Can Our Democracy Survive This?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Open borders and social welfare entitlements are the platform of the Democratic party. Working taxpaying Americans rejected that platform in 2016.

I'll grant you that it was a razor thin margin. I still maintain that the takers outnumber the taxed seeing Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote. Perhaps many takers felt too secure in the social welfare income taxpayer funded benefits they had obtained under Obama and were simply too lazy to vote.

Beastie,

Majax88 inadvertently served up a perfect example for my page 2 response to you. I know it's poor form to quote oneself, but this bears repeating:

Responsible citizens will often communicate with thoughts that are of moderate length and are relatively insightful. What most people require, to stay in line with my points above, are glib and banal snippets. Thoughts need to be consumed at two sentences or less. I'm not joking, especially when your audience starts to get large (politics).

This is why I generally choose to be laconic simply because the faster people can read something, the more likely they'll consume it because it's easily digestible. Thoughts and ideas don't have to be considered to any degree, only recognized. This is the age we live in because there is an ocean of information being thrown at us every hour of every day. Discussion is less important than recognition of a default position.

This is political ideology and news circa 2010 and now moving forward.

I would urge all of us to resist the tempation to circlejerk the thread into oblivion, and try to talk to Beastie's point.

- Doc

[_Mayan Elephant]

I still maintain that the takers outnumber the taxed seeing Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote. Perhaps many takers felt too secure in the social welfare income taxpayer funded benefits they had obtained under Obama and were simply too lazy to vote.

idiot

[_Brackite]

Perhaps many takers felt too secure in the social welfare income taxpayer funded benefits they had obtained under Obama and were simply too lazy to vote.

According to exit polls, Trump won 41% of individuals who make under $30,000 a year.

[_beastie]

Ms. Beastie,

I didn't respond initially because I've thought about this for a bit, and I think, for me, I've got this figured out.

I read a book once called Global Paradox by John Naisbitt. It was written in 1998 and was very prescient for its time. I believe this review sums it up well (it's just a page, but worth it):

http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/naisbitt.html

Bottom line is the more connected we become globally the more we'll break up into smaller and smaller echo chambers and isolate ourselves. Hence the inherent paradox of our Internet, commerce, governments, etc... It's a natural reaction to seek refuge with others who share your views on things because everything else is overwhelming.

So. To your post and what's going on I think our interconnectivity is lending itself to tribalism and groupthink. People need to 1) feel like others are among the like-minded to relieve themselves from the reality that the world primarily is dysfunctional and doesn't share their values, and 2) digest information quickly that reaffirms that belief. One could say it's an idiocracy, but I think it's more than that.

Responsible citizens will often communicate with thoughts that are of moderate length and are relatively insightful. What most people require, to stay in line with my points above, are glib and banal snippets. Thoughts need to be consumed at two sentences or less. I'm not joking, especially when your audience starts to get large (politics).

This is why I generally choose to be laconic simply because the faster people can read something, the more likely they'll consume it because it's easily digestible. Thoughts and ideas don't have to be considered to any degree, only recognized. This is the age we live in because there is an ocean of information being thrown at us every hour of every day. Discussion is less important than recognition of a default position.

This is political ideology and news circa 2010 and now moving forward.

By the time anything political hits the news services, social media, cable, or whatever the only thing recognizable will be generic, banal thoughts that make the original issue grist for recycling already-well-aired views. When people like you, for example (and who is someone I've always thought to be grounded, thoughtful, and clear) who have actual insight to add to a news article, a Reddit thread, this forum, a Facebook page, who takes the time to write a post longer than a few dozen words, you generally have to respond to a comment that's generating interest (usually a top comment).

However, here is the problem with top comments: Even if you have something smart, informed or insightful to say most of the comment real estate has been claimed by circlejerking, glib generalizations, and snarking. All discussion in this day and age starts a fractal tree of discussion, and only the top trees get attention. So, people like ldsfaqs, who isn't well-versed in politics or critical thinking, but are but are good at reactionary circlejerking carves out his real estate that doesn't discuss the content of the article, but rather succeeds at posting content that is only position-recognizable rather than grounded in fact, truth, or any combination thereof.

