Sexism, racism and my opinion of Donald Trump

Its not just the Americans who talk about any policies they don't like as racist, particularly any idea that isn't based on some version of free trade. The UK and Canada also seem to have the same attitude. I am continually flummoxed when Guardian readers, supposed progressives, take the view. And the Liberal party in Canada pushes it as well, as does the NDP.

It's exactly parallel to the claim that concerns about the movement of labour and instability in communities is racist. Somehow promoting your own industry above other nations isn't just a matter of a good or bad economic bargain. Instead it's a moral rejection of the Chinese/Hungarians/wherever that might want to trade with us, based on some sort of racist sentiment toward those people.

It's taken what was a practical argument into the ethical plain in a very weird way. It seems like anything that can be linked to open borders will now be treated that way.

Goosefoot — American “progressives” know absolutely nothing about economics beyond the mantra “supply and demand.”

They don’t know how money is created, they don’t understand the role of banks in that, they don’t understand the difference between the reported unemployment rate (U-3) and the actual unemployment rate (U-6) — the difference being that reported unemployment rate doesn’t include workers who’ve been unemployed longer than 6 months, so called “discouraged” workers — they don’t understand what “trade deficit” means, they don’t understand why a govt. budget is not like a household budget —

And so they idiotically praise both Clinton and Obama for cutting the governmental budget at a time when the trade deficit increased. This is a basic accounting issue they don’t even understand.

All they have is identity politics.

And a conviction, against every statistical measure EXCEPT the stock market, that Obama made things better economically for everyone and therefore the fact that people in the Rust Belt are hurting can only point to their own personal failings (like not learning to code and moving to one of the coasts.)

The complete capture of ”progressive” politics by postmodernism in academia is utterly responsible for this.

One would think that the Great Financial Crisis would have spurred so-called “progressives” to consider that understanding economics and the financial system might be important — but no.

And since they don’t understand any of that, contrary to every statistical measure except the stock market, they believe that Obama improved things for all American workers. The corollary to this belief is that those who’ve fallen behind — those who are dying of what economists Case & Deacon called “deaths of despair — are suffering due to their own personal failings.

And since any policy they don’t like they call racist (such as protectionism) they also decide that those who advocate for such policies as alternatives to the harm they’re suffering from current neoliberal economics are also racist. Being racist, they deserve those deaths of despair.

It’s horrific thinking, really. I run into it all the time in the big “liberal” cities in the US. It’s also completely self-defeating, electorally speaking. Essentially, they write off the 70% of Americans who don’t have college degrees.

In the wake of the Trump victory, what I heard most often wasn’t anything like: well, we need to do a better job campaigning in Red states. Instead it was: the Blue states need to leave the Union and let the voters in the Red states rot.

What is super crazy is that it is the supposed leftists that can't understand how anyone could support any kind of protectionism! I think it's been a real coup on the part of the neoliberals, in almost one fell swoop they have convinced all these progressives that progress means unfettered capitalism.

NotBadConsidering

And to think she really didn't even bother to campaign in Michigan.

I can't help wondering though, if she had been elected, would things be better? In an immediate way, perhaps. But she would undoubtably continue all the policy approaches that have brought the US to where it is now and driven more and more voters to a place where they would vote for someone like Trump.

I hoped for a while that maybe this would be enough of a shock to create some change or political will, not so much in the voters as in the political apparatus. But looking now at the nominations race for the Democrats I am not hopeful.

I can’t remember where you are Goose - I was asking on another thread because of weird things you have to say before meetings?

I'm in Canada. Where we have our own very weird political landscape.

American progressives at the moment seem only able to see things in terms of Trump-voter = Completely morally corrupt and stupid. More so even than the Remainer/Brexiter divide. Any sort of discussion of policies on their own merits, why protectionism might be appealing for example, is just impossible.

