The Liberals response to TRAs shows why Brexit/Trump won

One thing I noticed on here a lot post vote was the stance that "you shouldn't judge people" and to do so was very, very wrong and the reason remain/Clinton lost etc.

I don't know whether this came from the left or the right first, but I disagree with it. Its taking the idea of tolerance and twisting it to mean that disagreeing with someone is "intolerant" (which resonates with #NoDebate). Making judgements on people based on sex, race, religion etc is wrong, as is making sweeping generalisations about people based on the way they voted.

But why shouldn't I judge someone on the things the say and do? If someone makes repeatedly racist statements, I am going to go ahead and form the opinion that they are racist.
If someone states that they voted leave because we don't need any trade deals and can grow everything yourself and the world will dance to our tune now and that tune will be Rule Britannia, then I will tentatively begin to believe that this person is, at best, uninformed.

HairyBallTheorem I agree with you in that the reasons you gave are more sensible reasons for voting leave than many other reasons I have heard! I disagree with the conclusion you reached when you balanced up the pros and cons of leaving/remaining, but I was also quite Eurosceptic myself.
The result surprised me, not because I was a hubris-ridden, die hard supporter of the EU who lived in a remainer bubble, but because I (stupidly) thought that if I, someone who had always been critical of the EU, thought it was a bad idea than the majority of the country would too.

Many of the leave voters I know in rl (family members) did have stupid reasons for voting leave. I know what many of their reasons were, because I heard them shouted at the radio enough times. Not that that makes them stupid - there is a distinction I think between calling a person stupid and calling their decision stupid.

Helmet - interesting you should start the list with Farage, who was not a Westminster MP, and whose party had at the time 1 MP. One thing I could be sure of voting leave was that Farage would not be in charge.

I find it odd the lengths some leavers go to disassociate themselves from Farage. (While many others of course want him knighted). UKIP may not have been successful in Westminster - one issue parties rarely are in our system - but it was a highly influential campaigning/pressure group. They - he - won.

Thing is, LangCleg, your sentence doesn't need the brackets – and would be better without. So:

How many people who voted Remain or Leave could say, without looking it up, how many EU institutions there are, what they are, and what the function of each is?

And yet we were all asked to vote on this.

Mind you, I can't name all the UK government institutions. Even the departments I think I do know keep merging and splitting and being renamed and having chunks hived off and called agencies (never did catch up with what that was about).

I blame the internet for deciding what we want to hear and telling us only that. I'm very much enjoying my times subscription for that reason actually. I get reasonable reporting about the trans issues and other news and utterly furious at much of what they report rape case acquittals I like a mixed bag.

A massive amount of money - and uncosted aid, through services such as those of Cambridge Analytica - went into funding the 'Leave' campaign. We still haven't managed to get to the bottom of it, and I doubt there is the political will to do so now. Such as we know of exceeded the guidelines - and as I said, I doubt we'll ever know the half of it.That myth has to be put to bed. I genuinely don't get it. There is something truly weird about it. It's part and parcel of the whole: 'We've had enough of experts' shit.

I agree. Additionally with Brexit and Trump, the vast majority of people opening their mouths.... WERE saying something racist. And we were told it was our fault as we'd forgotten the white males and they must always be placated or what? We'll get what we deserve? They say the same about feminism. Ask nicely, take the crumbs or get what you deserve.

With Brexit and Trump you had the unthinking reactionary alt right. With the trans agenda you have the unthinking left. The issue with both of those is that people are agreeing to what they believe should represent them and their values

This here that squishysquirmy said yesterday at 11:41

I am a bit sick of the contortions people go through to blame Trump's win on those least likely to vote for him; ever since the day he won endless words have been written to explain how Trump's win was all the fault of the liberals/democrats/the far left/the centre left etc etc etc.

Most of the people opposed to Trump didn't vote for Trump, even if they didn't support Clinton. They voted for a third party candidate. You could make the argument that the left-leaning vote got split because of this (thereby allowing Trump to win the majority of votes in the electoral college, but not the popular vote). But what I've seen over here is that the "right-on woke lefty's": 1) tend to be the ones most likely to lean toward the authoritarian, #nodebate (on anything), if-you-don't-agree-100%-with-me-on-everything-you're-the-enemy style leftist politics and 2) tended to vote third party because Clinton was a centrist, so would never vote for her anyway. They weren't really pushing anyone who wouldn't vote for Trump into voting for Trump.

