Hodad

GDP? Noooope. Despite running huge elective deficits. Unemployment? Noooope. The DOW (which is not the economy, but bets on the economy) DID accelerate. People bet that the tax cuts/deficit spending would stimulate the economy. But it didn't. And the Black unemployment gap? Noooope. It's nearly always roughly double the white unemployment rate, just as it was under Trump And if you're still bamboozled and starry eyed about the"lowest Black unemployment" claim as an absolute number, Biden already beat that. I swear, Trump could tell you people the sky was green and you'd just nod along instead of checking the facts.

It's hard for a train to go over someone's head, but here we have it. Maybe try putting away your feelings and what Trump told you and check out the data for yourself. Though history tells me that's unlikely.

^^ this is what thinking people call a specious argument. If you want to claim that Trump did something specific for Black Americans, you're welcome to try. But the facts don't support it. Yes, Black unemployment was low, but not relatively better and through no action on the part of Trump. Just as he didn't change the economic trajectory, he didn't change the employment trajectory and didn't change the black employment gap. I've demonstrated this for you before with economic data, but that apparently didn't stick, so let me give you an easy metaphor. Imagine the economy as a long train. It's big, and heavy and takes a long time to change speed. Blacks have, for a litany of reasons, been largely pushed to the back of the bus--their economic progress generally tracks the whole economy, but always lags by about the same amount. Now, this train had been accelerating at a slow, steady rate during engineer Obama's shift. At shift change, engineer Trump took over. The train continued accelerating at the exact same rate. Nothing really changed. Then engineer Trump gets on the intercom and starts broadcasting to the passengers about how fast they're going, how awesome he is, and how Black people have made so much progress down the track! How he's done more for Black people than anyone except maybe engineer Lincoln. Again, yes it's true that the train continued to accelerate at the same rate. Yes, black people are further down the track. But he didn't do anything specifically for Blacks AND they are still lagging--still at the back of the train with the same gap to the front. No relative change. How much credit do you think Black people should give that specific engineer? Did he really do anything for them? And then a few hours later engineer Trump missed the warning signs and drove the whole damn train into Covid Canyon... It was an empty, specious claim, meant to fool people who can't or won't look at economic data. You can be that person, or you can go check the facts for yourself.

Of all the ridiculous alternative reality shit conservatives convince themselves of, this is near the top.? Sure, Blacks break heavily Democrat because of the secret plot to feed hungry children. Not because Republicans have been on the wrong side of every civil rights issue for the last 50 years. Not because they sent Strom Thurmond to the Senate into this century. Not because they gerrymander Black districts into irrelevance or force Black voters to wait in line hours to vote. Not because they cozy up to white nationalists and wave confederate flags at rallies to save the statues of confederate "heroes." And on and on. None of that stuff. Definitely not the decades of persistent--and sometimes open--hostility. They've just been tricked by feeding hungry children.

Allows? Nah, according many religions god commands his children to kill one another, and for the most trivial reasons.. Must be a sadist.

Indeed, illegal immigrants will do a lot of jobs that Americans (and Canadians) don't want.

It's not relevant until he makes it relevant. People can believe whatever crazy shit they want about the metaphysical and it'll do no harm to anyone. But it's a problem when they try to turn their crazy beliefs into laws that govern the rest of us. Their freedom ends where someone else's freedom begins. There are lots of religious people in government who understand that and behave accordingly, allowing freedom of and from religion for all. Fundies--of all faiths--typically can't respect the distinction of personal faith. Now that Johnson is in the spotlight for the first time, it looks as if he falls into that camp. It appears that, at every opportunity, he's opted to turn his religious beliefs into law. That's why it's a topic of conversation. He's made it relevant.

The best part about this thread is definitely going to be the irony.

Maybe after McCarthyism and the "red scare" ran its course? Maybe when Republican states became red states? Or maybe people just learned the proper name?

Yep, he's full nutball. But he says it quietly instead of shouting it. Dangerous.

Sometimes three are really subtle clues, like a pack of rabid torch-bearing Trump supporters marching around shouting "Jews will not replace us!" Or other nuanced stuff, like endorsements from and dining engagements with half of the ADL watch list. Calling 3/4 of the Jews in this country anti-semitic turncoats. It's the little things...

