Quote :

"DEI trainings where white people are told to be ashamed of themselves are, shockingly, not going to play well to white people"

I don't think there are many sanctioned DEI trainings that outright tell white people to be ashamed. However, white people shouldn't need to be told to be ashamed -- they should reach that obvious conclusion based on the facts of history. I don't hate myself, but objectively I have benefited from centuries of inequality, and I'm sorry to say that one side of my family owned slaves in the distant past. The outcome of this systemic inequality is part of what gives me so little sympathy for stupid and hateful white trash rednecks and all their problems that they think are caused by everyone but themselves. What a cancer on society. The politics of grievance.

10/20/2024 7:58:32 PM

The Dem turnout in NC looks pretty underwhelming so far compared to 2020…not looking too good for Harris here

10/20/2024 9:18:33 PM

Quote :

" Any suggestion that the founding fathers merely wanted to separate from England to preserve slavery is nonsense, and it's precisely why there was such hostility to Hannah-Jones being on the faculty at UNC: journalists who just make shit up for an agenda have no business teaching at a university."

I’m sure it’s that and not the complete GOP takeover of the UNC system

10/20/2024 11:25:10 PM

I think burros characterization of both dei and the 1619 project is case and point of how effective rightwing media is

Irony is the theories underlying the 1619 project tend to point to showing how interconnected and common modern people are… rightwing just hates acknowledging the damage of American Apartheid

But trump again is gaining in the polls today. Despite increasingly weird speeches and stunts

10/20/2024 11:32:00 PM

Man those transgender related republican ads are on all the time, starting to think it will convince enough people to vote for trump

10/21/2024 12:03:51 AM

Just starting to? I wish I had your wild-eyed optimism.

10/21/2024 3:26:18 AM

Is it true that Kamala supports taxpayer funded abortions for transgender aliens?

10/21/2024 8:29:46 AM

I am predicting 302 EV for Trump and 236 for Harris as awful as that will be. She is cratering lately and once again the Dems are making the critical mistake of running away from populism just as they did in 2016. They are spending more time trying to bring in moderate Republicans and simply following the will of the donor class more than anything. Michigan is already gone for her because of the Gaza issue. The Arab/Muslim vote will be the biggest bloc for Stein and that percentage is probably enough to swing it. Kamala is effectively a neocon which certainly is a huge turnoff for progressives and the left (the actual left that is).

10/21/2024 9:21:27 AM

Since everybody seems to be on the doom train, I'd like to refer you to these posts from the 2022 Midterms thread from October 2022:

Quote :

"this is gonna be so bad"

-marko

Quote :

"Fetterman has cratered and Walker has a shot. This really could be a bloodbath for the Dems"

eyewall41 (who apparently really likes to use "crater" as a verb)

Quote :

"My gut tells me it's going to be a rough, rough next two years"

UJustWait84

message_section.aspx?section=4

The "bloodbath" turned out to be a surprisingly strong performance for Democrats that left them in control of the Senate and so close in the House that the Republicans had to rely on them to pass almost anything.

I'm not saying things are great and I'm not saying you should be all smiles and optimism, but I am saying maybe people should stop talking like it's lost and pointing fingers at which faction/policies caused it.



[Edited on October 21, 2024 at 9:25 AM. Reason : Remind me, is Fetterman a senator?]

10/21/2024 9:24:25 AM

Quote :

""DEI trainings where white people are told to be ashamed of themselves are, shockingly, not going to play well to white people""

This, like many of the other talking points that were listed, seems to be a very gross generalization. I've had to take a lot of these, and I've never once got the impression that they're telling me that I should "be ashamed of myself" for being white. Sure, it angers some people to hear anything DEI-related, but that's often because they perceive themselves as a perpetual victims and take offense to anything they perceive as criticism of thesmelves.

[Edited on October 21, 2024 at 9:44 AM. Reason : ]

10/21/2024 9:44:03 AM

To me, they sound like losers to me.

