Weekend at Bernie’s for president

I’m super critical of gender. Let’s get rid of all those. Gender vacuum.

First they came for the immigrants

And I did not speak out

Because I’m one of the good ones

Yeah those LIEbrals are always pRoJeCtInG! Probably because they’re fascists.

It’s always projection. They pre-empt criticism by taking whatever words are (rightly) being directed at them or could be used against them in the future and just flipping them around, making them lose their original meaning in the eyes of their adherents.

If you’re actually serious, literally just google voter turnout numbers in texas. Also look at how close some races were and compare that to the nonvoting registered voter population. I’ve seen several analyses of that recently

Here is the TX government record of voter turnout: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml

Here is the TX government reporting of election results: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/presidential.shtml

2020 Presidential: 66% turnout, 52% of the VAP (voting age population) voted. Trump won by 600k votes, 4.5M of VAP was not registered.

2018 Senatorial: 53% turnout, 42% of VAP turned out. Ted “I posted incest porn on twitter on 9/11” Cruz won by 215k, 4.1M of VAP was not registered.

2018 Gubernatorial: 53% turnout, 42% of VAP turned out. Abbott won by 1.1M, 4.1M of VAP was not registered.

2016 Presidential: 59% turnout, 46% of VAP turned out. Trump won by 800k votes, 4.2M of VAP was not registered.

2012 Presidential: 59% turnout, 44% of VAP turned out. Romney won by 1.2M, 4.6M of VAP was not registered.

2008 Presidential: 60% turnout, 46% of VAP turned out. McCain won by 900k, 4.2M of VAP was not registered.

2004 Presidential: 56% turnout, 47% of VAP turned out. Bush won by 1.7M, 3M of VAP was not registered

2000 Presidential: total blowout for Bush, no two ways about it. He might have plunged us in to a 20 year long war and completely ravished innocent civilians in the middle east, but dont you just want to have a beer with the guy?

44% do not care, 27% intended to register but didn’t, 11% are paranoid about voter roles, 9% say it isn’t convenient (and Republicans sure have made it inconvenient), and 6% literally don’t know how to register. From that same article and polling data, 35% of unregistered voters do not believe their vote will affect the political process, and 30% don’t think it’ll change election results. AND 40% of these care who wins political races, but don’t vote.

These races are not close compared to the number of non-registered VAP. Young people are more left-leaning and show up to the polls at shockingly low rates. Minorities are typically more likely to vote Dem, but turn out at lower rates (partially due to disenfranchisement). If the non-voters voted, many races of the past 30+ years would’ve been close or Dem.

I didn’t realize how cheap the big hdds had gotten. Definitely looking into 2 bays.

You might be right. The Synology products look really good. I didn’t see that they actually have a sub-$400 4-bay NAS… DS423. Not sure if it’ll meet my performance needs. But the $600 4 bay doesn’t look too bad either really.

I don’t think he’s ever had a plan - so while that’s his schtick, I don’t think it’s like a smokescreen or anything. He’s just some dumbass who wanted to start a show to interview interesting people and smoke weed. But, when you’re interviewing fringe political figures, racists, snake oil salesmen, etc. you have a journalistic duty that Joe Rogan: dumbass, was not prepared for and didn’t understand. Now he’s in over his head. People take him seriously, and he agrees with some of the crazy people he’s brought on because he’s a dumbass

Oh of course. Never meant to imply otherwise

Should be her version of trump derangement syndrome. For all the crazy critiques leveled at her - they’re just exhibiting symptoms of kamala chaos

Nope. I’m actually being good faith. Genuinely. Check my post history if you want. You can disagree with someone and acknowledge they aren’t arguing in bad faith. Like I think you’re good faith even though you’re coming across with a bunch of ad hominems and stuff, but I think you believe what you’re saying.

And I’m not being condescending. I think people can absolutely understand my point. Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste time trying to communicate it. I’m saying I think people are mischaracterizing my position.

Literally, all I’m saying is: when we make criticisms of the other side, those criticisms are usually stronger in the long run if they’re based on the actual positions they take rather than straw-manned ones. And I think this is a strawmanned critique. That’s my whole point.

The implication is pretty clearly “the immigrants are coming to take your jobs, black people”. Especially when said to a room full of black people. Especially given that that has been standard republican messaging for well over 50 years for all ethnic groups.

That is still racist. It is still manipulative. It is still scummy and bad. It just is pretty clearly not logically equivalent to “immigrants are coming to take the jobs segregated for black people”.

