The photos of the "crowds" at the tank parade remind me of when Bill Hicks would come on stage in an almost-empty club, scan the room slowly, and announce "I've had more people in bed than this" ...
When the president sends a cabinet member on TV to announce "We are using the military to liberate an American city from its elected leaders," where do you go from there. What is left to say. The idea of that being anything short of a near-universal "Wait, what the fuck is going on" moment proves how far we've backslid.
This is from 2022 but it was absolutely right. The practiced buffoonery of Trump 1, all the "just kiddings" and "seriously but not literallys" absolutely succeeded in desensitizing people who are hardly paying any attention to the harder stuff they always intended to do next. ...
The basic fallacy in chasing votes by being "tough on immigration" is that the modal American's position on the issue is "Deport the Bad ones and keep the Good ones," and they alone know who is which, and that simply does not translate into workable policy. So this kind of gestapo stuff horrifies some of the same people who cheered when Trump promised to do it. There are true sociopaths who love this, but "No, I meant only the BAD immigrants! Not my coworker/friend/neighbor!" is as likely a reaction as enthusiasm. You cannot do immigration policy that satisfies these people because what they want is nonsensical.
So by the time center-left parties fully commit to chasing the far right by "getting tough" on immigration, the backlash has already begun to build and they walk right into it. "I thought you people wanted this!" No, they want something impossible and convinced themselves they'd could have it - the "eat whatever you want AND lose weight!" of immigration policies.
It is hard to grasp but large masses of Americans are both racist/xenophobic AND not racist/xenophobic enough to applaud what Trump is doing. It's goldilocks shit, they want a level of racism/xenophobia calibrated exactly to their personal preferences, and you just can't make that policy. Don't try. ...
AP: Trump extends olive branch, invites Musk to White House cellar to taste some brand new amontillado ...
j says:
I am statistically as likely to be Ed Burmila as I am to be swallowed by a sperm whale tonight. Which is zero. Unfortunately in the former case, but very happily in the latter case!
j says:
And yet, if you are a minority who is fortunate enough to get the same education and experience as your typical non-minority, there is a slight advantage to being able to enumerate your minority status in some fields such as my own. If you are a minority researcher, there are a number of grants and fellowships that are available to you that are not available to non-minorities. This can translate into cases where, if it's a toss of the coin between two people for one slot then if one has minority status then it's a slight push in their direction.
Given this situation, some people (dirty dirty republicans!) might think it's a bad thing because people aren't judged solely on their merits. Others might think it's a good thing because disenfranchised minorities need help and diversity should be celebrated.
I think it's a great thing for a very different reason: usually minorites who are well-qualified have had to push way harder to get where they are than non-minorities in a similar situation. The conservative rationale is turned on its head.
warmbowski says:
When I first head of Geraldine's remarks, I remembered the stuation between Isiah Thomas and Larry Bird back in the late '80s? Almost the opposite image of the current situation, with a black player (Thomas) playing the Ferraro part and disparaging a white player (Bird) in the context a heated playoff. I looked up the quote and it went something like – if Bird were black he "would be just another good guy".
I don't remember the outfall of these remarks too well, but I think that Thomas at least regretted them.
BTW
Ed says:
Well, J, I understand what you mean. Sometimes in academia one thinks "Man, if I were black I could get a job much more easily." What most people neglect to remind themselves is that if they were black they probably wouldn't be there to ponder that reality.