The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that when a Democrat is found to have crossed a line, there's a broad chorus of their peers calling for resignation. That's what happened with Menendez. Even a joke in poor taste was enough to finish Al Franken. Yet someone like George Santos is sheltered and protected, and the few Republicans who called on him to resign were quickly shushed. You see, the Republicans crossed the Rubicon long ago. They didn't even bother drafting a platform for the last election because there are no values anymore. There is just a lust for power at any cost or compromise. It's why they'll overlook gross abuses of power, a failed coup and 90+ criminal indictments in their leading presidential candidate.

Full agreement from me. There is no danger from the American left. Very different goals. Very different tactics. Very different effects. Pluralism, multiculturalism, tolerance etc. These are just ignorant people on the internet shouting "Nazi" with no understanding of what that means. Even the American right has (mostly) different aims and objectives-they desire different outcomes. But the tactics are awfully familiar. That's sort of the irony of the whole thread. As they lose more and more popular support they are less and less interested in democratic principles. If only they can consolidate power in other ways, they think, then they can force change upon us--for our own good, of course.

I have some of you useless trolls on ignore, but thanks for showing me that particular bit of idiocy. You people are the weirdest blend of ignorance and confidence. OF COURSE Hitler undermined the press as a way of controlling the narrative. Jeebus. Read a book. Go to school. Something. Lügenpresse = "lying press" = "fake news" The whole point of the "fake news" campaign was to undermine the free press and establish Trump and his cronies as the sole source of "truth." Also the unironic name of his personal media platform. Your unhinged rants about the press make it pretty clear that the tactic had great effect on you. It's never quite clear whether you'd be better fitted for a brown shirt or a straight jacket.

While in general they had different motivations, I'd say the motivation for undermining the legitimacy of the republic is the same: to prime an audience for a consolidation of power in service of "restoration." The tried-and-true tactics that are strikingly similar. And the effect of those tactics on their cultish followers.

Aw, the pitiful thing is you probably believe this. Bless your heart.

To "school" someone you'd do better to try saying something remotely intelligent. I simply can't take you seriously. It's like trying to argue with a crazy guy ranting on a street corner.

"Funny" enough, one of Hitler's greatest tactics was undermining the media but calling it, essentially, "fake news." Scapegoating and alienating groups of people like immigrants and the elite. Undermining the entire legitimacy of the republic. Attempting a coup--and running for election afterward. Decrying globalism while staging a populist takeover of conservative politics. All part of his vision to Make Germany Great Again! And, of course, his most devoted followers believed they were supporting a savior rather than a monster. Hm...

The regurgitated crap in your own twisted, private "reality" is not accepted knowledge. 90% of it is pure bullshit, so you get called on it. What. Go watch more FOX broadcasts from the future on your magic TV.?

You asked for data. I provided multiple examples of studies--of which there are many--that are as simple as name swaps on resumes, controlling for all other variables. You promptly ignored them and returned to telling me about your perception. Okay. And no, by accident of birth I've had things pretty easy. I wasn't born to money, but as a straight, white male I get the benefit of the doubt every time. The power structure works in my favor, so I've never experienced real discrimination. I sure have seen it in the workplace though. It doesn't mean I didn't have to work hard to get where I am. (I'm a HENRY at this point.) But it's objectively true that I would have had to work X% harder if I had been a minority or a woman.

