Since the last thread was locked post election, and given that there have been recent political and news developments in the US since, I think it's time we have another self-contained American Politics thread.
I'm going to start with a new post:
Racism and American Politics
In the other thread, Thor provided some diagrams and I supplemented them showing a relation between the most ardently reliable Republican states and their contemporary position in American political history in terms of slaveholding states and later, segregationist states.
Azure responded with,
Quote:
Example? The electoral maps shown earlier show casing the apparent link between 'southern' states, and those states that voted in favor of slavery years ago. Except when you look at the total electoral map, I guess we can assume that Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois harbor some deep seated racism, as they're almost the same percentage red as Mississippi.
Why didn't I post it? Because its quite clear that the idea that Republicans as a whole are racially motivated when they vote is an acceptable viewpoint on here, despite evidence to the contrary. But hey, can't win them all. Would be nice if the 'discussion' would be more balanced though without posters coming to criticize you as having the 'same old line' everything you post something.
On Tuesday, TheNation published an interview with long-time Republican political strategist Lee Atwater. A segment of the interview, published for the first time, involves Atwater explaining the nature of Republican appeals to Southern racists, and how it is a deliberate attempt to pander politically to base, divisive, racial motivations (with transcript below):
Quote:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “######, ######, ######.” By 1968 you can’t say “######”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “######, ######.”
Unfortunately the forum censors the 'N word', but, that's is the nomenclature hidden by "#####".
Now, while this quote has been published before, first anonymously and then attributed to Atwater sometime after his death, never has the audio been released, nor the full interview.
There is an incredibly fascinating documentary on Atwater called 'Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story'. that I highly recommend to anyone interested in American political history. Here's an excerpt:
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Can we just re-name this the "bash Republicans" thread?
It isn't so much a "bash Republicans" as it is a dislike for their extreme views. I'm a lefty anyways so I'll probably never like them but the Republican party has been taken over by the Christian Right and the Tea Party so that the party is no longer recognizable by their normal constituents.
Even GW Bush or Reagan probably couldn't have won the last nomination because they were too liberal.
They seem to be on the road to change though and will no longer allow the tail to wag the dog.
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CNN) – While Republicans continue to soul search after their party's loss in the presidential election, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour injected a new term Wednesday to describe the GOP's introspection. "The ground game is really important, and we have to be, I mean we've got to give our political organizational activity a very serious..." he said, taking a pause and looking for the right word. "Proctology exam. We need to look everywhere."
In this article we have some comments from Jindal and Christie chastising Romney along with this quote.
Quote:
Carlos Gutierrez, Romney campaign adviser in charge of Hispanic outreach was also "shocked" by Romney's comments about the Obama victory.
"I was shocked. I was shocked and, frankly, I don't think that's why the Republicans lost the election, why we lost the election. I think we lost the election because the far right of this party has taken the party to a place that it doesn't belong," he said.
Maybe we'll have some sense coming out of this party in the future. The States will be better off for it.
oh yeah, here's Jindal's response to Romney's poor loser rant.
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"That is absolutely wrong," Jindal said at Wednesday's session of the annual Republican Governors Association meeting in Las Vegas, according to the Washington Examiner's Byron York. "I absolutely reject that notion." "I don't think that represents where we are as a party and where we're going as a party," Jindal continued. "That has got to be one of the most fundamental takeaways from this election: If we're going to continue to be a competitive party and win elections on the national stage and continue to fight for our conservative principles, we need two messages to get out loudly and clearly: One, we are fighting for 100 percent of the votes, and secondly, our policies benefit every American who wants to pursue the American dream. Period. No exceptions."
Last edited by Vulcan; 11-17-2012 at 01:09 AM.
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It's safe to say that fiscal conservatism will always have a strong voice. Too bad it has been hijacked by non-mainstream moral ideologies.
Maybe rename this thread "Racism in the Republican Party" as this not really an American Politics subject per se
Well, this is just the first post, others are more than welcome to chime in on the discussion of the current self-reflection going on in the republican party.
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Originally Posted by Vulcan
It isn't so much a "bash Republicans" as it is a dislike for their extreme views. I'm a lefty anyways so I'll probably never like them but the Republican party has been taken over by the Christian Right and the Tea Party so that the party is no longer recognizable by their normal constituents.
Even GW Bush or Reagan probably couldn't have won the last nomination because they were too liberal.
They seem to be on the road to change though and will no longer allow the tail to wag the dog.
Maybe we'll have some sense coming out of this party in the future. The States will be better off for it.
oh yeah, here's Jindal's response to Romney's poor loser rant.
Actually, I don't think the republican party is beholden to extreme social issues or religious fervour, but I think they pander to it as part of their political apparatus.
In the documentary about Atwater that I mention in the original post, he refers to the segment of voters who vote based on abortion repeal to be the 'third chromosome' group of voters. I think, amongst the upper echelon of Republican strategists, there is a similar attitude.
The point isn't that there are racists or religious nuts guiding the republican party, it's that there are intelligent and calculating personalities that feast on these segments of the population and count on them for a political base. It's that, for the last 30 years, the Republican party has pandered to divisive, wedge issues to turn campaigns into tabloid-style elections rather than getting caught in traps like, "Read my lips, no new taxes." If you endorse substantive policy initiatives, you risk losing credibility and popular support if circumstances dictate you abandon them, like when George H.W. Bush raised taxes for the good of the economy.
