edit:

Just to give you an idea of the demographic trends taking a real effect on the electoral map, you only have to look at Texas. Texas is very clearly starting to turn purple, and the GOP cannot win elections for president without that state.

The Trumpist pandering to white working class voters in the Rust Belt is very easy for the Democratic Party to solve. Just return to a focus on working class Americans. You can have both social justice issues AND working class issues.

What does the GOP have to offer younger voters? Nothing that they care about. Older voters will vote for the GOP out of fear due to rapid change, but that does not help the GOP when older voters die.

The GOP platform is about as popular as "Race Mixing is Communism" from the segregationist era.

[Gaius Octavius]

I can go to rural town, USA, and all I see are older people. They aren't in the best health, either. In fact, it is well known that rural America is in a health crisis. This means they will die out.

400 lb diabetics chugging Coca-Cola and Mountain Dew, having their toes amputated due to diabetic foot. Heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure, etc. 30-40 year olds without any teeth at all due to poor dental hygiene and lack of dental care due to no insurance.

Democrat voters = more educated, younger, and from immigrant backgrounds
Republican voters = less educated, older, and from white backgrounds

As demographics shift towards whites being a racial minority group in 40 years, education becoming more widespread, and older voters dying out, what exactly do you expect to happen?

[sgt.null]

ur - you a elitist prig. I get that, but young idealists grow up and get good jobs. Get married. Buy houses. Raise families.

and then they start voting in ways that benefit them. The democrats want to give healthcare to illegals. Free college to grifters. Democrats want to take insurance away from those who work for it and give it to those who won't work. Democrats want pie in the sky solutions that fail. Democrats want socialism while people in Venezuela are eating their dogs. Democrats want to defund the police. Empty our prisons. Take away our guns. Burn our cities down. Republicans want to be safe at night.

I know that voting for democrats is appealing for the lazy. Those who don't want to earn their way.

[Gaius Octavius]

Dunno, I think voting for the GOP is for the lazy. It's for people who are either too stupid to think critically or people who want others to think for them. It's also for the rich who can benefit from GOP tax cuts (not so much benefiting regular Americans).

It is no coincidence that so many white voters for Trump are poor and uneducated. If you watch Trump rallies, you can tell that many of his followers are the lowest common denominator who will hoot and holler whenever Trump tells them to. If Trump tells them to take their hat off and wave it around in the air, they will do that as well. I have literally seen them do that.

Soulless, braindead voters can find special comfort in the GOP's message. Tell people to be scared and vote for them, beware the young brown man who wants to rape their daughters. Beware the Muslims and everyone else. People eat that shit up.

As for maturing over time and coming into a certain voting pattern, I agree with that. However, from my experience it does not work out the way you suggest. I have found that with more education, I have been drawn more to the Democrats than the Republicans. The older I get, the more I find Democrats' arguments to be superior.

[Gaius Octavius]

The sad reality is that Republican policies are contributing directly to the rural health crisis in the US. Republican voters themselves are more affected by it than Democrat voters. They don't get the healthcare they need, and it shows.

Keep killing your own voters, and you will reap what you have sown.

[sgt.null]

ur - the tax cut. You are wrong, but I suspect you know that.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this- ... 2020-03-03

"with some of the sharpest drops clustered among taxpayers earning between $25,000 and $100,000 a year"

Market Watch used data from the IRS.

Please provide a quote from any Republican in office telling voters to beware brown men raping their women.

But Democrats did use that threat during Jim Crow. Jim Crow being the laws passed by Democrats to punish the newly freed black slaves. The slaves freed by Republicans going to war to stop the practice.
https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/brute/

Your covid lies assumption...
https://fee.org/articles/blue-states-ha ... id-19-why/

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The Republican Party in Texas is increasingly black and Hispanic, as they realize that Democrats have done absolutely nothing for them for decades. Hispanics will be the majority here in about 5 years. We are already living the future here and the future looks okay.

[Gaius Octavius]

Hispanic as in Mexican-Americans? Trump has done everything in his power to piss that demographic off. That's why he has poor support among Hispanics in Arizona, and why it's very likely that Biden will flip that state. Last I heard, he was 9 points ahead in a reputable poll.

He has something like single-digits favorability among Mexican nationals, and many Hispanics living in Texas have family in Mexico. They often share the same kind of attitudes.

Before you say that Trump has been doing relatively well among Latinos in Florida, keep in mind that that demographic is heavily influenced by Cuban-Americans, who are strongly conservative to begin with. He's doing well with certain Latino groups, but he's doing very poorly with the ones that matter in states that border Mexico.

Black Republicans? You have a few, but nowhere near the 90% black support that Dems have.

If "the future looks okay" for Republicans in Texas, then why are Biden and Trump in a statistical tie in the polls? This is a state that would normally be a stronghold for Republicans, yet it is turning purple in the election. How can you look at that and think "Well that looks just fine and dandy to me as a Republican?" You know what I see? A blue state in 20 years.

