Crazy American Politics

[manc_don]

15 minutes ago, OrlandoDon said:

Been here since 95. Considered myself a democrat until seeing first hand the country change under Obama. Gone from being an arrogant mother fucker to the biggest woke pussy and trump is taking the country back. The minority have been focusing on all the wrong things for 4 years. In my opinion.
Lived in LA for 17 years and witnessed first hand the results of a left/far left government, saw the decline in society, homelessness, drugs, crime, high costs, woke agenda etc. Said here back in 2020 that I wasn’t a trump fan but I really feared where a democratic government would take us. What an awful 4 years domestically and abroad and while I still don’t particularly like trump and how he conducts himself, I agree with the majority of what he’s doing.  It’s got very expensive here, the country way overspends, economy is shit, housing market is shit, influx of illegals and the challenge to local economy and resources, and we’re going bankrupt fast. There’s also world conflict and we didn’t really have that before under trump. His methods may not be ideal or pleasing on the eye but I think he’ll be more effective than the previous administration.
Extreme change was wanted by the majority of the country, the minority are crying about it, but when your media is democratically owned it’s the crying and the pushback you hear on tv. Like that musk is an independent auditor providing insight, exposing and reporting corruption/fraud, amazing the money and misspending he’s finding. Many politicians left and right are freaking out because of years of mismanagement and the lining of their own pockets. Interesting when you see the ‘reported’ net worth of a number of politicians when it’s publicly known what they earn, doesn’t add up.

im sure it’s a media reality show drama/comedy but its the change the country needed. It was never going to be pretty. I am also 100% behind an America first agenda. If you can’t afford to live and care for your own you shouldn’t continue to throw all your money away. Billions have been given to Ukraine for example, and from what I understand, much of it they cannot trace. And for what?

don’t particularly like expressing my opinions here as I know I am in the vast minority but I can only express my opinion based on how my life has been affected and the environment I live in.

I know, and I appreciate that, I think it's important for the values of the site to have more than one POV. I may not agree with your politics but it's the one you live and I can't argue with that. Certainly not from afar!

I'm not sure the economy will improve under trump, as there is a reason why manufacturing for example, was moved away from the US. It's too expensive, much like other anglosphere countries. Tarrifs are going to cripple the country and people will be infinitely poorer. Conservatism or rather Atlasism will only increase the divide and countries and societies will only be poorer for it.

[RicoS321]

10 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Lived in LA for 17 years and witnessed first hand the results of a left/far left government,

There has not been a left wing government in the US since FDR, there has never, ever been a far left government. I'd have thought that as a Scot you would have access to what those things actually mean. You know, healthcare free at the point of use, unionism, state railways and buses, council houses, state owned energy, free nursery, cooperatives, state education, free higher education, disability allowance, and a focus on ever decreasing income inequality through taxation on wealth. Not just a couple of those, all of them, and that would get you to a basic social democracy, still a long way from socialism. Distributive policies that have been proven worldwide to reduce crime and homelessness (not socialism). I suspect that this is in large part why folk from across Europe and the wider world are looking on in horror. The overton window, as it's called, is so far right in the US that the arguments aren't even on the same planet. Biden is about as far left as David Cameron, which is to say, not remotely. I guess that thirty years in the US has somewhat clouded your view. Again, I'm not disagreeing with your political position, I'm saying that you are demonstrably/factually incorrect when you use the term left wing to describe US government at federal or state level. It's important because it leaves a gaping hole in the purview of the US citizen. There's this weird dichotomy where folks pine for the "better times" of the fifties and sixties (Trump voters in the US, reform voters here). They are pointing to a time that is so far left (huge taxation for example) that it's no longer in their frame, because of the eclipse of neoliberal politics, which is the only offering in the UK and US in the last fifty years.

Edited Thursday at 09:31 by RicoS321

[OrlandoDon]

13 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

There has not been a left wing government in the US since FDR, there has never, ever been a far left government. I'd have thought that as a Scot you would have access to what those things actually mean. You know, healthcare free at the point of use, unionism, state railways and buses, council houses, state owned energy, free nursery, cooperatives, state education, free higher education, disability allowance, and a focus on ever decreasing income inequality through taxation on wealth. Not just a couple of those, all of them, and that would get you to a basic social democracy, still a long way from socialism. Distributive policies that have been proven worldwide to reduce crime and homelessness (not socialism). I suspect that this is in large part why folk from across Europe and the wider world are looking on in horror. The overton window, as it's called, is so far right in the US that the arguments aren't even on the same planet. Biden is about as far left as David Cameron, which is to say, not remotely. I guess that thirty years in the US has somewhat clouded your view. Again, I'm not disagreeing with your political position, I'm saying that you are demonstrably/factually incorrect when you use the term left wing to describe US government at federal or state level. It's important because it leaves a gaping hole in the purview of the US citizen. There's this weird dichotomy where folks pine for the "better times" of the fifties and sixties (Trump voters in the US, reform voters here). They are pointing to a time that is so far left (huge taxation for example) that it's no longer in their frame, because of the eclipse of neoliberal politics, which is the only offering in the UK and US in the last fifty years.

