""I don't see a problem with it," John Blockus, who runs an equipment repairs company, says of Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian President.

If the US is handing over hundreds of millions dollars in financial aid to Ukraine, he asks, why is it wrong for Trump to ask them for a favour?

"Mueller went nowhere and this will go nowhere," says Blockus, who voted for Trump in 2016. "Trump was a great businessman. He won't allow himself to get his hands caught."

Dave, a retired state trooper who asks for his surname not to be published, says: "I want all the dirt out there and I'll make my decision."

The registered Democrat voted for Trump and has no regrets. "I think he's doing a great job as president: he's pissing both parties off."

Such bad political strategy.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/amid-impeachment-talk-trump-voters-see-cynicism-for-all-as-safest-bet-20191005-p52xv0.html

Jodi Dean - The Communist Horizon
Jodi Dean - Crowds and Party

I think one of the things in our purview is to change the kinds of conversations that dominate the public space, and change the terms of what is important. I think the power of this is massively underestimated: normalizing ideas, altering the landscape of what is possible. The right I think understood this incredibly well, and still continues to.

Off the top of my head, the most obvious example that comes to mind is the change in conversations initiated by Sanders and people like AOC. The fact that Americans an talk about socialism as a serious contender in the political field - I think that's huge. Sanders in particular has done more to normalise and legitimise socialism in the states than most of those who have been on the left in decades. There were few things more awesome than seeing the conversation that cropped up after AOC proposed 70% taxes on the wealthy a while back. Or else just the impetus behind the Green New Deal and the promise of institutional change that that offers. And Medicare for all is basically not a question of 'if', but of 'how much exactly' among the democrats now.

Or else I think of the revival of strikes - both in the field of climate (the recent climate strikes) and in the field of work (thinking of the various teacher's strikes) that the largely positive responses to them by many quarters. Warren's proposal to strengthen unions by instituting sector-bargaining instead of workplace bargaining is, I think incredible point of conversation, and one that should be embraced by many.

One of the hard things about this is that much of this is opportunistic: you need a sense of what the Greeks called kairos, seizing the right time, intervening at the right moments, if you're in the right position. The conversations we have prepare the ground, they enable those who are in a position (not usually people like you and me) to tap into something existing and take it from there. 'We' can't change the funding rules for governments, but we can talk about it and put it on the agenda until it becomes impossible to ignore.

The first step in change is recognizing what is fucked up.. — schopenhauer1

As I said to someone else, if, at this point, you're still trying to convince people that things are fucked up, the only person living under a rock is you. The only idiot in the room is you.

But to my previous point, what do you suppose to do systematically, as you were stating? — schopenhauer1

My proposals are largely negative: don't individualize politics. Don't psychologize politics. Look to things that will have mass effects on how people engage with the world around them; if you're not discussing something in social terms, it's probably not worth very much. If you're not looking at how power is operating (who is doing what to whom for whose benefit?), then you're doing more mystifying than helping. Don't allow yourself to be caught up in drama: if you find yourself talking about conspiracy theories and shady deals (Russia! Collusion! Backroom deals!) then you're part of the problem.

My main claim that the party that is in power can do what they want as long as they don't hold themselves to standards. — schopenhauer1

And? What is anyone supposed to do about this? This is as banal a claim a 'bad people do bad things (and they shouldn't)', or our idiot contributor above who figured that 'xenophobes will act in xenophobic ways' counted as a 'sophisticated' point. I simply don't care about any of these political inert points: it allows no way forward, they are politically disabling and only lend themselves to people enjoying the feeling of their own moral superiority. It's like Wayfarer who keeps asking 'how could the GOP be so hypocritical?' as though he expected any answer of substance. But it's a rhetorical question - he knows it, everyone who reads it knows it - so the only thing it is a statement of masturbatory political commentary. It's a psychological feel-good mechanism and nothing more.

In a word: truisms are unhelpful and counterproductive.

A strong democracy where all that matters is the majority who have power is indeed not a strong one after all. I disagree with this idea that it's just playing better politics. If that's the case, why even have a democracy?

