Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Chas_P]

It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that all 8 of the described individuals are actually American nationals.

That is very true. But it is not my point. My point was a refutation of Winston's foolishness quoted below.

IF YOU--NON-WHITE AND IN NEED OF A CHANCE TO LIVE A PEACEFUL AND HELPFUL LIFE--TRY TO MIGRATE TO THIS CHRISTIAN NATION, YOU ARE WELL AND TRULY *****ED.

And I hope you noted that I had "Americans" in quotation marks. It was not intended to imply that "Americans" are superior; I simply meant that we don't all look the same. There were five who obviously weren't "Anglos" and three who obviously were. But all eight were very bright, pleasant human beings regardless of race or nationality. We enjoyed each others' company and nobody felt "TRULY *****ED".

[kenberg]

Sounds like a candidate for the brown shirt book burning barbecue.

 

Actually I would not want to see it as required reading at the high school level. After last year's fiasco where they tried unsuccessfully to get a One Book assigned in schools this time they are treading softly. When the book club meets I am expecting a wide variety of thoughts on it, I expect it to be an interesting discussion. In high school, or at least in high school when I was young, we were assigned what to read and then we were told what we were to make of it. Not appropriate for this book, or for most books. I started pretty early reading what I wanted and then thinking what I wanted about it. It's the right way to approach this one. When I was 13 I might have made it as far as page 20. When 17 maybe I would have read it all but I am not so sure of that and not so sure what I would have made of it. In the book, the high school puts on a production of Measure for Measure. When I was in HS the censors deleted some passages from the Shakespeare that we read. In M for M they might have deleted the entire text.

 

Anyway, I recommend the book.

[thepossum]

What does "Americans" mean?

 

Maybe it is something similar to "Australian" or "British"

 

My favourite are the "of <insert descriptor> appearance" things the police media put out sometimes

 

I have no idea what an "American" looks like but I think "Australians" wear shorts, flip-flops/thongs (language translation), carry barbecue tongs and surf boards - apologies for mentioning barbecues too - different context

[kenberg]

"American" could mean almost anyone or any place, as long as the Atlantic is to the East and the Pacific to the West. Of course it usually comes with adjectives. South American, North American, Native American, Irish American, and so on. Maybe the problem begins with naming the nation The United States of America. I hardly want to call myself a United Statesian. The Wik tells me what I once knew but had forgotten. "America" comes from Americus Vespucci. (I remembered that "America" derived from an Italian explorer, I had forgotten the last name). Already that's a bit weird. We do not usually speak of the Albert theory of relativity or Sigmund's theory of dreams. Maybe we should all be Vespuccians.

 

I usually dislike adjectives in this context. Technically my adoptive father is a Croatian-American but I see it as my father is an American. He came here in 1910 and became a citizen in something like 1938 but he married and bought a house in 1923 and,I am pretty sure, he was never even briefly out of the country since he arrived. Maybe he wasn't an "American in 1911 but surely he was by 1925, at least in all practical everyday terms. WWI ended a little after his 18th birthday, he was not in the service. I imagine he had to register. I can also imagine he did not volunteer.

 

I suppose Chas could have said "US citizen of European descent" or some such. Except we do not usually ask about citizenship status before we let them sit at a bridge table.

 

Or we could just let it be.

[barmar]

"Oriental" is a very loaded term.

 

Is it necessarily racist? Probably not.

 

Does using it show that one's world view is at best dated and pretty ignorant?

Absolutely.

 

When I was in undergrad, Edward Said was required reading for my history classes, with good reason.

I have a friend of Chinese heritage (Richard probably knows her, she's a local bridge player). The last time I used the word "oriental" in her presence, she rebuked me. As I understand it, "Asian" is the preferred word these days.

[mycroft]

Part of the reason Oriental is out of favour is the very loaded context it comes with - "mysterious Orient", "inscrutable Orientals", plus all of Asia's colonial history, never mind all of the racist laws and procedures in North America of say 1850-1950, whose affects are still being felt now, that might have been aimed at one Asian group, but "We're Chinese, not Japanese" (or vice versa) met "don't care, same thing, out you go."

 

Part of the reason Oriental is out of favour is that it puts a third to a half (depending on whether you consider the Indian Subcontinent part of the Orient) of the world's population into a single box. I notice in the original quote, there were three different boxes of Occidentals - even to those who probably wouldn't object to at least two of them being combined into "American". And there's further examples of British vs. Northern European vs Iberian/Italian/Southern European...most of whom absolutely would object, even in these United Europe times, being lumped in with their historical oppressors or long time enemies.

 

But also remember that those who use Oriental definitely are putting Manchurian Chinese, Koreans, probably Vietnamese, Taiwanese and Okinawans in the same box as Japanese. Even 80 years on, there are reasons why doing that explicitly is Deeply Insulting.

