The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Nobody was stopping the United States from killing the Indians.  The reason we didn't kill them is because we didn't want to.

Except we did kill them, almost all of them, for centuries. This country was born out of a genocidal campaign of conquest and exploitation and built on stolen land. The United States has attempted to erase the stain of this original sin by providing its residents with piss-poor education in history, of which you appear to be one of the victims.

I did not bother engaging seriously with your post because it seemed to be a bad-faith attempt to "own the leftists," which has come to be synonymous with anyone who does not share your rose-tinted view of American history. For example, you deliberately selected the lowest death toll published by any serious historian, which I can only conclude is an attempt to minimize the severity of a genocide. You then proceed to hand-wave away deaths from causes any less proximate than a bullet to the head — deaths from cholera, for instance, that would clearly not have happened if the deceased had not been forced from their homes and intentionally marched through areas of cholera outbreaks, are dismissed as part of the "natural death rate during a forced migration."

Your post seems to rest on the idea that there is a meaningful moral distinction between the level of callous disregard necessary to create genocide-like conditions and the actual act of committing a genocide — that people being forced from their homes and marched until they died from disease or starvation or exposure is somehow morally less bad than their being rounded up and shot. Egregious failure to halt a genocide, borne out of an utter contempt for the lives of the subject population, does not seem to me to be, morally speaking, all that much better, and making a long post splitting the difference between the two seems evidence of a deeply depraved and unhealthy mind.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Remove the word diversity and replace Seattle with Pretoria and you'll see how close the wokies have come to literally arguing for re-instituting racism.

The sad part about this is that racism is a social myth we all collectively created. Reinforcing the idea that skin color matters in any regard only furthers the myth and pointing out that 'it matters to some' and 'its very real for many people' only begs the question. The entire past few months has served to worsen race relations which is entirely predictable given Americas solution to literally every problem is always 'attack it' even when it's painfully obvious doing so is massively counterproductive.

Ultimately, these sorts of things only make wealthy white liberals feel good about themselves because its a lot easier for Becky in HR to think she's making a difference by separating people who are 'inherently perpetrating systemic racism by nature of their birth (not racist at all cuz they're white and colonialism wuz bad n stuff)' which wastes time that could be spent advancing actual policy that will help ensure equality under the law and more equal economic outcomes...because policy is nuanced and difficult and thinking that much tends to hurt ones head.

Its partly why I don't care that much at this point about the national debate on this sort of thing. Its clear America is so ass backwards on how to fix this problem that its much better to continue trying to make your own little world as good as it can be and not stress about the fact that people keep poking a bear in the eye and wondering why its biting them. More so than ever I remain convinced that people who are massively ideologically engaged, particularly now, are simply more miserable people than those who don't give a toss and go about living their lives with humility and kindness.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I note your signature and your screen name, which I heartily endorse on its face. 

Still, how can you equate the Mobs in the streets with large crowds of Trump supporters?

I'm like you in that I'm not a "crowds" guy, but I can't see the equivalence.

You're not going to like this take, Fuzzy, but the BLM rioters and the hardcore Trump supporters have quite a lot in common. Both groups are comprised of people who view themselves as victims of a system that's rigged against them. Both groups have suffered from economic and educational disadvantages, and feel as though they've been left out of the American dream. And when they feel like they're not being listened to, both groups feel the need to smash something-- for BLM, it's local businesses; for Trump supporters, it's the institutions of government.

With both groups, I'm sympathetic to the situation they've found themselves in. Rural whites in the Rust Belt have had their livelihoods destroyed in the last 30 years. Urban blacks have found themselves the victims of an indifferent system that limits their economic opportunities and throws them in prison. However, in both instances, I cannot condone the outlets that they have chosen for their anger. These people see themselves as downtrodden, and so they feel justified in doing just about anything to hurt, harm, and antagonize those who they consider "the enemy." Because of their self-righteousness (and their stubbornness), they can't be reasoned with. At the very least though, BLM is addressing a real problem with our government. The other group is going after the fictional Satanic pedophile Reptillian cabal of Jewish goblins that exists only in their schizophrenic nightmares.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

We have established that it's OK for jocks to openly disrespect the American flag and what it represents to millions of Americans who's lives matter just as much as theirs.  The fans should have no less of a right to register THEIR disapproval.