Last year I read a really interesting book on identity politics that has helped me organise my thinking about it significantly, it's called On Identity by Amin Maalouf. I didn't agree with all of his conclusions but it offered a lot of insight into its emergence in the US. There was quite a bit about the American civil rights movement which I wasn't really familiar with, and he drew some interesting parallels with black nationalism. It's worth reading if you can get hold of it, I had to use interlibrary loan.

Hillary lost because Democrats in the Rust Belt who’d turned out to vote in 2008 and 2013 for Obama did not turn out to vote for her

Not exactly. It was only really Michigan and Florida.

She lost Florida by 100,000 votes. If just over half had voted the other way she’d have won Florida.

She lost Michigan by 10,000. If just over half had voted the other way she’d have won Michigan.

If she’d won Michigan and Florida she’d have won the electoral college and hence be President. It was only 60,000 people in two states who needed to be persuaded.

and also I'm wondering...has anyone else felt this way about Trump and America? I used to spend a bit of time over there for work (c 20 years ago). Sounds like another planet from what I hear now.

I have had a lot of sympathy for many Trump voters, even though I find him really quite horrific in almost every way. And he's utterly incompetent.

But it is very similar to the recent vote in the UK. For years the Democrats have been taking for granted their traditional, socially conservative politically left(ish) supporters, and pursued policies that ignored them and were bad for them, as well as for the precarious members of the middle classes. They assumed they would vote for them, and they didn't. They assumed non-whites would vote for them as well, and yet many Hispanics voted for Trump (30% if I recall correctly) and even many black voters simple refrained from voting.

I agree that there seemed something more straightforward about the "old" kind of racism and sexism. I think this is because under the current view, race is not something to overcome, an idea invented to justify racism (which is historically the case)but it's assumed as an essentialist category. Even as a dream, a race-blind society is impossible in that scenario. Even a person who sees you just for yourself will still always think of you in terms of that category. Kind of depressing really.

I post at times on an American forum but I mostly just can't now. The politics is just so naive. I's depressing too.

"Rust Belt" is the bit where heavy industry (coal & steel) has shut down leaving a lot of rusting plant behind.

See Billy Joel's "Allentown" (from when he was still good.)

Isnt the rust belt called so because its where the loggers and factories where? If im we rong then why rust belt?

The electoral college also makes sure that the smaller or less populous states are not simply disregarded

The original reason for the electoral college was practical. The logistics of collecting and counting all those votes in a time of horses and buggies and no proper roads were prohibitive.

I always wonder how much credibility the electoral college has now. When I was at school we were taught that the electoral college existed just in case the electorate voted for some charlatan who was completely unsuitable to be president.

Hillary lost because Democrats in the Rust Belt who’d turned out to vote in 2008 and 2013 for Obama did not turn out to vote for her.

I think her support of NAFTA was probably salient there, as NAFTA is a major factor in why those states are now called the Rust Belt.

To people who were hurting, she offered more of the same.

Trump campaigned on renegotiating NAFTA, reindustrializing the Rust Belt, bringing the troops home, and ending illegal immigration. There was certainly doubt as to his ability to do any of those things; there was definitely America First white nationalism in play.

But he promised jobs in a way that Hillary couldn’t and didn’t, with any credibility, in those regions desperate for jobs. And so she lost in the states she needed to win in order to win in the Electoral College.

Increasingly urban and brown.

Which scares some folks.

Most of the US is rural

Only 20% of the US population live in rural areas.

Middle-America becoming most vexious on this subject at the moment:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50592811

Same sex marriage is still banned in some states.

No, it's not. Same sex marriage is legal in the entire US.

Most of the US is rural, think old fashioned, looks like UK 20 years ago.
They are not super woke.
A bit like the big town mentality is what the media projects, but far more are like the Walton's, if they had advanced to 1990.
People are just getting by and if a transwoman walked into a loo it would be talked about for months, as not the norm.
Same sex marriage is still banned in some states.

But if it's really the case that TW can access women's domestic violence centres

Most domestic violence agencies in the US serve all victims of domestic violence and have for a long time. I doubt this particular issue has any impact on how someone in the US votes.