Democratic (Party) Direction

worth talking about: protestantism and american catholicism, the midwest, political economy of midsize american cities and their hinterlands, or just rurality generally.

mass unconscious recognition of germanness? idk this is verging on phrenology

― goole, Friday, March 16, 2018 4:56 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that all of those things are worth talking about, and don't entirely deny the verge.

I'm excited about this new direction the democratic party is headed in you guys

Germanness in America I think matters a great deal esp in light of ethnic subsumption in the wake of WW2 and how unidentified Germanness contributed to American culture in a more covert way than gaudier Anglo influences. But, again, to make a claim that Obama's specific German heritage led to repressed ethnic German-Americans voting for him requires I think an extraordinary case. Why would they see him as a fellow German-American as opposed to a black man? Why would they see anyone as a German-American when they don't even really see themselves as German-Americans? The ethnic case is interesting but I feel like just not in this particular dimension where it's being asserted.

tall with a great smile, wife in terrific shape, of course he's a northern european

bill clinton: first black president
barack obama: first german president

Obama was the first Asian-American President

This "accidental racist" writing under a nom de plume for a self-declared "Fake News" site called Trump the first Italian-American President: https://newesfromamerica.com/2016/11/30/donald-trump-americas-first-italian-american-president/

Such status would be complicated significantly in the present moment were Europeans identified by the various particularities of their ancestry rather than their unifying 'race'. ...

While most who insist upon 'whiteness' (at least in a context like this one) are, I presume, good people at least nominally concerned with overcoming white privilege/supremacy, in doing so they are in fact reinforcing their own belonging to that majoritarian group...

it sounds like you would prefer if everyone would self-identify their ethnic status as precisely as possible. which is creepy af, btw. if you don't think that, than i suggest cutting down your posts to about 1/20th of their current size and just stating what you think clearly, rather than shitbombing threads over the course of several years before deploying the cowardly self-interview gambit of "Do I think this? Maybe. But do I also think that? Possibly." as a deflective non-response

it sounds like you would prefer if everyone would self-identify their ethnic status as precisely as possible.

― Karl Malone, Friday, March 16, 2018 5:15 PM (fifty-nine seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is something I would have (and in fact had already) better developed in the more carefully-considered and broadly-spoken post I intended. My preference is that white people self-identify by ancestry in the alternative to race. This is not by any means a statement that 'racial' identity or effective substitutions for same should not be used to overcome discrimination in education, employment, housing, etc.

And to be more precise: I'm not saying 'go around identifying yourself as Y' (though I find Y fascinating for various reasons, probably in part because I belong to a fairly minoritarian ethnic/religious group that is generally regarded as 'white' but not by many racists, and in larger part because I'm interested in Y's intersection with American regional cultures and their political import). I'm saying 'to the extent you feel the need to identify yourself as X, identify yourself as Y instead (except to the degree to which you are being asked to identify as X for purposes of confronting discrimination)'.

Moo V Will SatisFPy You

My preference is that white people self-identify by ancestry in the alternative to race.

The problem is not racial self-identification so much as it is one's identification of others as being "others" according to racial categories. Few US whites go around feeling white, unless they live in a neighborhood where whites are in the minority, but when a US white person sees brown skin, they do categorize the owner by race, willingly or not, consciously or not.

If 'German' is the 'primary ancestry' of most counties in the US, that list doesn't necessarily prove much.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, March 16, 2018 3:48 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why are only four English counties included on the list? Why is only one "American" county included?

when a US white person sees brown skin, they do categorize the owner by race, willingly or not, consciously or not.

― A is for (Aimless), Friday, March 16, 2018 5:41 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Of course. I believe that many "US white person"s also categorize many "white ethnic"s by ethnicity/ancestry, consciously or not.

so anyway

New Weeds episode coming later today about abolishing ICE. @SeanMcElwee has successfully moved the Overton Window.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 16, 2018

When even the centrists are talking about it, that's progress.

