Bill Maher breaks out his coaching hat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

BlueFredneck wrote:You'd think the myth that there's this hidden group of folks who'd only vote if someone sufficiently progressive enough ran would've been squashed in MD-Gov 2018. Or 2020, in which Republicans STILL gained seats in the House and held the Senate.

It's not just saying White people suck. It's also saying White people have always sucked and that there's nothing that can be done about it. Again, this may not be the precise message they're intending to send - but it gets received as such. Any disagreement? Oh, you're just having White Fragility. Examine your privilege some more.

You've got White Americans, who watched the Cosby Show in the 1980s, and elected Obama in the 2000s, being told their nation is irrevocably racist. Can you fault them for being at least a little confused, if not angry?

If we need to hear out the legitimate grievances of Black people for whom the promise of America is imperfectly realized, it makes sense to lend a non-condescending ear to the legitimate grievances of White people for whom the promise of America is imperfectly realized. But at the same time, pretending it's 1952 with regards to race relations - how is that helping?

It may not be actual Democratic *leaders* (outside of the Squad) saying these things, but more likely the wider Democratic "blob" (basically Salon/HuffPost/other LW media, LW Twitter folks, and the such.

Republicans helped Dems a with 1/6, but not enough to still keep winning. Maybe the 1/6 rioters canceled out the long hot summer of 2020 and the damage they did Dems.

I had plenty of otherwise liberal, otherwise non-criminal friends on my FB feed excusing the post-Floyd riots. But it wasn't their homes and businesses getting smashed by the rioters - what turns out to have been regular criminals, far-right agitators, and far-left folks who'd been destroying stuff since 1999. Of course you had plenty of right-wingers who were quick to equalize suburban moms protesting police malfeasance with Chavistas and the KKK.

White people wanted to believe that because a black President was elected, America was no longer a racist nation. The challenges still existed however... homeownership and red lining; student loan debt; lack of access to capital for entrepreneurs; high infant mortality rates - even for black women with high socioeconomic status, etc. The amount of racism that President Obama experienced and the increase in social media posts about white supremacy sky rocketed. There are certainly white people who have not realized the American dream. I encourage you to read the Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. White people deny themselves programs that they need b/c they are so afraid that black and latino people might benefit. There are many poor white people who need health insurance and yet they support politicians who won't expand medicaid. White people need child care subsidies and yet they won't support them. White people need the child tax credit, but won't support it. White people need broadband and yet republicans (in the House) didn't support the infrastructure bill. White republicans need to stop complaining and realize that great nations fail. We haven't invested in infrastructure - the republicans won't support it and yet they complain about the supply chain. What do you want?

What do you want?

You make a bunch of talking posts that are loaded and certainly up for debate and which also indicates you look at things through a narrow prism (for example, redlining affected plenty of poor whites too). Was Obama treated worse than previous presidents? The sheer amount of vitriol against GWB and Bill Clinton has been too easily forgotten, as is the simple reality in many ways Obama wasn't a very good president. But I will tell you that if you focus on looking at everything solely through the prism of race, you make everything about race, and that is what people are revolting against. And it's one reason why Hispanic voters are starting to jump ship for the Republicans.

American politics has always been a tug of war over the role of government in our lives. And American history has always been a tug of war between many factors and groups and interests. What wokery has done is to reduce everything to a binary of black versus everything else and if you disagree with the official woke stance you are automatically racist as are all your views. So that's why the time honored position of limited government is seen as automatically racist and white supremacy. But I have news for you. Blacks are just one group among many. Race is just one factor among many in America's history. There is certainly an inherent selfishness in the woke awakening in its sweeping ignorance of the vast complexities and, ironically, diversity of the American experience and American history (for example, one only needs to look at the staggering lack of interest in the Native American experience to know how sincere the beliefs in equity are). And there is certainly ignorance in the woke claims that America's history was whitewashed. I was in school in the 1980s-1990s and all these topics were extensively covered - from slavery to Jim Crow, to the treatment of Native Americans and sending Chinese Americans to concentration camps during WWII and redlining and the Tulsa riots. They're not and were never brushed aside.

