The New and Improved Sam Spade Good Post Gallery.

[Beet]

1932: Republicans are finished!
1964: Republicans are finished!
1972: Democrats are finished!
1984: Democrats are finished!
2008: Republicans are finished!

1852: Whigs are fini!-- oh wait.

[Beet]

1932: Republicans are finished!
1964: Republicans are finished!
1972: Democrats are finished!
1984: Democrats are finished!
2008: Republicans are finished!

1852: Whigs are fini!-- oh wait.

Bad comparison is bad.

Anyway, this thread sucks.  Let's fly it into the sun.

It was a joke. And I thought that was going to be a link to the real Good Post Gallery. I came here to post an actual good post, but there are like three now and for some reason none of them seem to be "the one".

[Beet]

^^^

It feels excessive to post another post by the same poster on [roughly] the same topic here, but...

American liberals are truly awful.

It's disorienting to read ostensibly left-leaning people sh**tting on coal miners for not getting on their bike and looking for work as if they're Norman Tebbit.  

It's even more disorienting to see maroon avatars only come out of the woodwork when the topic is about the plight of poor white men.

There are pretty of maroon avatars that criticise conservatives about the plight of poor minority groups across the country, it's only the fact that now maroon avatars have to criticise Thatcherite neo-liberals on the plight of the rural white poor.

I don't think IceSpear is even cognizant of the motivation behind our position on this issue or why we so much detest his position. He genuinely sees himself as being on the true left side which, from his perspective, I can somewhat understand. But he's mistaken though.

IceSpear is highlighting and strongly rebuking what he perceives as the rampant racism among the White working-class that motivate them to vote for right-wing, racist politicians like Donald Trump due to cultural/racial grievances. He's not entirely incorrect on this issue. There is a significant element of racism that motivates many within the White working-class. IceSpear is also correct in noting the structural inequalities of White privilege and how even the White poor have particular (relative) benefits when compared to, for example, the African American poor.

However, what IceSpear gets wrong is that he (a) is basing his understanding of White working-class motivations on voting results, which isn't an accurate depiction of this demographic group since it has low turnout levels due to alienation among large swaths of these Americans. Bigots are simply more motivated to vote than non-bigots, especially when those non-bigots simply see both parties as corrupt and voting pointless since it won't help their families. He also seems to (it's implied in his posts) believe that (b) the White working-class is more bigoted than other Whites in America, which is simply not true based on Psychological studies. IceSpear also assumes that (c) White privilege provides the White poor and working-classes with some substantially greater position over minorities in the same socioeconomic position, which allows him to disparage them in a way that he would never when discussing minorities. And he also seems to believe that (d) those of us on the Left are supporting White privilege by focusing on White working-class persons.

Let me tell you that we aren't focusing on the White working-class due to them being White. We're doing it because we notice the exceptional hostility directed towards these folks and we perceive them as a disempowered, disadvantaged group being attacked by a more powerful, wealthier group. We prioritize class-based issues since that's the primary center of power in our society - class status. Race, gender, sexuality, and so on are unquestionably important, but it's class that's the most significant of these intersectional systems of power. That's not to downplay the importance of things like institutional racism since they need to be addressed immediately, but we want to see the focus placed on all of the working class when discussing economic issues and the plight of the poor and working class. Dividing up the working class, whether through White racism or attacks upon Whites, isn't going to unify us along class lines against the mutual enemy of all workers, the ones who benefit from division - the upper class. So long as the workers remain divided, they're easy to exploit.

[Beet]

If Trump was THAT BAD, personally, why didn't he endorse Hillary and campaign for her? 

LOL.

Anyway I think most people in the GOP were lying to themselves all the way up until November 8th that Trump would finally change once he got elected, but electing him only rewarded his boorish and disrespectful behavior. Why change when he ran and won the presidency on his first try with no experience? It only confirmed his crazy.

I think you're right on both the assumption that he'd change to be more effective and how winning only seemed to verify his delusional world-view.

It wasn't just the GOP who thought he'd change, that 'crazy Trump' was a marketing ploy for the election. I know I thought he'd be a much more effective advocate for (imho, awful) Republican policies, and even though I derided him during the campaign, I never dreamed he would be such an incompetent and stupid president.

And having his 'genius' confirmed is something he shares with Hitler. (Bear with me - this isn't  directly about Nazis, fascism, or all the horrors of Hitler's regime.) When Hitler took power, and started making aggressive foreign policy moves, his advisers and general observers thought he was stupidly insane. But he had a string of successes in defiance of conventional wisdom: the Anschluss, Alsace-Lorraine, Sudetenland. Hitler became convinced he was a supra-genius, and his conservative advisers fearful fools. He went all in, with Poland, then France and finally with Russia.

And it was on that last one that probability caught up to him. Hitler had never been a genius. He was just a guy who, in essence,  got lucky and had favorable circumstances. But I doubt he ever understood that, except maybe at the end right before killing himself.

Most of Trump's life, especially his time as a politician, has been the same. While we on the left can criticize Clinton for losing to Donald Trump of all people, the same is true from the other side. How much 'political genius' did it really take to win against a Democrat who's a poor campaigner with low charisma, embroiled in an FBI investigation, in 2016. One who's also the first woman major party nominee and has had mud (earned and not) flung at her for decades?

That Trump is mentally ill in ways that will only confirm his biases will just exacerbate the problem. Trump is going to keep thinking how awesome he is, until he makes an 'bigly' decision that explodes and sets off some sort of uncontrollable conflagration.