Jump to content

BrickHorn

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    6874
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

Posts posted by BrickHorn

  1. 10 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

    In short, it’s just a ploy to make the fascists look like the real victims. 

    Of course.  Just like the Reichstag Fire was a ploy to make the Nazis seem sympathetic.  But you know what?  That shit worked (for the bad guys).

    Dressing up like goons and taking to the streets to shout slogans and hurl rocks might feel good.  It might feel like you’re doing something constructive.  “We’re out here in the fresh air, fighting bad guys!”  But it has absolutely zero positive effect.  And worse, it gifts the real goons a scapegoat and an example to support their #bothsides! propaganda.  It’s an idiotic, immature strategy, doomed to failure. 

    • Like 3
  2. You’re missing the point, bad_teammate.  I don’t side with the right wing.  To the contrary, I would very much like to see them trounced.  

    If you want to fail in defeating the right wing, by all means use the tactics German Communists employed.  Get fucking run over by the right wing and used as a convenient scapegoat to sway public opinion in favor of evil.  That’ll show ‘em!

    On the other hand, if you want to prevail over the alt right, look elsewhere for strategic inspiration.

    And study history, for Christ’s sake.

  3. 20 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    Well, yes. Obviously.

    Wait... is this intended be be ironic/mocking?

    No, not at all.  The German Communists were wildly successful in stemming the tide of Naziism, and did not merely play the role of hapless patsies used to advance Hitler’s agenda.  

    • Like 1
  4. 20 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

    And we need to embrace the only people who are actually interested in fighting back: The decentralized group of randoms and misfits who understand what it's like to be the first ones under the boot of angry white boys.

    RTS1M4U9.jpg?fit=789,460&ssl=1

    Democrats won't help us.

    “Hey guys, I know what will work: let’s be an American version of German Communists, circa 1930!”

    • Like 2
  5. 15 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    If there's any analogy to be made to WW2, what you're suggesting is more akin to trying to rebuild Germany and Japan in 1943 or something.  It makes no sense.  Right now we need to beat Trumpism to a pulp, and we can worry about rebuilding the GOP when they've been thoroughly defeated. 

    But winning the 2020 election won’t “beat Trumpism” any more than the 2016 election “beat liberalism.”  The right may lose at the polls, but they’ll still be out there with their voter IDs and increased motivation to win the next go round.  Long term victory requires changing minds.  

    • Like 1
  6. 19 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

    We didn’t rebuild Germany and Japan because we thought maybe they were right or at least not so bad after all.  We thought we were right, and they deserved to get nuked and firebombed, but we also realized it would benefit us not to put the screws to them so much that they came back again in a few years for round 3.

    And look what happened when the Good Guys gave those nasty Germans their just desserts at Versailles.  Conservativism was replaced with Naziism, and evil returned with new-found determination.  

    Do y’all want to poor gas on this fire, or put it out?

     

  7. 2 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    But I don't buy that anyone left at this point is reachable on any basis other than their own self-interest, if even that. 

    Do you believe 42% of Americans are sociopaths entirely devoid of empathy?  Because, for those that aren’t sociopaths, “self interest” includes the desire to not see loved ones harmed. And it’s precisely that form of self interest that I suggest can be leveraged to stem the march towards fascism.

  8. Just now, Bama Chick said:

    For someone preaching tolerance and unity, you’re kind of acting like a dickhead.


    In other news...
     

    I’m not preaching unity and tolerance.  I’m preaching pragmatism.  

  9. Just now, Dahobbs said:

    Right, they are convinced because they are reasonable people that were swindled by him the first time. Unfortunately, the people that still support him aren't that. They are something else entirely. 

    I disagree.  There are a lot of people like my folks who just haven’t been prodded to pay attention and to imagine a loved one suffering an alt right future.  

  10. 12 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

    My mom voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary.

    She would vote for Satan himself before voting for Donald Trump again.

    This is where I am.  Both parents voted for Trump in 2016.  One now promises to vote against him this time and the other promises not to vote for him this time.  That’s a 3-vote swing against Trump. 

    Guess how I convinced them (because I DID convince them)?  It wasn’t with facts and figures. And it wasn’t by insulting them and their decisions.  It was by pinging them with occasional news stories about Trump and/or alt right attacks on liberals or minorities, gently reminding them that their son is a liberal and their grandchildren are minorities, and asking “Is this the world you want for your grandchildren?”  

