TRIBAL SNAPSHOTS: Long-standing disdain!

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018

Part 2—The basket of self-defeat:
We would assume that Peter Strzok is a perfectly decent person.

Beyond that, we would assume that he, like everyone else, has imperfections and flaws. Some of these imperfections may reflect characteristic tendencies of his sociological tribe.

As a general matter, we humans don't like to acknowledge our imperfections. That's especially true of those imperfections which may be especially embarrassing.

So it was that Agent Strzok offered a silly explanation last week for a couple of things he once said:
GOODLATTE (7/12/18): Let's discuss a text that hits home for me. On August 26, 2016, you texted Ms. Page, quote, "Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support." And "smell" is in capital letters, all capital letters. What does Trump support smell like, Mr. Strzok?

STRZOK: Sir, that's a expression of speech. I clearly wasn't smelling one thing or the other...What I meant by that was, living in Northern Virginia, having traveled 100, 150 miles south within the same state, I was struck by the extraordinary difference in the expression of political opinion and belief amongst the community there from where I live.

GOODLATTE: And you describe that as "smell," in capital letters?

STRZOK: Sir, that was a choice—the quick choice of words in a text.

GOODLATTE: Well, OK. So earlier, you had texted Ms. Page that another part of Virginia—Loudoun County, which is, I think, in Northern Virginia—is quote, "still ignorant hillbillies," end quote.

Is that what you meant? That you consider Trump supporters to be ignorant hillbillies?


STRZOK: No, sir. Not at all.

GOODLATTE: What did you mean by that?

STRZOK: Well, sir, the first thing I'd tell you as a—as a proud Fairfax County resident, there's a healthy, sort of, competition between Fairfax and Loudoun [Counties]. Second thing I would tell you is that in no way did I or do I believe any resident of Loudoun County, or Southern Virginia or anywhere else in the nation, is—are any of those things. That was a flippant text.
When he said his neighbors were "ignorant hillbillies," that was part of the "healthy competition" which exists between those two neighboring counties!

As we showed you yesterday, Strzok was challenged at other points in his day-long water-boarding about these "flippant text[s]." As we showed you, he stuck to his overall story about those unfortunate statements.

According to Strzok, he hadn't actually meant what he said in those texts. It was like the way people in Wisconsin might speak about Minnesotans!

Surely, no one believes that explanation for those unfortunate texts. During last Thursday's hearing, it was obvious that Republican congressmen weren't buying this explanation.

Later, conservative pundits urged tribal members to see Strzok's explanation as disingenuous, dishonest—as swampishly too cute by half. That' s what conservatives said about Strzok's explanation.

Presumably, though, no one in our liberal tribe will fail to know that Strzok was being a bit disingenuous—was failing to cop to a fairly obvious state of affairs.

To what was Agent Strzok failing to cop? He was failing to acknowledge an obvious fact—his comments reflect a widespread, long-standing disdain within the liberal world for the subhumans found Over There.

The liberal world crawls with this tribal disdain. Indeed, our world has crawled with this tribal disdain for a very long time.

At present, comment threads at liberal sites crawl with familiar variants of this tribal disdain. Beyond that, Strzok's claim that he could SMELL the Trump voters at the Walmart in southern Virginia echo an iconic statement famously made long ago:
KAEL (12/28/72): I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.
That was film critic Pauline Kael, as quoted in her own New York Times, from a speech she gave on the date we've cited. Where Strzok could smell the Trump voters in southern Virginia, Kael was somehow able to feel their forebears in a darkened room.

Expressions like these are unlovely. Around the world, through the course of time, they're tied to horrible relatives in gruesome family trees.

Almost surely, this explains why Strzok was slow to acknowledge a fairly obvious fact. This is the way we liberals routinely speak, and think, about Those People, the cucarachas found Over There.

As a matter of theory, we all know better than to generalize about people in these unflattering ways. Indeed, when we say we can smell or feel Those People, we're moving rather directly toward the realm of dehumanization—a realm we all know we should avoid, at least as a matter of theory.

