After this's all over, I hope the U.S. gov't bills Trump for the damage he's done to our reputation

[Jwar]

Well, I started the thread to ask about the ads I was getting there.

People tried to tell me it's due to my browsing history. Which's complete bullshit. There're usually a mix of things I have no interest in.

I think many of the ads that appear there are due to the general demographic of TGPeers. That's just my hunch though.

I get this one a lot:



Hadn't heard of it before. So, I Googled it. I have zero interest in a $50 titanium top.

It is a mix of browser history and the technology's best guess at what you may be interested in. The get the info from your searched items or cookies and then it generates what they believe you could be into. Ads can be different from person to person.

However on some sites, they just have paid advertisers, so it's a crap shoot of what you will see.

Pretty soon it will be extremely tailored thanks to our ISP's selling our info. Thanks a bunch Trump you fuck whit.

[Lurker13]

I mean, look at this absurdity in the link below. This is the take-away lesson one of the leading left-wing public intellectuals got from Trump's election:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... billy.html

Double down on hating whitey, essentially.

I took about 40 minutes out of my life to read that from beginning to end, and I saw nothing about hating whitey. The title is explaining, not advocating, and poor white Trump supporters were treated with a lot of empathy. In fact, the only hostile attack on them was the quote from National Review, which is a conservative rag.

Identity politics makes me squirm, because it is so subjective. But here are a few other issues the Left has:
1) the environment
2) women's right to control their reproductive rights
3) LGBT rights (I know, back to ID politics)
4) economic fairness and protection from predatory capitalism

Hillary definitely put her foot in her mouth with the coal miners. You shouldn't tell people you plan to put them out of work unless you follow up by telling them how you are going to put them back to work immediately, with jobs that are at least as good - if that's even feasible. But let's face it, coal isn't coming back, and neither are the steel mills, no matter what kind of false promises Trump makes.

Okay, on a personal level, I am a 'ladino', i.e. a white hispanic. I am not aware of ever having received either privilege or being a victim of bigotry for being either one. As far as I can tell, I rise and fall on my own merits and flaws. But that doesn't mean that bigotry doesn't exist or that we should turn a blind eye to it. That's the flaw with the Republican approach to race, 'the best person for the job' and all that yadda-yadda just pretends that racism doesn't exist, like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

[Wittgenstein]

The part where he encourages leftists to feel free to "loath" poor white people because they're to blame for ruining the country seemed pretty hostile to me.

economic fairness and protection from predatory capitalism

Trump has arguably stolen this issue.

But that doesn't mean that bigotry doesn't exist or that we should turn a blind eye to it. That's the flaw with the Republican approach to race, 'the best person for the job' and all that yadda-yadda just pretends that racism doesn't exist, like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

I know you're not saying otherwise, but my point isn't that racism isn't real or that it doesn't exist (it is and it does, and it's a huge problem). My point is that the left is treating it like their ultimate political ace-in-the-hole...as if what works on campus (where 95% of people are leftists, and so yelling 'racist' gets everyone's attention) is going to work in the larger world. Looking at the authoritarian carnage that remains of the left, on display in the Berkeley riots, it becomes really clear what a disservice the boomers and gen-xers that make up most of the academy have done to the millennial left. They're utterly unprepared to engage successfully in real world politics.

[Lurker13]

The part where he encourages leftists to feel free to "loath" poor white people because they're to blame for ruining the country seemed pretty hostile to me.

Okay, fair point, but I think you are overgeneralizing. Consider the previous sentence: "As Trump himself has said, in a rare instance of accuracy, they won’t waver even if he stands in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoots somebody." I think it is this kind of mindless loyalty that he is loathing, not the fact that they are white per se.

economic fairness and protection from predatory capitalism

Trump has arguably stolen this issue.

I disagree with this claim. Trump has staffed his cabinet with billionaires, and is talking about sweeping deregulation. A laissez faire environment leaves consumers without protection from victimization.

But that doesn't mean that bigotry doesn't exist or that we should turn a blind eye to it. That's the flaw with the Republican approach to race, 'the best person for the job' and all that yadda-yadda just pretends that racism doesn't exist, like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

I know you're not saying otherwise, but my point isn't that racism isn't real or that it doesn't exist (it is and it does, and it's a huge problem). My point is that the left is treating it like their ultimate political ace-in-the-hole...as if what works on campus (where 95% of people are leftists, and so yelling 'racist' gets everyone's attention) is going to work in the larger world. Looking at the authoritarian carnage that remains of the left, on display in the Berkeley riots, it becomes really clear what a disservice the boomers and gen-xers that make up most of the academy have done to the millennial left. They're utterly unprepared to engage successfully in real world politics.

Not sure what to say here, because I live on the other coast, so I haven't seen this up close and personal. I teach physical sciences, not social sciences, so I seldom have to deal with "that side" of campus.

But frankly, I think the best thing the Democrats can do right now is hand the party over to the millenials. Nancy Pelosi, Granny Shumer, Tom Perez, and the rest of that Clinton/Obama generation need to get the fuck right out of the way and let the millenials take over. They are the ones who are passionate and want a better world, so let them fight for it without all the corruption baggage and Old Guard 20th Century Democrats nonsense hanging around their necks.