What it all boils down to, and what Bill Maher is talking about, is that America has always been a very diverse place. You ignore diversity is way more than just your skin color. America has always been a place of battling ideas and views and opinions. The promise of American liberalism - the classic enlightenment liberalism - was that all these beliefs and views and diversity of people were to be accommodated and respected, even the ones you didn't necessarily like. Was it perfectly executed? No, for the same reasons humans are not perfect. For much of modern American liberalism the goal was to bring more people and more respect to this playing field of ideas, and it was something most people regardless of political views agreed. But suddenly, and in a very short time frame, we're now being told by a surgent angry woke left that the very playing field and ideals of mutual and respectful exchanges of ideas and beliefs and tolerance is just another form of white supremacy and racist. In short, Americans were being told they were racist, and when they talked about respect of ideas and differing views, they are being told that's only racist too.

That's why voters are really angry right now. They thought they were getting a moderate in Biden who'd curb the excesses of passions on both the far right and far left, but instead found someone capitulating to the far left all the time. That's why despite record low unemployment and booming stock market, Biden's polls are so bad. That's why the Republicans are so favored to take back control of Congress next year - there is no love for the childish Republican party but at least they do seem closer to respecting the American principles of free speech and press and neutral playing field of ideas and beliefs - Donald Trump, for all his many crimes, never censored or stifled opposite viewpoints nor did Republican papers censor or fire writers and editors for the wrong thoughts. It's the Democratic-friendly big media that is censoring conservative or different views in the "name of good" and simultaneously donating so heavily to progressive causes at a level that not even big business did to the Republican party of old. People don't really care about investing in infrastructure or funding social programs of the price that comes with them includes greater woke control over private and public discourse and thoughts and beliefs and a leadership class that belittles and shames people for daring to have "wrong" views rather than accepting them as differences to be respected and acknowledged.

This. Woke principles are seeping into the federal government now as I just had a training that claimed hiring decisions should not be based on merit or ability in order to be inclusive. The FEVS survey also asked about your sex "assigned at birth" which confused me. Was this a religious question about a divine being determining my sex or are doctors observing newborn genitalia doing the assigning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

BlueFredneck wrote:You'd think the myth that there's this hidden group of folks who'd only vote if someone sufficiently progressive enough ran would've been squashed in MD-Gov 2018. Or 2020, in which Republicans STILL gained seats in the House and held the Senate.

It's not just saying White people suck. It's also saying White people have always sucked and that there's nothing that can be done about it. Again, this may not be the precise message they're intending to send - but it gets received as such. Any disagreement? Oh, you're just having White Fragility. Examine your privilege some more.

You've got White Americans, who watched the Cosby Show in the 1980s, and elected Obama in the 2000s, being told their nation is irrevocably racist. Can you fault them for being at least a little confused, if not angry?

If we need to hear out the legitimate grievances of Black people for whom the promise of America is imperfectly realized, it makes sense to lend a non-condescending ear to the legitimate grievances of White people for whom the promise of America is imperfectly realized. But at the same time, pretending it's 1952 with regards to race relations - how is that helping?

It may not be actual Democratic *leaders* (outside of the Squad) saying these things, but more likely the wider Democratic "blob" (basically Salon/HuffPost/other LW media, LW Twitter folks, and the such.

Republicans helped Dems a with 1/6, but not enough to still keep winning. Maybe the 1/6 rioters canceled out the long hot summer of 2020 and the damage they did Dems.

I had plenty of otherwise liberal, otherwise non-criminal friends on my FB feed excusing the post-Floyd riots. But it wasn't their homes and businesses getting smashed by the rioters - what turns out to have been regular criminals, far-right agitators, and far-left folks who'd been destroying stuff since 1999. Of course you had plenty of right-wingers who were quick to equalize suburban moms protesting police malfeasance with Chavistas and the KKK.

White people wanted to believe that because a black President was elected, America was no longer a racist nation. The challenges still existed however... homeownership and red lining; student loan debt; lack of access to capital for entrepreneurs; high infant mortality rates - even for black women with high socioeconomic status, etc. The amount of racism that President Obama experienced and the increase in social media posts about white supremacy sky rocketed. There are certainly white people who have not realized the American dream. I encourage you to read the Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. White people deny themselves programs that they need b/c they are so afraid that black and latino people might benefit. There are many poor white people who need health insurance and yet they support politicians who won't expand medicaid. White people need child care subsidies and yet they won't support them. White people need the child tax credit, but won't support it. White people need broadband and yet republicans (in the House) didn't support the infrastructure bill. White republicans need to stop complaining and realize that great nations fail. We haven't invested in infrastructure - the republicans won't support it and yet they complain about the supply chain. What do you want?

What do you want?