Because to 'play politics' is to 'play democracy'. There's nothing democratic about the 'odious' focus on the backroom deals and personalities of the rich and powerful. The issues are to change the conditions under which truth, lies, and significance circulate in society. the If you don't address those conditions, no amount of dewey-eyed nostalgia for a time when there were Good People will do anything. Systemic problems require systemic solutions, not shitty psycho-individual tinkering. The latter is simply complicity - you may as well be a Trump supporter.

The purple is really nice. There's something celebratory to it.

. It doesn't appear to make sense, for example, that Trump has captured the amount of support from Evangelicals that he has, being the 'bad person' that he is. However, Trump supports issues that are important to Evangelicals, such as being anti-abortion. Does Trump actually care about abortion or is it merely a means to an end for him? Do Evangelicals actually care if he cares? I doubt it. So where is the true morality in any of this? Nowhere. — praxis

This is partly what I mean when I say that Trump supporters are generally far better attuned to the things that matter: they grasp - however cynically and nihilistically - the importance of power. They understand - in a way liberals are laregely clueless about - the instrumentalities of politics entirely unsubordinated to moral injunctions, even if they use the latter in service of the former. This is partly why the perpetual confusion of Trump opponents over how such an alliance between him and evangelicals is possible is itself so exasperating.

When Trump supporters are treated as dupes - again, a debilitating personalization of politics - and not as eagle-eyed clear about what they are doing, the only idiots here are aghast liberals who, in thinking themselves superior and immune to being hoodwinked, are the only clueless ones in the room. Without a proper understanding of power, Trump opponents will flounder and even play right into the hands of all they apparently hate. Treating the political as a space of morals and individuals is fatal, absolute suicide.

Raymond Geuss, Outside Ethics - a book incidentally all about how treating politics on the model of morality is more or less the height of folly. But yeah, I didn't come into this thread to chastise everyone about talking about irrelevant bullshit only to make it a discussion of political theory. The exact phrase is 'dead ethics', if you really want to look it up.

Edit: Sorry, the phrase is in Politics and the Imagination, specifically in the essay 'Moralism and Realpolitik'.

Not illegitimate enough to hail down live bullets upon them en masse. The protestors have so far been supremely disciplined - much too disciplined to make a protest-ending move on without a cover of pretence. This might just provide it.

And then out will come the bootlickers saying 'tsk tsk they should have been less demanding, see what happened now?'. Just watch for that reaction.

On the one hand you claim that character and morality are of no importance and on the other when it is pointed out how they are factors in policy deliberation you claim that it is obvious. — Fooloso4

They are of no importance because they are obvious. Trump's depravity is a political fact. It's an emblazoned sign with goddamn sparklers shooting out it's every orifice. Pointing it out over and over again expecting something new to happen is wishing upon Aladdin's genie. Personality politics is not 'sophisticated'. It's a death rattle of people unable to talk about anything of differential significance.

Right. So how do we fight a black hole? — Echarmion

You create a fucking star. At least one of the things this means is that you depersonalize politics, entirely. If you find yourself talking about Trump's personality, stop, because you're making things worse. If you find yourself indulging in Russian plots and Ukrainian subterfuges, stop, because you're making things worse still. If you find yourself treating politics like a Game of Thrones episode (What has Pompeo said now? Which secret document was leaked today?), stop, because you're a fucking cancer on a polity and you ought to be cut out like the tumour you are. If it's not something that can be changed - if it's not something open to the action of political agency - then shut. the. fuck. up. because you may as well be blabbering on about the latest Entertainment Weekly gossip rag.

What's happening in the courts? What has ICE been doing? Which regulatory rollbacks have been passed today, and what effects have they had? Is Warren's industrial relations labour package something worth supporting and discussing among friends and colleagues? Does it look like Roe is going to survive the next sitting term of the supreme court? Is your discussion democratic? Or is it about a bunch of millionaires in high places playing in the shady corridors of power? If it's the latter, give up your rights now, because you don't deserve them.