These NFL jocks have no more right to be received uncritically than anyone else.

Just imagine how fans who have military members or law enforcement members feel at this.  Now you may not care, but your lack of caring does not minimize THEIR right to free expression.  They have shown disregard for their fans; indeed, they have even shown contempt.  That's their right, sanctioned by the NFL.  Let them be the big shots they are and accept the rights of others to return the contempt.

These NFL players have forfeited my respect.

Speaking as someone who actually has family in law enforcement, what the NBA players who took a knee are doing is about as patriotic as it gets.  They’re engaging in civil disobedience in the same spirit as the civil rights movement.  They clearly have more respect our country’s best values than any of the so-called fans booing them in the clip, that’s for sure.  I mean, the whole idea of calling civil disobedience unAmerican suggest a real lack of understanding by the so-called fans regarding what our country stands for.

This next part isn’t necessarily directed at anyone on Atlas, I’d also add that the whole “shut up and dribble business has always had a bit of a racist undertone to it.  Like, the implication seems to be that white fans/team owners own black athletes and somehow have the right to dictate how said athletes use the platform their talent has given them.

Lastly, if we’re gonna call people “jocks” that should be saved for folks like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and “I’m not black; I’m O.J.” Simpson.  These were men who used their platform to cash-in and avoid ruffling any white feathers.  That’s their right; it’s their talent.   Still, to mind at least, that’s what it means when an athlete is just a jock: They don’t aspire to be anything more than an athlete.  Nothing wrong with that, but the folks taking a knee are protesting the fact that even in 2020 the police are murdering innocent people in cold blood because of the color of their skin.  You may disagree with them, but they’re trying to do something meaningful. 

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Hell has officially frozen over; I am actually putting a General MacArthur post in here:

I don't see why that's so far-fetched? If they wanted them back home, they wouldn't have sent them on a trek to another country in the first place, possibly paying somebody to transport them. They might think they are doing the kids a favor by sending them to another country, depending on their home circumstances, and if they come home, the whole effort was wasted.

They brought them into the country because they wanted to live, together with their children, in America.

Their children were ripped away from them when they were deported back to Mexico.  There was no purpose for this, it was just the Trump administration's policy to be as cruel as possible to scare people away.

Now the parents are in Mexico, and the children are in ICE detention camps in America.  And the children literally did nothing wrong.  But we keep them there because we can't find their parents.

It's really shocking to me how flippant conservatives are being about this.  Imagine a child, lying on the cold concrete floor of an ICE detention center, flourescent light flickering overhead, insufficient food, water or medical care.  Just counting the days until it's over.  And the one glimmer of hope that keeps them going is the idea that one day they'll be re-united with their mother and father.

Then an ICE goon comes into the cell and says "by the way, we can't find your mother or father.  I don't know if you'll ever see them again."

The child cries, and wails, and screams, as the goon walks away down the dark hallway.  Where is my mother!?  Where is my father!?

If you saw this happening to a child in your community.  To your son, or your daughter.  To your neighbor's children.  To children from your local school.  How would that make you feel?  Would you feel shocked, horrified, brought to tears by the cruelty and inhumanity?

Does it really make a difference if the child is crying Donde está mi madre!?  Donde está mi padre!?

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Yeah it’s time to push left on fiscal issues and right on social issues.

Ew no. You really think that's what cost us in Fla and TX?

Considering you see 60 point swings in poor rural Tejano counties?

Yes lol.

I think it's pretty clear that left on economics is bad with Latinos.