    That shit worked.  Y’all can tell me it’s hopeless and a waste of time, but I know otherwise.  And I suspect your fatalism is based on failures to persuade with logic, facts, and condescension.  Because every time I say “use emotion, not facts,” one of you responds “It won’t work because these dumb Trump motherfuckers don’t accept FACTS!!!”   

    • Like 1
  11. 2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

    Let me put it this way, those that disapprove of him but still vote for him are the worst kind of evil. Personally, I think we should strip the right to vote from every single person who still supports the man, at least until they pass a civics test. I absolutely recognize the danger in doing so, but I also think it is necessary. 

    So... we should basically become the Blue version of the Red evil we oppose?  Fuck that.  We are better because we are principled.  Because we believe in truths, rights, and mutual respect that transcends superficial partisanship.  If we sacrifice our principles to win, the victory will be a devastating defeat.

  12. 5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

    The issue with Emerson is they push undecideds.  Which is why everything adds up perfectly to 100.

    There will be a libertarian, green, some indies, etc.  People are still learning who the fuck Warren, Harris, Beto, etc. are.  Undecideds do not typically break for the party in power, especially an unpopular president. 

    Let me ask it this way: do you believe that no one who disapproves of Trump’s job performance will vote for him?  

  13. 1 hour ago, Mojo Hand said:

    But Trump support isn't at 50-50.  He's consistently about 42 - 53, both in approval and against the major Dem candidates, and that's counting states like Mississippi that we should just fucking write off.   

    Orly?

    lALPm6oJQIu3w40cVtNz

    538 listed Emerson as the second most accurate polling service since Nov 2016.

    Emerson’s June poll has Trump at 45-48% in five races.  He’s in margin-of-error country against candidates like Warren, Buttigieg, and Harris.  Many who do not approve of his performance will nevertheless vote for him over a Democrat.  Those voters can be swayed.

  14. I’ve tried shunning and insulting and berating, and it has done exactly jack shit except anger people and cause them to dig in their heels.  I’ve also done the emotional appeal and converted some folks.  

    Society is too polarized for shunning to work.  That only works once a critical mass lines up on one side of the issue.  When people are split 50-50, shunning just causes more entrenchment. 

    So, yes.  Shunning has a purpose.  But it’s only useful in Phase II of the battle for hearts and minds.  We’re still in Phase I. 

  15. 1 minute ago, Mojo Hand said:

    And what if none of their loved ones will be hurt, or at least you can't prove it without relying on "fake news"?   Right now I'm thinking of my wife's Trump-supporting cousin.   I can't think of a single person he'd care about who will be directly harmed, where he wouldn't blame it on something attributable to Dems somewhere along the line.   What should I tell him? 

    And I don't think shunning voters gains nothing or exacerbates the problem.  I think it puts enormous social pressure on them and makes them choose between the nuts they are with now or reasonable, intelligent society.   If people could join the Klan without being turned into pariahs, a hell of a lot more people would be in the Klan.   Shun them and the ones who are reachable will make the right choice. 

    Shunning Trump voters has done nothing more than solidify his support.  Just look at the impact of Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” comment.  It backfired like a motherfucker.  

    And, again, y’all are focusing on hard core Trumpists.  They are hopeless.  Fuck them.  Focus your energy on begrudging Trump voters.  The ones who dislike him but disliked Hillary more, the single-issue abortion voter, the “I don’t pay attention to politics, but he seems like a smart businessman” voter.  Those are your potential converts.  Those are the folks you need to sway to get past this threat to the American Republic.

  16. 22 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

     


    The truly entrenched Trumpkins have NO empathy.

    Their rallying cries are “Fuck your feelings!” and “All this is entertaining because liberal tears!”.

    Appealing to them on the basis of the one black guy at work or their maid, Guadalupe doesn’t work for people who don’t care about truth and whose base urge is laughing at other’s suffering.

    You can try and appeal to them with a hypothetical scenario like “What about cousin Bobby’s wife Maria? Her parents brought her here when she was a little kid. She’s never broken the law but she could easily be deported to a country she’s never been to because of how she was brought to this country as a child. And now she’s afraid to even try to go and through the process for fear that even trying to do the right thing will still get her deported. How can you still support people who want to do that to Maria?”

    And you’ll get brushed off with a “You’re being hysterical! You’re falling for the fake liberal news. She’s one of the ‘good ones’ and if she follows the rules, she’s got nothing to worry about. Trump isn’t going after people here legally.”

