OT: Politics

[Lurker27]

Gordon #1 takesman

If you had to assign percentages to why GOP policy is so messed up what would you assign to corporate capture, and what to racism?

I'm like 85/15 minimum towards corporate capture.

[cockerpunk]

Gordon #1 takesman

If you had to assign percentages to why GOP policy is so messed up what would you assign to corporate capture, and what to racism?

I'm like 85/15 minimum towards corporate capture.

this assumes some kind of only one reason. its also neglects the justification, versus the motivation question.

there is certainly a branch of GOP policy that is motivated by corporate cronyism. but its justified to the folks who are hurt by it, because of racism. like the most recent tax cuts. most GOP fiscal policy fits this bill.

there is also a branch of GOP policy that was explicitly motivated by racism, and is now justified by "well thats how its always been" i mean there is a branch of liberals that are in the same camp too. "thats how its always been" is a strong motivator, and without being "woke enough" to deconstruct why thats why its always been (hint: mostly racism), you get folks not happy with change justifying policy based on it. examples of this would be redlining, most drug law, the entire existence of suburbia etc etc

and then you have motivated by racism, justified with racism policies. trump has certainly upped the number of these. the republicans have been brilliant at obfuscating the reasons for these, but recently the veil has been lifted. such as the numerous quotes, and even court testimony (most recently in NC) of voter ID laws being explicitly stated to have been made for racial reasons. just last week NC literally in court stated the reason for reducing voting days/hours was to stop black people from voting. gerrymadering often fits this category too.

so there is a variety, but somewhere, in almost any GOP policy, there is racism. i literally cannot think of a GOP position that racism isn't a part of.

[ironyusa]

*A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

Reagan used this quote on June 8, 1965, at a testimonial dinner for Rep. John M. Ashbrook in Granville, Ohio:

"Perhaps what he had in mind was what Prof. Alexander Frazer Tytler has written, that a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury. From that moment on the majority, he said, always vote for the candidate promising the most benefits from the treasury with the result that democracy always collpases over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship. Unfortunately, we can't argue with the professor because when he wrote that we were still colonials of Great Britain and he was explaining what had destroyed the Athenian Republic more than 2000 years before."

"Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."

~Robert A. Heinlein, To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987) pg 223

Perhaps they believe they believe, at a very fundamental level, they are protecting our form of government? I mean, with that assertion I can connect the dots with the group identity article Josh linked and say "protecting our form of government is the American thing to do" and then modify the fiscal narrative to capitalize. (in the link Josh posted Chapter7 starting on page pg117) It's the same story democrats haven't been able to counter, but I think saying "racism" is lazy on your part. It's unfounded, irrelevant and actually counter-productive.

[PBSteve]

With facts not anecdotes.

Does the fact that 70% of the 50k voters stripped from Georgia's voter rolls this cycle being black count?

[PBSteve]

Or we could talk about Florida's felon disenfranchisement laws if you'd like. Or any number of other laws instituted by the GoP at the state level whose effect is to reduce the minority vote.

Just to start

[PBSteve]

But really I shouldn't have engaged, I don't have time for this these days.

[Lurker27]

Even those disenfranchisement numbers can be interpreted as purely political, rather than explicitly racist.

I just think it's a weird thing to go straight to racism as THE problem. I don't think it's accurate etiology, and I don't think it's politically helpful. To be clear, my construction is not dissimilar from Gordon's in that I think the GOP has used the latent racism of the electorate as a club to further the political agenda of corporatism. I think they'd probably be progressive on race if they believed it was politically expedient.

It's also unclear what to do about this use of racism - I get a strong "old man yells at cloud" sense from Gordon in that what he really wants is America to "be more woke", in the sense of a cultural shift. It'll happen in time, I don't see a good way to accelerate it from a political standpoint. It seems that in the current climate bringing up these issues explicitly mostly serves to polarize the electorate. In such a climate, picking the issues that are discussed most is of extreme importance. Again, calling the people you need to get to vote for you (white moderates) racist is a fucking terrible idea.

But yea we should all stop.

Josh, it's good to have you back. While I don't typically agree with your points explicitly (I still think there's more latent racist feelings than those polls show) it's important for both sides to engage with the best version of the dissenting viewpoint.

[ironyusa]

Or we could talk about Florida's felon disenfranchisement laws if you'd like. Or any number of other laws instituted by the GoP at the state level whose effect is to reduce the minority vote.

Just to start

Outcome doesn't prove intent, so no, they don't count unless you can prove intent. Felon's not being able to vote seems like a good idea to me. Are you going to prove that racism is the cause for the skewed crime statistic? You can't. Forcing an "exact match" on the voter records isn't implicitly racist either, the law applies equally. Are you saying blacks are inherently disadvantaged in their ability of providing proper documentation, because that's what you'd have to suggest for it to be racist.

[PBSteve]

Outcome doesn't prove intent,

That is far too flippant a statement.

[ironyusa]

To be clear, my construction is not dissimilar from Gordon's in that I think the GOP has used the latent racism of the electorate as a club to further the political agenda of corporatism.

I disagree. I think it is useless except the fact that socio-economic status happens to correlate. Thus, greedy economic policies have an unfortunate, racially-biased effect. So race is the seal and corporate greed is the club. And when "because 'murica" is a good enough answer for someone, unintended consequences are irrelevant. Net-neutrality, environmental policies, fiscal policies, etc All fit better in that supposition.