And obviously state of residence is not equivalent to race. It is an example. It is the same logical form of argument. They’ve done the same thing (about race, specifically) to rural white folks since literally the trans-continental railroad, but then about Chinese immigrants mostly. In modern times, the meaning has never been “only x race can have y job”. It has always been about the threat of the outsider (immigrant) “stealing” jobs from non-immigrants as a way of causing an us-vs-them dynamic. That is still a racist dynamic. But it is not the same as saying only x race can have y job.

Dude. You are way overreacting and misinterpreting what I’ve said.

Saying “thing that trump said means this racist thing and not that one” is in no way equivalent to anything you’ve accused me of.

I’ve read theory. Kropotkin. Marx (not just manifesto, but kapital and other serious works). I’ve read nearly every book Chomsky has ever written. It is important to understand the nuances of propaganda. When we misinterpret something trump says intentionally to score political points, which I believe we are doing in this case (and which Republicans do all the time), there are pros and cons to that.

Pros: it can encourage people to vote, gets attention, energizes people

Cons: it misleads people by ignoring context and the other systemic issues at play here: namely focusing on this invented idea that there are “black jobs” instead of the idea that politicians play racial groups off each other all the time and have throughout american and european history by blaming immigrants for economic issues like unemployment.

None of that is pro fascist. I’m calling the orange fascist a racist. This site is largely left-leaning. These comments are aimed at my fellow leftists to encourage us to think critically about the political messaging Dems are putting out because it can be instructive to leftist causes.

I’m encouraging a critical, realpolitik understanding of the messaging around this case AND acknowledging that the orange fascist is indeed racist and that this sort of (in my opinion) bad-faith messaging can be beneficial in the short term but can be distracting and potentially harmful in the long run. People are quick to see criticism of the side they identify with as supporting the other side - that is not what’s happening here. If you look at what I’ve said in good faith, I believe you’ll see my point even if you disagree. I’ve laid it out pretty clearly, imo.

That just isn’t the case. Like, sure, it is a possible implication. But it is not the most likely one given the context. There are other implications to draw, like the ones I’ve given examples of, which are more likely given the context.

The fact that people can’t understand my point and are mass downvoting is what I’m talking about. I’ll sperg out on this despite the disagreement because I’m interested in rhetoric and political messaging.

Read my responses. It is not botd. Trump is obviously a racist POS. But being a racist POS doesn’t mean each thing he says means all racist things. Things have specific meanings. My whole point is that people aren’t thinking critically about how the messaging and the actual content of the speech differ.

He kinda did, though. He tried to say that a “black job” was any job a black person had. I think his handlers told him to shut up about it because it was drawing negative press.

Again, this whole “the blacks” vs “evil mexican immigrants” thing is racist. But that =/= “black people can only have certain jobs”. Just like when they drummed up this same rhetoric targeted at rural white people with bush, romney, mccain, and trump for all 3 of his campaigns … they always do this. And clearly they think white people can have all sorts of jobs.

It doesn’t really require giving him credit, just looking at the words at face value. All I’m saying is in this instance he was trying to be racist, just maybe not in this particular way. He was obviously trying the standard republican tactic of playing groups against one another to get political power. And while he has proven to be racist numerous times, I just don’t think that it is clear from what he said that he intended to communicate that black people can’t have certain jobs. That specifically. He can still be a racist and not be communicating that particular thing.

I’m not defending Trump, just saying that we should hold ourselves to high rhetorical standards where possible OR at least recognize when we’re twisting things to score political points. That line is very blurred in modern political rhetoric.

Either way, good on Simone for using her platform. I just don’t think that this criticism is in good faith - which can be okay, especially when the other side is constantly arguing in bad faith. I just think that it can have consequences to the way we treat political issues more broadly.

Yeah, that’s fair. But it does require reading that implication into what he said. While he may very well believe that, idk if it’s what he meant or not.

As a flaming red socialist, I will say that (while it seems to have been effective), the “black jobs” rhetoric is disingenuous.

Saying that [x group] will take [y group] jobs is a standard thing. You could say, “California expats will take Texan jobs,” for instance. This doesn’t mean there is a specific class of job that Texans are suitable for. It means there are jobs that could be held by Texans that would be taken by California expats instead. In Trump’s case, there is no evidence for such job-taking, but he clearly means to say something specific - and it isn’t that jobs should be/are segregated.

So, anyway. It doesn’t really matter so long as it hurts Trump, but this type of rhetoric is misleading, disingenuous, and ultimately harmful to the state of political discourse.

Edit: This caused a shit storm. This is the point I’m trying but apparently failing to make:

When we make criticisms of the other side, those criticisms are usually stronger in the long run if they’re based on the actual positions they take rather than straw-manned ones. And I think this is “black jobs” rhetoric is a straw-manned critique.