 

I mean, technically I'm an American that spends my winters in America. I wouldn't say that to my neighbours, though; nor would I wish them to say that to me. And the US hasn't invaded us in almost two centuries... and I am much less affected by that attitude, were I to run into it, than any of the Americans of Asian Heritage we're discussing here.

 

In addition, I really am having trouble believing that we're discussing different kinds of slanted eyes (as a differentiator of people) in 2022. And when people who do talk like that are using "Oriental", to me we're in "Black with a hard R" territory.

[Winstonm]

An interesting article about race (or non-race)

https://scienceandso...%20too%20often.

 

 

 

 

 

Biologically speaking, race does not exist. And this bears serious implications for other definitions of race.

 

For example, societally speaking, the idea of race certainly does exist. In America, people of color are made aware of their "race" all too often.

 

[hrothgar]

FWIW, using the expression "slant" or talking about "slant eyes" absolutely is a racist expression

 

Not at all surprising to see Chas introduce this to the conversation

[thepossum]

"Asian" means nothing to me. "Asia" is a huge diverse place

 

..and Australia plays in the "Asian" football qualifiers

 

Can some explain that please

 

I'm getting confused over my use of quotes. Not sure how many "Australians" play for Australia or "Australia "

 

The "Australians" would be at the beach or watching the match at their barbecue

[thepossum]

Duplicate deleted

[y66]

From Joe Klein's review of "CONFIDENCE MAN: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America" by Maggie Haberman:

 

We can hope that Trump is an aberration, not an avatar, but that would probably be delusional. He has created a brutish new standard for American politics, and put a terrible dent in our democracy. Maggie Haberman has been there for it all. The story she tells is unbearably painful because Trump’s success is a reflection of our national failure to take ourselves seriously. We will be very lucky, indeed, if he doesn’t prove our downfall.

[Gilithin]

Barry, can you find out what happened to my response in this thread please? After clicking Send I got a time out message (this has happened a lot recently) but the message was displaying when I checked the thread. Now it is gone. It would be silly to retype it if it can be retrieved from somewhere.

[mycroft]

Of course, if Maggie Haberman explained all of this at the time, and not three years later when "access to ..." is no longer a concern (and she can get a bigger advance for a book while still getting paid to "journalism"), we might not be as worried as we are that the next try will succeed.

 

Not aiming that at Haberman alone - Woodward(!) and many others did this as well. Whether that was a policy from On High or personal choice to profit from the chaos or both, it's still a dereliction of duty to the public.

[Chas_P]

Or we could just let it be.

Yes we could. And I choose to do so. Barry posed the question somewhere back in this thread, "Why is everything now all about race and gender?" In my opinion the answer is, "because the professional politicians chose to make everything about race and gender." It's a sad state of affairs IMO. But I intend to get up tomorrow, go play a little bridge, and enjoy my fellow man. You guys can thrash out the pressing issues of the day.....like race and gender.

[y66]

In reality, Republicans do have a structural edge in the House, but it isn’t anything near insurmountable for the Democrats. By some measures, this is the fairest House map of the last 40 years.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/upshot/midterms-gerrymandering-republicans.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20220930

[y66]

Of course, if Maggie Haberman explained all of this at the time, and not three years later when "access to ..." is no longer a concern (and she can get a bigger advance for a book while still getting paid to "journalism"), we might not be as worried as we are that the next try will succeed.

 

Not aiming that at Haberman alone - Woodward(!) and many others did this as well. Whether that was a policy from On High or personal choice to profit from the chaos or both, it's still a dereliction of duty to the public.

Jane Mayer acknowledges the failure of the Press to "get the message across" in

with the authors of "The DIVIDER", Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, at the Politics & Prose bookstore in DC last night. When asked if more candor from John Kelly and other enablers would have made a difference, Baker said "No. I think everybody's looking for this silver bullet that's going to suddenly wake up everybody who likes Trump and say 'Oh my gosh he's not what I thought he was' and the truth is they've had multiple opportunities if they're open to that conversation and they're not".

[hrothgar]

Barry posed the question somewhere back in this thread, "Why is everything now all about race and gender?"

In my opinion the answer is, "because the professional politicians chose to make everything about race and gender."

 

Chas misses the good days when blacks and women knew their place

[Winstonm]

The simple solution to winning against a narcissist is to drop your end of the rope.

[y66]

From The best way to end mass incarceration is to catch more criminals by Matt Yglesias:

 

A couple of years ago, Anne Sofie Tegner Anker, Jennifer Doleac, and Rasmus Landersø published a really interesting paper about the impact of a law passed in Denmark that allowed Danish police to add anyone charged with a felony to a DNA database, increasing the share of arrestees added from roughly 4 percent to about 40 percent.

 

So what was the impact? The authors “find that DNA registration reduces recidivism within the following year by up to 42%.”