You make a bunch of talking posts that are loaded and certainly up for debate and which also indicates you look at things through a narrow prism (for example, redlining affected plenty of poor whites too). Was Obama treated worse than previous presidents? The sheer amount of vitriol against GWB and Bill Clinton has been too easily forgotten, as is the simple reality in many ways Obama wasn't a very good president. But I will tell you that if you focus on looking at everything solely through the prism of race, you make everything about race, and that is what people are revolting against. And it's one reason why Hispanic voters are starting to jump ship for the Republicans.

American politics has always been a tug of war over the role of government in our lives. And American history has always been a tug of war between many factors and groups and interests. What wokery has done is to reduce everything to a binary of black versus everything else and if you disagree with the official woke stance you are automatically racist as are all your views. So that's why the time honored position of limited government is seen as automatically racist and white supremacy. But I have news for you. Blacks are just one group among many. Race is just one factor among many in America's history. There is certainly an inherent selfishness in the woke awakening in its sweeping ignorance of the vast complexities and, ironically, diversity of the American experience and American history (for example, one only needs to look at the staggering lack of interest in the Native American experience to know how sincere the beliefs in equity are). And there is certainly ignorance in the woke claims that America's history was whitewashed. I was in school in the 1980s-1990s and all these topics were extensively covered - from slavery to Jim Crow, to the treatment of Native Americans and sending Chinese Americans to concentration camps during WWII and redlining and the Tulsa riots. They're not and were never brushed aside.

What it all boils down to, and what Bill Maher is talking about, is that America has always been a very diverse place. You ignore diversity is way more than just your skin color. America has always been a place of battling ideas and views and opinions. The promise of American liberalism - the classic enlightenment liberalism - was that all these beliefs and views and diversity of people were to be accommodated and respected, even the ones you didn't necessarily like. Was it perfectly executed? No, for the same reasons humans are not perfect. For much of modern American liberalism the goal was to bring more people and more respect to this playing field of ideas, and it was something most people regardless of political views agreed. But suddenly, and in a very short time frame, we're now being told by a surgent angry woke left that the very playing field and ideals of mutual and respectful exchanges of ideas and beliefs and tolerance is just another form of white supremacy and racist. In short, Americans were being told they were racist, and when they talked about respect of ideas and differing views, they are being told that's only racist too.

That's why voters are really angry right now. They thought they were getting a moderate in Biden who'd curb the excesses of passions on both the far right and far left, but instead found someone capitulating to the far left all the time. That's why despite record low unemployment and booming stock market, Biden's polls are so bad. That's why the Republicans are so favored to take back control of Congress next year - there is no love for the childish Republican party but at least they do seem closer to respecting the American principles of free speech and press and neutral playing field of ideas and beliefs - Donald Trump, for all his many crimes, never censored or stifled opposite viewpoints nor did Republican papers censor or fire writers and editors for the wrong thoughts. It's the Democratic-friendly big media that is censoring conservative or different views in the "name of good" and simultaneously donating so heavily to progressive causes at a level that not even big business did to the Republican party of old. People don't really care about investing in infrastructure or funding social programs of the price that comes with them includes greater woke control over private and public discourse and thoughts and beliefs and a leadership class that belittles and shames people for daring to have "wrong" views rather than accepting them as differences to be respected and acknowledged.

I actually work for a center right think tank and I think you are full of it. None of my talking points are up to debate. The only people who talk about wokeness are Republicans who like the talking point. Yes, Obama was absolutely treated worse than GWB and Clinton - at least when it comes to threats on his life. I also grew up in the 80s and you must have gone to an amazing school b/c I went to a very affluent school and they barely talked about Jim Crow and Slavery. It was all the whitewashed surface stuff.

There is no reasoning with you. The truth is that the black experience is different and that our history and the history of America has changed our trajectory. Why do you think there aren't more black billionaires? Look at what happened when black people excelled? Look at Greenwood, Wilmington, Rosewood? What is so hard with understanding our history and seeing how it impacts our lives today.

When I worked on the Hill in the early 1990s, there were many black republicans. It wasn't unusual like it is today. After Reagan (Philadelphia, MS) and GHWB (Willie Horton), black people started to leave the party in droves. Yes, a few more black and latinos have moved to the republican party, but don't get cocky. It's still a small number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can see all the previous posters continue to plug their ears and blame RW talking points or take the AOC explanation that young voters didn’t show up because the agenda wasn’t sufficiently progressive and that’s why democrats lost.

Stop.

Just stop.

