June 9 Open Thread: What’s Wrong With White People?
Quinnipiac ran a poll asking people if NFL players have the right to protest on the playing field. The top-line story is that 58% of Americans say they do. But that hides an uglier truth:
The overwhelming majority of Republicans — 81 percent — say that players do not have the right to protest on the playing field. And more than half of white voters, a group Trump won in 2016 that continues to give him favorable marks, say athletes do not have the right to protest.
So I ask, WTF is wrong with white people? Why are they so drawn to authority worship? Why do they side with management instead of labor? If you’ve got answers, post them in the comments.
Just when it started to look as if the Democratic wave might lose its punch before November, Republicans decided it was a smart time to try to kill Obamacare yet again. Given that health care already polls as the No. 1 priority for Democratic voters, and given that only a few narrow slices of the electorate stand to gain by letting insurers base rates on pre-existing conditions again, this is the kind of move that makes independents think the parties are trying to prove which side is stupidest. I think the parties perform a valuable service to humanity: The Democrats show how to fuck something up by overthinking it, and the Republicans show how to fuck it up by underthinking it. Kind of makes you think.
Huffington Post gives prominent play to its interview with Sarah McBride for Gay Pride Month. As the travails of the Parkland students fighting the NRA have also shown, conservatives draw on a nearly bottomless well of rancid hatred:
“It’s been a process to really get to a place where I could deal with the hate and the harassment that comes my way. And I’ll never forget the sort of moment where things changed and clicked for me. It was right after I posted a selfie of myself in a bathroom in North Carolina that I was technically barred from being in, and the level of hate and the heinous threats that came in really shook me to my core. And I wondered whether I could continue to do this work, whether I could continue to be a public voice in this fight. And it was a really traumatic experience.”
They live in constant fear, of what exactly I don’t know, but their project is to make us all live in their tormented world.
https://www.salon.com/2018/06/09/medicare-will-be-dead-in-8-years/
>The overwhelming majority of Republicans — 81 percent — say that players do not have the right to protest on the playing field.
Those voters consider themselves “business owners” or potential business owners, even when they’re just regular working people. In their minds, they need the ability to control their (potential) underlings and instill fear in them. The fact that most NFL players are black is just icing on the cake for them.
Never mind that in reality, they’re working 3rd shift in an Amazon warehouse and have absolutely zero upward mobility.
Ask Tom K.
Between white women supporting the Pussy Grabber in Chief, white boys shooting up schools, and white people supporting autocracy …. White people have some explaining to do.
In addition to all the crimes, what ever happened to basic decency? Trump supporters and enablers in congress and the media are fucking monsters.
What his administration* is doing to these migrant children is a national disgrace.
…And I include our do nothing Senators Coons and Carper among Trump’s enablers.
https://nyti.ms/2MbIm9P
Turning Affluent Suburbs Blue Isn’t Worth the Cost
“The nomination of centrist candidates may bring Democratic gains in the affluent suburbs in the midterms. But the electoral success of that strategy has previously been modest — and more important, the party has paid insufficient attention to the substantial policy costs of turning moderate and affluent suburbs blue. Democrats cannot cater to white swing voters in affluent suburbs and also promote policies that fundamentally challenge income inequality, exclusionary zoning, housing segregation, school inequality, police brutality and mass incarceration.
The political culture of upscale suburbs revolves around resource hoarding of children’s educational advantages, pervasive opposition to economic integration and affordable housing, and the consistent defense of homeowner privileges and taxpayer rights. Indeed, unlike traditional blue-collar Democrats, white-collar professionals across the ideological spectrum — for example, in the high-tech enclaves of California and Northern Virginia, which combined contain eight of the 15 most highly educated congressional districts in the nation — generally endorse tough-on-crime policies, express little interest in protections for unions and sympathize with the economic agenda of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.”
When the players are playing they’re employees and need to follow the rules like the rest of us.
@TK “When the players are playing they’re employees and need to follow the rules like the rest of us.”
And so do the owners need to follow the rules. The rule is you can’t make employees do stuff like that.
@TK: Spoken like a true white person. What makes you such an authoritarian? What’s wrong with you people?
No open thread today… So I’ll just leave these here. Receipts, I think they’re called on the internet.
https://mobile.twitter.com/KerriHarrisDE/status/1005526451196694528
https://mobile.twitter.com/KerriHarrisDE/status/1005925802024808449
https://mobile.twitter.com/KerriHarrisDE/status/1005944541478817799
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/06/09/democrats-change-rules-so-bernie-sanders-cant-run-without-being-a-democrat.html
this is why the democrats learned nothing in 2016 they dont have a candidate but these corporate owned elites wanna make sure no one goes against the power of the establishment dems…not a cent from me this time.
@LA “…democrats learned nothing in 2016…”
Yea. This really is dumb. If Sanders runs as an independent, Trump will easily be reelected.
@LE: I think they’d vote for him even if he were in prison.
You mean if Sanders wants the Democratic Party nomination he should like be an actual Democrat? How undemocratic of them! Next thing you know they will be restricting voting in the primaries to just Democrats.
Worked great so far. Keep it up!
Again…
Turning Affluent Suburbs Blue Isn’t Worth the Cost
https://nyti.ms/2MbIm9P
Next thing you know they will be restricting voting in the primaries to just Democrats.
They already did that. State democratic parties challenged Bernie supporters in the primary. In Ca. made them file a provisional ballot? Bernie has always been with the democrats, even caucus with them. This is another ruse another fight within the establishment democrats, vs. progressive democrats… Righ now WHO is the party leader while we are 5months from the mid terms?
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/options-to-finance-medicare-for-all?inline=file
@A “I think they’d vote for him even if he were in prison.”
That doesn’t matter. The least popular president in modern history cannot win reelection unless the votes against him are split.
So… If it comes down to an R-D-I 3-way race (say: Trump, Gillibrand, Sanders)
then that ends up looking something like 40-30-30, with Trump coming out as the winner.
But in any 2-way race (Trump-Sanders or Trump-Gillibrand), Trump loses decisively.
And THAT’S why this is a really stupid party rule.
@LA “Righ now WHO is the party leader while we are 5months from the mid terms?”
It doesn’t really matter. There is no such office.
In fact, the Dems are probably better off without one.
More like this from REV:
“The nomination of centrist candidates may bring Democratic gains in the affluent suburbs in the midterms. But the electoral success of that strategy has previously been modest — and more important, the party has paid insufficient attention to the substantial policy costs of turning moderate and affluent suburbs blue. Democrats cannot cater to white swing voters in affluent suburbs and also promote policies that fundamentally challenge income inequality, exclusionary zoning, housing segregation, school inequality, police brutality and mass incarceration.”
“Democrats cannot cater to white swing voters in affluent suburbs and also promote policies that fundamentally challenge…..”
I don’t disagree. Whether they are moderate affluent Democrats or Independents, they pretty much act the same regardless of how they got to that place.
So, the question is, if the strategy is to challenge inequality, can you effectively do it without them? And if you can do it without them, what will they do instead? Obviously you can’t afford to have them go to the dark side (and most would not anyway), but can you still win if they stay home?
Personally, I couldn’t sit out if it meant facilitating Trump’s re-election, which would be the worst possible outcome. So whoever the Ds put up, I no choice but to give them my vote. But that’s just me. Others may not feel the same.