What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Solmyr]

The root of all problems is the white hiterlite male! They're all rapists, racists, and holding us down!

Maybe some are saying it is the case, but that's not what the op-ed says.  It says the whites are whiners.  They complain about hardships that others have endured silently in the past.  It's far different then saying they are the root of all problems.

That whole line of thinking is just asinine.  If you wonder why this ongoing push is pissing a lot of people off, then you're out of touch as 50% of the country just voted against it.  *shrug*

Well, is it so hard to understand?  "Grab them by the pussy" became a rallying cry for the supposedly right winger movement.  He advocated the use of violence against his political opponents like in the good old days and his cheerleaders, well, they cheared.

His main policies were:
- America is weak because of Mexico.
- America is weak because of Mexico and Canada.
- America is weak because of Europe.
- America is weak because of military involvement in Asia.
- America is weak because other countries don't have a nuclear arsenal.
- America is weak because the Democrats exists.
- America is weak because black lives shouldn't matter.

Last I check, the whites were still the majority in your country.  They outnumber indians, blacks and latinos.  They hold most of the key position.  When a black man reaches an important position, he is contained so he can't do much, and people organize protest to kill the nigger.  When a woman aims for the top position, she's a feminazi.  If a woman questions the silly ideas proposed, she has blood in her eyes, she has blood everywhere.

So, the white male is still pretty much in power.  And they fail.  Miserably, according to Trump supporters.  Do they look at their own fault?  The rejection of education?  The rejection of science and rational thought?  The obstruction to any kind of change proposed by the government that would depart from the traditional view that has put them in the situation they are now?
Nope.
They blame Niggers.  Mexican rapists.  Canadian scums.  Arab terrorists.  They applaud when a foreign power threatens America's security while yelling "Make America great again".

In my mind, they are whiners and losers.  And that's the reason whey they keep voting for Republicans when they put them in that mess.

The Republicans butched the war on terror.  If you can't do the job, don't volunteer for it.  They failed in Afghanistan, they failed in Irak.  When they realized they failed, they bailed out and said it was not their problem anymore.  Then they whine that somebody else is inapt at fixing the mess they didn't want to fix.

They lose jobs to competition.  Do they try to do something different?  No, they whine to their politicians that impose tariffs because the Americans are too lazy to implement new solutions that would make them competitive again.

All the Republicans do is complain, complain, complain.  No shred of a solution, but very quick to shift the blame to others.  When blaming the Jews and the blacks was out of fashion, they blamed the Canadians.  Then the Arabs.  Then the Mexicans.  Then the establishment.  Then the media.  Seems to me like a regime like that is always able to find itself new ennemies, but never able to fix their own mess by changing themselves.

If America wants to be great again, Republicans need to change.  They need to accept this is the 21st century, not the 19th.

All this a thousand times.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, liberal anger didn't beat Trump nor will it unseat him. Appealing to his voters is a requirement, they're obviously gettable--many of the blue collar whites that narrowly shifted the rust belt states had voted for Obama at one point.

The Democrats have demographics on their side, but the "structure" of their voter base, in terms of geographic dispersion, means they cannot be the party of browns, gays, and women, with insanely low support from white men, and win the next few elections.

I know I certainly overlooked this, I had been saying for years that the Obama coalition was demographically unbeatable with many of the GOP's objectionable policies and rhetoric. But I was ovemphasizing the minorities in that coalition and forgetting that in key states, it included a health majority of white blue collar voters. Particularly in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania--none of which are "super-high" minority states (WI especially isn't.) I think internally I "processed" these blue collar whites differently, in the old union strongholds etc, I just figured these northern whites were part of the Democratic majority on a firm basis. All the whites in red states were the ones who would probably never vote Democrat.

