Tuesday, January 30, 2018

[Cannot think of good post title off top of head]

Looking through one's blog archives, one learns things that one had forgotten about oneself. For instance, I'm kind of amazed at what a hate-on I once had for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party in general. Here is me angrily declaring that I'll NEVER EVER vote for her if she wins the 2008 primary. It's kind of eye-opening to realize that if I met 2008-me, I'd kind of hate him.

To be clear, it's not that my politics have moderated since then--quite the contary; all the Marxist theory I read during graduate school dragged me further left than I was. It's just that now I take a more pragmatic approach to things. If nothing else, the person in comments who talked about Supreme Court nominees was absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong. It's not that there isn't a lot to criticize about the party; of course there is. A lot of that is no doubt down to the two-party system: when you have one party that's absolutely committed itself to hateful nihilism, it forces everyone else into the other party, and then with such a heterogenous mix it's awfully damned hard to find any sort of philosophical coherence. But the system is what it is; and the Democratic Party--imperfectly, painfully slowly, incoherently, and often in a one-step-forward-two-steps-back way--is trying to drag the country in the right direction, and if you refuse to be down with them, well, you don't matter. Yes, I KNOW Democrats do things, especially in the foreign policy arena, that are indefensible, but ferfucksake, do you want ANYTHING to get even a TINY BIT better, EVER, or don't you?  You can make abstract philosophical arguments about how if enough people break away from the Democrats you can force a political realignment, but A) that's never going to work if you're stuck with the two-party system; and B) when goose-stepping ICE agents are dragging people away from the only homes they've ever known RIGHT NOW, you kind of look like a monstrous sociopath for not supporting the party that would reign them in.

I have a dear friend who nonetheless has a less-than-lovable trait, which is that she buys into the whole Democrats-suck/Clinton-sucks thing I was doing ten years ago--and she's like fifteen years older than me, so she doesn't have the excuse of being young and naive. In particular, the continued vociferousness of her Clinton-hate is just perverse. Clinton lost. She's never running for anything again. And yet, the anti-Clinton facebook macros will not stop. Where the hell does this COME from?

She recently shared THIS bizarre thing on her facebook wall:


Um. Has a SOTU rebuttal EVER lead to someone being widely feted as the next Presidential nominee? Survey sez no. I mean, I suppose it's conceivable that it could happen if they delivered a real barnburner of a speech, but this specifies that that can't happen, so...? It's just an out-of-nowhere fantasy from someone who apparently can't come up with enough REAL reasons to hate the Democrats and thus has to create special fanfic on the basis of which to hate them more. It is SO DAMN WEIRD.

But the question is, will the person who wrote this and the people who shared it reexamine their priors at all when this event signally fails to come to pass? You know they won't--anymore than the people predicting apocalypse after Obama's election reexamined theirs. It's not about logic; it's just pure emotion. God knows I have my own biases, but like to think that I at least make an effort to ground my beliefs in some semblance of reality. It is sobering to note that you don't have to wander over to the fever swamps of the far right to find people who don't.

1 Comments:

Blogger Pan MiluĊ› pontificated to the effect that...

Some time ago I watched this great video where a guy talk about how the problem with politics these days is that people are fixated on taking sides and on what party they are supporting. But not always that simple. Sometimes one party will have only few ideas you agree upon and many you hate but that dosen't change the fact it's ok to support that party when it take stand in those ideas you lik rather then looking on the thing black and white :
- Eaither one party is 100% right or eaither one party is 100% wrong.

Sadly that's not always the case. My problem with myself is that the older I get the more I realise that my world view is very split and dosen't fit the traditional right/left template. To make the matter worse it's hard to find a party in my country to get behind. It's like even when I find a party I agree with 3/4 of the way it still run by people I dont trust and those 1/4 is stuff I find repulsive to the point it makes me want to voimit.

In my country we have one big right-wing party that's rulling the country, many very small ultra-left wing parties (and when I say small, I mean when they join forces during last electio they coudn't still get 8% of support to get the parliament) and many mix, down the middle parties, but sadly mix in a difrent way then me and again, the upseting part I eaither see politics who are greedy or who are insane...

I won't pretend I'm expect on politics or all my resoning is flawless (heck, I may have few views You woudn't like) however when I have to pick between a politician who fels clever but is a jerk and crocked and a politician that's out of his mind but feels like he at least belives he's doing the right thing I go with insane one. At least his intention's feel more pure and I value that more...

From what I know about Hillary I woudn't be crazy about voting for her but at the same the idea of Trump in charge of most powerfull nation in the wrold is so scary I would voted for Her no matter how much she would flip-flop or how many scandals she would had. Sadly Trump won and I'm not gona lie it IS scary just to realise how much damage one man can make witha tweet. Why isn't his PR beging him to shut down his Tweeter acount is beyond me and least it would be less scary without the internet remiding me on daily bases what that man is thiking this very moment. I don't wan't to think of possible war with Korea or Russians every time I turn on the NEWS...

I kind of get why Trump won. After 8 years of liberal Obama in charge it's almost fell natural that people wanted a change and maybe some stuff left them dissappointed and this alternative felt diffrent enough.

Neil deGrasse Tyson who I respect a lot said that people who hate Trump don't realy have a problem with Trump but with half of your country who voted for him, and maybe same thing goes for Hilary? She do represent that other side...


Sorry, I rumble long enough. Politics of USA are impoortant for my country as well (you guys keep our save from the Rusians and God bless you for that)

9:06 PM  

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