That said, the liberal world has run on the fuel of this tribal disdain for a rather long time. In the past few years, the rise of Trump has heightened this instinct, which occasionally gets expressed in ways which live in infamy and can be highly self-destructive:
CLINTON (9/9/16): I know there are only 60 days left to make our case—and don't get complacent. Don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, "Well, he's done this time."

We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.

(LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE)

Right?

(LAUGHTER/APPLAUSE)

They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic—Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people—now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric.

Now, some of those folks—they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America. But the "other" basket—the other basket—and I know, because I look at this crowd, I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and—as well as, you know, New York and California—but that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but—he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Oof! Complaining about Trump's "offensive comments," Clinton uncorked one herself! Complaining about "mean-spirited rhetoric," she took a trip down the same road.

You can see that Clinton knew better than to make such sweeping statements. You can see that in the very first thing she said:

"You know, to just be grossly generalistic..."

You can see that she knew better. But then, she went there anyway, scoring a brutal own goal.

Jut like that, she was expressing the deepest kind of disdain for exactly half of Trump's voters. "Unfortunately," these people exist, she amazingly said. She somehow knew that half Those People were "irredeemable," not fit for life on this earth.

By now, she was light years over her skis, heading down the slope of defeat. Given the way it was put to use, it isn't clear that this one statement didn't decide the campaign.

Today, the liberal world is wondering what we can do about Commander Trump, who's crazily moving us toward the onset of His Future Dispositive War. Occasionally, an obvious fact swims into view, even for people as clueless as we are:

This whole problem turns on the fact that we haven't been able to persuade enough of the voters who were insulted by Clinton and Strzok. For whatever reason, we haven't been able to persuade Those People that they made a bad choice with Herr Trump.

Comments like Strzok's make conversion harder. Decades of comments like that help explain where we are today.

Secretly, Agent Strzok understood that his remarks came from a dark place. It's hard to apologize for such arrogance and such disdain. That's why he dissembled, making matters worse.

These are snapshots of a highly fallible tribe. They help explain how we got to this ludicrous place.

Tomorrow: Dropping dick jokes on their heads

Thursday: Last Sunday's Sunday Review

56 comments:

  1. I often dab my body with moist towelettes. Sometimes for hours and hours and hours. I'm smarter than most.

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  2. You're, AGAIN, leaving out the bigotry as a reason for Trump voters.
    Why? When it is so obvious.

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    1. Right. Bob is correct that people in general - and people in important positions in particular - should avoid making comments that are either facially stupid or that can be misinterpreted in a negative fashion. That's common sense.

      But for Bob and others to argue that some people's stupid comments are the problem is, in my opinion, part of the problem. Like Bob writes, people are fallible and, therefore, will say stupid things at times. Unfortunately, we have a right-wing propaganda apparatus that is designed to take every stupid statement or action on the left, whether the person responsible is insignificant or important, and magnify it to drum up outrage among listeners and viewers. Meanwhile, that same propaganda machine downplays the stupid comments of favored politicians as "mistakes" that should be "clarified," and encourages us to ignore the "literal" words spoken by, for example, the President.

      Unfortunately, I don't see any evidence that people watching what they say does any good in this environment. Barack Obama was as careful a speaker as it's possible to be, and he was crucified for every small misstep, resulting in the Republicans now controlling all 3 branches of government.

      I don't know the right answer, and I don't disagree that people on the left should be smarter. But I don't think that this is the priority issue for us at this time.

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    2. "I don't think that this is the priority issue for us at this time."

      I could smell the treason as I watched Trump and Putin yesterday. The press conference reeked of collusion. Somerby has reeked of similar collusion for quite a while now. His posts stink of Trump support and conservative talking points. His contention that liberals deserve to lose because they are elitists who disdain real America is ridiculous. For every example of liberal pride he can post here, there are similar examples on the right. But is there a moral equivalence between disdaining racism and sexism (and saying so out loud) and disdaining brown people and keeping women "in their place"? I don't think so, but Somerby wants us to see it that way as he argues that The Other have reasons for their beliefs and are good people (where did I hear that before? Charlottesville?).