Stop the singular lens of identity politics through which your party must view all things. Stop labeling everything white supremacy, or sexism, or the patriarchy, or basically elevating grievance culture to the fore, and pushing lack of self accountability to the background, and blaming external forces out of anyone’s control as the sole reasons for peoples problems. Stop trying to redefine or cut funding for policing in violence plagued communities. Stop using academic jargon in your policy language and getting mad when the average American doesn’t factor in intersectional feminism into every issue, when they just want to buy affordable gas and educate their children. Your focus on the rights of like tiny swaths of the population is going to fk you in the elections. I don’t care how hip you want to be.

Your candidates also lost because parents are concerned about the watering down of Gifted and Talented classes programs, or math education, or “punctuality” or basically that you lost focus of teaching English, math and science and decided to focus more on humanistic concepts and social injustice. Bother are important issues. Racism is terrible. However, people are not just perpetual victims that you can infantalize as John McWhorter succinctly notes. People are fed up with your histrionics and sensationalist bs. Get a fking grip.

+1 million
Prepare to be called a "racist."

I see that racism is really taking up real estate in your head. You scream it for everything even when no one is thinking about it.

Whooooosh...

[Anonymous]

I really dislike Bill Maher but agreed with most of his points here. I hope the Democrats can get it together in time for 2024. If there is another Biden vs Trump face-off, I do not think Biden will prevail this time around.

[Anonymous]

Democrats aren't going to get it together for 2022 or 2024. They've created disasters and those will have to play out.

In other news, Nancy Pelosi is moving from California to Florida. You can't make this stuff up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stop the singular lens of identity politics through which your party must view all things. […]

I pretty much ignored your whole rant, but I wanted you to understand: people only call it “identity politics” when it’s women and minorities wanting equal rights and equal access. The GOP is the party of identity politics.

[Anonymous]

Who the hell reads these insanely long posts? I’ve always liked Maher and I think it’s very brave to take a principled stand against the progressive woke bulls*it. Sad that it takes courage in this day and age to point out the obvious but the lunatics are running the asylum. Practical, sane, old school liberals like Maher are the future of the party.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who the hell reads these insanely long posts? I’ve always liked Maher and I think it’s very brave to take a principled stand against the progressive woke bulls*it. Sad that it takes courage in this day and age to point out the obvious but the lunatics are running the asylum. Practical, sane, old school liberals like Maher are the future of the party.

A washed up comic who’s said some extremely problematic things against marginalized communities in the past? Nope.
You sound privileged though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who the hell reads these insanely long posts? I’ve always liked Maher and I think it’s very brave to take a principled stand against the progressive woke bulls*it. Sad that it takes courage in this day and age to point out the obvious but the lunatics are running the asylum. Practical, sane, old school liberals like Maher are the future of the party.

A washed up comic who’s said some extremely problematic things against marginalized communities in the past? Nope.
You sound privileged though.

I’m insanely privileged but what does that have to do with anything. And I don’t think he’s washed up at all. He should go the Franken route and run but probably couldn’t be bothered.

[Anonymous]

There’s a lot of good discourse on this thread.

I’m a moderate who voted for Biden. I have a biracial family. I guess I need to qualify everything that way, as is the custom these days. Either way, if there is a non-Trumpian Republican I am voting for them in the next presidential election.

Ignore posts like mine at your peril. The left is pushing a moral absolutist agenda and they are shaming and using sensationalist claims of oppression at every angle. That and the woke polices being implemented to water down scholastic vigor or the criminal justice changes that allow for easy shoplifting or violent offenders to be more easily released etc. all of it. The scolding and hyperbole. You all need to tone it down. Tone down then Balkanization through your divise agenda. Stop the denial that certain philosophical teachings of crt aren’t flowing down from newly emboldened woke teachers into the classrooms causing students to have harmful feelings that they are either an oppressor or the oppressed. All of this is going to cost you huge at election time. It appears your solution is to double down. Listen to Carville instead of calling him an out of touch racist boomer. People are fed up with your sht.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of good discourse on this thread.

I’m a moderate who voted for Biden. I have a biracial family. I guess I need to qualify everything that way, as is the custom these days. Either way, if there is a non-Trumpian Republican I am voting for them in the next presidential election.