    When people refuse to acknowledge actual truth and facts all the appeals to emotions will not work. Because they’d have to admit to the reality of the situation to acknowledge the consequences, thus triggering an emotional response.

    They’ll brush off any hypothetical situation, even ones involving loves ones, because they refuse to believe in truth.

    It’d be like asking them aren’t they worried that Trump’s China policies might cause Chinese dragons to attack their family.

    All your emotional appeals are based on fiction as far as they’re concerned.

     

    God dammit.  Who said anyone should try to reason with “truly entrenched Trumpkins?”  Not me, that’s for damned sure.

    Y’all are pursuing strategies based on all-or-nothing bullshit.  Defeating Trumpism does not require 100% conversion.  All that is necessary to prevent a fascist takeover is a critical mass of sufficient size and courage.  You just need enough people to oppose oppression to prevent it from taking root.  

    What that number is exactly, I have no idea.  It’s more than a majority but far less than 100%. The reason Brisket and his chicken little squad are so convinced we’re done for isn’t because 35% of the population are would-be fascists.  It’s because 49% of the population has been willing to support an asshole.   My point is this: that leaves 14% who could possibly be converted to stand against far right aggression.  And that’s probably enough.  Hell, even half that would probably do the trick (at least while we still have real elections).

  17. 11 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    I respect your approach, and I wish you good luck.  But I personally think it will fail, and even backfire, because facts and logic are a necessary predicate to triggering empathy.   The barriers you need to break through are the very rationalizations they've erected to avoid having empathy for the targeted groups.   How will you convince Trump voters to care about the father and daughter who died crossing the border, when the circumstances that drove them to do cross are "fake news," they should have immigrated the "right way," and it's sad but really the father's fault, not Trump's policies?   Facts and logic are the gateway to emotion here. 

    I don’t intend to use that father and daughter as an example.  Look, I’ve explained this a number of times and reiterating the basic framework over and over again is getting a little old.  The right approach is to identify someone the Trump voter knows personally and cares about who will fall victim to whatever far right policy is being discussed.  It’s easy to be dismissive of pain (and even deny it) when it only impacts an abstract stranger.  But when someone has to face the possibility that a loved one will get hurt, reality has a way of bubbling to the surface.

     Anyway, we all seem to agree that the path of logic and reason isn’t going to work.  The choices seem to be shunning all Trump voters (which gains nothing, and exacerbates the problem) or engaging Trump voters on an emotional level (which at least offers a chance to sway SOME of them).  I believe there are enough reasonably good people who voted for Trump purely out of ignorance and who would be appalled if only they paid attention to make the latter option worthwhile.

  18. 10 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:


    Fucking THIS!

    Folks who want dialogue have a false predicate - that people whose belief system requires a rejection of the very possibility of other facts being valid will listen to better facts in an argument.

    It is a waste of time.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    How ironic.  Y’all criticize my approach on the basis that Trump voters won’t listen to facts, which itself reveals that you haven’t read the words I posted.  

    I specifically stated that a fact- or logic-based approach WILL NOT WORK.  That is why I advocate appealing to emotion.  And, in particular, to empathy and compassion.  The key is to show that the Them to which Trump directs his ire includes someone a Trump voter categorizes in the Us group.  

  19. 1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:


    Brother killed brother in our civil war. Neighbor turned neighbor over to the Gestapo.

    Human decency isn’t going to save us because the people who need to practice it are actively cheering its demise.

    Fundamentally, the problem with your approach presumes that the republic isn’t already dead. You’re the pilot at the stick of a plane that’s lost a wing. Go ahead and fight like hell to get it under control - I’m there with you, fight till the bitter fucking end - but know this: we’re already dead.

    When the group in power chooses to discard and then burn essentially everything that arguably makes us different, special, and good, there’s no recovery from that.

    We are heading in the wrong direction, but I don’t believe we’re already in a civil war.  There’s one sure way to get there, though, and that’s... to act like we’re already in a civil war.  Which, of course, is exactly what the far right wants.  Why give it to them?

    This shit is still fixable.  Those of you declaring it over and done with are just frustrated that logic, reason, and history hasn’t worked to stem the tide of stupidity. Well, no shit.  Half of the US population is below average intelligence.  And you’re surprised they don’t appreciate the consequences of Trump’s attacks on political norms and constitutional ideals?  We need to stop pounding our heads against the wall of logic and start making arguments that have a chance of actually working.  