      Who benefits when liberals self-censor their strongest statements and keep silent about the obvious stink of conservative excess? It isn't liberals and it isn't the people affected by Trump and his devastating policies. Obviously, Trump's millionaire buddies benefit, but Bernie and his bros think they are benefitting too, because when things get bad enough, the socialists will rise up and …[miracle happens]… we will get single payer and free college tuition. Keep collecting those underpants, Bob.

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    3. I don't agree with your comments about Bob. There are few people in America who have gotten multiple big issues correct before their time, and Bob is one of them (the press treatment of Gore during the 2000 election; the disgrace of the NYT running the Peter Schweizer-based story; the significance of the Benghazi narrative spun by Republicans).

      And I don't even disagree with his thoughts about Trump supporters. I know close friends and relatives who are good, thoughtful, intelligent people who nevertheless are big Trump supporters. At least some of that is connected to racism, I think, and some is just simple tribalism (they always vote Republican because that's who they are). So I'm in general agreement that it's wrong to write-off people as "deplorable" or the like.

      But Bob's fooling himself if he thinks that liberals watching their words will do anything to improve their electoral chances, because the propaganda outlets will just find something else to drive the outrage. Again, I don't pretend to know how to win, and I know that in a democracy we need to persuade more people to vote than the alternative, but comments by liberals that were better left unsaid isn't a meaningful problem in today's America.

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    4. Thank Dog for Clinton's 'deplorables" speech.
      It distracts Bob from telling us that Obama ordering dijon mustard on his burger gave us Trump.

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    5. 2:46

      Or hand cream.

      Delete
  3. Q    And Brexit — sorry, sir, because you are going to the UK.  What will be your message on Brexit?
    THE PRESIDENT:  Well, Brexit is a — you know, I’ve been reading a lot about Brexit over the last couple of days, and it seems to be turning a little bit differently where they’re getting at least partially involved back with the European Union.
    I have no message.  It’s not for me to say.  I own a lot of property there.  I’m going to Scotland while I wait for the meeting.  I have Turnberry in Scotland, which is a magical place — one of my favorite places.  I’m going there for two days while I wait for the Monday meeting.
    But it’s not for me to say what they should be doing in the UK.  I have great friendships.  My mother was born in Scotland.  I have great friendships over there.  We have a wonderful ambassador — Woody Johnson.  And he’s doing — by the way, Woody is doing a great job.
    But it’s not for me to say.  I’d like to see him be able to work it so it could go quickly, whatever they work out.
    Q    Hard Brexit?
    THE PRESIDENT:  Is it heartbreaking?
    Q    Hard Brexit.
    THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, hard Brexit.  I see.  (Laughter.)  I thought you said it was heartbreaking.  I said, that might be going a little bit too far, right?  (Laughter.)  Heartbreak.  Is it heartbreaking?  A lot of things are heartbreaking.
    No, I would say that Brexit is Brexit.  It’s not like — I guess we’ll use the term “hard Brexit.”  I assume that’s what you mean.  The people voted to break it up, so I would imagine that’s what they’ll do.  But maybe they’re taking a little bit of a different route.  So I don’t know if that’s what they voted for.  I just want the people to be happy.  They’re great people.  And I do think I have — I’m sure there will be protests, because there are always protests.  But I think — there were protests the night of the election, both ways.  But in the end, we got 206 electoral — 306 electoral votes.  And one state said — you know, it was interesting, one of the states we won, Wisconsin — I didn’t even realize this until fairly recently — that was the one state Ronald Reagan didn’t win when he ran the board his second time.  He didn’t win Wisconsin, and we won Wisconsin.  So, you know, we had a great night.
    Protests?  There might be protests.  But I believe that the people in the UK — Scotland, Ireland.  As you know, I have property in Ireland; I have property all over.  I think that those people, they like me a lot, and they agree with me on immigration.  And I think that’s why you have Brexit in the first place, because of immigration.

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    1. Ireland is not part of the UK.

      You have Brexit because of Nigel Farage and his collusion with Russia. Expect to see the connections between Trump and Farage clarified by Mueller at some point. Trump is part of a global fascist movement, not just an individual traitor.

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    2. Trump's response is beyond bizarre and clearly shows he knows nothing about Brexit.