So. While your points are valid, I think you're missing the bigger picture. The bigger picture isn't positional, but rather finding a way to make democracy work in a day and age where communication is instantaneous and people consume media through their paradoxical tribalization. How does a big political organization win and move forward? How does a political party communicate through recognition patterns now, rather than discourse? Trump figured it out, inadvertently, but the Democrats, because they have better ideas, just need to harness the power of a fracturing populace and communicate quickly, constantly, with imagery that conveys recognition rather than through dialogue.

- Doc

Thank you for such a thoughtful reply. I think I understand your point, although I may need a little clarification.

This is why I generally choose to be laconic simply because the faster people can read something, the more likely they'll consume it because it's easily digestible. Thoughts and ideas don't have to be considered to any degree, only recognized. This is the age we live in because there is an ocean of information being thrown at us every hour of every day. Discussion is less important than recognition of a default position.

This makes a great deal of sense, but does this imply that discussion is less important than recognition of a default position simply due to the necessity of understanding that discussion likely is not going to take place, and we have to accept that reality and simply try to get our idea recognized? And by default position, do you mean an idea that has already been around enough that people can recognize what it is quickly?

And how do you mean Trump figured this out? Was it that he seemed to communicate with feelings more than organized ideas. Apparently "build the wall", "lock her up", and "drain the swamp" didn't mean that he was actually going to do any of those things, but he was simply expressing the feelings of anger at "the other" who the supporter perceived had damaged their life in some way.

Of course, I do feel that it's important to point out that nearly 3 million more people did vote for Clinton. How does that factor in to your point?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

This makes a great deal of sense, but does this imply that discussion is less important than recognition of a default position simply due to the necessity of understanding that discussion likely is not going to take place, and we have to accept that reality and simply try to get our idea recognized? And by default position, do you mean an idea that has already been around enough that people can recognize what it is quickly?

And how do you mean Trump figured this out? Was it that he seemed to communicate with feelings more than organized ideas. Apparently "build the wall", "lock her up", and "drain the swamp" didn't mean that he was actually going to do any of those things, but he was simply expressing the feelings of anger at "the other" who the supporter perceived had damaged their life in some way.

Of course, I do feel that it's important to point out that nearly 3 million more people did vote for Clinton. How does that factor in to your point?

Hi Beastie,

To your first paragraph, I would suggest we're at a point in our global paradox that communicating broad ideas and themes isn't practical because the population is already stratified and cloistered in information bubbles that reinforce their ideologies. When media was relatively limited and controlled by the few a political party could broadcast big ideas and let the individual fill in the details due to their isolation. Now, political parties must saturate sub-groups with memes, more or less, that reinforce entrenchment while making the play the political party offers that ideal.

To Trump, look at his Twitter. His historical record does exactly what I described above. He makes very specific statements to a variety of people. It's not just dog whistling. He's a virtual meme generating machine. He captured large swaths of voters historically inclined to either opt out or to vote Democrat.

Nothing he says matters. The only thing that mattered was a communicated position. You could say it was akin to a grassroots movement, but this was top down.

To your third paragraph, it just shows there still exists thoughtful people. But, it doesn't matter. The Democrats need to figure this trend out quickly because they lost a lot of power, and if they don't know how to communicate down ballot to a slacktivist generation, and to people who are too busy to spend time fuguring out global-to-local politics we're in for a bumpy ride.

I'd recommend listening to this guy if you want to understand why and how Trump and the GOP wins:

Milo Yiannopoulos

Forget his political positions. Listen to him ref media and politicking.