    • Like 1
  20. 46 minutes ago, Tom said:

     

    I know plenty of Trump supporting conservatives under 40.  This idea that their politics will be buried with the boomers and Luby's crowd is wishful thinking.

     

    That some younger voters support Trump misses the point.  Trump’s approval rating strongly correlates with age.  A majority of the over 65 demographic likes him.  But a majority of the 18-34 demographic dislikes him.  As the Boomers die off, the overall approval rating will trend negative.  

  21. 1 hour ago, Mojo Hand said:

    I'm not advocating liberal tyranny.   I'm advocating that we don't treat their murderous authoritianism as a reasonable perspective on the American political spectrum that should be engaged and reasoned with.   It should be treated as the cancer that it is.  Like the Klan and Larouche nuts and every other movement in the same vein that has been marginalized by reasonable society. 

    Let me be very clear: I do not advocate excusing or encouraging far right ideology. Far from it.  I believe we should take every opportunity to criticize that ideology and convince those who lean toward it that they are wrong.  

    My point is this: you won’t persuade those on the right side of the fence by appealing to logic or, when that fails, insult or accusation (the strategies most of us - myself included - default to). You must appeal to their hearts.  Find something or someone more dear to them than MAGA or Fox News or whatever bullshit they’re wrapped up in, and show how the views they’re told to support would hurt people they care about.  

    Basically, don’t tell Trumpists they are stupid.  Show them that their extreme views would hurt people.  It won’t work for everyone, but there are decent people wrapped up in that shit too.  Those are the hearts we need to win over to regain a sense of political stability here.  Fail to do that, and the middle will continue flowing to the extremes.  And your policy of isolation will drive a lot of potentially good centrists to identify with evil.  

    It’s just basic human psychology.  Deny it at your (and the republic’s) peril.

  22. 12 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

    anyone preaching unity and togetherness now is wasting their breath.

    win the election, unite the country afterwards.  not before.

    I’m not saying don’t try to win the election.  I’m saying don’t think winning one election will end the threat of far right extremism.  And I’m also saying: don’t think playing to our side’s worst instincts will win the election.

    In my view, the Dems are making a huge mistake by running as far left as possible.  That could cost us in 2020 but, even if we win, wild-ass pendulum swings every four years will only amplify the partisan divide.  

    • Like 1
  23. 8 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

    IMO you don't have to convince any of them.   There's more than enough votes to defeat Trump.  Marginalize his supporters and move on, I say. 

    And what?  Keep driving that wedge deeper and deeper?  Foster four more years of partisan resentment?  Keep pouring gasoline on this fire?

    We’ve spent decades driving towards ever more partisanship in this country.  It’s gotten to the point that the side currently in power is openly talking about authoritarian murder as defensible governance.  You think that stops if the other side drives enough of its own enraged electorate to the polls?  Have you not seen posts from Surly liberals suggesting that the only solution is a purge of conservatives?  I have, and it’s fucking shameful and disgusting.  And if you think winning in 2020 will end the far right threat, then you haven’t been paying attention.  

    We either take the high road to defuse this shit and keep working to mend fences, on the basis that we are all Americans despite our differences, or this country will find itself on a civil war or a violent autocracy in the near future.  Liberal tyranny is not the solution.  

    • Like 1
  24. 5 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

    What you posted is true in urban environments. It isn't true in rural environments. Much of the South is still just black and white with very little integration and very few cross race relationships and friendships.  While they do have gay and atheist family members, those family members usually move away and there is a don't ask don't tell policy during holidays. And while tolerance of gay people is increasing in the rural south, atheists still must stay in the closet. 

    People 40 and under are altogether better about it though so change is coming.  My older family in the deep South think Houston and Dallas are hellish warzones and they think much worse of DC, NYC, and LA.  There is nothing you can do that will make them change their minds.  

    There are liberals in the rural south.  Just as there are in the ultra-conservative Midwest.  My dad has a sister who is the only liberal in her generation of a very large family.  She’s beloved, despite her politics.  Trumpists would demonize her as a capital-L Librul.  Do her brothers and sisters really believe she is evil incarnate?  Because that’s what Fox News and Trump mouthpieces everywhere would have them believe.  

    You use that example as a way to get them thinking.  To defuse the anger.  Everyone’s spoiling for a fight because they’ve abstracted the other side to a nameless, faceless evil.  Show them that the monster they’re about to swing at is actually their sister.  Their son.  Their childhood friend.  

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...