But I was wrong, those blue collar whites in the rust belt were more voters who were voting out of perceived self-interest, and guys like Romney who were caught on tape bashing 47% of middle class and lower voters, or guys like Bush who were part of the free trade corporatist axis just weren't appealing to these voters. In raw numbers this may not seem too important, but it's all about geography. The Dems message is more popular overall, but with an overwhelmingly high concentration on the West Coast, certain east coast strongholds (NY/MA/MD etc), and the map just doesn't win you the Presidency without this smaller, relatively forgotten part of the Democratic coalition.

[CountDeMoney]

The Democrats have demographics on their side, but the "structure" of their voter base, in terms of geographic dispersion, means they cannot be the party of browns, gays, and women, with insanely low support from white men, and win the next few elections.

Those white men don't necessarily want to be in the same party of browns, gays and women.  As we saw, you can't enforce diversity when people don't want to be diverse.

I know I certainly overlooked this, I had been saying for years that the Obama coalition was demographically unbeatable with many of the GOP's objectionable policies and rhetoric. But I was ovemphasizing the minorities in that coalition and forgetting that in key states, it included a health majority of white blue collar voters. Particularly in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania--none of which are "super-high" minority states (WI especially isn't.) I think internally I "processed" these blue collar whites differently, in the old union strongholds etc, I just figured these northern whites were part of the Democratic majority on a firm basis. All the whites in red states were the ones who would probably never vote Democrat.

I am surprised with you, Otto.  After all we've seen since the advent of cultural political hostility against unions since 1980, and the intentional, methodical and successful dismantling of unions in this country from legislation to corporate governance, how can you possibly have thought they were still an electoral force?  You've witnessed their destruction.  You've rooted for their destruction.  And you still think they actually matter anymore?

[Phillip V]

Yeah, liberal anger didn't beat Trump nor will it unseat him. Appealing to his voters is a requirement, they're obviously gettable--many of the blue collar whites that narrowly shifted the rust belt states had voted for Obama at one point.

The Democrats have demographics on their side, but the "structure" of their voter base, in terms of geographic dispersion, means they cannot be the party of browns, gays, and women, with insanely low support from white men, and win the next few elections.

I know I certainly overlooked this, I had been saying for years that the Obama coalition was demographically unbeatable with many of the GOP's objectionable policies and rhetoric. But I was ovemphasizing the minorities in that coalition and forgetting that in key states, it included a health majority of white blue collar voters. Particularly in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania--none of which are "super-high" minority states (WI especially isn't.) I think internally I "processed" these blue collar whites differently, in the old union strongholds etc, I just figured these northern whites were part of the Democratic majority on a firm basis. All the whites in red states were the ones who would probably never vote Democrat.

But I was wrong, those blue collar whites in the rust belt were more voters who were voting out of perceived self-interest, and guys like Romney who were caught on tape bashing 47% of middle class and lower voters, or guys like Bush who were part of the free trade corporatist axis just weren't appealing to these voters. In raw numbers this may not seem too important, but it's all about geography. The Dems message is more popular overall, but with an overwhelmingly high concentration on the West Coast, certain east coast strongholds (NY/MA/MD etc), and the map just doesn't win you the Presidency without this smaller, relatively forgotten part of the Democratic coalition.

No.  Clinton just sucked as a candidate and campaign strategist.  That supposed coalition of women and minorities did not show up for her combined with northern whites being abandoned.  Trump got more support from blacks, Latinos, and Asians than Romney.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/11/trump-got-more-votes-from-people-of-color-than-romney-did-heres-the-data/

[garbon]

What is retarded is the new narrative that we are being asked to accept that is..."We voted for racism and bigotry in retaliation for being called racists and bigots! That'll show 'em!"

Yup.

[Alcibiades]

The root of all problems is the white hiterlite male! They're all rapists, racists, and holding us down!

Maybe some are saying it is the case, but that's not what the op-ed says.  It says the whites are whiners.  They complain about hardships that others have endured silently in the past.  It's far different then saying they are the root of all problems.