Stop confusing gusanos with Latinos in general. There are two separate problems here actually, arguably three:

1) Gusano Latinos (Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians) in South Florida who are selfish little pricks and went all in on Trump's macho persona/militant opposition to BLM. They are basically Staten Island/Jersey Shore Italians at this point in terms of their reactionary politics. At this point the Dems should tell them to piss off, consider Shalala spent her entire term sucking them off and yet the gusanos proved complete ingrates.
2) Rural Latinos in South Texas and New Mexico who are probably turned off by Democratic Party stances on cultural issues but not particularly against left-wing economics especially if they can be persuaded that they will materially benefit from it.
3) More of a turnout problem, but younger urban working-class Latinos, especially men who are left-wing on economic issues (strongly Sanders base) and culturally liberal but not particularly enamoured by "wokeness".

The Dems don't have to adopt Republican views on the Culture Wars but they have to be a genuinely big tent party and take a social liberal, civil libertarian approach on social issues.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I've been on this forum since 2006, if I was talking nonsense, I wouldnt been on here, which is for intelligential purposes.

Some people cant take the fact that Trump is losing by 15 pts and a Supermajority Senate is possible just like Dems won in 2008. The reverse was true in 2010 and Boehner won 60 House seats in 2010, in a Recession Bush W caused by deficits and tax cuts. I as a consumer do not benefit from tax cuts from the rich

This belongs here. OC is saying things that the average voter thinks but is too afraid to say. And he is more in touch with the average voter than 99.9% of Atlas bloggers.

No, a Democratic supermajority did not materialize and the models were, once again, wrong. But it's hard for Democrats to run on "vote for mask mandates and also we'll ban schools, bars, and sports". Like it or not, those are the three things on voters' minds.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

How do you square that with the Bible?

There is a higher law than even Scripture, and those who proclaim that Scripture is the universal, literal, whole, and highest law make a claim about the Bible that it does not make about itself.

I square it the same way I do when Paul forbids women from wearing jewelry - certainly applicable to the specific group in the specific time he was writing to. However, Paul himself also speaks of several ordained women. Furthermore, my conscience not only neutrally dissents from those who forbid the ordination of women - it outright demands such ordination. I would view myself as being guilty before my mother, my female pastor, my grandmother, and many other women if I told them that I was more qualified for the priesthood than they are. Indeed, if I told my mother that, I would expect to get slapped.

Sexism is a sin, and to partake in it on God’s behalf is the highest form of blasphemy.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Look if Reagan hadn’t been supporting Guatemalan genocidaires, Miami could be Castrograd right now :eyeroll:

Also, can I also circle back to The Reckoning’s Vatican avatar? Can you please at least take it down while your salvaging over a man who supported the murderous repression of parts of the Church in Central and South American  in the name of anti-communism (and at the behest of Evangelicals locally and at home).

Do you understand how evil the Communists in Nicaragua were?

How about those Mayan villagers in Guatemala?

Got to wipe those out

Reagan made mistakes, but honestly, if the communists in Guatemala were anything like the ones in China, I can’t get too mad at him for supporting the opposition to them.

Look if Reagan hadn’t been supporting Guatemalan genocidaires, Miami could be Castrograd right now :eyeroll:

Also, can I also circle back to The Reckoning’s Vatican avatar? Can you please at least take it down while your salvaging over a man who supported the murderous repression of parts of the Church in Central and South American  in the name of anti-communism (and at the behest of Evangelicals locally and at home).

Do you understand how evil the Communists in Nicaragua were?

How about those Mayan villagers in Guatemala?

Got to wipe those out

Reagan made mistakes, but honestly, if the communists in Guatemala were anything like the ones in China, I can’t get too mad at him for supporting the opposition to them.

Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a military coup in 1982 and during his 17 month reign killed anywhere between 10,000-20,000 people and destroyed 600 villages, in a campaign to reduce the Mayan population, who he claimed were naturally susceptible to communism due to their immaturity (his words), in the bloodiest part of the Guatemalan genocide.