I never read or heard anyone say not voting for Clinton made someone a misogynist. There was a lot of analysis of the coverage of Clinton, and the standards she was held to as opposed to male candidates. There was coverage of the misogyny aimed at her and her female supporters. Most Clinton voters, and certainly most feminists who supported her and most news coverage, bent over backwards to point out that you could disagree with, not support and not vote for Clinton based on her words and policies (as you would male politicians) and that this, of course, does not make you a misogynist.

Politics are becoming more and more polarized on both sides. The whole "if you're not for us you're against us" attitude shows up on the right and the left. Both sides view the other side as mortal enemies rather than people who you disagree with. For every "basket of deplorables," there's a popular right-wing talking head spewing "special snowflake SJW libt*rd," (etc, etc, etc) in lieu of actual debate.

The rise of the authoritarian left has it's counterpart in the rise of the alt-right.

Add to that people in the US are increasingly getting their "news" from biased sources that confirm and reinforce their worldview (as opposed to objectively reported facts), money continuing to shape politics, Russian interference and all these people trying to throw a wrench in the works with the hope that they'll end up on top in the end.

You got the makings of a perfect storm, right there.

And yes, both the left and the right do it.

Most people over here have very little understanding of the trans debate. Most people fall into a "[shrugs shoulders] 'well, live and let live'" camp and haven't really thought through all the nuances of the debate. The trans issue didn't really come up much at all during the election.

I'm not quite sure you can much compare the US election to the Brexit vote, though. They're two different things in two different countries. Or perhaps it's just my ignorance. I know a bit about the ins-and-outs of the recent presidential election over here, much less so the Brexit vote.

Well, quite, Lang - and that's before you even get onto the vexed question of "commitology" (basically whereas in the UK, senior civil servants' decisions are scrutinised by parliamentary committees, Euro MPs don't exert such direct scrutiny - the Commission is supposedly policed by a huge series of committees staffed by representatives of members states - and in the case of most of the committees these representatives will themselves be civil servants).

Helmet - interesting you should start the list with Farage, who was not a Westminster MP, and whose party had at the time 1 MP. One thing I could be sure of voting leave was that Farage would not be in charge. I agree it was foreseeable that Cameron's position would be untenable long term - but he could and should have stuck it out for long enough to ensure some sort of orderly transition.

My feeling back in the early 1990s was very much a Lyndon Johnson "better inside the tent pissing out" feeling - but that didn't survive actually being involved in the legislative/negotiating process. I also remember (because I helped to draft some of the replacement legislation) what trade arrangements with the rest of the world looked like prior to the single market, so I know it's not impossible to have such arrangements.

What I don't think I (or any of the sane end of the leave vote could have forseen) was Cameron immediately jumping ship rather than ensuring a smooth handover (and also having instructed his civil servants deliberately to refrain from making any contingency plans in the event of a leave vote), Trump's election and rampant protectionism the other side of the Atlantic, and May being stupid enough to call an election and leave herself at the mercy of the DUP.

That's what I don't get. It was entirely predictable that Cameron's position would be utterly untenable. It was entirely predictable that chaos would ensue. It was entirely predictable that a movement led by Farage, Johnson, Gove, Davis et al, would be disastrous and racist. People who failed to get that, to me, were not thick, no, but utterly lacked any kind of understanding of politics. And of course, leave threw us at the mercy of the rest of the world, and most people would be cautious about approaching the rest of the world - the US or China - in a desperate, cap in hand state.

Hairy How many people who voted Remain (or Leave for that matter) could say, without looking it up, how many EU institutions there are, what they are, and what the function of each is?

... and our survey said uh uh!

Okay, going to come out of the closet here - I'm an old school eurosceptic lefty who voted leave. Partly because of having had direct experience of working in Brussels (negotiating single market legislation in the first place). My worries centred entirely round the disproportionate power and lack of democratic accountability of the Commission (and I'm in good company in having those views - Martin Schultz, arch Euro federalist, has gone on record as saying either the Commission should be turned into a properly democratically elected part of the political structure, or its power should be severely curtailed so that it resembles much more closely the traditional role of a civil service - where I part company with him is not believing that reform is possible).