      Reagan did win Wisconsin.

      "I have no message"
      "No, I would say that Brexit is Brexit."

      Stable donkey

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    3. THE PRESIDENT: We would make a great deal with the United Kingdom because they have product that we like. I mean they have a lot of great product. They make phenomenal things, you know, and you have different names - you can say “England”, you can say “UK”, you can say “United Kingdom” so many different - you know you have, you have so many different names - Great Britain. I always say: “Which one do you prefer? Great Britain? You understand what I’m saying?’

      MORGAN: You know Great Britain and the United Kingdom aren’t exactly the same thing?’

      THE PRESIDENT: Right, yeah. You know I know, but a lot of people don’t know that. But you have lots of different names. The fact is you make great product, you make great things. Even your farm product is so fantastic.

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  4. Trump did raise up the deplorable among his supporters, the racists and haters. He does appeal to the ignorant among voters because he himself doesn't read, disdains facts, makes it up as he goes along. He appeals to those who enjoy seeing women belittled and forced into submission. Because that is how he treats women himself. Hillary was correct about everything she said.

    After Hillary made her statement, Trump himself broadened it to include all of his supporters, not just those who are actually deplorable, but everyone. And he sold t-shirts proudly proclaiming their deplorability. That wasn't Hillary's fault, but it was perhaps predictable.

    Yesterday we saw proof that Trump is not only deplorable but treasonous. Somerby saw it too. But today he insists that we not acknowledge what is true, what we see plainly before our eyes. He insists that we must never call out the racism, sexism and ignorance masquerading as normal among Trump supporters. We cannot say it because Trump will gleefully use it against us, as the conservatives tried to use Strzok's words against him. But he was right -- there is something recognizable about Trump supporters. Maybe it is the sleeveless tees with the confederate flag and the slogan "Let it Wave" that you see beyond the suburbs. Or maybe it is the signs on establishment doors that say "No guns allowed." Hard to put a finger on it, but you can SMELL it, and it truly stinks. Strzok would be no kind of FBI agent if he couldn't figure out the prevailing political climate from intangibles like that. But hey, he should never speak about the ugliness that manifests itself in Trump's name. Look what happened to Hillary when she told the truth.

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    1. All that is racist code for "white male" and we smell it a mile away. Which is why we didn't need Russians to take Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

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    2. Shorter incel @ 3:51 - I still can't get a date.

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    3. @3:51, actually, it's the racist code for "working people". The unenlightened, undeserving group that lib-zombies hate most.

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    4. Nothing says loving the working people like cutting their insurance, making them pay more for their washers and dryers, and giving them a pittance in exchange for billions to go to the .000001%.

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  5. Getting close to your big reveal, Mao.
    Just leave out the quotation marks.

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  6. Famous Republican William Bennett:

    "If you wanted to reduce crime, you could—if that were the sole purpose—you could abort every black baby in this country and the crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

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  7. Mao is not a serious commenter. Mao is only here to stroke his fragile ego via a strategy of stifling discourse. Responding to Mao does nothing but prop up his delicate sense of himself.

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  8. Somerby broke a rule and included the half of Clinton's quote that puts her remark in context -- the half routinely left out, even by Somerby when he first started down this path:

    "Now, some of those folks—they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America. But the "other" basket—the other basket—and I know, because I look at this crowd, I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and—as well as, you know, New York and California—but that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but—he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

    There are truly deplorable people out there. They are white supremacists and bigots, Russian mobsters and similar crooks, opportunists who would loot others, and so on. One of them became president through criminal activity. That doesn't make Hillary wrong. It makes those who voted for Trump dupes, as well as smelling like conservative idiots.

    The solution isn't for liberals to shut up. It is for Somerby to recognize that democracies can be subverted by foreign interference. Somerby should be arguing for protection against similar meddling in the midterms. He should be examining the role of media in exposing and advocating change to protect future elections. That is the most urgent need today -- not a kumbaya spirit of tolerance for The Other, those beknighted souls who didn't recognize Trump's unfitness and went along with the traitors who put him into office.

    Somerby is the real stinker here these days.