You're right let me rephrase:

Someone who is xenophobic will favor policies that keep them out. Someone who believes that we should help those is need will favor policies that allow them entry. — Fooloso4

How about: "When things are put into water, things become wet"; or, "when shapes are round, they have no sharp edges". When story time at the Disney channel is over, maybe someone can say something about Trump that isn't an infantile platitude passed off as 'reasoned deliberation'.

We mod each other, you're welcome to report me.

But I'm quite serious. That's the banal rubbish that the personalization and moralization of politics leads to. "Bad people do Bad things. Trump does bad things. He is a bad person. He should stop doing bad things; We should be angry at the Bad man who does Bad Things". It's political reasoning for the Disney channel. Like, if that's the extent of one's political acumen, you may as well join his rallies for all the good one does.

Not that it's anyone's fault. Thinking politically is hard, and most people have been specifically trained not to. Raised on a steady diet of personality politics, people are shit at thinking politically, and this includes almost everyone here.

It's like flies to an electric light... Pseudo questions posed as if not everyone already knew the answer. This fucking world. Its here. Stop acting. Stop enjoying yourself.

I just don't agree we shouldn't care about the character of the people we elect. — Echarmion

This isn't a question of principles, this is one of strategy. It is the obsessional concern with Trump's character that is, when not naive, actively harmful to alleviating the worst of his administration's maleficence. You don't fight a black hole by pointing out over and over again that it sucks.

Political life is not an epistemological game, and if you play it as one, you will lose, and people will suffer immensely. Only the dead can eat truth.

For those who don't know, HK just invoked emergency powers to ban face masks in public places. This will be interesting. I can't imagine that this will have any other effect than to further inflame the protests - masks are readily available and this seems almost deliberately designed to provoke altercations and civil disobedience. They are already in wide circulatuon and are useful to stave off the effects of tear gas and capture by facial recognition. It reads as an attempt to push the protesters off a 'legitimacy cliff', and it makes an already volatile situation potentially even more deadly.

If everyone thought it was a moral outrage, Trump would have long since been abandoned by his party. — Echarmion

'Ifs' are of no use to anyone. Especially since as a 'strategy', it has quite obviously been - and will continue to be - a marked failure. In fact more than a failure, banking on 'moral outrage' at this point would count as outright maliciousness and strategic support for Trump, if I did not believe instead in the infinite capacity of human stupidity.

I... I love this.

Maybe we should do a weekly vote.

Conservatives are using these proposals to motivate their party, you realize. — praxis

Awesome. Good. Yes. The more these themes dominate the conversation, the more the left claims the very terms of debate, the better off the US will be.

If you were to substitute “morality” with “religion” in this statement I could agree. Otherwise, it could use some explaining. — praxis

Politics is about the exercise of power. Morality erases considerations of power. As one of my favourite writers put it - morality is dead politics. Morality elevated to political principle issues in injustice, always. This is not the place for this discussion though.

Solid!

I am StreetlightXi

Jamalrob is now Jamaorob.

All hail our new Chinese overlords!

The midterms proved to be a significant and effective opposition, and it even seemed reactive to the ‘personality’ of the Trump administration, with a record number of women elected, and a Muslim woman as well. — praxis

The most effective 'reactions' to Trump to my mind have been precisely those who have not merely re-acted but acted to change the conversation entirely. Medicare for all, the green new deal, labour reform - substantial policy agendas which have shifted the conversation away from Trump's diva-nature and onto things that will actually have an effect on people's lives.

Only the lowest common denominators talk about 'character' - it's what those with nothing to say speak about. They're the deplorables of the anti-Trump train, political rednecks who like to stew in their apparent moral superiority rather than actually talk about anything that has any bearing on the lives of ordinary people.

Anyone with half a brain understood Trump's 'character' from day zero. The adage that insanity is doing or saying the same thing over and over agin and expecting anything to change applies nowhere better to those who find themselves continually 'morally outraged' by Trump. For three years they've been having that same, unchanging conversation, and that it continually steers back to this pearl clutching ('did u see what he said this time?' *gasp/faints*) that tells us nothing new is an indictment on the total impotence of most of the Trump 'resistance'.