10/21/2024 10:43:24 AM

Quote :

"I think burros characterization of both dei and the 1619 project is case and point of how effective rightwing media is"

You're totally right. There's weren't historians at major universities pointing out severe flaws in it from the get-go. It was just evil right-wing media slamming the truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project#Historical_accuracy

Quote :

"In an essay for The New York Review of Books, historian Sean Wilentz accused the project of cynicism for its portrayal of the American Revolution, the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln, who Wilentz wrote is "rendered as a white supremacist".[4] In a December 2019 letter published in The New York Times, Wilentz, along with fellow historians Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes expressed "strong reservations" about the project and requested factual corrections, accusing the authors of a "displacement of historical understanding by ideology". The letter disputed the claim, made in Hannah-Jones' introductory essay, that "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery". The Times published the letter along with a rebuttal from the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jake Silverstein,[10][46] who defended the accuracy of the 1619 Project and declined to issue corrections. Wood responded in a letter, "I don't know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves ... No colonist expressed alarm that the mother country was out to abolish slavery in 1776."[47][48] In an article in The Atlantic, Wilentz responded to Silverstein, writing, "No effort to educate the public in order to advance social justice can afford to dispense with a respect for basic facts", and disputing the accuracy of Silverstein's defense of the project.[1] Also in December 2019, twelve scholars and political scientists specializing in the American Civil War sent a letter to the Times saying that "The 1619 Project offers a historically-limited view of slavery." While agreeing to the importance of examining American slavery, they objected to what they described as the portrayal of slavery as a uniquely American phenomenon, to construing slavery as a capitalist venture, and to presenting out-of-context quotes of a conversation between Abraham Lincoln and "five esteemed free black men". The following month, Silverstein issued a response stating that no corrections were necessary.[2] In January 2020, historian Susan Parker, who specializes in the studies of Colonial United States at Flagler College, noted that slavery existed before any of the Thirteen Colonies. She wrote in an editorial in The St. Augustine Record that "The settlement known as San Miguel de Gualdape lasted for about six weeks from late September 1526 to the middle of November. Historian Paul Hoffman writes that the slaves at San Miguel rebelled and set fire to some homes of the Spaniards."[49] Writing in USA Today, several historians—among them Parker, archaeologist Kathleen A. Deagan also of Flagler, and civil rights activist and historian David Nolan—all agreed that slavery was present decades before the year 1619. According to Deagan, people have "spent their careers trying to correct the erroneous belief" in such a narrative, with Nolan claiming that in ignoring the earlier settlement, the authors were "robbing black history".[50] In March 2020, historian Leslie M. Harris, who had been consulted for the project, wrote in Politico that she had warned that the idea that the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery was inaccurate, and that the Times made avoidable mistakes, but that the project was "a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories".[51] Hannah-Jones has also said that she stands by the claim that slavery helped fuel the revolution, though she concedes she might have phrased it too strongly in her essay, in a way that could give readers the impression that the support for slavery was universal.[46][51] On March 11, 2020, Silverstein authored an "update" in the form of a "clarification" on the Times' website, correcting Hannah-Jones's essay to state that "protecting slavery was a primary motivation for some of the colonists".[52] This "clarification" was reportedly prompted by a private warning to Silverstein by Harvard classicist and political scientist Danielle Allen that she might go public with criticism if the passage on the revolution were not corrected.[17] In December 2023, historian James Oakes wrote a detailed essay published in Jacobin that criticized the historical accuracy of the project in multiple areas, stating that it "has botched the history of the slave economy, misconstrued the origins of Northern economic development, erased the history of antislavery, and rendered emancipation irrelevant".[53] "

And they only quietly deleted some of the most problematic sections without issuing public retractions. But it was all perfect, just like that phone call with Zelenskyy. Just beautiful and perfect. You guys are proving my point.

10/21/2024 11:01:18 AM

Double post, because I can. To be clear, not all DEI trainings are as abhorrent as what I've described. Most aren't, in fact. But there have been some that have been exactly that bad, to the point that they have spawned hostile workplace environment lawsuits, and the details from the trainings are quite shocking. Some of the workshops have explicitly told white workers to be ashamed. Some have told them they should decline promotions in favour of black colleagues. I would expect that these are outliers, to be sure, but their mere existence and even acceptance at some institutions (I believe it was a university involved in more than one of them) shows the batshit insanity of some on the progressive left.

10/21/2024 11:16:21 AM

I don’t know how someone could type out a paragraph like that and not realize how whiny it is

white grievance is just so fucking lame

10/21/2024 1:38:31 PM

While I may be setting myself up for another devastating disappointment like in 2016, I don't currently share the doom and gloom view for this year's election.

I think that a realistic floor for Kamala Harris would be 276 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 262 electoral votes. I think that a realistic ceiling for Kamala Harris would be 308 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 230 electoral votes.

Polls consistently seem to be over sampling Republican voters and applying insufficient weight to the Dobbs decision. Economic fundamentals are sound going into this election, and Kamala Harris has significantly higher favorability than Hillary Clinton had in 2016.

If Donald Trump is really winning a large portion of young voters, then, yeah, he's likely going to win the election; however, I would have to see it to believe it.

My biggest question is whether the election is called on election night, the following day or later in the week.

