2016 United States Election

[Inanna]

I think David Wong should become explainer-in-chief. I just read the second article too. However, I don't want to take that title from the Google guy - whaizname, Frelga? The one you link to?

[Frelga]

Yonatan Zunger?

[axordil]

ax, I think you're right about all that, but I don't think exploring the larger historical context was what Wong was after--he just wanted to explain why he thinks people stuck in that situation, however it came to be, feel and vote the way they do. But putting both together sounds like a great idea for someone's doctoral thesis!

ETA: And yes, reading the second article immediately after the first was an interesting experience.

In many cases we're talking about descendants of the people the Southern aristocracy talked into being cannon fodder to preserve slavery, the economic system guaranteed to keep them poor and powerless. That's the depressing thing about history, unless, like Trump, one is a con artist: people don't change.

[Maria]

Where I'm from, you weren't a real man unless you could repair a car, patch a roof, hunt your own meat, and defend your home from an intruder. It was a source of shame to be dependent on anyone -- especially the government. You mowed your own lawn and fixed your own pipes when they leaked, you hauled your own firewood in your own pickup truck.

That's quite true. Just a couple of weeks ago we bought hay that someone else baled in the field, and I literally felt embarrassed to be using the Amish guys who were available there to load the hay on our trailer. I felt like we were taking advantage of third world labor and that we really ought to be out there doing it ourselves. Never mind that neither my husband nor I were in any sort of shape for that kind of heavy labor that day... it was all we could do to get the hay unloaded and stacked when we got home.

We almost never have people come to our home to perform a service of any kind. I never realized it was a cultural trait before, instead of an individual one.

I still support the system, though. And plenty of other rural people do, too.

[Inanna]

Yonatan Zunger?

That's the one, thank you.

[Dave_LF]

I never realized it was a cultural trait before, instead of an individual one.

I think it's both. Like so many of them.

I still support the system, though. And plenty of other rural people do, too.

I can't speak for the author, but I don't think he meant to imply that nobody out there* does. But we all know that some of them don't, and I think he was trying to give a window into why that might be (beyond "they're just terrible people").

*or here; I'm sort of in the middle

[Alatar]

I predict a rise in the popularity of #FLOTUSforPOTUS.

[Dave_LF]

I predict a rise in the popularity of #FLOTUSforPOTUS.

One at a time!

[Inanna]

I predict a rise in the popularity of #FLOTUSforPOTUS.

Who's FLOTUS? Uzzi*?

[River]

First Lady of the United States.

I doubt Mrs. Obama wants the job.

[Inanna]

Ah! Yes, I doubt she does.


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[Primula Baggins]

That was one incredible speech she gave today.

Rachel Maddow argued her producers into letting her show about 20 minutes of it (the part that wasn't purely a campaign speech for Hillary) uninterrupted. Anyone who is even vaguely interested should watch it somehow. Any woman, any person who feels kind of greasy and soiled and weary after what's been going on. Anyone who's angry, or too tired of it all to be angry.

[Inanna]

Yes - anyone who's too tired of it to be angry. It was brilliant.


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[Alatar]

Oof. The New York Times has refused to print a retraction because “The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one’s reputation ... Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.”

http://www.nytco.com/the-new-york-times ... on-letter/

[Lalaith]

That's a great response!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Words fail.

Trump Jr. Suggested Women Who Can’t Take Harassment “Don’t Belong In The Workforce”

[yovargas]

Didn't Trump Sr. already say something along the same lines a couple months ago? Something like if a woman is getting harassed in the workplace it's because she's not tough enough or something?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Sort of. What he said was that if his daughter Ivanka faced harassment at work, she should find another job. Then his other son Eric "clarified" that what his father likely meant was that a "strong, powerful woman" like Ivanka wouldn't "allow herself" to be sexually harassed.

ETA a link: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... /87957126/

[yovargas]

***barf***

[Frelga]

Oof. The New York Times has refused to print a retraction because “The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one’s reputation ... Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.”

http://www.nytco.com/the-new-york-times ... on-letter/

* standing ovation *