That whole line of thinking is just asinine.  If you wonder why this ongoing push is pissing a lot of people off, then you're out of touch as 50% of the country just voted against it.  *shrug*

Well, is it so hard to understand?  "Grab them by the pussy" became a rallying cry for the supposedly right winger movement.  He advocated the use of violence against his political opponents like in the good old days and his cheerleaders, well, they cheared.

His main policies were:
- America is weak because of Mexico.
- America is weak because of Mexico and Canada.
- America is weak because of Europe.
- America is weak because of military involvement in Asia.
- America is weak because other countries don't have a nuclear arsenal.
- America is weak because the Democrats exists.
- America is weak because black lives shouldn't matter.

Last I check, the whites were still the majority in your country.  They outnumber indians, blacks and latinos.  They hold most of the key position.  When a black man reaches an important position, he is contained so he can't do much, and people organize protest to kill the nigger.  When a woman aims for the top position, she's a feminazi.  If a woman questions the silly ideas proposed, she has blood in her eyes, she has blood everywhere.

So, the white male is still pretty much in power.  And they fail.  Miserably, according to Trump supporters.  Do they look at their own fault?  The rejection of education?  The rejection of science and rational thought?  The obstruction to any kind of change proposed by the government that would depart from the traditional view that has put them in the situation they are now?
Nope.
They blame Niggers.  Mexican rapists.  Canadian scums.  Arab terrorists.  They applaud when a foreign power threatens America's security while yelling "Make America great again".

In my mind, they are whiners and losers.  And that's the reason whey they keep voting for Republicans when they put them in that mess.

The Republicans butched the war on terror.  If you can't do the job, don't volunteer for it.  They failed in Afghanistan, they failed in Irak.  When they realized they failed, they bailed out and said it was not their problem anymore.  Then they whine that somebody else is inapt at fixing the mess they didn't want to fix.

They lose jobs to competition.  Do they try to do something different?  No, they whine to their politicians that impose tariffs because the Americans are too lazy to implement new solutions that would make them competitive again.

All the Republicans do is complain, complain, complain.  No shred of a solution, but very quick to shift the blame to others.  When blaming the Jews and the blacks was out of fashion, they blamed the Canadians.  Then the Arabs.  Then the Mexicans.  Then the establishment.  Then the media.  Seems to me like a regime like that is always able to find itself new ennemies, but never able to fix their own mess by changing themselves.

If America wants to be great again, Republicans need to change.  They need to accept this is the 21st century, not the 19th.

I disagree with you on a wide array of these 'points'.  This wide sweeping, overgeneralizing is no better and equally as ignorant as what many republicans think.  It's stupid.

They tried to block everything President Obama wanted to do while in office, which is ridiculous.  But you think it's because of race?  They would have done the same thing to Hillary?  Oh, so its not race now, its misogyny.  Got it.  Maybe its not either and our political parties are just full of cunts, ya think?

You complain that Americans are too lazy to innovate to stay competitive in an increasingly globalized world, but its difficult when countries like China can artificially keep wages low.  So what do these companies and corporations do?  They seek higher profits and have Chinese and Vietnamese children build their products for pennies. And you can't blame that, in a way, either.  How do you blame that on lazy Americans that are unwilling to innovate? Because America already isn't the most innovative country in the world with far and away the country with the most research facilities and most prestigious universities? 

Democrats want to increase the minimum wage, which I think should be done, which doesn't fix that in any way and would in fact cause more companies to send their manufacturing overseas so they can make greater profits. Why wouldn't they?   A good portion of the Republican voter base is uneducated, though.  They back the party that wants to do away with a minimum wage and that keeps regulations in place that keeps the rich 'elites' from taking advantage of the poor.   Not everybody gets to be white collar or rich, even in America, what can you do.

[Syt]

CNN reports that Pence has taken over the transition efforts from Christie.

[derspiess]

That was one hell of a rant, Vipe.  Hats off.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The Democrats have demographics on their side, but the "structure" of their voter base, in terms of geographic dispersion, means they cannot be the party of browns, gays, and women, with insanely low support from white men, and win the next few elections.