Anyway, in 1982 and 1983 Rios Montt's army received millions of dollars in United States aid, which had been suspended by Carter was resumed by Reagan, claiming that the human rights situation was being improved by the new regime. He also provided propaganda support to the genocidaires, personally flew down to Managua in December of '82 to meet with Rios Montt, giving him a big photo op and giving an glowing interview where he calls him a man of great integrity and commitment who was committed to democracy (NB, Montt was a general installed by military coup) and was getting a bum rap. In case you are thinking this is a mistake, declassified CIA documents in Fed of 82, shortly before Rios Montt's coup, reports that the army was conducting massacres in a specific Mayan province, was meeting no substantial resistance, and that the army considered all Ixil (an indigenous) tribe to be insurgents and were giving no quarter, so he knew that 'fighting guerillas' was code for killing Mayans, and in February of 83, noted the rise in right wing violence and that bodies were piling up in rivers and gullies in the countryside. His financial support for the regime continued until it fell and through Mejia Victores (also convicted of genocide) regime.

Also, in El Salvador, where the civil war against the commies bankrolled by the Reagan administration killed 75,000 people. The UN sponsored Truth Commission would latter find that 85% of all offenses were committed by government (ie. anti-communist) forces. I'm not going to go into to much here, because reports of the specific conduct of the state department personnel are mixed, but the army that carried this out was funded and trained by the US and the Reagan administration claimed reports of massacres (later confirmed by the post war UN investigators) were guerilla propaganda to the Senate and conducted a campaign to discredit human rights groups reporting on the Salvadoran situation. As Reagan's Assistant SoS for human rights put it 'it was more important to prevent a communist takeover [than to promote human rights'. Again, 85% of the killing was from government forces.


Also of note, Rios Montt was a convert to evangelicalism, personal friend of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who believed that Catholic priests (who kept trying to tell him to stop the organized mass murder of the Mayan community) in particular were targeted for extra-judicial killings. To the point where his own brother, a bishop, had to flee the country.
Of course in all these dirty wars, priests and nuns, particularly in rural areas, were targeted for summary execution by right-wing paramilitaries as a matter of course. (Not that left-wing militants were all that much better, before you get into the what about game)
I'm bringing this up in particular because you insist on putting the Holy See in your avatar and it's incredibly offensive.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

This isn't a case of deporting an old man, it's a case of deporting a young man who spent decades on the run from his crimes. If he's a better man now than he was then, he should accept his fate and face the consequences for his crimes. He got to live a full and free life in until the ripe old age of 95, something his victims never experienced. The US owes him nothing.

I would agree with you that the US owes him nothing.  Will you concede that the US owes illegal aliens of all kinds nothing?  (I realize that question is deeper than it seems at a number of levels.)

Here's a story that I think might answer your question, if you're not too dense or ideologically-addled to get the point. When I was a fairly young man, I was able to get a grant established to help Black farmers financially, after I and some of my fellow protesters vociferously protested the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Part of the recognition for my activism included a trip to Iraq in the midst of the troop surge - we went to Baghdad, we went to Fallujah, and it was hell. I wasn't sure if I would make it, but I did and met lots of good Iraqis who are now my best friends. In my experience, the Iraq War was always an American thing - and the war on terror was always an American thing. When I was a young man, I remember seeing a lot of images of Iraqis being tortured or executed, and it just never occurred to me to ask myself why. And then, in my early 20s, I found myself at a protest once again. One of the great Iraqis I had met was staying with me in my 1 bedroom apartment in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and he was telling me a story from his childhood:

"My mother leased a piece of land to an oil company in Iraq where she, my father, and my brother worked. As a kid, I was told that these guys were the same guys as the men in a film I had seen in school; they were the ones that stole the oil and took it to Kuwait so that the Americans could use it for their war. My mother said these guys were our friends and that we were being used by those evil guys in Kuwait to put up the money and take away our land to build a big military base. After several years my mother said she was in love with George Bush and that she was moving  to Houston, Texas so that she could be closer to him. They took her land and built it a huge military base. After several more years, my father died."