Ignore posts like mine at your peril. The left is pushing a moral absolutist agenda and they are shaming and using sensationalist claims of oppression at every angle. That and the woke polices being implemented to water down scholastic vigor or the criminal justice changes that allow for easy shoplifting or violent offenders to be more easily released etc. all of it. The scolding and hyperbole. You all need to tone it down. Tone down then Balkanization through your divise agenda. Stop the denial that certain philosophical teachings of crt aren’t flowing down from newly emboldened woke teachers into the classrooms causing students to have harmful feelings that they are either an oppressor or the oppressed. All of this is going to cost you huge at election time. It appears your solution is to double down. Listen to Carville instead of calling him an out of touch racist boomer. People are fed up with your sht.

+1 for the sake of the Union I hope the moderate Democrats wake up and course correct but a small part of me wants to see this progressive train wreck hit the wall in 2022. In 2024 I won’t vote for Biden or Trump if he runs so I’m in a bit of a pickle because I think they’re both going in different wrong directions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of good discourse on this thread.

I’m a moderate who voted for Biden. I have a biracial family. I guess I need to qualify everything that way, as is the custom these days. Either way, if there is a non-Trumpian Republican I am voting for them in the next presidential election.

Ignore posts like mine at your peril. The left is pushing a moral absolutist agenda and they are shaming and using sensationalist claims of oppression at every angle. That and the woke polices being implemented to water down scholastic vigor or the criminal justice changes that allow for easy shoplifting or violent offenders to be more easily released etc. all of it. The scolding and hyperbole. You all need to tone it down. Tone down then Balkanization through your divise agenda. Stop the denial that certain philosophical teachings of crt aren’t flowing down from newly emboldened woke teachers into the classrooms causing students to have harmful feelings that they are either an oppressor or the oppressed. All of this is going to cost you huge at election time. It appears your solution is to double down. Listen to Carville instead of calling him an out of touch racist boomer. People are fed up with your sht.

Carville? A Clintonista? You’ve got to be joking. After mcauliffe lost you can’t be trotting out another Clinton has-been. This brand of Democrat in Name Only (DiNO) has been done for A LONG time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of good discourse on this thread.

I’m a moderate who voted for Biden. I have a biracial family. I guess I need to qualify everything that way, as is the custom these days. Either way, if there is a non-Trumpian Republican I am voting for them in the next presidential election.

Ignore posts like mine at your peril. The left is pushing a moral absolutist agenda and they are shaming and using sensationalist claims of oppression at every angle. That and the woke polices being implemented to water down scholastic vigor or the criminal justice changes that allow for easy shoplifting or violent offenders to be more easily released etc. all of it. The scolding and hyperbole. You all need to tone it down. Tone down then Balkanization through your divise agenda. Stop the denial that certain philosophical teachings of crt aren’t flowing down from newly emboldened woke teachers into the classrooms causing students to have harmful feelings that they are either an oppressor or the oppressed. All of this is going to cost you huge at election time. It appears your solution is to double down. Listen to Carville instead of calling him an out of touch racist boomer. People are fed up with your sht.

Carville? A Clintonista? You’ve got to be joking. After mcauliffe lost you can’t be trotting out another Clinton has-been. This brand of Democrat in Name Only (DiNO) has been done for A LONG time.

Don’t be sense. The PP was referring to Carville’s recent warnings to the Democratic Party

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s a lot of good discourse on this thread.

I’m a moderate who voted for Biden. I have a biracial family. I guess I need to qualify everything that way, as is the custom these days. Either way, if there is a non-Trumpian Republican I am voting for them in the next presidential election.

Ignore posts like mine at your peril. The left is pushing a moral absolutist agenda and they are shaming and using sensationalist claims of oppression at every angle. That and the woke polices being implemented to water down scholastic vigor or the criminal justice changes that allow for easy shoplifting or violent offenders to be more easily released etc. all of it. The scolding and hyperbole. You all need to tone it down. Tone down then Balkanization through your divise agenda. Stop the denial that certain philosophical teachings of crt aren’t flowing down from newly emboldened woke teachers into the classrooms causing students to have harmful feelings that they are either an oppressor or the oppressed. All of this is going to cost you huge at election time. It appears your solution is to double down. Listen to Carville instead of calling him an out of touch racist boomer. People are fed up with your sht.

Carville? A Clintonista? You’ve got to be joking. After mcauliffe lost you can’t be trotting out another Clinton has-been. This brand of Democrat in Name Only (DiNO) has been done for A LONG time.

Then that spells the demise of the Democrat party next year. Extremist liberals (e.g., the "Squad") are playing purity politics and are going to get the party smashed.