Those white men don't necessarily want to be in the same party of browns, gays and women.  As we saw, you can't enforce diversity when people don't want to be diverse.

I know I certainly overlooked this, I had been saying for years that the Obama coalition was demographically unbeatable with many of the GOP's objectionable policies and rhetoric. But I was ovemphasizing the minorities in that coalition and forgetting that in key states, it included a health majority of white blue collar voters. Particularly in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania--none of which are "super-high" minority states (WI especially isn't.) I think internally I "processed" these blue collar whites differently, in the old union strongholds etc, I just figured these northern whites were part of the Democratic majority on a firm basis. All the whites in red states were the ones who would probably never vote Democrat.

I am surprised with you, Otto.  After all we've seen since the advent of cultural political hostility against unions since 1980, and the intentional, methodical and successful dismantling of unions in this country from legislation to corporate governance, how can you possibly have thought they were still an electoral force?  You've witnessed their destruction.  You've rooted for their destruction.  And you still think they actually matter anymore?

Eh, like I said, there's been a shift here just from 2012. Taking into account exit polls are notoriously unreliable (and thus, hard to know who really voted for whom) but just looking at county data, Trump took 12 counties in Michigan that Obama won; and Hillary also won the blue counties with smaller turnout than Obama (the lack of enthusiasm for black voters in the general being another big part of why Hillary lost), I doubt the voters in those 12 counties in Michigan were okay being Obama voters in 2012 but suddenly would go to not being willing to be in a party with blacks in 2016.

I think people are confusing cause-and-effect/whether the dog is wagging the tail vs tail wagging the dog here. Undeniably, Trump has what I call "mid-grade" old white dude bigotry, combined with "high grade" New Yorker lack of filter, and a lot of voters are racist. But I don't think this explains why Trump won, I think most people we would call racist are just more "out of touch" racist. They don't really view themselves (or Donald) as racist, it's not racist to be worried about Muslim immigration, or to call inner city communities hell holes--they are hell holes, amirite? Opposing BLM as "rabble rousers" also isn't racist. To these people, they aren't racist because they view these things as just "political positions" or "hard truths", the real racists are the KKK, people that want to take away the black vote and etc.

This gets into the broader issue of systemic racism vs the more virulent, obvious kind. All these Trumpers who are bigoted are part of systemic racism, and it's systemic because it's so widespread, but it should be noted--it's rarely self-actualized. The real white nationalists genuinely want whites to be empowered and minorities to be servile or not in the country at all. But this liberal idea that Trump won because everyone is secretly virulently racist, and wanted a racist President, I think is just wrong. Yes, a lot of Trump voters are "systemically racist", but that really more manifests in them not liking riots against police treatment, not liking things like "safe spaces" and etc. That stuff annoys these voters, but I don't think it explains why they voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016.

As for unions, yes, formal unions are gone. But there are "shared economic interest" reasons that blue collar whites (who were the union membership) traditionally has voted Democrat, they continued to do so into the 2000s and 2010s even though they were no longer union members. For some reason they shifted away from the Democrats in 2016, and I don't think it's because of some new found desire to be super racist, but more over economic messaging.

Now, all that being said, none of this matters if Obama is running for a third term. He probably wouldn't have won these white voters any better than Hillary, but he likely still gets the enthusiastic black turnout, and that likely turns PA and MI, that gets Trump down to 270, so maybe Obama would've lost to Trump. But Trump won pretty narrowly in states like North Carolina and Wisconsin, so even just a little more enthusiasm from minorities in those states might have pushed him over the top. So it's not solely disaffected whites that kept Hillary out, but also her lack of ability to generate enthusiasm for the minorities in the "Obama coalition."

But Obama's generation of enthusiasm for the black vote may be a once in history thing, it was truly unprecedented, and may never come again and probably shouldn't be expected if you're gaming out the map for your candidate. A candidate like Sanders with his economic populism and much less scandalous history, combined with probably being more believable as a champion of the people, likely wins PA/WI/MI by large margins.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, liberal anger didn't beat Trump nor will it unseat him. Appealing to his voters is a requirement, they're obviously gettable--many of the blue collar whites that narrowly shifted the rust belt states had voted for Obama at one point.