This story had affected me for many years - I realized that, despite being from Iraq, he was an American, and I owed that same camaraderie I did for fellow Americans. My friend ended up opening a sandwich shop in New Hampshire, where he employs three other Americans. He has given this country much! And this country owed him her respect and her love. He became a citizen in 2016, and proudly voted for Hillary Clinton, marched on Washington in a pink hat, and became a prominent Democratic Party activist, donating over $8,000 of his sandwich shop's profits to the New Hampshire operations of Planned Parenthood. He is a paragon of his community. And yes, he was once an undocumented immigrant.

I recommend you leave your bigotry at the door, because you are clearly showing yourself more willing to defend Nazis than to love your fellow American - and guess what? That makes you the least American of anyone here. Maybe you should consider deporting yourself, since you hate so many Americans-in-waiting.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Life's too short to pearl-clutch and hand-wring about the possible potential future health effects of things like weed and booze, let alone to impose draconian measures restricting people from accessing these things. People should be free to make their own decisions about what they put in their own bodies, knowing the risks. All I know is that my risk of dying in a car crash is probably at least as high as my risk of dying from alcohol-related complications, but that's not gonna stop me from driving. At a certain point you just have to accept the fact that there is inherent risk in life and you simply cannot control everything. You can be the most cautious, clean-living person in the world and still die young in some freak accident or of some genetic disease. Or conversely you can be a hard-drinking, drug-using risk taker who lives fast and hard and yet make it to 90 with no major health complications. It's impossible to know which group you are in until it happens. Sure you can do certain things in an attempt to minimize risks, but you can't eliminate them, and attempting to do so seems like insanity to me. Live the life you have now to the fullest because it's all you know for sure you'll ever have. And even if you don't want to do so, it's wrong to try to stop others from doing it.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

This is an unpopular opinion but:

Politics doesn't actually matter all that much.

Elections, parties, candidates none of it.  It's quite rare that politics actually have a real effect on people's lives.  Individual parties and politicians and laws and such have far less power than we think.

So whilst politics are important and it is important to be in the know it isn't worth letting elections and results actually affect your life.  I learnt this in 2017 when I was gutted at the UK election result and felt awful for a week.  And sure, that election result mattered, but it didn't need to actually affect my life or my mental health because generally the actual real effects are felt over a much longer time period than one election cycle.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I came across this angus classic. It's some of the truest words that have been spoken:

What you wrote about Gillibrand "sucking the right dick" was sexist and uncalled for.

It was called for, and it was hardly sexist.  I know that the site allows very young people (and foreigners) to post, but most show some prescience and some understanding of the English language, so I'll not belabor that point.  For your benefit, I'll explain that it's called a metaphor.  A metaphor can be defined (according to m-w.com) as:  "a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them"

This concept should not be confused with a direct comparison, usually called a simile, which generally uses a preposition such as "like" or "as."  I'll give you some examples which you will probably also call sexist, in order to get your attention and hopefully get you to remember this lesson:

direct statement:
"Your sister is ugly!"

simile (direct comparison):
"Your sister looks like a dog!"
{Here, I mean no offense to dogs, in general}

Metaphore (implied comparison):
"Your sister is a dog!"

Implied metaphor (one step further removed):
"Your sister chases parked cars!"

All of those statements are meant to insult your sister's appearance (and probably, by extension, you, and probably also to goad you into fisticuffs), but there are subtleties and nuances in them.  In each case, the writer intends to convey the message with different levels of directness.  (He also assumes that you have studied the language well enough to appreciate their differences.)