I mean, I find it crazy that someone would readily acknowledge the distinctness of the 4.4 million ethnic Norwegians who live in Norway but strenuously object to the suggestion that there's something distinct about the 4.6 million Norwegian-Americans who have lived largely in the Upper Midwest for the past 100-170 years.

I don't think anyone is objecting to the suggestion that there's something distinct about particular ethnic groups, just questioning what that is and what it has to do with their voting patterns. You can assert anything but without unpacking what your claims are it's hard to respond or even understand what you're arguing. Like maybe what they share in common is a taste for lutefisk but otherwise don't share political opinions. After all, those 4.4 million ethnic Norwegians in Norway differ on numerous political issues, I'm sure. If anything American-Norwegians should be more varied (due to factors like intermarriage).

this is now the Fyre Festival of ILX threads

Each contributes according to his means.

This was not the gabbneb crazy turn I expected

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/022/524/tumblr_o16n2kBlpX1ta3qyvo1_1280.jpg

Why ban him? He's entertaining and a change of pace from the manifold Trump impersonations and breathless updates.

― Mordy, Friday, March 16, 2018 12:46 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because he's already permanently banned (for reasons other than shitposting about german americans)

looks like current active mods are not letting themselves be bound by previous mods' decisions

There's always the magical 51. I have some German-American ancestry and I voted!

I will reiterate that he is a more interesting poster than anyone currently agitating for his banishment.

Almost onto something there

I am not at all surprised that someone who identifies with their Italian-American heritage might be particularly invested in subsuming their and others' European(-plus?) ancestry within the rubric of 'whiteness'

wowwwwwwwwwwwww

i can't remember what you were banned for before but hang around man you are making things interesting

appropriate lack of learning from history in the Democratic Party Strategy thread

hilary 2020

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue02/features/groeng1.gif

"making things interesting"

really though. he's a lunatic one-note. he drops his enormous posts on threads like anvils and expects us to redirect all energy to reading up on his links (either to Wikipedia pages on things everybody else already understands, or to twelve noncontexutalized articles, implying that somewhere in one of them contains evidence that will prove his point for him), and stroking our chins appreciatively at each convoluted sentence. he will never engage with the actual conversation that's going on except to pooh-pooh its relevance versus his ethno-demographic crackpot political science and disdain the intelligence or reading comprehension of those involved. also he spell-checked my post reporting that i lost my home in a fire, which really didn't bother me initially, but after somebody else pointed it out i was kinda like, yeah wtf that's sorta weird. all things considered we have had worse posters around here, i guess, but all of them have been banned and so has he, and it's not like he's using the new login to make a clean slate and try out a better way of participating in the community.

Antoinette Sedillo Lopez joins the nascent "defund ICE" movement

https://antoinetteforcongress.com/antoinette-sedillo-lopez-calls-for-defunding-the-u-s-immigration-and-customs/

Justice Dems continuing to do sweet work

he's a lunatic one-note.

We put up with Frederik B and Morbius just fine.

he will never engage with the actual conversation that's going on except to pooh-pooh its relevance...and disdain the intelligence or reading comprehension of those involved.

See above.

Is MV my favorite political poster? No. But is he dragging down the forum as a whole? Fuck no. I get that the only votes the system allows for are negative votes - you can either vote to ban someone, or say nothing at all - but I am decidedly pro-MV and would press a button to indicate as much, if there was a button to press.

i'm a multi-note lunatic, you cur!

xp. fp'd you for this

fred b is a good comparison because imho he has been displaying far more notes and efforts at collegiality since he came back from being banned, whereas gabbneb has been visibly getting worse with each incarnation. unless moo v is actually somebody's gabbo sock, in which case, damn, nice job.

he spell-checked my post reporting that i lost my home in a fire, which really didn't bother me initially, but after somebody else pointed it out i was kinda like, yeah wtf that's sorta weird.