The Democrats have demographics on their side, but the "structure" of their voter base, in terms of geographic dispersion, means they cannot be the party of browns, gays, and women, with insanely low support from white men, and win the next few elections.

I know I certainly overlooked this, I had been saying for years that the Obama coalition was demographically unbeatable with many of the GOP's objectionable policies and rhetoric. But I was ovemphasizing the minorities in that coalition and forgetting that in key states, it included a health majority of white blue collar voters. Particularly in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania--none of which are "super-high" minority states (WI especially isn't.) I think internally I "processed" these blue collar whites differently, in the old union strongholds etc, I just figured these northern whites were part of the Democratic majority on a firm basis. All the whites in red states were the ones who would probably never vote Democrat.

But I was wrong, those blue collar whites in the rust belt were more voters who were voting out of perceived self-interest, and guys like Romney who were caught on tape bashing 47% of middle class and lower voters, or guys like Bush who were part of the free trade corporatist axis just weren't appealing to these voters. In raw numbers this may not seem too important, but it's all about geography. The Dems message is more popular overall, but with an overwhelmingly high concentration on the West Coast, certain east coast strongholds (NY/MA/MD etc), and the map just doesn't win you the Presidency without this smaller, relatively forgotten part of the Democratic coalition.

No.  Clinton just sucked as a candidate and campaign strategist.  That supposed coalition of women and minorities did not show up for her combined with northern whites being abandoned.  Trump got more support from blacks, Latinos, and Asians than Romney.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/11/trump-got-more-votes-from-people-of-color-than-romney-did-heres-the-data/

Yeah, but the worst thing that happened to Hillary with minorities is she just got fewer to come out and vote. As for vote share, it's pretty damn close to 2012, and if you've been reading about them--exit polls are often wildly inaccurate, I try not to rely on them too much for my analysis, and usually lean more towards looking at counties/population centers and raw vote totals. We can't fine-tune them demographically, but we kinda know that Wayne County, MI where Detroit is has a whole lot of black folk, and some county in SW Michigan doesn't.

[Alcibiades]

Now, all that being said, none of this matters if Obama is running for a third term. He probably wouldn't have won these white voters any better than Hillary, but he likely still gets the enthusiastic black turnout, and that likely turns PA and MI, that gets Trump down to 270, so maybe Obama would've lost to Trump. But Trump won pretty narrowly in states like North Carolina and Wisconsin, so even just a little more enthusiasm from minorities in those states might have pushed him over the top. So it's not solely disaffected whites that kept Hillary out, but also her lack of ability to generate enthusiasm for the minorities in the "Obama coalition."

But Obama's generation of enthusiasm for the black vote may be a once in history thing, it was truly unprecedented, and may never come again and probably shouldn't be expected if you're gaming out the map for your candidate. A candidate like Sanders with his economic populism and much less scandalous history, combined with probably being more believable as a champion of the people, likely wins PA/WI/MI by large margins.

I don't think people realize how so many voters didn't turn out because the vote was between a douche and a turd sandwich?    If Obama had gotten an opportunity at a 3rd term you would have seen 2008 levels of support, not just the black vote.

[Admiral Yi]

Was this the thread Biscuit talked about Joe Sixpack voting for magic?  Very good observation IMO, and one that applies to much of the left as well.

[viper37]

They tried to block everything President Obama wanted to do while in office, which is ridiculous.  But you think it's because of race?  They would have done the same thing to Hillary?  Oh, so its not race now, its misogyny.  Got it.  Maybe its not either and our political parties are just full of cunts, ya think?

the moment Obama was elected, the Tea Party was formed.  A political club mourning the Confederacy and the pre-civil rights South.

You complain that Americans are too lazy to innovate to stay competitive in an increasingly globalized world, but its difficult when countries like China can artificially keep wages low.