We seemingly reached the zenith of this approach in the latest election, where the Republican's ran a candidate devoid of specific policy initiatives and any kind of history of consistent conservative values. Instead, the entire campaign was run on misinformation, lies, and shrill attempts at creating scandalous tabloid talking points (Benghazi! OMGHZ!), and attempts and reviving the same tired divisive issues. These are the same tactics, literally, used against Dukakis. "Obama/Dukakis is going to take your guns!"
The slogan of 'Entitlements' (romney/ryan) is the new 'welfare queens' (reagan/bush) which was the new 'states rights' (goldwater, later reagan), which was the new 'busing in' (george wallace) which was the new "######, ######, ######" (n-word, n-word, n-word, personified by Strom Thurmond).
It isn't that the Republican's are in and of themselves racists, it's that they rely on racists and those of similar ilk for political power. As a political strategy, it worked for about twenty years, but, like most ill-begotten gains, the chickens are now coming home to roost and it will take a radical departure from current leadership for the Republicans to remain relevant for the next twenty.
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Republican strategists may fancy themselves as clever by playing to prejudices to gain votes from "third chromosome types", but as a result of the US election cycle, they're constantly beholden to them. So I guess if the goal of the strategy is to be a puppet, but a puppet with a DC address, then yeah, great strategy.
I personally don't buy it. I think in the Goldwater/Nixon/Reagan days it was true, but now I think enough of those that were courted by these "clever" strategists have grown up to form the party. Lure enough spiders into your house to control the ants, and soon you'll have a house full of spiders.
In an effort to ensure new voter-approved amendments that legalize limited use of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington are not overrun by the federal government, Democratic U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette introduced bipartisan legislation Friday that aims to curtail such a scenario.
"My constituents have spoken and I don't want the federal government denying money to Colorado or taking other punitive steps that would undermine the will of our citizens," DeGette, of Denver, said in a statement.
The legislation, coined "Respect States' and Citizens' Rights Act," comes on the heels of Colorado voters approving Amendment 64, which legalizes up to an ounce of marijuana for anyone over the age of 21.
The bill seeks to exempt states where voters have legalized pot from the federal Controlled Substances Act provision on marijuana.
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora, a staunch opponent of Amendment 64, supports the bill.
"I strongly oppose the legalization of marijuana, but I also have an obligation to respect the will of the voters given the passage of this initiative, and so I feel obligated to support this legislation," Coffman said.
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This is a mixed density visualization of the volume and proportion of votes in the 2012 US Presidential election. Each point represents 100 votes. This method avoids the geo-social visual bias of large geographic areas having small populations overwhelming the overall picture. In this way both the relative volume and geographic distribution are apparent, as well as the partisan proportions throughout. Areas of mixed voting appear as a blended purple cloud, while areas more heterogeneously represented appear more red or more blue.
Mix the colors for Obama/Romney together and you get purple. Even in the supposed southern states that are so incredibly racist, the map is still purple.
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Location: Oklahoma - Where they call a puck a ball...
Exp:
I'd love to see a map of the US that shows the votes of people on food stamps and other welfare programs and who they voted for.
Nonetheless...
I know there is a big to do down here now about having people who get any welfare assistance having to take a drug test to receive the aid. It's pretty funny listening to the people who are going to have be tested whine about it. My take on it .. I have to get drug tested to work so my taxes can fund the welfare program so why should the people receiving have to be drug tested as well.
I'd love to see a map of the US that shows the votes of people on food stamps and other welfare programs and who they voted for.
Nonetheless...
I know there is a big to do down here now about having people who get any welfare assistance having to take a drug test to receive the aid. It's pretty funny listening to the people who are going to have be tested whine about it. My take on it .. I have to get drug tested to work so my taxes can fund the welfare program so why should the people receiving have to be drug tested as well.
Probably overwhelmingly for Romney.
Surprisingly the states that get the most aid are the ones that vote republican.
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Surprisingly the states that get the most aid are the ones that vote republican.
This is true. For all of his "47%" comments and the racist dog whistles about the "food stamp president," recipients of government aid were actually Romney's base. His inability to appeal to urban voters is the reason he lost, not some imaginary expansion of entitlements under Obama.
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This is true. For all of his "47%" comments and the racist dog whistles about the "food stamp president," recipients of government aid were actually Romney's base. His inability to appeal to urban voters is the reason he lost, not some imaginary expansion of entitlements under Obama.
That was a laughable reason for wanting Romney to win. All those recipients of government aid Romney supporters (except for big business that is) would be in for a rude awakening.
...And while all regions have experienced a greater flow of government benefits to their residents, states in the South and in the western portion of the Sun Belt have seen their dependence on government welfare programs rise the most. States such as Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arizona, New Mexico and Tennessee possess many counties with a high level of dependence on government benefits; some counties have a level of transfer income per capita of over $10,000.
...Census records show that six of the seven states that amassed more than 25,000 signatures on their petitions to form independent nations in the past week took more than $10 million in revenue from the federal government that year.
The seven states - Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina - took more than 23 percent of all federal revenue allotted to the states that year.
Missouri also received $11 million and has collected more than 29,500 signatures, but the electronic votes are divided between two identical petitions, disqualifying the state from receiving a White House response.
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Saw this on FB
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I wouldn't want to be taught economics by a teacher who felt that that test experiment was a valid comparison to Obama policy.
Me neither but it does bring a simplistic view to the idea though.
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The New American Politics thread