You may be still in high school, university, or grad school, so I won't necessarily expect you to appreciate it, but unless you're independently wealthy, you'll understand one day the concept of sucking the dick of the boss.  (Here, I'm speaking metaphorically, in case that wasn't immediately obvious to you.)  We working-class schmucks--and yes, I consider myself "working class."  I have never really appreciated the way that some gringos have appropriated the british use of that term.  In my estimation, it doesn't matter whether you're a janitor, a cardiologist, a truck driver, a professor, a lawyer, or a politician, if you work for a living, in the sense that you aren't independently wealthy, then you're working class.  That is, whether you're white- or blue-collar working class, if you work for a living because if you don't work then you can't afford to live, then you're working class--know what it's like to suck a dick.  (again, I'm using a metaphor)  Now, I like to swim against the stream, and I'm something of a nonconformist.  Have been as long as I can remember.  Maybe that's why I'm still making slightly less than six figures even though many of my colleagues with far fewer publications than I and far less postdoctoral experience than I and far worse evaluations than I have been promoted.  Fuck 'em.  I don't care much to suck the dick.  But that's my problem, isn't it?  Anyway, we all know what the pressure to suck the dick is like.  Maybe it's pressure from a senior law partner to attend his or her wedding.  Maybe it's pressure from a dean to serve on a committee.  Maybe it's pressure from a store manager to always work the evening shift.  Men are not excluded from sucking this dick.  Neither are black people or people with spanish sirnames.  It's not a sexist thing, or an ethnic thing, or a homophobic thing.  We all get presented with a big dick that we are expected to suck.  Now, I haven't served political office, but I am aware, just as I am sure most posters here are aware, that all freshman congressmen(women) are expected to suck that big dick till they almost choke.  There are committee assignments, photo ops, expectations to vote for certain bills (quid pro quo), etc.  This is the norm in their game, and it's really not so different from the norm in the game that most of us who loathe politicans also play, but on a less high-stakes scale.  This will be the case regardless of whether the politician in question has male or female genetalia, and the sooner your realize that, the sooner will be your opportunity to understand the way the world works.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I can't believe I'm quoting an Alben Barkley post.

What is in the water in Illinois?

Jesus Christ YES raising unfounded doubts about the outcome of our elections and undermining our democracy in the process IS the problem with what Trump did. And it wasn’t better when Abrams did it, as I said even at the time. There is no more evidence of voting machines switching votes from her to Kemp than there was from Trump to Biden, or evidence that her alleged voter roll purges could have been decisive anyway given the margin she lost by. And her claims looked especially ridiculous after Biden won GA anyway and, to their credit, Kemp and his Republican administration defended that result against immense pressure from Trump.

This country is absolutely f—ked if BOTH sides start to refuse to accept any electoral defeat as legitimate. I have been wary about Abrams for a while for a reason. This kind of crap cannot stand in the Democratic Party, not if we want to have a leg to stand on as literally THE  “democratic” party against a party trying to undermine democracy anyway.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Our God IS an Awesome God!

This decision is only ging to drive younger people further and further away from religion. You do realise that?

Four people to date have recommended this, none of which have a history of caring what God might thing enough to change their mind on an issue.  I take these assessments with a grain of salt. 

I can assure you that God's reputation is in the toilet, especially among younger people in this country, and it's "Christians" who have put it there. Prominent Christians in this country made the decision a while back to whore themselves and their faith out for worldly influence, and because of that sin, Christianity in the US is now often seen as a brand or cultural identity rather than a genuine faith. And that's a reputation that all Christians, even the good ones, have to deal with now.

Christians have forgotten what they're here for, and that's to serve others and lead people to Christ. It's not to save the world themselves through political action. Look at Trump, one of the men most responsible for this repeal. He's a hell-bound man. Trump is 76 and will soon die, and the "Christians" who have been kissing his ass for the last few years have never once bothered to attempt to lead that man to Christ. Even worse, they're willing to publicly pretend that he's Christian because they need his influence and power. They're fine with him and his devotees burning in hell if it means they can get some more political power to push whatever their next issue is. It's goddamn disgusting. How can you possibly expect people who don't already agree with you to take anything you say related to God seriously?

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Let's look at the one state that Nixon lost but Reagan won in both of his elections:

1972


1980


Look at the immediate Boston area/Riviera.  While there isn't a massive shift (Anderson did take a bunch of anti-Carter liberals in some places) there are still quite a few towns (particularly on the North and South Shores) that went for Reagan.  In 1984 with the absence of Anderson Reagan would improve his margins even more among these types.