Would left leaning be more appropriate? Can you clarify if I can use the terms huns and victims, or am I factually wrong there too when I reference those here?

Your patronizing attitude is all too common in the US too and what has scared many people to go to trump and the republicans. Its the scolding, canceling, and though police that people have had enough of, getting slammed for simply sharing a thought or daring to speak up and share an honest opinion. It’s also why I dont really talk politics any more.
I don’t need someone to try to educate me or talked down to me, I just answered a question. I also don’t think anyone here gives two shits about the fifties and sixties, you’re off the mark there. I think a lot of people just want a stronger economy, better housing prices, improved immigration and the border, affordable cars, being able to buy a normal shopping, less war, less wasteful spending, less government bureaucracy, less fentanyl, less crime and inner city, particularly sanctuary city, chaos, and less trans and DEI nonsense. We simply want a government the appears to understand and connect with the majority of people and their issues, and focus on what matters to average Americans. When you talk as you do most people here would just shut you out because it doesn’t come across as a friendly discussion, more a condescending lecture that we don’t really relate to or feel particularly relevant, and we’re sick of that.

im not disagreeing or debating your political position, its your attitude and approach. All too common and what has possibly caused an over reaction in a different direction. And the left aren’t changing, and are simply making their situation worse.

[Elgindon]

Left leaning a few decades ago meant left of centre politically,or more on the Socialist side of the fence,but it seems to have widened out (esp among the younger generation) in the last 5 or 10 years,to encompass your opinion on LGBTQ rights,climate change,race etc,although a lot of the younger element on that side of the fence,do also still seem to describe themselves as Socialist,...occasionally Marxist at times

[RicoS321]

8 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Would left leaning be more appropriate?

Not really, no. The people you are saying are left leaning are not, they are to the right of centre. 

 

8 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Your patronizing attitude is all too common in the US too and what has scared many people to go to trump and the republicans. Its the scolding, canceling, and though police that people have had enough of, getting slammed for simply sharing a thought or daring to speak up and share an honest opinion. It’s also why I dont really talk politics any more.

I don’t need someone to try to educate me or talked down to me, I just answered a question. I also don’t think anyone here gives two shits about the fifties and sixties, you’re off the mark there. I think a lot of people just want a stronger economy, better housing prices, improved immigration and the border, affordable cars, being able to buy a normal shopping, less war, less wasteful spending, less government bureaucracy, less fentanyl, less crime and inner city, particularly sanctuary city, chaos, and less trans and DEI nonsense. We simply want a government the appears to understand and connect with the majority of people and their issues, and focus on what matters to average Americans. When you talk as you do most people here would just shut you out because it doesn’t come across as a friendly discussion, more a condescending lecture that we don’t really relate to or feel particularly relevant, and we’re sick of that.

im not disagreeing or debating your political position, its your attitude and approach. All too common and what has possibly caused an over reaction in a different direction. And the left aren’t changing, and are simply making their situation worse.

It's not patronising to correct someone. I was pointing out an inaccuracy, that's fairly fundamental in the position you hold, and one that's very common in the UK. I've not given you my political position (I can if you like). It certainly wouldn't be voting for Biden, and if I wanted the things that you want, I absolutely wouldn't have voted Trump. It's frustrating, because about 80% of what you say you want - including controlled immigration - are made significantly more likely by actual left wing policies. Instead of fighting for an actual left wing party, a significant portion of both UK and US are voting for grifters like Trump, whilst the middle class professionals vote for sudo-socially-progressive charlatans, happy to throw around apparently socially progressive policies safe in the knowledge that they've already solved the world's economic problems - for themselves and their class. It adds up to me that someone would vote for Trump because they've lost sight of what left wing actually means. As I stated in my first post - and other conversations we had recently on the topic (where you used terms like socialism) - that isn't a criticism of your voting decision or intent, it's a criticism of a system that has polluted politics so massively that you can't even picture anything that isn't neoliberal, corporatist oligarchy, run by absolute cunts like the Tesla fucker.

My only criticism of you was the fact that you use terms like left when you must know from your time in Scotland that they're not left at all? You even used "far left", which just backs up the point - you genuinely think there are communists in the multimillionaire US senate? It's absolutely ludicrous - McCarthyism, basically. I will apologise though, as the criticism isn't helpful. It was more from a place of disbelief/bewilderment that things have become so detached from reality. I should know better.

[RicoS321]

2 hours ago, Elgindon said:

Left leaning a few decades ago meant left of centre politically,or more on the Socialist side of the fence,but it seems to have widened out (esp among the younger generation) in the last 5 or 10 years,to encompass your opinion on LGBTQ rights,climate change,race etc,although a lot of the younger element on that side of the fence,do also still seem to describe themselves as Socialist,...occasionally Marxist at times

I don't think climate change sits with race and LGBTQ rights. One is backed by overwhelming volumes of science, grounded in fairly simple - and undeniable - physics.