The decision to do so is directly related to his amoral character — Fooloso4

Imagine thinking immigration policy is a result of either charatcter or morality.

Yes. The more people learn to discard irrelavent questions, the better off we'll all be.

When politics is confused with morality, people fucking die. Morality is for those who can't think.

Again, I don't see how this follows. Perhaps you could make a structured argument for all these claims. — Echarmion

I refer you to the majority of the discussion around Trump, which is almost singularly devoid of policy or process, of which this thread and it's participants are exemplary.

It is not simply a matter of Trump's character but of the character of whoever it is we vote into office. Suppose candidate X puts forth policy proposals that you agree with, but X is not trustworthy and his actions raise serious questions about whether he has any intention of doing what he proposes to. Will you vote for him because you like the policies he is running on? — Fooloso4

Not interested in hypotheticals. We don't live in theory-land. More distraction. More useless discussion.

Imagine being so entitled as to think there must be an impeachment process because Trump is yucky, and if substantive democratic debate must be washed over in the process, then so be it.

Actually, it was Brooks' column that was cited by the Jacobin writer I quoted a few pages back. It's not altogether trash, surprisingly:

"Democrats are playing Trump’s game. Trump has no policy agenda. He’s incompetent at improving the lives of American citizens, even his own voters. But he’s good at one thing: waging reality TV personality wars against coastal elites. So now over the next few months he gets to have a personality war against Nancy Pelosi and Jerrold Nadler.

The Democrats are having a pretty exciting and substantive presidential primary season. This is what democracy is supposed to look like. Why they would want to distract from that is beyond reason. Trump vs. Nadler is exactly the contrast Trump wants to elevate.

This process will increase public cynicism. Impeachment would be an uplifting exercise if we had sober leaders who could put party affiliation aside and impartially weigh the evidence. It would be workable if Congress enjoyed broad public affection and legitimacy. We don’t live in that world."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/opinion/impeachment-trump-mistake.html

Man, I never thought I'd be agreeing with David Brooks but - "who ought to settle this? A few hundrerd thousand voters in the public or a hundred millionares in the Senate?" - that's exactly the right question.

In the meantime, people are apparently shocked that Republicans are holding the line on impeachment. Like - exactly what did you expect? Why are people continually surprised by the depths of depravity among Trump and his supporters? How do you remain this fucking naive almost three years in?

But then Australia would be China's butthole. Is that really what you want? — frank

Relying on the US to do anything at this point would be folly. A nation in the throws of decline that would quite easily throw us to Chinese wolves. Not that our own political leaders are doing much better, mind you.

You say that the shit's gonna hit the fan, presumably because of the Trump administration, yet you claim that Trump supporters have keener instincts for things that actually matter and that these keen instincts are better than someone lacking political literacy. What the hell?? — praxis

What seems to be the issue? It's pretty clear that a great deal of Trump's opponents have been uniquely useless at actually opposing anything whatsoever, insofar as their efforts continue to centre upon utterly unpolitical - that is to say, unactionable - vectors of resistance. Trump is stacking the courts and destorying the environment and apparently quoting a bit of Aristotle is supposed to count as making things better. It's pathetic. Most of this thread, which stacked to the brim with useless bullshit like the Muller investigation and wranging over Russia and Ukraine, is also pathetic.

It was of fundamental importance for Aristotle's Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. ...Machiavelli's subtly is easily and often overlooked. It is only political leaders who are good who needs to be taught not to be good. Political leaders who are bad — Fooloso4

:rofl:

Trump is out there putting people in cages and Plutocrtizing the cabinet and someome thinks the most appropriate response is to extensively cite milennia old dead people on virtue ethics and the subtleties of Machiavelli. It's almost like you want Trump to win. The US burning down might not be such a bad thing after all. It'd take a bunch of political incompetants with it.

I've very little of anything good to say about Obama, the dronestrike, deportation commander-in-chief of the biggest surveillance state in the world. He was just a peice of shit with a nice smile and an elegant voice. If anything Trump's incompetency at least exposes the American state for what it is.