- Doc

[_Maxine Waters]

9 Scapegoats Progressives Blame for Hillary Clinton’s Stunning Loss

A month after Hillary Clinton’s devastating election loss to Donald Trump, progressives have placed blame for their defeat on everything from “fake news” to racism to Russian hackers.
Below is a roundup of the scapegoats progressives blame for Clinton’s loss.
1. “Fake News”
Hillary Clinton used her first public speech since her election loss to blame the “epidemic” rise of fake news for her defeat.
“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences,” Clinton said earlier this month in a speech on Capital Hill.
Clinton said “lives are at risk” because of fake news, calling it “a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly.”

2. Huma Abedin
Clinton advisors, still reeling from defeat, blamed her longtime aide Huma Abedin for their loss.
“She was enjoying the red carpet and enjoying the photo spreads much too much in my opinion,” a close Clinton insider told Vanity Fair. “She enjoyed being a celebrity too much.”
Abedin, who’d spent 20 years as one of Clinton’s closest confidants, caused a campaign crisis weeks before the election after the FBI announced that emails related to its Clinton private server investigation were found on a laptop shared by Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner, who is being investigated for allegedly sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl.
3. Putin’s “Personal Beef”
Hillary Clinton claimed last week that Russia’s hack of her campaign was an attack “to undermine our democracy,” and was ordered by Vladimir V. Putin “because he has a personal beef against me.”
“Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election,” Clinton said in speech to a group of donors referencing charges she made that the Russian President rigged the parliamentary elections in his country in 2011.
“Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyberattacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me,” she said.
4. FBI Director James Comey
During a post-election conference call with Clinton surrogates, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta referred to FBI Director James Comey as the person “who we think may have cost us the election,” The Hill reported.
Two weeks before Election Day, Comey wrote a letter to Congress informing lawmakers of the discovery of a new batch of emails (found on Weiner’s computer), related to the investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
Two days before the election, Comey announced the FBI found no new information in the emails. But by then, Clinton’s camp believes the damage to their campaign had already been done.
5. Millennials
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook mentioned young voters as one of the reasons for Clinton’s loss.
During an election postmortem event at Harvard, Mook placed blame on “young people” who “were voting for third-party candidates” as one of the reasons Clinton loss.
6. Racism 
During the same post-election session at Harvard, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri blamed Breitbart News and its former executive chairman turned Trump campaign CEO Stephen K. Bannon for Clinton’s loss.
“If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost,” Palmieri said. “I would rather lose than win the way you guys did.”
7. White women who voted for Trump
Clinton campaign celebrity surrogate Lena Dunham scorned self-hating white women who voted for Donald Trump, and blamed them for her candidate’s defeat.
“It’s painful to know that white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves, showed up to the polls for him, too,” Dunham wrote in an essay for her Lenny Letter blog published days after the election.
8. Electoral college
During his final press briefing of the year, President Obama blamed the Electoral College for Hillary Clinton’s election loss.
The Electoral College, Obama said, is one of the “structures in our political system as envisioned by the Founders that sometimes are going to disadvantage Democrats.”
“The Electoral College is a vestige, it’s a carryover from an earlier vision of how our federal government was going to work that put a lot of premium on states,” he added.
9. “Voter Suppression” 
Democratic National Chair Donna Brazile blamed “brand new voting restrictions put in place” to depress votes in “many swing states.”
“In many swing states, voter suppression succeeded in its ultimate, if unstated goal: diluting democracy through disfranchisement,” Brazile wrote weeks after the election.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... ning-loss/

I bet Beastie broke a few vases on election night just like Hillary Clinton.

[_Mayan Elephant]

i am not a breitbart fan, but damn. that list is spot-on. the crying continues.

ain't it something that none of the reasons the democrats lost include the anointed candidate?

[_beastie]

Hi Beastie,

To your first paragraph, I would suggest we're at a point in our global paradox that communicating broad ideas and themes isn't practical because the population is already stratified and cloistered in information bubbles that reinforce their ideologies. When media was relatively limited and controlled by the few a political party could broadcast big ideas and let the individual fill in the details due to their isolation. Now, political parties must saturate sub-groups with memes, more or less, that reinforce entrenchment while making the play the political party offers that ideal.