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  9. Except there are probably more white supremacist bigots receiving food stamps and disability than black people. So the coded language is distorting reality.

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  10. Mao is one of those people on the right who trolls liberal web sites and thinks he has something intelligent to say in the "gotcha" sphere. Unfortunately, he has never added anything constructive to the debate and is not capable of doing so.

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  11. "I'm curious how long a simple street cop would survive if he was revealed to have said something similar about "niggers" and their smell..."

    Not even in the same ballpark. Can you figure out why?

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  12. Strzok's comments were private. They were not made on the campaign train. They were intended for the consumption -- a cynical, flippant exchange -- with a single person. There's nothing wrong with that.

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  13. I disagree with both of those theses.

    1. There is nothing particularly bad about saying you can smell the Trump support, even less bad about saying you can feel the Nixon voters. Both are just ways of saying that you can sense something that you cannot actually see.

    The bad part about Kael's statement was that her own social circle was so tribal and closed.

    Even worse are the people who say you should disown your own family if they vote the wrong way or don't agree with you politically.

    Although I am a guy who unfriended half a dozen Trump supporters after the election, and one of those was family (sort of - he is a 4th cousin). That family member, however, had posted on election day, the statement that everybody should cut out of their life anybody who voted for Hillary. This, before the results were even in.

    The other funny thing is that since the election I have unfriended or unfollowed a bunch of liberals. If Trump is ridiculous, it seems to me that Trump haters are even more so. They belong to groups that will sift the news to produce a meme talking about how much they HATE Trump, and somewhat about how they HATE Trump supporters. One of them, who I am still friends with (sort of - I mean we barely know each other but he ran for the County Commission the same year I ran for County Treasurer) he sometimes calls them Trumptards, even though one such is one of his own nephews.

    But I digress.

    2. There really ARE regional rivalries and bad comments. We can admit that. I wrote a post yesterday talking about some of them (and then never posted it). In Wisconsin they do not bash Minnesota all that much, but they do talk, sometimes, about FIBs. That is, Fucking Illinois Bastards. In Minnesota they make Iowa jokes, and the Governor (Perpich) himself once bashed South Dakota as being "50th in everything". Iowa, of course, stands for Idiots Out Walking Around" or "I Owe the World an Apology" or as I myself coined, after dealing with their court system "Incorrigible Oppressors Without Accountability". Truly, it was a state made for acronyms.

    Now, grill me before Congress about those statements. Should I admit to having disdain for Iowa or Iowans? Well, since I lived there, perhaps Iowans have earned some. Iowans, I would say, are often salt of the earth, BUT, they are very provincial. Most of them, as I joked, can pick up a rock and throw it at the house where they grew up. It is very hard to make friends there, because they all seem to have circles of friends that they have known since childhood. Another transplant comedian in Des Moines joked "If you did not make friends with them in grade school, it is too late."

    It would not, in my opinion, be fair to take a critical comment, much less a joke I told in private to a friend, as some sort of evidence that I have a deep disdain for Iowa, or that the Zokster should admit his deep disdain for Trump voters or Loudon County based on those texts.

    Even though the shills for one tribe might use them in trying to continue to con the rubes into voting for their employers.

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    1. I believe Kael was referring to the specific reaction she felt at some of the more reactionary crypto-fascist movies that were starting to come out in 71-72. Not some general hostility towards those who weren't her kind..

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    2. how much they HATE Trump, and somewhat about how they HATE Trump supporters.

      Do these trump voter friends of yours go to tRump's Nurenberg rallies and feverishly chant "lock her up" still? To this day, that still happens.

      Who are the haters?

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  14. ...here, 10 seconds of googling:
    https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/12/21/edgewater-police-officers-resign-after-sending-incredibly-racist-text-messages

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  15. This is one of Somerby's most troubling posts. Ever. He isn't bothered by the Republicans (i.e. The government) chastising someone for their privately, I repeat, privately, expressed views. He chastises the man expressing those views. This approaches an Orwellian dystopia where "thought crimes" are punishable. Somerby sees no problem with the fascistic, McCarthyist abuse of power shown by the Republicans.

