Right, Left and coddling

[Fudbucker]

You're basing your conclusions on your biases against your opponent, rather than verifiable facts. Do you not see how this can lead to self-deception?

I think the racism and misogyny by Trump and the alt-right is an easily verifiable fact (ETA and add anti-semitism*). Breitbart's fawning over Roy Moore, the hand-waving away of credible accusations of child-molestation (i.e., the women are all liars), his reprehensible comments about slavery, Trump's endorsement of him. Trump stalling on disavowing David Duke's support, Birtherism (still a widespread belief on the Right), Charlottesville, Access Hollywood, scapegoating Mexicans... those are just some examples. It's not a point I care to argue, if you don't agree. I'm convinced of it, and will probably never convince you, if you don't think Trump and many of his supporters are racist and sexist and homophobic. I don't see how you can not see it, but apparently you don't.

It doesn't matter what the poll had in mind, what matters is what the respondents had in mind.

I think they had in mind what I had in mind when I answered it: cultural changes resulting in civil rights/tolerance/growing economic&political power of disadvantaged groups. What other cultural changes could they plausibly be referring to?

Why is that absurd? Basically none of them were adults at the time. For many of them, their parents may not even have been born. What do they really know? And why are you limiting their ignorance to those specific topics? I'm certainly not.

It would require a level of ignorance of the recent past that would make even the average American blush: Roe-vs-wade, separate but equal, desegregation in public schools, civil rights act, MLK, interracial marriage, the rise of feminism, gays slowly becoming more and more accepted in society culminating in legal gay marriage...

What adult in this country could possibly be ignorant of the cultural changes that have taken place since the 1950's and are still ongoing?

First, this doesn't actually make any sense. Abortion rates are HIGHER for blacks in the US than for whites. In fact, abortion opponents often use that fact, along with some now-retrograde opinions on eugenics and race from Margaret Sanger, to argue that abortion advocacy is racist. I'm not arguing that this view is correct, but it's incompatible with the view you reference. And it's pretty wide-spread in anti-abortion circles.

As I said, I don't think the cultural changes the poll respondents were addressing necessarily had to do with abortion, but rather the rise of feminism. I was pointing out a strain of white supremacist thought that abortion is to blame for "white death". For a misogynist any women's rights are going to be a sore spot, including reproductive rights. After all, if you give them an inch...

Second, a failure to imagine motives other than the one advanced doesn't constitute proof of those motives.

The proof is in what Trump says and does and what his supporters believe and condone.

Third, the "alt-right" is only part of Trump's support. Where is your evidence that the alt-right in particular is nostalgic for the 1950's?

I don't know that the alt-right is nostalgic for the 50's. Their racism and misogyny is enough to explain why they would answer that poll the way they did. However, if one believes the cultural changes since the 50's have made things worse, then it's a safe assumption one would want to roll the clock back to a time when things were better before all those changes took place. Trump has referenced the 50's as a time when America was great. White men overwhelmingly support Trump. The 1950's was the last decade of their unchecked power. In discussions I've had with Trump supporters, the 50's are often referenced as the last time America was "great".

*ETA: I thought this apropos, courtesy of Ponderingturtle:

A poll conducted by local ABC News affiliates along with the polling company Survey USA, suggested that Little is polling at 18 percent of the vote on the Republican ticket, a full 10 points ahead of his next strongest opponent.

It’s unclear how predictive the poll will prove to be, or whether many Californians are intimately familiar with Little’s views, but the notion that he has any viability at all in the state is likely to raise alarm. Little has said he believes Jews should have no say over white non-Jews and wants to see them removed from the country altogether. On Gab, a social media site with large swaths of extremist users, he argues that the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, whose proprietors praise Adolf Hitler and have appeared to call for acts of violence against Jewish people, is too Jewish.