Is this important enough to have voted no? I personally thought so (and watching the Commission's attitude in negotiations since has not really changed my opinion). You can't have a massive political structure, edging its way towards federalism (which, in and of itself I don't have that much of a problem with), without all parts of the political decision making structure having political accountability.

I totally agree that economically all the arguments were on the side of remain (or rather, all bar one, which is the rather important question of the long-term stability of the Eurozone, which I think is a house of cards built on sand - former Greek finance minister Varafoukis' book Adults in the Room is an interesting read - incidentally, he is also staunchly commited to the European project and came over here to campaign for Remain).

By way of anecdote, I did have quite a funny conversation with a friend who is strongly Remain - she remarked that I was one of only two people she knew who'd voted leave (and were prepared to say so) - the other one worked for the European Medicines Agency. We were also the only two friends she had who had actually worked in Brussels and had close-up experience of how the system worked in practice.

What I don't think I (or any of the sane end of the leave vote could have forseen) was Cameron immediately jumping ship rather than ensuring a smooth handover (and also having instructed his civil servants deliberately to refrain from making any contingency plans in the event of a leave vote), Trump's election and rampant protectionism the other side of the Atlantic, and May being stupid enough to call an election and leave herself at the mercy of the DUP. And obviously I'm not happy with the chaotic negotiations which I think are going to end (as so many votes against Europe have - for example the Irish and the Lisbon Treaty) with the politicians ignoring the vote - I also think we're going to be royally shafted "pour encourager les autres".

I am sure part of the Leave vote was racist, xenophobic and ignorant. But it certainly wasn't all 52% of it.

Leave won by getting the narrow group of a few percent in the middle to edge over onto the Leave side. I'd expect Leave had already captured the racist, xenophobic and ignorant.

LangCleg, I agree with very much of that post.

Very interesting PerkingFaintly

That "de-stabilisation" could also be called shit stirring, couldn't it?

It would be impossible for wealthy, shady forces to predict exactly what the consequences of one little tweak of the (very complex) system here could have, which is why I don't buy into big conspiracy theories, but it would be fairly easy to stir up divisions if you had the money and inclination. It is always far easier to destroy than to create.
It is therefore entirely plausible that those who want to do so are exploiting and exacerbating the Trans movement to stir up shit . Its got nothing to do with them being in favour of LGBT rights.

I voted Remain as a eurosceptic old school leftie who isn't keen on the pro-austerity, pro-market aspects of the EU but saw it as a frying pan and fire thing - better in than out even though in isn't utopia by any stretch.

I think a great many people who voted Leave accurately identified the fact that their lives have got worse over the last few decades and also accurately identified that the Remain crew weren't really proposing any solutions to their problems - deindustrialisation, housing, etc. I think that they less/in-accurately identified a) EU rules and regulations and b) freedom of movement as the main causes of why their lives had got worse.

I think the Remain campaign got it wrong to tell people that immigration was a net benefit to society - this may well be technically true but telling people whose lives are worse than they were that things are actually getting better doesn't win them around. Some Remainers were also contemptuous of Leave voters, calling them racist, xenophobic and ignorant. This doesn't win anyone around.

I am sure part of the Leave vote was racist, xenophobic and ignorant. But it certainly wasn't all 52% of it. And if Remain had played it better, things could have gone the other way. Which would have been so much better for the country.

Frankly, I think the whole narrative of "I voted Leave because the Remainers made me do it" is utter bollocks. I hear it repeated on MN all the time, but I have yet to see a MNer actually say that's why she voted Leave. It would, of course, be genuinely silly to vote for such economic devastation for whole regions of the UK for those regions.

Exactly.

People voted how they wanted and the ring-wing won.

You're not suggesting that Brexit is the right wing and the anti-Brexit is the left wing are you?

You must know that's not true.

For me, the shutting down of debate is coming from the brexiters:

Transwomen are women = brexit means brexit.
Ignoring biology = ignoring economics.
Asking about details - 'we won' get over it.

Living in a crazy unicorn land is something that happens to people when they don't or can't think through issues clearly, left or right.

BTW it's obviously not right to use terms like "racist" or "sexist" or "homophobe" as meaningless insults to people one doesn't like.