Now what is the sociocultural dynamic in these places that went for McGovern but ended up going for Reagan?  Alright a lot of them seem to be middle-upper class areas that attracted for lack of a better term "Democratic whites" from Boston who started moving out of the city and into the burbs.  When Nixon was president a lot of these folks still had reflexive Democratic voting habits (though you can tell in some parts even back then there was some underperformance among this group with McGovern largley because he was seen as an affirmative action pro-busing kind of candidate).  McGovern trying to associate himself with Robert Kennedy's movement in 1968 and having a random inlaw on the ticket might have helped a little bit.  I mean you have a candidate whose last name is "McGovern" who is somewhat associated with the Kennedy family, makes that point quite clearly, while his opponent has made a career out of attacking "the Harvard elites".  So yeah, even if Nixon did have some issues that these voters agreed with him on and would otherwise be sympathetic to he was always a TERRIBLE CANDIDATE for Massachusetts (he lost the state twice with less than 40% of the vote (LOL) at a time when Republicans still had a decent state and local presence there and then he lost it again with only 45% against a man that was widely painted in the press and media as a liberal radical who wanted to legalized ACID on top of abortion AND amnestry).

Contrast this with Jimmy Carter who made minimal gains among in Mass and actually LOST some of these Dems despite being ambivalent on the whole busing issue.  Where does a lot of this come from?  It was a combination of factors.  Namely these folks were still pissed off about the busing crisis that happened earlier in the decade.  Middle class voters started moving down to the shore, out of Boston, and voting more in line with their newfound economic and racial concerns as suburban commuters.  Thus you would see in Massachusetts in 1976 a very weird development: heavily Yankee rural western Mass going for Georgia peanut farmer Carter in a massive shift while the shift in South Shore would be very lukewarm at best.  Don't be fooled by the below map, Carter gained maybe 2 points over McGovern (LOL):



So basically, the whole "Reagan Democrat" phenomenom that a lot of folks for some reason associate with working class Kentucky whites and western Pennsylvania coalminers.  In reality while there was a working class component to the Reagan coalition (think more like Sal at the local VHS repair shop/Sean at the local Target, not coalminers) a lot of these folks were honestly very middle class if not upper middle class and largely adopted the suburban American lifestyle that many Republican voters did at the time.  A lot of these places (besides like idfk South Boston) were not poor Southies living in projects but actually very comfortable solidly upper middle (what the locals might refer to as "lace curtain") class towns.

I think there were similar dynamics at play in several northeastern states at the time that generally leaned Democratic: basically a middle and upper class revolt among the base in response to inflation, high interest rates, and a slagging economy.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Imagine marrying someone without having had sex with them, and they're just terrible in bed. Like why take the risk?

The reason has been stated many times in this thread: because doing so is sinful. You just claim not to understand because you refuse to acknowledge that someone could validly reason this way.

This is something I see remarkably often among people who were presumably raised without religion: they are willing to imagine and impute all sorts of reasoning to religious people (see this very thread for examples), but they cannot imagine that people might sincerely believe what they say they believe. If you reject out of hand what people with religious belief say about themselves, of course you will see them all as liars and hypocrites.

A friend of mine recently watched I Confess, a movie by Alfred Hitchcock about a priest who is accused of murder and has the ability to exonerate himself, but does not because he would have to violate the seal of confession to do so. He noted that many people online reject the plot because they find it unrealistic that the protagonist would act in this way. This, again, is a refusal to believe that people take religion seriously, that it isn't just some sort of cultural designation. You can either accept the reality of religious belief or you can continue feigning ignorance forever, but only one of those options will help you understand the world as it is.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Rural population loss is a sore spot that runs deep in the American psyche. The agrarian myth was woven into the country's folklore and nationalist ideology from the very beginning of our push to develop the continent. Going back to the industrialization of the 19th century, there's been a lot of angst about the urbanization trend being the end of the American dream of self-sufficiency, the ability to produce and enjoy a simple abundance, honest industry, a frank spirit of equality, and so on. One of my favorite songs is "Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues", which I feel captures the existential dread of life in a dead-end small town perfectly. When communities are already ravaged by natural disasters like the 1930s Dust Bowl and man-made ones like the farm debt problem of the 1980s, and the children who the communities hope will keep their way of life alive want to leave, it understandably makes the ones whose life and pride revolves around a familial identity of land ownership pretty resentful. Democrats needed at least some of the Reagan Democrats' votes until pretty recently, so yeah, of course they had less leeway to be a snob and tell the farmers or the coal miners to learn to code.

