Posts by Dennis Frank
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The conference proposals for the two referendum questions seem suitable, well-phrased, easily understood, simple, direct, concise, well done all involved!
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to mark taslov,
Ah but I didn't actually do so. Read it again. Asserting something is vastly different than raising the question. You must be aware of that. Perhaps you were misrepresenting me inadvertently?? So easy to be seduced into subjective reactions and lose the connection with what folks are actually saying.
The sociopathic tendency of leftists to demonise rightists via lying about what they say or believe is a blight on politics. To me it isn't just unethical, it's immoral. And I'm not even on the political right. Just prefer fairness for all.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to ,
People will make of it what they will, Steven. Not my problem. What's your problem?? Have you no insight into the spiritual dimension of the world? Do you deny that it exists? Many do. Nothing wrong with that, of course...
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to mark taslov,
To be honest, differentiating sex & gender is not something I've thought much about - although I see why it would be ultra-important for some. And a vital part of identity politics. My own relevant personal experience is merely having a strong sense of having been female in my incarnation prior to this one.
Also, one of my astrologer friends from the eighties became an alternative therapist and she uses a hi-tech diagnostic system that supposedly reads relevant past lives as context for current life situations (along with more than a dozen various organic or biophysical functions). Yeah, as a physics graduate my sceptical side reserves judgment, but a lifetime of investigating alternative belief systems keeps my mind open. Anyway, on five different occasions in recent years it has referred to a different past incarnation as female - my friend says such a consistent pattern hasn't happened to any of her other clients. Various different foreign ethnic contexts in different periods of history. How it rationalised relevance was in each case quite illuminating, so my inner bullshit detector gave it cautious approval...
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to mark taslov,
Mark, I gather that you have taken what I wrote quite personally. Since I didn't frame it so, I'm puzzled about that. I take the point that we all have attitudes and opinions deriving from our cultural niche & developmental trajectory, and I'm not aware of any bias against those I'm unfamiliar with.
I realise it may be just a question of temperament, and some folk get more emotional about social commentary & political analysis than others. I'm considerably more dispassionate nowadays. I was extremely angry & hostile as I entered adulthood long ago. I've been in victim sub-groups - I understand how they generate beliefs that shape our world-view.
So nowadays I accept that all we can really do is our best, to find common ground where possible, and build consensus on that. Human nature drives us to try and persuade others at times that our view is better than theirs - I try to avoid that but if it seems that I'm doing it then I must accept that others can misinterpret my intent in those instances. Best to then just agree to disagree rather than argue particular points, I feel. So I'll just offer the observation that the meeting of minds only happens when people are ready, willing and able, and the time is right for it.
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Hard News: The Midterms, in reply to BenWilson,
There aren't many on the political right whose opinions I bother to check out. Not easy recalling anyone past George Will capable of incisive insights. Wikipedia: "<i>The Wall Street Journal<i/> called him "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America"." He left the Republicans in 2016 due to disgust with Trump. Here's his view in the Washington Post (columnist 44 years):
"Tuesday was, on balance, deflating to Democrats, who learned - or perhaps not - that despising this president, although understandable, is insufficient. His comportment cost his congressional party only slightly more than half the carnage that President Barack Obama’s party suffered in the middle of his first term."
"The GOP depressingly ends 2018 more ideologically homogenous than it has been for 11 decades. Hitherto, it has been divided between Theodore Roosevelt progressives and William Howard Taft conservatives; between Robert Taft conservatives and Thomas Dewey moderates; between Nelson Rockefeller liberals and Barry Goldwater libertarians. In today’s monochrome GOP — color it orange, for the coiffure of its Dear Leader — postures range all the way from sycophancy to adoration."
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Hard News: The Midterms, in reply to BenWilson,
I'm reserving judgment on the significance of the swing until final results are declared. You may be right but evidence of a real shift in the electorate would be expected to show up elsewhere too. So far all we have is the smaller shift to the Republicans in the Senate. I haven't seen any aggregate shift in the governorship totals published yet.
I'm keen to see the total vote proportions, and have that compared to 2016. BBC has this: “forecasts based on early voting suggest turnout will be as high as 47%. This would be higher than any year since 1970.” Almost half of the electorate actually got up & voted! A stunning endorsement of democracy, democrats will be thrilled that the system is working so well.
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Interesting that the primary colours are the exact opposite of NZ: red for the right, blue for the left. I see Bernie Sanders is showing 66% in purple. I assume that means he has abandoned the Democrat flag of convenience he waved when running for the presidency a couple of years ago.
There's a purple contender in Maine polling 58%, so I'm guessing it means independent. The ABC coverage & panel is good viewing, dynamic coverage & well-balanced format with partisan participants doing rather well in presenting dispassionate commentary.
Results are consistently all over the place! No discernable trend apart from the swing to Democrats in the house. Margins in many races are too close to call, many others have more than 5% differential, many have more than 10%, and the young Democrat woman with the binary name is coming in at 78% despite her ethnicity. Seems multiculturalism is prospering overall despite racism or conservatism prevailing in some places.
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"Last year, 42% of Americans, on average, identified as political independents, erasing the decline to 39% seen in the 2016 presidential election year. Independent identification is just one percentage point below the high of 43% in 2014. Twenty-nine percent of Americans identify themselves as Democrats and 27% as Republicans."
https://news.gallup.com/poll/225056/americans-identification-independents-back-2017.aspxGallop polls adults, not voters: "Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted in 2017 with a random sample of 13,185 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods."
So the antique bicameral frame is increasingly dysfunctional. Trying to shoehorn so many non-partisan voters into two choices that they don't like will eventually seem ridiculous even to the slow learners. If those alienated by the system reach majority, the crisis in democracy will become real. Only 8% short of that now!
Note that Gallup uses an identity-politics frame: it measures those who self-identify with the three options. If you check out the graph that show this, you can see how Clinton held the Democrats up through his tenure, and how Obama supervised a Democrat decline during his. It also shows the three-way split was close to exact in 1990 & 2004. Credit Bush Sr, Bush Jr, & Dem opponents for that underwhelming.
"Identity is rooted in thymos, which is experienced emotionally through feelings of pride, shame, and anger. I've already noted the ways in which this can undermine rational debate and deliberation." That's Fukuyama, in his chapter we the people in his book published last month __Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition. His focus on national identity provides historical context, and he explains how that motivates rightists.
"The policy issue that has raised the greatest challenges to national identity is immigration, and the related issue of refugees. Together they are the driving force behind the upsurge of populist nationalism in both Europe and the United States."
"immigration has largely displaced class and race as the chief reason why Americans vote for Republican candidates, according to data by political scientists Zoltan Hajnal and Marisa Abrajano. The incorporation of African-Americans into the Democratic Party following the civil rights movement of the 1960s is widely credited for driving the south into the arms of the Republican Party; today immigration is playing a similar role. Opposition to Mexican and Muslim immigration figured centrally in Donald Trump's election campaign and subsequent rise to the presidency"
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to tussock,
I'm aware of the origin of racism as a belief system (been reading history since the mid-fifties and watching current affairs since the mid-sixties). Fukuyama is elucidating how identity politics has evolved since the 19th century - nobody else has done this since it emerged as a political category in recent decades - and his analysis is comprehensive, lucid, and compelling. I regard his book as essential reading for anyone who blogs or comments online.
So the conclusion you are inclined towards in inadvisable. He's going way deeper & more broadly than anyone else has. For a political scientist to break new ground is always a radical move - they normally just comment on superficialities.