And I definitely agree with part of your thesis, the Left is definitely in disarray. Whether or not they can make a comeback in the midterm elections remains to be seen.

[Wittgenstein]

I disagree with this claim. Trump has staffed his cabinet with billionaires, and is talking about sweeping deregulation. A laissez faire environment leaves consumers without protection from victimization.

Trump isn't arguing the old neoliberal line. His rhetoric is populist. That's why when the left tried to slag him with the old "he only cares about the rich!" line, no one cared. Trump's populist rage against losing jobs overseas and trade deals was a million times more effective on the "economic fairness" front than anything the left has come up with. Trump owns "economic fairness" right now. It's just not the left-wing version of the concept.

let the millenials take over. They are the ones who are passionate and want a better world

Large portions of millennial left are dogmatic, authoritarian, and politically insane. They've somehow manged to make Trump voters look like the reasonable ones.

[Lurker13]

I disagree with this claim. Trump has staffed his cabinet with billionaires, and is talking about sweeping deregulation. A laissez faire environment leaves consumers without protection from victimization.

Trump isn't arguing the old neoliberal line. His rhetoric is populist. That's why when the left tried to slag him with the old "he only cares about the rich!" line, no one cared. Trump's populist rage against losing jobs overseas and trade deals was a million times more effective on the "economic fairness" front than anything the left has come up with. Trump owns "economic fairness" right now. It's just not the left-wing version of the concept.

As far as campaign rhetoric, you are right with respect to Clinton, but Bernie Sanders was saying the same thing. What I was trying to say is that the reality of what he is going to deliver looks like it will be far different from what he promised. If it is, then he probably won't hold onto ownership of the issue. Ultimately, if he can actually deliver jobs, then he wins - if not, he loses.

let the millenials take over. They are the ones who are passionate and want a better world


Large portions of millennial left are dogmatic, authoritarian, and politically insane. They've somehow manged to make Trump voters look like the reasonable ones.

I think you have overfit your model on a relatively small, unscientific sample. You're stereotyping an entire generation.

[Wittgenstein]

Bernie Sanders was saying the same thing

They were both at least partially blaming some of the same things. The difference is that Bernie is saying "and the problem is that we're not socialist enough," and Trump is saying "we're not America enough." Trump's line wins.

What I was trying to say is that the reality of what he is going to deliver looks like it will be far different from what he promised. If it is, then he probably won't hold onto ownership of the issue. Ultimately, if he can actually deliver jobs, then he wins - if not, he loses.

Unfortunately, Trump isn't actually an idiot. He is, however, utterly unconcerned with anything beyond his own legacy. Massive tax cuts + huge deficit spending (stimulus) is a recipe for large short-term growth (which he will get credit for). It's basically the plan Obama wanted in his heart, but didn't have the balls (or political capital) to pull off. If Trump hurts the economy in the long run, I'm not sure he really cares.

I think you have overfit your model on a relatively small, unscientific sample.

One thing I learned doing a PhD in a political science department (albeit in political theory) is that science has virtually nothing meaningful to contribute to political thinking. I stand beside my statement that large portions of the millennial left are politically insane (in the Rawlisan sense of the word "insane").

[echorec]

Is anyone suffering from Sub Pop Syndrome over Alex Jones breaking mainstream? Do you yearn for the days, when he was an inside joke for counter-culture monitors? Is it blowing your mind, that his antics are being featured on CBS almost daily?

[Iommic Pope]

Is anyone suffering from Sub Pop Syndrome over Alex Jones breaking mainstream? Do you yearn for the days, when he was an inside joke for counter-culture monitors? Is it blowing your mind, that his antics are being featured on CBS almost daily?

It isn't a bad thing.
It'll serve to isolate his sort of crowd even more so from everyone else, but at the end of the day I think the whole "organic tin foil anto-vac chemtrails false flag 420" crowd were probably doing that themselves and are worthy of derision.
Although, there are a lot of psychological studies that explain this phenomena now that indicate it seems to be a symptom of the times.

[Wittgenstein]

Is anyone suffering from Sub Pop Syndrome over Alex Jones breaking mainstream? Do you yearn for the days, when he was an inside joke for counter-culture monitors? Is it blowing your mind, that his antics are being featured on CBS almost daily?

Political epistemologies are political, and can't be trusted, no matter the source. Paul Krugman is as mainstream as it gets, and is he really that much better than Alex Jones? His epistemology is almost completely political, and hence his "facts" depend upon his normative goals. He's wrong about almost everything, to the point where his buffoonery has long since ceased to be merely comical, and is now becoming borderline sinister.

[Faldoe]

How about some Anti-Fa gold?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoDl4oPpLy0[/youtube]

[Fluffytime]

An upside of Trump being Prez: He'll probably stop global warming with a nuclear winter. So there's that. I guess.

[Lurker13]

An upside of Trump being Prez: He'll probably stop global warming with a nuclear winter. So there's that. I guess.

^

If that one Tibetan hermit-monk living in a cave in the Himalayas that you can never kill off no matter how hard you try with any holocaust gets lucky, the two effects will cancel each other out. Then if that dude can just figure out how to reproduce asexually, the human race will survive.

#asexualrepopulation2020

[snipelfritz]

Yeah, but does he like to party?

[Chankgeez]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diCipvOU9bk[/youtube]