But when talking about actual racists, I do actually think it's OK to call them racist and to find many of them deplorable. Even while wanting to understand what makes them tick.

Or is "telling it like it is" and "only saying what other people are thinking" only a virtue when it's racists saying it about other people?

RadicalFern, Clinton didn't describe most of the US population as deplorables.

She described people who were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic," as deplorables.

It didn't work for her politically to say it out loud (although it didn't stop her getting more votes than Trump) but... do you disagree with her description?

OK, this is the stuff about the Mercer project I mentioned yesterday.

(This thread is about the nature of the discourse, so after thinking about it, I realise this does belong here.)

You can see why I said destablization is a spot-on description of much of the alt-right project. And that funding people like Yiannopoulos is NOT to support eg gay rights, but merely to use him to disrupt.

Long article, worth reading:

In the stodgy world of the cultural right, Milo Yiannopoulos stood out like a neon, designer-branded peacock. He was vulgar in a way that the old-school, Moral Majority-era conservatives could not tolerate: gay, brash, self-admittedly promiscuous, and frank about his innumerable biases, racial and otherwise. He was sacrilegious, famously causing his own downfall at Breitbart when a video of him appearing to defend pedophilia surfaced on the Internet. He dressed like a Kardashian, deliberately distancing himself from the Brooks Brothers-loving Young Republicans. In other words, he was the kind of disruptive presence that Robert and Rebekah Mercer wanted to boost in their attempt to accelerate the so-called culture war. With Ted Nugent far out of the demo, he was the right’s young pop star, a whole new thing.

As the billionaire father-daughter duo behind Breitbart and, later, Donald Trump, the enigmatic Mercers flex their muscles much like the rest of their wealthy conservative mega-donor ilk: by sitting on think-tank boards, backing super PACs, funding scholarships, and donating to candidates. But the Mercers also think rather differently from their peer group, acting as angel investors for projects they hope will shift the cultural conversation. In 2012, they invested $10 million in Breitbart and then watched it turn into a blazingly offensive news organ for pro-Trump opinions; with the founding of Milo Inc. this year, they hoped to break into the next generation.
[...]
In keeping with their goal to construct a parallel cultural universe, the Mercers, according to one person with direct knowledge of their fund-raising activities, were curious to see whether Yiannopoulos could create a media empire that could bring in younger voters, make money, and drive a wedge in the culture war.

www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/mercers-money-milo-yiannopoulos-conservative

Shorter, includes quick sketch of Bob & Rebekah Mercer:
www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/renaissance-technologies-robert-mercer-donald-trump

White supremacist stuff:
www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/robert-mercer-david-magerman-lawsuit

I think it is exactly the sort of thing that happens when people are not listened to, or shamed for voicing concerns. Most people just quietly take their vote elsewhere.

The "basket of deplorables" incident was particularly significant as it revealed what Hillary really thinks about most of the US population, many of whom had previously been a safe vote for the Democratic party. Her utter disdain for them was deeply distasteful.

P.S. This podcast is quite useful:
wlrnmedia.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/edition-16-the-money-behind-the-trans-movement-and-impact-on-lesbians/

Often mentioned in this context is a super wealthy and super creepy TIM called Martine Rothblatt (highest-paid "female" CEO a few years back). But I've seen no evidence that he funds transactivism.

@SeaChanges who are the other billionaires bankrolling trans activist and how do you know that they are?

(1) Soros as above.

(2) Jennifer Pritzker, ex-military, recently became TIM. Funding includes Professorship of Gender Studies in Canadian university (appointee was trans obv!) and a gender identity clinic for kids in Chicago. Website:
www.tawanifoundation.org

One of his top people was Indra Lusero who subsequently took over US Midwives Association and then changed terminology to birthing parents etc.

(3) Jon Stryker. Gay man, his motivation is unclear to me (whereas Pritzker is obvious and Soros also makes ideological sense, for reasons that echo the OP!). Look at the Arcus Foundation online.
www.arcusfoundation.org

Grants include $1m to Transgender Europe, which does the trans day of remembrance. So if you're wondering why British organizations officially commemorate dead Brazilian TIM sex workers rather than (say) British women killed by their husbands/boyfriends, one reason is that Transgender Europe has a lot more money than Karen Ingala Smith!