― lol dis stance dunk (Doctor Casino), Friday, March 16, 2018 7:49 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank you for your notes about the direction of the Democratic Party. My intent was in no small part to help you and company avoid the chance of giving offense to a local official who might be helpful to your efforts (to which I might contribute myself if I were gainfully employed atm), but a minor needle at a guy who has no compunctions about being a fucking dickhead to someone you don't even know, wouldn't concern yourself in the slightest with their personal circumstances, and feels the need to convert the more-offhanded-than-it-appears mounting of evidence in service of one among numerous notions essayed for testing by fire of poorer quality or faith than one might hope into an all-consuming idee fixe didn't hurt, no. You can handle it just as much as you think I can.

i think it'd be cool if we didn't throw around the word lunatic at people here

that's fair. i apologize and retract that part.

:)

Moo, that second sentence kind of got away from you.

i'm a multi-note lunatic, you cur!

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), 16. marts 2018 20:57 (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag PostPermalink

Ah shit, I had the exact same reaction.

IL Dems what up

Madigan’s campaign committee has spent nearly $19,000 on mailers attacking two Our Revolution-backed candidates in State Central Democratic Committee elections, Elizabeth Lindquist and Art Bardsley. The postcards say Lindquist and Bardsley are Trump supporters and “members of a group supported by Tea Party activists.” The group referenced by the mailers is Represent.Us, an anti-corruption group that brings together people from all sides of the political spectrum.

The attack comes as the Illinois machine faces one of its most credible assaults in a generation, with Madigan ally Rep. Daniel Lipinski facing a primary challenge from Marie Newman, a progressive, pro-choice advocate who is now neck in neck with him in the polls. And in Chicago, a populist-reformer is going right at the heart of the machine, targeting the pol in charge of Cook County’s tax assessment, a key source of power for the state party bosses.

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/07/illinois-democratic-party-michael-madigan-mailers/

I should never read comments on Intercept posts.

I should never read comments on Intercept posts

This answer to the below posed question seems so simple, but can the Dems do it:

The latest entry in this ongoing debate pits liberal think-tanker Sean McElwee and three political scientists, who argue that the Democratic Party can retake the White House by courting the predominantly young and black former Obama voters who stayed home in 2016, against New York Times election expert Nate Cohn, who argues that the Democrats must instead win back the blue-collar whites who flipped from Obama to Trump.

But the respective paths laid out by McElwee et al. and Cohn aren’t mutually exclusive. The way out of the Gordian Knot of identity politics versus class politics is to take intersectionality seriously. Instead of pitting voters of color against white working-class voters in an imaginary election, Democrats should target their policy proposals and political appeals to voters who bridge the gap: the black working class.

Reaching this predominantly young and disaffected group will mean ignoring calls for Democrats to tone down the party’s newfound commitment to social justice. It’ll also mean embracing the type of full-throated economic populism that the party has shied away from ever since its post-McGovern “neoliberal” turn. The one thing Democrats must not do is continue moderating their party’s message, especially on economics, in the hope that upscale whites will save them.

-writer Josh Mound
https://newrepublic.com/article/147467/resolving-democrats-false-choice

"The latest entry in this ongoing debate pits liberal think-tanker Sean McElwee and three political scientists, who argue that the Democratic Party can retake the White House by courting the predominantly young and black former Obama voters who stayed home in 2016, against New York Times election expert Nate Cohn, who argues that the Democrats must instead win back the blue-collar whites who flipped from Obama to Trump."

Where have I heard this before? Oh right.

"But the respective paths laid out by McElwee et al. and Cohn aren’t mutually exclusive. The way out of the Gordian Knot of identity politics versus class politics is to take intersectionality seriously. Instead of pitting voters of color against white working-class voters in an imaginary election, Democrats should target their policy proposals and political appeals to voters who bridge the gap: the black working class."

Why haven't I heard this before? Oh right.

I should never read comments on Intercept posts.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), 17. marts 2018 22:32 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I should never read comments on Intercept posts

― Simon H., 17. marts 2018 22:37 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I should never read comments on Intercept posts.

Good news for gabbneb

People who mark "Black" for their race on the 2020 census will be asked about their origins. https://t.co/FQSUJKBKlG

— NPR (@NPR) March 17, 2018