To Trump, look at his Twitter. His historical record does exactly what I described above. He makes very specific statements to a variety of people. It's not just dog whistling. He's a virtual meme generating machine. He captured large swaths of voters historically inclined to either opt out or to vote Democrat.

Nothing he says matters. The only thing that mattered was a communicated position. You could say it was akin to a grassroots movement, but this was top down.

To your third paragraph, it just shows there still exists thoughtful people. But, it doesn't matter. The Democrats need to figure this trend out quickly because they lost a lot of power, and if they don't know how to communicate down ballot to a slacktivist generation, and to people who are too busy to spend time fuguring out global-to-local politics we're in for a bumpy ride.

I'd recommend listening to this guy if you want to understand why and how Trump and the GOP wins:

Milo Yiannopoulos

Forget his political positions. Listen to him ref media and politicking.

- Doc

Thanks, Doc. I think you are on to something here, but if you're right, I'm even more concerned about how we can have a healthy democracy.

I'm going to try to listen to Milo a bit. My son is familiar with him and has talked to me quite a bit about the failure of the democratic party to capture his generation, but I think I'll have to wait to Friday when I can have a few drinks under my belt to take Milo on. ;P

[_beastie]

The question asked in the OP takes me to a follow-on question: How do we go about defending democracy?

That is something I've grappled with since the election a lot. On the one hand, I'm not shy about admitting I have serious concerns about things Trump said during the election becoming realized. The potential they could even be said was sufficient then for me to completely reject considering voting for him. And also in making it clear his election represented a threat to our values as he didn't seem to share them or even pretend they mattered.

But here we are and Trump is the winner of the election. And the media is showing up throwing up **** storms about anything and everything. But are they doing anything different now or is it just a different version of, "John Podesta eats babies while fornicating with demons!!!!"? Are we predisposed to the anti-Trump headlines no matter how sensational for reasons that fake anti-Hillary news was so effective during the election in creating disinterest in voting for her or creating an illusion that she and Trump were equivalent in any manner?

Journalism is **** in many ways but it's not a perfect instrument and never has been. It's not helping democracy to argue we aren't responsible to prepare ourselves to engage it, and the tools that it used to **** dumb wannabe conservatives are being used today. We have to guard against our own biases just as we need to point out the blind spots in others.

So, I don't think democracy is being well defended by our going into the media vortex when it seems like they are saying things we also believe are true.

The antidote to this is, in my opinion, critical thinking and seeking out people who we expect will bring a balanced view and engage facts rather than just feed one another's biases. I think there are posters here who are valuable for this very reason.

How else do we defend democracy? If polarized, polemic politics are weapons used against it, then perhaps what we need most is to combat the urge to demonize and contribute to the polemic environment. Along those lines, I can't recommend enough the talk between Haidt and Bill Moyer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHc-yMcfAY4

Perhaps there will come a time when democracy can't be defending using the ideals of democracy, and I hope that never comes. I don't think we're there. Democracy is defended by our commitment to democracy. It's defended by our investing in understanding what it really is, what it really means, what it really requires of us to have a civilized society where it is possible.

My 2 cents, anyway.

I haven't had time to listen to the Moyer clip. I am a big fan of Haidt and his book The Righteous Mind. I really want Haidt's road to work. I really would prefer believing that critical thinking and seeking out contrary opinions is the antidote. But we are already so deeply polarized, and so deeply within our echo chambers, I'm not very optimistic.

Certainly I'm as prone as anyone to be susceptible to media sources that simply affirm what I already believe. I want to hope and believe Trump doesn't live up to my worst expectations. However, I'm having a hard time holding on to even the slimmest hope in the face of his cabinet picks.