To be blunt, it feels a lot like you're asking me for data that shows water is wet or the sky is blue. There is nothing remotely controversial about what I've said. It's been an area of formal study for literally decades. There are mountains of books--both broad and specialized--examining the causes of systemic discrimination and marginilization. They make movies about it. Bias mitigation strategies are in place at every big business and major institution. This feels really reductive, because you can observe biases against women and minorities in nearly every facet of our society, but even if you just look at basic similarity bias it should be obvious that in a power structure dominated by white men, white men have an advantage. And people who are ignorant of that bias certainly aren't going to control for it. Again, classic name switch studies are very good at revealing bias. This is a replicable study that has been repeated by many institutions over the years, but this example is probably aligned to the time you were applying for jobs. Net net is that controlling for variables in resume quality, resumes with traditionally Black or Black-sounding names needed 50% more submissions to get a callback. The same differential as 8 years of experience. And that's before anyone sits down for an interview, where familiarity bias creates an even larger gap. Here's another broader trend (which I've discussed with associates recently): resume "whitening." In fact, companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don’t. Here's an interesting gender swap. Women are "penalized" in hiring for having very high grades. I conducted an audit study by submitting 2,106 job applications that experimentally manipulated applicants’ GPA, gender, and college major. Although GPA matters little for men, women benefit from moderate achievement but not high achievement. As a result, high-achieving men are called back significantly more often than high-achieving women—at a rate of nearly 2-to-1. Or numerous studies that identify massive gaps in promotions for women as prestige increases. This is a recent one. In the paper, “’Potential’ and the Gender Promotion Gap,” Li found that on average, women received higher performance ratings than male employees, but received 8.3% lower ratings for potential than men. The result was that female employees on average were 14% less likely to be promoted than their male colleagues. To determine whether women and men were assessed the same in terms of their potential, Li and co-researchers Alan Benson and Kelly Shue studied data on 30,000 management-track employees at a large North American retail chain between February 2009 and October 2015. Women made up about 56% of entry-level workers at the company. Rising through the ranks, women made up 48% of department managers, 35% of store managers, and 14% of district managers. Look, obviously we're not even really scratching the surface here. I'm not going to be able to give you a sociology course, let alone a rich sociology education. But the point is that nobody is "making up" issues of race and gender discrimination in this county. It ranges from overt discrimination to unconscious bias, but it's real and it's everywhere. I threw a few at you from hiring, but there are thousands of studies that identify the same trends in nearly every facet of life. When you deny that these things exist--phenomena that are very well documented--it feels a lot like willful blindness to support a political narrative. I'm glad that you're happy with what you overcame and with what you achieved. That's great. But your feelings don't invalidate the exhaustive research, and they certainly don't invalidate the feelings--the discouragement and depression--of people who are not overcoming their headwinds and are justifiably pissed about it.

We've had versions of this conversation several times before. You say there's no barrier, but then also point out the aggressions and disproportionate hardships you--and now your wife--have overcome but you made it. Which makes this the point at which I say "Thanks for helping to make my point." The possibility is not the same as the probability. Great that you overcame the systemic and cultural headwinds to achieve level of success with which you are happy. Just imagine how much further along you'd be if you worked just as hard while enjoying the tailwinds that are the "birthright" of every white male. Sure it's possible to finish a marathon if someone shackles you with 10 pound ankle weights, but you won't win, and a lot of people will give up long before the finish, because there's no winning a rigged race. All those things you and your wife have overcome isn't proof that there's no systemic and cultural bias. It's proof that there is. White privilege is very real. The patriarchy is very real. They are persistent and pernicious, and they reliably show up in the data.

Congrats. You've managed to be outraged about something that has been the status quo for both parties for 75 years. That's a lot of faux outrage to muster, but I knew you had it in you. Long, slow clap.

Why don't you go back to pretending to have me on ignore? I'm posting for people smart enough to follow an argument.

So, your argument here boils down to the idea that marginalized people shouldn't complain or expect equal access to the things they want, unless they also clamor for access to things they don't want? Sorry, but that's crap, and not how equality works, lol. And yes, patriarchy is real and a real problem. The same as institutional racism. White, male dominance of society isn't a switch that one simply turns off. There are myriad ingrained biases and habits that must be actively unlearned and overcome. There's exhaustive research on gender bias (in multiple forms) in schools, business, politics and everywhere else. It's a cradle-to-grave problem. If you don't want to read any of it, simply consider education. Teaching has always been dominated by women--75%ish, even today. But Principals were overwhelmingly men. Some progress has been made there of late, but even today males are dramatically overrepresented as a share of pipeline. That's a microcosm of the general social problem. Women are now allowed in the workplace--or at least tolerated in most professions. But they are still routinely overlooked and underrepresented when it comes to leadership positions.