 

That’s a big reduction. Obviously having your DNA sample in some database does not have a lot of rehabilitative power per se. But as with the classic fingerprinting1 of perpetrators, once someone is in the system, it’s easier to catch them if they commit a crime. And indeed, the authors find that databased criminals are less likely to re-offend, but if they do re-offend, they are more likely to be caught. Using some math, they “estimate the elasticity of crime with respect to the detection probability” and conclude that “a 1% higher detection probability reduces crime by more than 2%.” So what do all these registered former offenders do instead of crimes? Well, they “find that DNA registration increases the likelihood that offenders find employment, enroll in education, and live in a more stable family environment.” This is a great paper and a very cool result, and I think it makes a strong case for the expanded use of DNA databases.

 

But I think it also suggests a better way of thinking about the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the United States than the mode that takes a negative view toward all punitive measures.

One of the very first print pieces I was assigned at the American Prospect had the thesis that mass incarceration is bad. But the frame of the piece was that at the then-current margin in the mid-aughts, further investments in prison beds had a poor cost-benefit profile compared to other ways of assuring public safety.

 

In the political context of the time, when incarceration rates were rising and the prior Democratic administration had been a proponent of longer prison sentences and more prison construction, we were taking a bold progressive stance.

 

But I also actually believed in it!

 

I thought the rampant expansion of the American prison system was cruel, expensive, and relatively ineffective at controlling crime. Over the past 15-20 years, I think that’s become even more true because technological advances have given us a wider range of other things we can invest in. But during the same period, the conventional wisdom in progressive circles shifted in a weird way to the idea that catching and punishing criminals is presumptively illegitimate and we should aim not for less cruelty and expense, but for less law enforcement altogether. As long as the pre-existing fall in crime rates continued, it was fine to sort of mix and match these two very different concepts. But a period of rising crime has shown, I think, that anti-enforcement politics is completely doomed — it’s just going to hand the steering wheel over to the most braindead style of “lock ’em up” politics when we should be trying to keep people out of prison by discouraging them from committing crimes.

[kenberg]

From The best way to end mass incarceration is to catch more criminals by Matt Yglesias

 

 

 

Do I know that this argument holds up under careful scrutiny? Nope, I can't say that I do. But it does not sound crazy. We are in desperate need of ideas that are not crazy.

 

 

 

[barmar]

Yes we could. And I choose to do so. Barry posed the question somewhere back in this thread, "Why is everything now all about race and gender?" In my opinion the answer is, "because the professional politicians chose to make everything about race and gender." It's a sad state of affairs IMO. But I intend to get up tomorrow, go play a little bridge, and enjoy my fellow man. You guys can thrash out the pressing issues of the day.....like race and gender.

Did I really say that in this thread? I think you may be confusing it with my review of the new TV series "A League of Their Own", where I complained about its emphasis on LBGTQ issues. But since the whole point of that show is gender issues (women playing baseball and working in factories was an aberration only permitted during the war), it's hardly surprising.

[barmar]

Of course, if Maggie Haberman explained all of this at the time, and not three years later when "access to ..." is no longer a concern (and she can get a bigger advance for a book while still getting paid to "journalism"), we might not be as worried as we are that the next try will succeed.

 

Not aiming that at Haberman alone - Woodward(!) and many others did this as well. Whether that was a policy from On High or personal choice to profit from the chaos or both, it's still a dereliction of duty to the public.

Haberman has been writing about Trump since he became a candidate in 2015.

[cherdano]

Haberman has been writing about Trump since he became a candidate in 2015.

Yes, but she kept some of the best bits for her book promotion tour.

[pilowsky]

I hear a lot of complaining about Journalists saving bits for books - Woodward in particular.

But, if they were to immediately publish every random word that spilled from Trump's mouth as soon as he uttered it nobody would believe it and Trump would deny it the next day.

In no particular order:

pussy-gate.

putin-gate.

bleach-gate.

topsecretrecordsgate.

 

Trumps casual mendacity is breathtaking, mind-numbing and boring all in one.

 

And not forgetting "If you're a bit rough when you throw him out I'll pay your legal bills" - I'm still trying to imagine what a person who really believes Trump would actually pay a legal (or any other) bill looks like.

 

I can't imagine a revelation that any journalist might lead with that would be more shocking than the stuff already on the public record.

 

The mills of God grind slow, but exceeding fine.

The US Justice system on the other hand grinds so fine that so long as the target is wealthy enough they'll probably be dead before they have to pay the piper.

 

 

 

 

[Gilithin]

I can't imagine a revelation that any journalist might lead with that would be more shocking than the stuff already on the public record.

I can't imagine a country that vote for someone who openly says he will grab unwilling women by their pussies to their highest political office. And yet here we are. Nothing GOP supporters do will shock me any more, including accepting a fascist takeover of the country "for the greater good". Anyone who thinks there is a significant different between Germans, Italians and Americans on this is basically delusional.