[_Brackite]

9 Scapegoats Progressives Blame for Hillary Clinton’s Stunning Loss

A month after Hillary Clinton’s devastating election loss to Donald Trump, progressives have placed blame for their defeat on everything from “fake news” to racism to Russian hackers.
Below is a roundup of the scapegoats progressives blame for Clinton’s loss.
1. “Fake News”
Hillary Clinton used her first public speech since her election loss to blame the “epidemic” rise of fake news for her defeat.
“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences,” Clinton said earlier this month in a speech on Capital Hill.
Clinton said “lives are at risk” because of fake news, calling it “a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly.”

2. Huma Abedin
Clinton advisors, still reeling from defeat, blamed her longtime aide Huma Abedin for their loss.
“She was enjoying the red carpet and enjoying the photo spreads much too much in my opinion,” a close Clinton insider told Vanity Fair. “She enjoyed being a celebrity too much.”
Abedin, who’d spent 20 years as one of Clinton’s closest confidants, caused a campaign crisis weeks before the election after the FBI announced that emails related to its Clinton private server investigation were found on a laptop shared by Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner, who is being investigated for allegedly sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl.
3. Putin’s “Personal Beef”
Hillary Clinton claimed last week that Russia’s hack of her campaign was an attack “to undermine our democracy,” and was ordered by Vladimir V. Putin “because he has a personal beef against me.”
“Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election,” Clinton said in speech to a group of donors referencing charges she made that the Russian President rigged the parliamentary elections in his country in 2011.
“Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyberattacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me,” she said.
4. FBI Director James Comey
During a post-election conference call with Clinton surrogates, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta referred to FBI Director James Comey as the person “who we think may have cost us the election,” The Hill reported.
Two weeks before Election Day, Comey wrote a letter to Congress informing lawmakers of the discovery of a new batch of emails (found on Weiner’s computer), related to the investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
Two days before the election, Comey announced the FBI found no new information in the emails. But by then, Clinton’s camp believes the damage to their campaign had already been done.
5. Millennials
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook mentioned young voters as one of the reasons for Clinton’s loss.
During an election postmortem event at Harvard, Mook placed blame on “young people” who “were voting for third-party candidates” as one of the reasons Clinton loss.
6. Racism 
During the same post-election session at Harvard, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri blamed Breitbart News and its former executive chairman turned Trump campaign CEO Stephen K. Bannon for Clinton’s loss.
“If providing a platform for white supremacists makes me a brilliant tactician, I am proud to have lost,” Palmieri said. “I would rather lose than win the way you guys did.”
7. White women who voted for Trump
Clinton campaign celebrity surrogate Lena Dunham scorned self-hating white women who voted for Donald Trump, and blamed them for her candidate’s defeat.
“It’s painful to know that white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves, showed up to the polls for him, too,” Dunham wrote in an essay for her Lenny Letter blog published days after the election.
8. Electoral college
During his final press briefing of the year, President Obama blamed the Electoral College for Hillary Clinton’s election loss.
The Electoral College, Obama said, is one of the “structures in our political system as envisioned by the Founders that sometimes are going to disadvantage Democrats.”
“The Electoral College is a vestige, it’s a carryover from an earlier vision of how our federal government was going to work that put a lot of premium on states,” he added.
9. “Voter Suppression” 
Democratic National Chair Donna Brazile blamed “brand new voting restrictions put in place” to depress votes in “many swing states.”
“In many swing states, voter suppression succeeded in its ultimate, if unstated goal: diluting democracy through disfranchisement,” Brazile wrote weeks after the election.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... ning-loss/

I bet Beastie broke a few vases on election night just like Hillary Clinton.

Voter Suppression may have been the reason why Hillary lost Wisconsin. Voter turnout was lower in Wisconsin than it was in 2008 and in 2012.

Wisconsin Voter Turnout:
2008 2,983,417
2012 3,068,434
2016 2,976,150