[TheFallen]

Nano, as I said and as Sarge has since pointed out too, I doubt there's a demographic inevitability just about to head over the hill - and certainly not one that's age-related.

The following is a very sweeping generalisation, yet nonetheless largely true.

Younger voters are more idealistic (or more naive, if one wants to be negative about it)

Younger voters are more in favour of change (or more radical, if one wants to be negative about it)

Older voters are more realistic (or more cynical, if one wants to be negative about it)

Older voters are more in favour of the status quo (or more reactionary, if one wants to be negative about it)

But younger voters always (duh!) gradually become older voters, and as they do, their voting tendencies are liable to shift. The conveyor belt never stops moving, making younger voters older as time goes by (until they eventually drop off the end), while simultaneously bringing a never-ending fresh crop of dewy-eyed idealists into the start of the process.

Sure, this won't be true for all cases, but in general it's in my very firm opinion true.

Ans what gives greatest credence to the existence of such an unavoidable paradigm? The last 50 years, that's what. Despite the very high profile emergence at the start of this period of a far more liberal (with a small "L") culture, peace protesters, flower power, hippies etc etc... of the nine presidents sitting within this period, six have been Pubs and three have been Dems.

So what happened to all those young and fervent social activists who were marching and protesting in the late 60s and early 70s? How come we've not had a wall of pretty much solidly blue POTUSes ever since? Because those young idealistic voters got older, that's what. And as they did, their world views, their politics and thus their voting tendencies changed.

[sgt.null]

Ur - Hashi and I live in Texas. Hashi is involved in politics on a local level here. I don't know about him but I work with a lot of Hispanics, I'm proud to call many friends. And they tend to skew conservative. Most are Catholic. So anti-abortion. Most are against illegals. Most are very pro-gun.

As I've tried to tell you, the big cities are liberal. The rest of Texas is not. Are biggest industries include oil, chemical plants and cattle. Not a lot if liberals there. Lots of prisons and lots of law enforcement. Not a lot of liberals there either.

[Avatar]

ur - you a elitist prig.

Sarge, that's not acceptable. Not only are we supposed to be trying to behave ourselves better toward each other, but flat-out name calling has always been against the rules.

Please don't make me ask you again to dial it back.

--A

[TheFallen]

ur - you a elitist prig.

Sarge, that's not acceptable. Not only are we supposed to be trying to behave ourselves better toward each other, but flat-out name calling has always been against the rules.

Please don't make me ask you again to dial it back.

--A

Two things...

Firstly, "elitist prig" is hardly the worst of epithets. Are we really going to demand the splitting of hairs and insist on the double-speak tautology of "Ur, you're being both supercilious and sanctimonious" or "Ur, you're coming across as both etc etc" - which let's face are to all intents and purposes exactly the same thing.

(Oh and NB for the record, I'm not concurring with Sarge's chosen description of Nano here... I'm merely using the current example in play).

Secondly, I would more than justifiably say that calling anyone a liar and/or a racist is a whole order of magnitude worse. So if you're going to go down this road of standards imposition, Av, you'd better make sure you don't include any double ones.

[Avatar]

True enough, but I can only call the ones I see or which are brought to my attention.

I'm really not worried about how bad an epithet is right now...seems that's part of the slippery slope that may have started us down this road..."oh, it's ok to call somebody X but not Y." And like I said, the rules specifically say no name-calling.

That said, as a linguist I am surprised that you consider you are" and "you're coming across as" interchangeable.

One is a statement of (alleged) "fact" while the other speaks to our perception of a person's words / actions, which may be (and usually is) separate from the person's intent.

It's an "I" statement, not a "You" statement, and to me there is a clear difference.

Same way that "I don't think that claim you made is true" is quite different from "You're a liar." Surely you see a distinction?

One is a personal value judgement of the speaker, the other addresses the content of their statement in a way which is not alienating and invites further dialogue.

Nor, in that spirit of dialogue, does making a racist statement for example inevitably mean the person is a racist per se. And certainly not that they are conscious of being one...who in this day and age wants to think that about themselves?

(This goes back to earlier comments about, for example, white people being upset when all whites are lumped together as racists, because even people who make remarks which are racist do not see themselves as being so.)

And indeed, I recently saw an interesting paper that seems germane: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12378

The notion of defensiveness in response to moral failure or unethical behaviour is reflected in a range of psychological and sociological concepts such as neutralization (Sykes &Matza, 1957), moral disengagement (Bandura, 1999, 2016), shame displacement (Ahmed, Harris, Braithwaite, & Braithwaite, 2001), reduction in ethical dissonance (Barkan, Ayal, Gino, & Ariely, 2012), and self-exoneration (Cornish, Woodyatt, Morris, Conroy & Townsdin, 2018).