[Edited on October 21, 2024 at 1:45 PM. Reason : ]

10/21/2024 1:42:08 PM

^ Unless it's an absolute landslide either way, there's no way the election is called on election night. Too many delays built in to PA and WI to be able to call either of those states, unfortunately.

10/21/2024 2:37:31 PM

^^^
Isolated rhetoric telling whites to be ashamed needs the entire federal state and local governments to jump to action.

But responding to continuing widespread evidence that there’s a double standard against Black people in government, education, employment, and healthcare processes means we need to tread carefully so that a single white person doesn’t feel self conscious about race.

10/21/2024 10:58:48 PM

Quote :

"Kamala is effectively a neocon"

Lol wtf. I hate the argument dems go after repubs too much. It should be a landslide this year, and dems still don't seem attractive to an overwhelming majority of independents like they should. We need to fix that.

10/21/2024 11:07:12 PM

^ this guy gets it

^^ this guy doesn't.

10/22/2024 10:52:25 AM

I've been mulling aaronburro's list of Democratic positions that drive away a supposed "20-30% of voters who are persuadable." Before talking about it, though, I want to take a moment to point out that this number is based on nothing - the last time there was anything like that difference between popular vote totals was 1984, when Reagan was 19 points above Mondale. That's 40 years ago under what was effectively a different party system. In this century, the widest gulf we've had was 7% (Obama vs. McCain), and the narrowest was .5% (Bush vs. Gore). Those figures aren't proof either way, but they certainly don't suggest a vast swath of the electorate moving back and forth between parties.

As to the list, what strikes me is the wild double standard by which Democrats are evidently required to repudiate their extremists in order to be electable, whereas Republicans can ignore or even embrace their own (who I would argue are more dangerous). Pretty much everything on the aaronburro list is a fringe position not widely held in the Democratic party. There are very few elected proponents of these ideas outside of the Squad (which has all of nine members, or 4% of the House Democrats). Essentially none of them are embraced by Kamala Harris. And yet, we are to believe, these positions are insurmountable obstacles to her electability.

Meanwhile we could make a comparable list of fringe positions for Republicans, often much more widely held and by much more powerful people, to include those on the Supreme Court and Donald Trump himself:

-"Qualified immunity" for police brutality and suppression of dissent
-Mass deportations
-Trans issues in general (transgenderism not existing, the ~1% of the population that is trans will destroy civilization, all trans people are pedophiles, etc.)
-Pro-genocide (for real, "finish the job" pro-genocide, not vaguely supportive of Israel)
-Abortion extremism (not allowed for any reason)
-Closed borders (at least to non-Europeans)
-Everything America does or has done is good
-Criminalization of pornography, contraception, and sodomy
-White/Christian nationalism
-"Day of love" siege of U.S. Capitol
-[I don't know what CHOP means, so I'll just counter it with "Charlottesville"]
-[I don't know what rock we're talking about, but "Confederate flag has nothing to do with race"]

So how is it that Donald Trump himself can have these positions with no consequences among the "persuadable" electorate, while Kamala Harris is dragged down by a handful of Representatives and college students? The answer is, in large part, exactly what you're telling us not to blame - Fox News in particular, but also the media more generally, which has spent this election cycle dissecting everything Democrats do while taking Republican madness as a given that doesn't need the same coverage.

Without media amplifying fringe liberal positions and minimizing/ignoring/sanewashing conservative ones, every truly persuadable voter goes to Harris. Because even if you think the liberal fringe is as bad and crazy as the conservative mainstream - a position that would require some real mental gymnastics to arrive at, but for the sake of argument - the fact is that the liberal fringe can't enact their ideas and the conservatives can and will, given the opportunity.

10/23/2024 9:24:25 AM

Pelosi gonna buy McDonald's stock?

10/23/2024 11:15:05 AM

“I need the kind of generals Hitler had”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/?gift=aQyUJR7AIw1mJWdQ6Ed6yBO6wQP9bPO_W2YbOcCk1hs&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

10/23/2024 12:30:39 PM

I was so much more hopeful for this election til I saw how much traction the "weather machine" theory gained in such a short amount of time.

So cooked.

10/23/2024 1:19:45 PM

highly recommend the book Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen

pretty sure I’ve recommended it on here (maybe even to you, ha)

dives deep into the history of Magical Thinking in the US

there have always been a solid amount of batshit crazy people in the US, they just now have megaphones that they didn’t have in previous generations

10/23/2024 2:36:43 PM

^^I haven't seen you outwardly hopeful in a long time based on your limited posting, and this concerns and saddens me.

