This MLK quote is making the rounds in honor of the day. This seems as good a place as any to put it:
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
People are mostly reporting the favorability numbers - but the real story is the unfavorables. Trump is taking office with a majority of the public not just unsure, but opposed to him,
That’s unprecedented for a new president. Bush in 2001 isn’t even close to this level of hostility, disputed election and all.
80 percent favorable for Obama in 2009. That amazes me. I only remember the obstruction-at-all-costs political climate, but it seems we were a better America for at least a little while. [Insert wistful sigh here].
To the topic of this thread, I am not proud to say that I have dealt with the election results by living in a low information bubble. I have no idea what is going on in the world.
I know I need to do better. Not sure if I have the fortitude.
Probably healthier than occasionally collapsing into bouts of deep, despairing depression, dragging yourself up and only really being fueled by a growing, increasingly illogical, and extremely not-kidding-around real capital-H-Hatred of all Conservatives, Republicans, and Traitor Liberals.
I think there is more truth in this than anyone realizes. In their “holier than thou” approach the new left has alienated the part of America that just rose up and bit them in the ass when they failed to turn out and vote.
There are few quicker ways to polarize an opposition than to make them all hate you by your regarding them as something less than human. And then those people see that opposition and polarization as proof that they, the only truly honest and good people, are correct in their beliefs. A nice self fulfilling prophecy.
I think there’s probably some way to describe in game-theory mathematics this situation where one side always has to be the ‘nice ones’ and the ‘grownups’ while the other side just doesn’t give a shit.
I fully expect Trump to alienate friends and enemies alike. I don’t think Trump is what people think they voted for. In fact, I don’t think most people cared what they voted for as long as it wasn’t Hillary and some re-cycled republican.
I think there is a reason why one party is never able to hold onto the presidency for more than 8 years. People, even members of the governing party, just get tired of the politics of whoever is in charge. I think in the last 100 years there have only been two occasions where one party held the presidency more than 8 years, and one of those was FDR-Truman.
I don’t think this is it at all. It’s not disdain of their treatment that has caused conservative resentment at liberals, at least anything specifically (there is an argument about their representation in popular culture at large, that’s… somewhat defensible, but whatever). The only thing - ONLY THING - liberals do wrong with regards to their interactions with conservatives is that, in a time where identity politics is an unconsciously ranked hierarchy of victimization they set aside class. Identity politics is fine and right and good, but for some reason, class is passé.
Without taking into account class one cannot completely account for the rise of someone like Trump.
The “problem” as it were with liberal arguments outside of communicating with conservatives - arguments they have with themselves trying to construct theories and understandings of the world - regarding “political correctness”, identity politics, et al, is that like postmodernism they’re self referential. So they don’t “need” class to explain anything - but don’t need anything to explain anything, because what they assert is nondisprovable considering the social mores of public discussion of our time.