    Has Somerby ever acknowledged his own imperfections? More importantly, has he ever said something in private that he would not want publicized? Perhaps he too would be "slow to acknowledge" what his accusers want to hear.

    He also seems to believe Strzok is a liberal.

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  16. This is an odd stance for Somerby to take. He has spent 20 years arguing that Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky should never have been made public, and yet the same political party (Republicans ) that did just that are now airing Strzok's private text messages and impugning his character, and Somerby is aboard their train now.

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  17. "We would assume that Peter Strzok is a perfectly decent person. "

    "Brutus is an honorable man..."

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  18. How then, do you propose that the deplorables be converted, Mr. Somerby? I don't think it's possible. Whether you insult them or reason with them, it just further drives them into their deplorable positions. Seriously. If you challenge people rationally about their firmly-held beliefs, they wind up clinging to their beliefs even more strongly. This is proven by peer-reviewed studies. And, oddly, the smarter the person is, the stronger the effect.

    No, these people are lost to Democrats. The Democrats have to worry about getting out their base.

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    1. How?? Fn easy.

      You 1 never shit in their heads
      2 never give up as you are now
      3 treat them as equalse
      4 appeal their moral frameworks which are most likely different from yours, ours

      "When we produce arguments, we do so from within our own moral framework and in the language of our moral values. Those values rest on top of a set of psychological tendencies influenced by our genetic predispositions and shaped by our cultural exposure that blind us to alternate viewpoints. Because of this, we find it very difficult to construct an argument with the same facts, but framed in a different morality. Willer’s work suggests that if we did that, we would find it a much more successful route to persuading people we usually think of as unreachable."


      https://youtu.be/5LrThf-Beq0

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    2. Gunk,
      They should be pro-abortion, because they claim to be for small government (yet support the government forcing women to carry their fetuses to birth).
      Go ahead, show us how F'n easy it really is.
      Once you swing Mao and DavidinCal, you'll be our pied-piper.

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    3. Everyone got their beliefs somewhere. In adulthood it's normally by being exposed to a convincing argument. I'm solid in my convictions but others are on the fence. If they're white males they might have some interests represented by Democrats but they won't be voting for them because of the approach. The approach isn't going to change because the Democrats have no self control because they're emotional, not rational. Works for me.

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    4. Unfortunately Democrats are self hating defeatists with no balls or courage. Look at these posters here. "it's too hard", "I don't think it's possible", "show me the way first, then I'll get on board", "peer reviewed studies show these people can not be persuaded, I give up, I can't think of a way to try." You people have no balls or courage. You adore losing. You have been destroyed by hypersensitivity and consumed with weakness. Show some Godamned courage and fight!!!!! What, truly, is the matter with you?

      It's true. I was wrong it's not easy. Actually it can't be done. You people don't have it in you. You get everything you deserve.

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    5. "Unfortunately Democrats are self hating defeatists with no balls or courage. "

      You've summed up what Republicans think of Democrats and why they don't want to vote for them or be like them.

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    6. Democrats are the people who lie down before tanks to protest war, chain themselves to buildings to protest civil rights violations, went toe-to-toe with ICE over children locked in cages. We filled the malls where Trump supporters couldn't be bothered to show up. We put ourselves on the line for our causes. And we don't have time to waste arguing with idiots. It takes balls to show up at town halls in support of Obamacare and Medicare. It takes balls to go to jail as unacknowledged whistleblowers to expose corruption. Democrats formed the unions and were fired, beaten, even killed in the process. Those same Democrats are mobilizing to protect our country from traitors. We don't have time to argue with 12 year olds pretending to be Trump supporters on the internet.

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    7. Oh. Ok Democrats are actually courageous huh? Who that you know has been fired, beaten or killed? I am not a Trump supporter. Sadly, you are totally deluded here. But if you don't want to argue great. If you are so sure Democrats are courageous and crafty, bold mobilisers then I guess you won't have any further problems and will recover from the thourough walloppings of the last 8 years. Good luck.

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    8. "If they're white males they might have some interests represented by Democrats but they won't be voting for them because of the approach."