“I propose a government that makes counter-semitism central to all aims of the state,” he wrote on that website, referring to a white nationalist euphemism for a hatred of Jews. He argued for forbidding “all immigration except of biological kin, where no person of Jewish origin may live, vacation or traverse.”
http://www.newsweek.com/republican-senate-candidate-free-jews-904652

 

[Ziggurat]

I think the racism and misogyny by Trump and the alt-right is an easily verifiable fact (ETA and add anti-semitism*).

But the survey doesn't identify who is alt-right.

 

[baron]

Nostalgia is racist. Good Christ, I've heard it all now.

 

[The Don]

Nostalgia is racist. Good Christ, I've heard it all now.

Depends on what you're nostalgic for about the '50s IMO.

Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts - not so racist.

A time when segregation was legal, white men were in charge and blacks (and Jews and women) knew their place - more racist.

 

[baron]

Depends on what you're nostalgic for about the '50s IMO.

Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts - not so racist.

A time when segregation was legal, white men were in charge and blacks (and Jews and women) knew their place - more racist.

Sure, but does anybody seriously think like that? Does anybody ponder, "You know, in my youth we had high inflation, next to no consumer rights, rubbish roads, unreliable cars, crappy phones, minimal commercial choice and underperforming appliances, but that black man knew his place and because of that I really miss those times!"

Maybe a few nutters do entertain these thoughts, but I imagine for the vast majority nostalgia is simply that, a fondness for days gone by, a natural human condition common to most people regardless of whether their conclusions are borne out by the objective facts.

 

[Mycroft]

Nostalgia is racist. Good Christ, I've heard it all now.

If it's nostalgia for a more racist time, then yes.

Remember Paula Deen's "dream wedding" featuring a plantation theme and all the staff being black people?

 

[baron]

If it's nostalgia for a more racist time, then yes.

In a progressive society, unless you're asserting that full equality exists, then all 'times' are racist. So you're saying that nostalgia itself is racist. Which is what I said.

Remember Paula Deen's "dream wedding" featuring a plantation theme and all the staff being black people?

Can't say I do.

 

[tyr_13]

In a progressive society, unless you're asserting that full equality exists, then all 'times' are racist. So you're saying that nostalgia itself is racist. Which is what I said.



Can't say I do.

"More racist time," is what was said.

I get your point, but nostalgia is often (mostly) unthinking and unaware of what they're actually nostalgic for. It isn't a reasonable thought process.

 

[baron]

"More racist time," is what was said.

I get your point, but nostalgia is often (mostly) unthinking and unaware of what they're actually nostalgic for. It isn't a reasonable thought process.

Indeed, more racist. The 2000's were more racist than today. The 80's more racist than the 2000's, the 60's.... you get the idea. In 2050 I imagine that people will look back on current society and say it's more racist than what they themselves are experiencing. I can't imagine that anybody aside from maybe the KKK had such fond memories of a youth suppressing minorities that they proclaim it was the best time of their lives. I personally am nostalgic for the 80s, yet the manner in which black people or gays or women were treated during that time doesn't factor in my thought process. Nostalgia relates to personal circumstance, not political climate.

 

[The Don]

Sure, but does anybody seriously think like that? Does anybody ponder, "You know, in my youth we had high inflation, next to no consumer rights, rubbish roads, unreliable cars, crappy phones, minimal commercial choice and underperforming appliances, but that black man knew his place and because of that I really miss those times!"

Maybe a few nutters do entertain these thoughts, but I imagine for the vast majority nostalgia is simply that, a fondness for days gone by, a natural human condition common to most people regardless of whether their conclusions are borne out by the objective facts.

I think you underestimate the amount of racism that still exists in parts of the United States. There is still a significant minority who want a return to segregation and a much larger number of people who want to reverse the effects of the civil rights movement.

It's the same with my father over here in the UK. He constantly bemoans the fact that there are so many black faces over here and the sheer number of immigrants despite the fact that where he lives any immigrant is a rare commodity and the irony that he is himself an immigrant (as is his daughter in law Mrs Don).

 

[Fudbucker]

But the survey doesn't identify who is alt-right.