Cities, especially the bigger ones, have a different mass creed of constant reinvention and dynamism. Telling New York City to drop dead doesn't hit them quite as hard- they know there's no real danger of that happening anyway. Smallville, not so much. There's plenty of proud history in the cities too of course, but those voters aren't as likely to feel so bad about packing up and moving for a better life.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Great explanation of machine state politics that I felt belonged here:

I think an under-discussed factor here is that Kim is running as anti-machine candidate who openly supports abolishing the county line system.  That is a major threat to someone like Norcross.  Not only would it show that you can win in New Jersey without kissing the ring of at least some of the state’s County machine bosses, the county line system is a major part of how the New Jersey machine bosses maintain their iron fisted grip on NJ Democratic politics. 

I was worried Kim shot himself in the foot by coming out for the abolition of the county-line system before the primary and that looks to have been the case.  I mean, if you’re Norcross you’d normally leap at the chance to have a south or even mid-Jersey Senator…b/c he’s more likely to be your creature and it lets you flex the southern NJ/Camden machine’s muscles making you even more relevant.  But if the guy’s whole schtick is “I’m a good guy who is unbought and unbossed, plus I support the elimination of one of the main ways your machine exercises control in primaries” …well…why would someone like George Norcross support such a candidate. 

I think the brief talk of Don Norcross running was really b/c George Norcross initially wasn’t sure if a south-Jersey spoiler was needed to stop Kim.  Honestly, this puts Kim in a bit of a bind.  At this point, he’s the decided underdog against Murphy.  Now he could certainly drop down and run for reelection to the House.  However, it really undercuts his brand - and both makes him look weak and Norcross look even stronger - if he drops out because it’s hopeless without Norcross’ support.  Plus, it irritates pols in NJ-3 who backed Kim, but were also gearing up to run for the open seat.  Seems like a lose-lose for Kim tbh. 

I think this all makes perfect sense from Norcross’ POV.  It is also a great reminder that when looking at the establishment and local machines in states like NY and NJ, their actions are primarily motivated by personal self-interest rather than ideology or regionalism considerations.  When you look at the race through that lens, it would be shocking if Norcross didn’t back Murphy over Kim.

It’s a bit like the Buffalo Mayor’s race where India Walton’s “sin” wasn’t being a left-winger; it was that she successfully primaried the machine choice.  She stood up to the local political machine and that was something the NY Democratic Party could not abide. 

Or take NY-4 in 2022: Laura Gillen was a solid recruit who would make a great Congresswoman for her district.  She won the primary with 62% and the “electable” semi-ConservaDem Keith Corbett came in a distant third with 11%.  And yet Gillen narrowly lost the GE because NY Dem Chair Jay Jacobs did everything he could to make sure the NY Democratic Party undermined her at every turn while actively sabotaging efforts at party unity.  Basically, he clearly wanted D’Esposito to win instead of her and this cycle, he made sure another credible candidate jumped into the primary against Gillen.  Why?  Well even though Corbett was clearly an overhyped candidate with little appeal who Democratic voters resoundingly rejected, he was buddies with Jay Jacobs.  Gillen humiliated Jacobs by winning without him and easily beating his protege on Jacobs’ home turf.  And Jacobs would rather a Republican win that let someone get away with challenging his influence like that.  But I digress…

TL;DR: It makes sense that Norcross is backing Murphy.  Kim is a reformist, anti-machine candidate and Norcross is a south NJ machine boss.  Why would any NJ boss endorse someone who wants to eliminate the county line system when there was another credible candidate who wasn’t calling for the abolition of one of Norcross’ most effective means of asserting power?