10/23/2024 2:52:08 PM

Pretty wild report that trump loves hitler

But gop leaders and candidates across the board seem immune to being questioned by the media about it

Makes no sense.

10/23/2024 7:33:15 PM

Clearly the Demon-Rats aren't doing a good enough job convincing 50 million swing voters that Hitler is bad

10/23/2024 7:36:55 PM

told a trump supporter they must address him as dear leader from now on

10/23/2024 7:45:01 PM

Anyone else thinking about buying the Trump Golf Course 2nd Assassination Attempt rookie card (slabbed GEM MINT 10!)? Seems like a hell of deal for $29.99!

https://proudpatriots.com/pages/trump-golf-course-card



[Edited on October 23, 2024 at 8:58 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2024 8:57:29 PM

Harris was up 47% to 46% in most recent High Point University poll in NC, but of course I understand this is tied (somehow?!).

https://www.highpoint.edu/blog/2024/10/hpu-poll-north-carolina-presidential-race-remains-close-2/

10/23/2024 9:15:35 PM

Just did my ballot, expect to lose on every item I picked except prob Marijuana and MAYBE abortion access.

10/23/2024 10:49:04 PM

On my ballot i did harris and colin allred and left the rest blank

10/23/2024 11:06:25 PM

^^^ He didn't say that he "loves Hitler", did he? He said he wishes he'd had Hitler's generals.

I mean, that's still beyond the pale, but not the same thing.

10/24/2024 1:06:57 AM

pro-Hitler comments used to destroy a campaign and reputation. Nowadays they don't move the needle. #MAGA

10/24/2024 2:11:18 AM

I have it on good authority that Hitler did nothing wrong!

10/24/2024 5:19:41 AM

^^^

Quote :

"He commented more than once that, 'You know, Hitler did some good things, too,'" Kelly recalled to The Times. Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying "nothing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good," but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again. "

10/24/2024 7:11:55 AM

Let's be real, he's no fan of Hitler, this is basically his equivalent of what the Bills coach did (using the 9/11 hijackers as an example of good communication skills). The difference is that he has a power complex and is running for President, so yes, still dangerous.

He does has an authoritarian mindset, but on an individual/egoistic level, not in a "wanting to change society from the ground up level", if you get what I mean.

Even with the "he did some things right" comment, some people's brains just work that way in wanting to be contrarian or put emphasis to be "technically correct" in some way. Sure, it's reminiscent of middle school, but yeah.

Otherwise, I hadn't really seen a video of him in a while, but then I checked out his McDonalds stint and man has he has really degraded! Kamala this, Kamala that... his articulation is at an all time low!

[Edited on October 24, 2024 at 9:28 AM. Reason : added a sentence]

10/24/2024 9:25:51 AM

Adolf Hitler is primarily remembered for the devastating impact of his dictatorship, including the Holocaust, World War II, and widespread human suffering. While discussing Hitler’s actions, it’s crucial to recognize the atrocities he committed. However, some policies implemented during his time as the leader of Nazi Germany are sometimes noted, though they are heavily overshadowed by his brutal regime:

1. Infrastructure and Public Works: The Nazi regime invested heavily in infrastructure projects, like the construction of the Autobahn, which modernized transportation in Germany. These efforts also temporarily reduced unemployment during the Great Depression.
2. Volkswagen: Hitler supported the development of the Volkswagen Beetle as an affordable car for the masses, part of a broader vision of modernizing Germany.
3. Economic Recovery: In the early years of Hitler’s rule, some economic measures, such as public works programs and military rearmament, helped Germany recover from the Great Depression. However, this recovery was unsustainable and largely driven by preparation for war.
4. Technological Advancements: Nazi Germany advanced in fields such as rocketry (which eventually led to space exploration) and medical science, although many of these advancements came at an enormous human cost, including forced labor and unethical experimentation.

Despite these points, it’s essential to acknowledge that Hitler’s actions led to one of the darkest periods in human history, and any temporary or isolated benefits are vastly outweighed by the horrific consequences of his regime.

10/24/2024 9:28:44 AM

Look, Hitler did do some good things. But, that statement should always be followed with a "but" that includes "he was a massive asshole who did really bad things".

Anyway, I voted, straight-ticket D, and against the citizenship voting amendment

10/24/2024 10:10:51 AM

^^^nah, it's pretty clear he admires Hitler and other dictators and wishes he had that power.



[Edited on October 24, 2024 at 10:18 AM. Reason : lol, we're in here arguing about the good things Hitler did]

10/24/2024 10:17:06 AM

Yeah, he may not admire him for all the genocidal racist shit (may not), but he is 1000% jealous of the absolute power and loyalty he had, admires him for that, and wants that for himself

[Edited on October 24, 2024 at 11:30 AM. Reason : $$$]

10/24/2024 11:15:44 AM

The dude is an obvious narcissistic sociopath. He doesn't care about other people. This was apparent long before he got into politics. He'd be fine if his opponents are jailed/killed.