The survey doesn't need to. The alt-right is scary enough. What the survey tells is that 70% of Trump supporters believe the cultural changes since the 50's have been negative. For any group that has benefited from those changes, that's a scary fact.

 

[Ziggurat]

The survey doesn't need to.

It does if you want to use the survey to prove something about them.

What the survey tells is that 70% of Trump supporters believe the cultural changes since the 50's have been negative. For any group that has benefited from those changes, that's a scary fact.

Which changes? Again, the survey doesn't specify. For example, blacks have certainly benefited from some of the changes since the 1950's, but not from all of them. As an example, the drop in marriage rates and rise in single-parent households has been devastating to the black community.

So which changes do the respondents like or dislike? All of them? Nope, that's not what the survey indicates.

 

[Mumbles]

Indeed, more racist. The 2000's were more racist than today.

I strongly question this - especially in light of the current president's outward hostility towards nonwhite people (A hostility that both Obama and GWB refused to go anywhere near). And what's more, I hold Dolt 45 and his administration (the Muslim bans, the use of ICE to terrorize nonwhite communities, the open hatred of nonwhite immigrants, the direct calls for state violence against black people, the support for white nationalists and racial terrorists, and the dismantling of civil rights enforcement in housing, hiring, and lending directly responsible for this.

The 80's more racist than the 2000's, the 60's.... you get the idea.

I'll question this last one as well, given that the backlash to the Civil Rights movement was in full swing in the 1980s. Reagan in particular was a disaster for black Americans domestically- far more so than Kennedy or Johnson ever was, while many local and state police forces were still outright violently oppressive...

...okay, that never actually changed.

 

[Darat]

Each other.

Compared to whom?

 

[mgidm86]

I strongly question this - especially in light of the current president's outward hostility towards nonwhite people (A hostility that both Obama and GWB refused to go anywhere near). And what's more, I hold Dolt 45 and his administration (the Muslim bans, the use of ICE to terrorize nonwhite communities, the open hatred of nonwhite immigrants, the direct calls for state violence against black people, the support for white nationalists and racial terrorists, and the dismantling of civil rights enforcement in housing, hiring, and lending directly responsible for this.



I'll question this last one as well, given that the backlash to the Civil Rights movement was in full swing in the 1980s. Reagan in particular was a disaster for black Americans domestically- far more so than Kennedy or Johnson ever was, while many local and state police forces were still outright violently oppressive...

...okay, that never actually changed.

Maybe people are just accusing people of racism more often. That seems to be a gigantic possibility from my perspective.

This thread page is a great example. Many people think that if you are nostalgic for the '50s that you are so because of racism. In fact they ask this question ("what time in the past do you long for?") believing that whatever answer you give will be racist because there isn't a time where racism did not exist. There is no non-racist answer possible for these types.

Anyways, Baron pretty much covered my feelings on this.

 

[fuelair]

He also said you could keep your doctor.

I keep mine in the cellar!!!

 

[Mumbles]

Maybe people are just accusing people of racism more often. That seems to be a gigantic possibility from my perspective.

This thread page is a great example. Many people think that if you are nostalgic for the '50s that you are so because of racism. In fact they ask this question ("what time in the past do you long for?") believing that whatever answer you give will be racist because there isn't a time where racism did not exist. There is no non-racist answer possible for these types.

Anyways, Baron pretty much covered my feelings on this.

And again, if you elect an outwardly bigoted person to office because you "are nostalgic for the '50s", I'd say that it's justified for people to ask "So, is it the open white supremacism of that era that you like?"

 

[xjx388]

I've got a new fear of the left to add to the list: Robots and A.I. are going to replace all human jobs! So we have to distribute the fruits of robot labor to all humans in the form of a guaranteed income or else civilization will collapse!

 

[Upchurch]

He also said you could keep your doctor.

I kept my doctor.

 

[Ziggurat]

I kept my doctor.

That's nice for you.