      Yup. Waiting on the Democrats to lard-up their campaigns with bigotry to capture the white (male, female, rich, poor, middle class, etc) vote is not going to happen.
      Besides, why buy bigoted-lite, when the GOP is giving you the pure stuff?

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  19. From the article: "...sent to each other in a group chat." There was nothing remotely racist in what Strzok had texted -- privately, I mind you! To only one person! But even examining it further, he's making an amorphous, non-specific comment about a social class that might vote for Trump. This is really quite orthogonal to his work duties. He's not ranting about "niggers", "towel-heads", "kikes", "china persons", etc. Oh, did I mention that this was a private conversation between two people?

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  20. Half of forty odd percent is twenty odd percent. Seems about right to me.

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  21. Ah, so you're going pedantic on me, eh? "Towel-head" and "kike" are a horrible slur, and "hillbilly" and "redneck" are expressions of affection, yeah? Though, incidentally, if you read the link, those two unfortunate cops address the group they deride as "black people". Success: PC internalized.

    And sending anonymous messages to each other in a group chat is "not even in the same ballpark" as sending texts?

    Is that it? Is this why the two cops had to resign immediately, while the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division of the F.B.I. can merrily continue being one?

    Tsk. Well, thanks for enlightening me, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Here:
    https://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/26/us/racist-texts-san-francisco-police-officer/index.html

    "The texts were seized from Officer Jason Lai's personal phone. He's resigned from the department."

    ReplyDelete
  23. It makes them feel good to hear and repeat Hillary's "deplorable" comments and to screech RACIST. It made me feel good to vote against them and they motivate me to keep on doing it. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are our rewards for the trouble of having the unhinged nuisances in our faces all the time. I'd say we got the better deal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So everyone is feeling good. Short of earning a paycheck, why bother posting this comment?

      Delete
  24. ...as part of a criminal investigations. Texts that he exchanged with his fellow police officers.

    Anyways, two things to consider, to begin with: (1)private texts in a private context between a man and his girlfriend (2) He doesn't deal with the public. As far as the relative offensiveness of the terms -- well, reasonable minds can differ on that account, I guess. To my mind, terms like "redneck" and "hillbilly" reside on a slightly higher plane of abstraction. It's more of a cultural stereotype. Doesn't quite impact one on the same visceral level as being called, say, a "kike".
    Group chat is not in the same ballpark as exchanging texts with your lover. Correct. By definition, it's not private.

    ReplyDelete
  25. "Texts that he exchanged with his fellow police officers"

    Just like Strzok and Lisa Page. Or is fucking your colleague is what makes the difference to you, in a positive way? Good to know.

    "To my mind, terms like "redneck" and "hillbilly" reside on a slightly higher plane of abstraction."

    Whoa, this is deep. I'm impressed.

    "Doesn't quite impact one on the same visceral level as being called, say, a "kike"."

    Don't like "kike", eh? Somehow, I imagine, to the minds of "hillbillies" and "rednecks", "kike" resides on a slightly higher plane of abstraction.

    "By definition, it's not private."

    Neither is exchanging texts with your FBI colleague, who you're fucking occasionally. If it was private, those texts wouldn't be returning 10 million hits on google.

    ReplyDelete
  26. No evidence of bias or wrongdoing was presented at the hearing. Also, there is no evidence that Strzok is a liberal or a Democrat. Trump keeps lying about Democrats in the FBI when most are conservatives and Republicans, including Rosenstein, Comey, and other key figures.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "But is there any evidence that Strzok did anything more than strongly dislike the president?"

    The text that reads: “No. No he won't. We'll stop it” sounds like evidence to me. At the very least, evidence of a conspiracy.

    Perhaps you missed it? And now, when you've seen it, what's your opinion? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  28. 1:58,
    “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

    Ooopsie.
    There are no such things as conspiracies. Don't take my word for it, ask the douchebag troller here, who goes by the name "Mao" to explain it to you.

    ReplyDelete
  29. You know, if investigators had to always like the people whom they investigate, a lot of evil people would never get investigated. When was the last time you heard an FBI agent get slammed for disliking an organized crime group when he's investigating it?

    ReplyDelete
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