10/24/2024 11:30:31 AM

^^ yup.

Also, I think I figured out what my "problem" with Kamala Harris is. She can't read the room. Someone will be talking in a somber tone or seriously and she'll start giggling or smirking or something. So it doesn't feel Presidential. And yeah, turning things humorous is a great skill... if you do it right.
She has my vote though

10/24/2024 12:54:03 PM

I think he seems to genuinely admire hitlers commitment to the pseudo concept of racial purity, and trump has talked about genetics since 2016, and recently about immigrants poisoning the blood of the country.

Combined with Kelly’s characterization of several statements admiring parts of Hitlers style I think he loves Hitler, sees him as a strong leader, with the right ideas, but maybe flawed in some of the execution.


Came here to post though that Pennsylvania has flipped for trump in the latest polling. Looks like Elon musks schemes are working out there.

10/24/2024 1:06:01 PM

Nah, Trump likes Hitler because Hitler was a strong man who pushed others around. That's it. I've thought way too much about this, but I don't think Trump can be a white nationalist or supremacist because that would require him to think about someone other than himself. His only concern is himself, honestly not even his family. He panders to those crowds because it helps him. If pandering to minorities or immigrants helped him, he'd be the biggest BLM and open borders supporter you've ever seen. I suspect he may have some latent anti-immigrant feelings, but it's more a means to an end. He wants power, and these nutjobs are dumb enough to help him get it.

10/24/2024 3:20:50 PM

Trump barely left the first time and yet people still prefer him, i don't get it

10/24/2024 3:43:58 PM

^^I'm not quite in agreement with that assessment. One, I think Trump certainly is a white supremacist. It might be very surface level, and I don't think there's any grand ideology behind it, but he definitely thinks or at least feels at a gut level that white people are better. That said, I don't think that's what animates his political career.

I'd also tweak "He wants power" to "He wants respect." I don't think he actually wanted to be President the first time. Hell, I don't think he wants to be President now, but his ego demands that he win to wipe away the disgrace of having lost. Wielding power, at least in the sense of making decisions to see through some vision or larger goal, does not appeal to him. Power is only useful insofar as it can be used to accrue or compel respect. His need to be respected, to be treated as something other than the trust fund carnival barker that he is, is a through line in his career going back throughout his adult life.

...and we could go further. It doesn't take a degree in psychology to guess that the respect he craves is really just a crudely masculinized projection of the love he did not receive from his father. And his own self-respect is a delicate thing, requiring him to constantly retcon the entire universe to make himself into the genius, the victor, what have you.

Basically if Fred Trump had played catch with the little shit a couple of times, we probably wouldn't be in this mess. But the best thing he could have done would be to have pulled out.

10/24/2024 4:21:22 PM

^
Wasn’t that the same with Hitler? He wasn’t a genius who was evil, he was by most accounts a sniveling blustery populist moron like trump. It was the clingers who drove the ideology. Goebbels to Stephen miller. We have Elon and thiel and other barnacles planning the camps and gestapo

10/24/2024 7:33:43 PM

I think Mein Kampf speaks for itself... he was defo evil. Probably not a genius, but stepped in to a power void at the right time, that's for sure

10/25/2024 12:10:41 AM

^ yeah that’s what I meant. He wasn’t an evil genius he was an evil moron and the Germans of the era were just as simplistic and gullible as maga supporters today

I went to Munich last year so just going on what the tour guide said… but the circumstances weren’t extraordinary around Hitler. He went to jail for an attempted coup and wrote screeds just like trump about how he was wrong and the system is corrupt. They let him out early to appease the people on his political party as an olive branch. This is an evergreen populist message that some portion of the population will always latch on to. From there it was all just superficial bluster… it’s how he came to use Aryan to mean white Germans, when it doesn’t mean that. He built huge monuments and buildings in Greek style because he built them up as a paragon of white virtue— which also made no sense. It was just hate vibes and nothing else mattered really. Then it snowballed when the actual evil geniuses clinging onto him used his power.

Great daily show clip on the topic
https://www.threads.net/@thedailyshow/post/DBjLL0mJrRM?xmt=AQGz1MVwP9qTujuUvqbp1zo8J12X529OXP5-VQPqjn63PQ

[Edited on October 25, 2024 at 10:32 AM. Reason : ]

10/25/2024 10:26:20 AM