I was thinking about the softwood lumber situation.  Canadian wages are as high as in the US, certainly not on par with China.  Yet, since the 2000s, Americans are complaining it's unfair they get beaten by Canada.  Canada enforced strict environmental changes that were met by fierce opposition.  Eventually, they were forced, by the Conservative government to make their changes and modernize their equipement.  Now, they're thankful of it.  What have american businesses of this sector done in the 90s?  Nothing.  In the 2000s?  Whine at their Congress that they're treated unfairly.  Did they try to modernize their equipment? Nope.  Did they invest in R&D for new products, new derivative of woods?  Nope.  Did they try to fight climate change and pollution by recycling their waste products?  Nope.
All they did was complain.

China?  Yes, they manipulate their currency.  It affects Canada, France, United Kingdom, Germany too. Yet, it seems only the people of the USA have it bad, according to Trump voters.  How come others are not as affected by this?  Could it be - for a novel idea - that they recognize the world was changing in front of them, that since the 80s, before China even became a possible threats, that robotization and now automation of plants, ie, technological changes were shifting the demand from blue collar workers entering a business at 21 and leaving at 65 to more mobile white collar jobs?  Or even different blue collar jobs that required much more instruction than before?
Did they start teaching more science in school?  Nope, they tought creationism.  Did they try to shift from a employer's provided healthcare - which made a lot of sense in the 50s and 60s - to another, more universal model, that would cover people in between jobs, you know, the same frustrated people that get laid off when their plant is automated and a part of the production shifts to China?
Nope, they done nothing.

  So what do these companies and corporations do?  They seek higher profits and have Chinese and Vietnamese children build their products for pennies. And you can't blame that, in a way, either. 

See, it's all a question of what you get for your money.
Someone costs 100$/hr and produces 10 units per hour.
Someone costs 10$/hr and productes 1 unit per hour.
In the end, that amounts to the same.

How do you blame that on lazy Americans that are unwilling to innovate? Because America already isn't the most innovative country in the world with far and away the country with the most research facilities and most prestigious universities? 

What I see is a nation depending more and more on immigration.  And corporations recruit people abroad and send them to complete their degree in prestigious American universities where arab engineers train them.
When I look at the technology industry, I see more&more foreign sounding names.  I see Canadians, French, Indians, Arabs in top R&D positions.  In the 1980s, you had to be very lucky or extremely intelligent to find a high paid job in the US as a foreigner.  Now an Indian dude is Microsoft's CEO.  Same for Google.  Any average Canadian or French university graduate could find a very decent job in the decent job in this industry as the corporations are heavily recruiting at the international level.  When I first was in university, in 1993, there were no American companies recruiting on our Campus.  Quebec&Canadian companies where offering internships, they were recruiting students, offering student grants to promising candidates.  Microsoft?  Activision?  Electronic Arts?  Apple?  Nowhere to be seen.

Now, half of your auto makers belong to foreign interests.  Not Chinese, Europeans.  Half of the video games are produced by companies headquartered outside the US.  Microsoft, Activision, Blizzard, EA, they all have recruitment centers in top Quebec university.  Recruiting french speaking guys to work on their games.  Because they can't find enough local talent.  And they do the same elsewhere in the world too.

You're losing ground, and fast. And the more you deny what is happening, by shifting the blame, the worst it gets.
The softwood lumber industry was the first signal that something was wrong in the US.  You blamed Canada.  Then you blamed China.  And Vietnam.  Now, all of the Mexicans and the Arabs.

Black people are shot on sight because they're considered extremely dangerous.  Cops who shoot unarmed black people are considered heroes for protecting the society they live in.  I agree BLM got sidetracked with a lot of irrelevant issue.  But at the same time Republican supporters are asking liberals to understand their grievances, they are completely shut off to other groups' grievances.  Sick worker?  Just pray man, God will help you.  Black woman get shot in front of kids?  Stop being black bitch! 