Otherwise, I agree. Economically progressive <> socially progressive (I'm not particularly sure what the second one means, or where its boundaries lie), and economic progressiveness must always come before social, which takes time if at all desirable. However, the answer to that isn't Reform, or Donald Trump, very clearly. The strangest part being, that those that vote for the former wouldn't be willing to overlook a few progressive policies, and a character like Corbyn*, holding their nose to vote for demonstrably economically progressive policies, but they would sabotage economically progressive policies by voting for the moreso odious character that apparently prioritises social conservativism. To the extent that there is a generational element (and I think that is overblown), what intrigues me most is the generation that benefited from huge social welfare, fair house prices, free education and relative wealth equality, are comfortable to deny that for future generations to prevent social progressiveness. 

I'm ultimately getting involved in a fight that I have no dog in here though, I just find it interesting. I don't actually believe in nations (apart from for fitba purposes) or national governments as a concept, and think that they are time-limited and can only exist in a period of abundant energy. In my opinion, it shouldn't be possible, or desirable, to manage human needs at the level of the state and I think that will always lead to what we have playing out before us. I think that democracy is a fairly unnatural state of affairs, a somewhat nebulous concept, and I don't think that it has too many decades left. 

*I didn't vote for Corbyn, but not because he was an upper middle class London cunt. 

Edited Friday at 09:07 by RicoS321

[Reekie_Red]

4 hours ago, Elgindon said:

Left leaning a few decades ago meant left of centre politically,or more on the Socialist side of the fence,but it seems to have widened out (esp among the younger generation) in the last 5 or 10 years,to encompass your opinion on LGBTQ rights,climate change,race etc,although a lot of the younger element on that side of the fence,do also still seem to describe themselves as Socialist,...occasionally Marxist at times

Dunno if it's the same in all westernised countries. But there's a section of the currently emerging generation of adults in Australasia who seem to ignore social class positioning, there is a growing tendency to ignore discrimination based on your current social class. Possibly the only exemption in this is those brought up with a silver spoon in their mouth, cos they still stuck to their own. 

Whether this also exists in USA beneath the political comedy gala that the rest of the world gets to see pretty much everyday on TV or not ... I'd love to know.

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, Reekie_Red said:

Dunno if it's the same in all westernised countries. But there's a section of the currently emerging generation of adults in Australasia who seem to ignore social class positioning, there is a growing tendency to ignore discrimination based on your current social class. Possibly the only exemption in this is those brought up with a silver spoon in their mouth, cos they still stuck to their own. 

Whether this also exists in USA beneath the political comedy gala that the rest of the world gets to see pretty much everyday on TV or not ... I'd love to know.

It depends what you mean by ignoring social class? Do you mean that there is increased mixing between classes as if they are a single class? Or do you mean that people ignore that classes exist, and thus ignore inequality? If it's the latter, then in the UK, class is still a thing but the discussion is probably on the sidelines. Starmer, for example, will bring up that his father was a toolmaker, and all parties will pretend to be the friend of the working man, but the actual policies on the ground are as thin as possible. I guess that's because the working class have been hollowed out by offshoring of industry, so the actual working class are simply on another continent (bloody foreigners), or majority immigrants. In the US, there always seems to have been a pretending that there is no class divisions (the American dream etc), and that upward mobility is available to all regardless of circumstance, despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to that not being the case. Of course, that upward mobility was historically impossible for all but a relative handful of black people up until the sixties and seventies as the ending of segregation took hold. That's why things like DEI exist there, and why inequality is discussed in terms of race. But because inequality actually exists over class lines, resentment builds up for policies surrounding race rather than income level. I suspect that the same is true with indigenous folks in Australia and New Zealand (and obviously the US). Structural racism exists in all three countries (and the UK), but it's no longer rooted in "actual" racism (not to say racism is solved!), rather you have an existing issue where people in lower classes happen to be majority ethnic minority, but the barriers to mobility are now the same for all ethnicities. Social mobility and terrible working conditions are as great an issue for working class white people as working class black people. Presenting the problem along race lines is a mistake. Possibly a deliberate one (divide and conquer). A good illustration in the UK would have been stabbing victims in London, which occur more regularly in areas with higher proportion of ethnic minority. You could take that as black people stab one other because they're black and it's in their culture. Yet the same thing occurred in deprived areas of weegieland, predominantly white. The issue is, and always has been, that you experience significantly more crime in areas of deprivation. 

Why, then, would class be ignored? Because the last thing anyone I'm charge wants is an empowered working or lower class. Almost all western media is owned by the billionaire class. If not, then it's run by the managerial professional middle class. It is much easier for them and their business to have the lower classes divided and blaming one another. A working class white person in a poor neighbourhood has far more in common with a working class brown person in a similar situation, yet the majority (in this case white) will side with a charlatan like Farage, because they've been primed to hate the other. Middle class professionals - like me - have no real skin in the game either way, and so can virtue signal 'til our heart's content, because it makes no difference to us whether our charity victims are poor black or white people.