The long and the short of it is that we mustn't call each other names, for all sorts of reasons, but mainly because it's against the rules & I hate having to ask people constantly to treat each other better, especially when it's not that hard if we simply put a moment's thought into what we have said before hitting the "submit" button.

If somebody calls you a name, remind them that this is the case, don't call them one back. Life is too short guys.

--A

[wayfriend]

Sarge, "you have become as bad as WF. You no longer serve any useful purpose."

[TheFallen]

Av, sure I get the difference - and I deliberately stretched the example to make my point - but in my view it goes towards unnecessary and frankly disingenuous doublespeak. Which is precisely what my second "You're coming across as..." example was intended to show.

Much like it being actionable (by suspension) for a UK member of parliament to call another one a liar (no matter how provably true), but fine for him to use the phrase "economical with the truth".

I doubt anyone would be impressed if for example I came up with the following:-

"<InsertNameHere> with respect and in my opinion only, you're coming across as a self-radicalised moron, whose self-congratulating and overweeningly arrogant sense of moral and ideological superiority combined with a nigh-on manic desire to compulsively virtue signal at every conceivable opportunity has caused you to lose your already tenuous hold on reality.

Again with respect and in my opinion only, to me your perceptible litany of never-ending and utterly unjustifiable accusations seemingly fired off at anyone disagreeing with your swivel-eyed zealotry makes you appear to have no more worth or relevance than something I'd be best scraping off the sole of my shoe.

Have a nice day now and all best wishes."

That all good, yeah?

[Avatar]

Nope. Far too many pejoratives etc. That's not addressing a statement by somebody, it's telling them your opinion of them as a person, not addressing something specific they've said.

We can't deal with people's personalities or assumed intentions or anything like that here. Only with what they actually say.

--A

[sgt.null]

Sarge, "you have become as bad as WF. You no longer serve any useful purpose."

Disprove.

[TheFallen]

Nope. Far too many pejoratives etc. That's not addressing a statement by somebody, it's telling them your opinion of them as a person, not addressing something specific they've said.

We can't deal with people's personalities or assumed intentions or anything like that here. Only with what they actually say.

--A

You don't say...

I'm deciding whether I can be bothered to be a petty asshole and complain about very recent accusations of trolling for outrage, hypocrisy and not being "decent" as levelled against me by another poster (gee, wonder who that could possibly be?) in an alternative thread (I'm sure you'll know the one) - especially in the light of your final paragraph above. I mean the whole basis for these libels is because said poster a) wilfully misrepresents everything I post and b) apparently intimately knows my thoughts, beliefs and motivations...

...but actually I seriously don't give a flying fuck. I've never seen any worth in artificial outrage - and also I worked out a long time ago that the opinions of those I have zero respect for are utterly meaningless.

(Count yourself lucky, Av... but keep an eye out for those double standards now, wontcha? )

[sgt.null]

Louisville preparing for Grand Jury decision on Breonna Taylor. If the democrats / blm / antifa / anarchists / socialists don't get they want more rioting / arsoning / looting / assaulting / murdering.

Or what the leftists here call peaceful protests.

[Gaius Octavius]

Ur - Hashi and I live in Texas. Hashi is involved in politics on a local level here. I don't know about him but I work with a lot of Hispanics, I'm proud to call many friends. And they tend to skew conservative. Most are Catholic. So anti-abortion. Most are against illegals. Most are very pro-gun.

As I've tried to tell you, the big cities are liberal. The rest of Texas is not. Are biggest industries include oil, chemical plants and cattle. Not a lot if liberals there. Lots of prisons and lots of law enforcement. Not a lot of liberals there either.

In VA, the population centers are heavily liberal while the rural areas are heavily conservative. Yet it is a blue state.

Hispanics and Catholicism, you bring up an interesting point... They may very well be pro-life and conservative on many issues...However keep in mind that the Catholic Church itself is critical of Trump's policies in general. Trump's immigration policies are something that especially draws the ire of the Catholic church, and they are typical of the GOP as a whole not just Trump.

Anyway, someone like Biden has a double digit lead among Catholics, and Biden is left-of-center (more of a moderate than a full-blown progressive...more of a "soft" liberal...slightly conservative).

Moderate Democrats could easily get the Catholic vote. I don't see that as being a benefit to the GOP. Catholics aren't like Evangelicals at all. They could go either way, but the Church has a huge influence over their voting decisions, and the Church is basically anti-Trump. The pope said that Trump wasn't even a Christian.

Your post kind of proves my point. Liberal population centers will make the state turn blue over time because they have more electoral power than rural areas. Catholics may be socially conservative on many issues, but they will still lean Democrat or at least go either way.

Muslims are arguably far more socially conservative than other religious groups, yet they still vote blue. I've asked Muslims why they vote blue when they are conservative, and they just say that they believe that Democrats are better even if they disagree with them on LGBT issues, abortion, etc. They disagree with the GOP pandering to Israel as well.