A good portion of the Republican voter base is uneducated, though.

See, that's the problem right there.  Education.  The way I understand it, education is managed by the counties, and poor counties have poor schools while the richer places have better schools that give a better education, therefore a better future.  America seems to still be highly segregated, with blacks living mostly among blacks and whites living mostly among whites.  You get a system where poverty generates poverty and richness generate richness.  Combined with having people that aren't overtly educated, you get a very fragile systme unable to adapt to quick changes.

They back the party that wants to do away with a minimum wage and that keeps regulations in place that keeps the rich 'elites' from taking advantage of the poor.   Not everybody gets to be white collar or rich, even in America, what can you do.

Yet, elsewhere, other countries have faced the problems and manage to alleviate them.

What has the GOP done to help the middle class?  Destroy the education system?  Give tax breaks to the very rich?  Create a new form of aristocracy that suck up to the power in place to get even lower taxes and send the country into deficit?

If a laid off worker can't get back in shape after an accident or sickness, how can you expect him to find himself a better job?
If you teach his kids that science and religion are the same, are can you expect them to make informed choices about their future?
When GOP supporters considers College students to be morons, how can you expect to face increased competition in blue collar jobs?

Dropping taxes and deregulating the banking industry didn't work in the 1980s under Reagan.  It didn't work under GW Bush.  America experienced better economic and job growth under Clinton and Obama, two Democrats, than under GOP Presidents who lowered the taxes.  Yet, people, because they aren't taught the basics of science and economics in schools still believe in magical solutions.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of these criticism on education, I could make them for Quebec too.  We're going down a slippery sloap too and we'll wind up with a Trump of ourselves in 15-20 years if nothing changes.

[Alcibiades]

I feel like your argument is all over the place and your anecdotes come from a very narrow viewpoint. 

Nobody wants to hear differing opinions or have a discussions to actually change their minds any more, everyone wants to tune in to their fox news and hear people say what they want to hear, or MSNBC to hear that favorite viewpoint. 

For instance, the US is failing because our game companies recruit from all over the world now, including some podunk college in Quebec, because we have a problem finding qualified individuals.  Not that companies want to find as many people around the world as possible that can do the work, which also means its continuing to drive down game designers wages - never mind that.  It's crazy that part of the great success of CD Projekt is they can pay their designers 40% less because of the cost of living.

I believe it is mandatory for all cops to kill black people on duty now, too.  Though, maybe the reason for black people making up 26% of deaths by cops despite only being 12% of the population isn't because they actually participate in over 40% of all violent crimes committed with weapons in the US, and a lack of de-escalation training and increasing militarization of police.  Nope its racism, you called it.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-43


Any way, I can't tell if you're trying to attack Americans or Republicans any more.

[dps]

This gets into the broader issue of systemic racism vs the more virulent, obvious kind. All these Trumpers who are bigoted are part of systemic racism, and it's systemic because it's so widespread, but it should be noted--it's rarely self-actualized. The real white nationalists genuinely want whites to be empowered and minorities to be servile or not in the country at all. But this liberal idea that Trump won because everyone is secretly virulently racist, and wanted a racist President, I think is just wrong. Yes, a lot of Trump voters are "systemically racist", but that really more manifests in them not liking riots against police treatment, not liking things like "safe spaces" and etc. That stuff annoys these voters, but I don't think it explains why they voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016.

Talking about people being "systematically racist" is about like someone complaining about "white privilege";  it's not that those things don't exist, it's that white blue-collar workers whose families have been getting kicked in the teeth economically don't see it as having anything to do with them personally, and they're largely correct.  They can honestly say, "Hey, I don't have anything against blacks.  I'm not trying to keep blacks down, I just want honest, hard-working people like me to be able to get ahead, whatever race they are."  A guy like that hears people talking about "white privilege" and he takes it as a personal insult, as him being called a racist personally.  That doesn't help anything;  it just pisses him off and helps blind him to real problems of racism and to real racists.