Thursday, August 25, 2016

Why are some Democrats Supporting Trump?

Serious question:



These Democrats are calling themselves Trumpocrats (see also here).

Of course, you can see the answer: Trump is calling for, broadly speaking, left-wing policies on trade and protectionism, while Clinton is in favour of toxic neoliberalism and free trade. Clinton’s politically correct SJW program is starting to put even Democrats off the party; Trump rejects this cultural leftism nonsense.

Trump has also taken the GOP to the left of Clinton on some important economic issues.

Furthermore, Fox News hilariously misnamed the title of this video: it should read “Hillary’s Right Turn” and “Trump’s Left Turn.” For, as Walter Benn Michaels has shown, this SJW obsession with the cult of diversity, at the expense of serious economics, is very much part of the corporatist neoliberal program.

24 comments:

  1. Yeah, right-wing talking points on what constitutes the "Left" are funny but also rather depressing because they confuse matters. I know plenty of people who still think Obama is a "communist" or a "socialist." But on the other hand I guess it makes some sense if you define “Left” based on social/cultural issues and not economics.

    That was still a good video, though. The Democrats really have abandoned working people. It is also good to see a video on Trump supporters that doesn't concentrate on his wilder, racist followers. Most Trump supporters are just regular people who are fed up with neoliberalism, but the mainstream media wants you to think they are all neo-Nazis.

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  2. " this SJW obsession with the cult of diversity, at the expense of serious economics, is very much part of the corporatist neoliberal program."

    Piffle. One day you blame SJW crap on Foucault, then PoMO, then on neo-liberalism. SJWs are not part of the neoliberal concensus.

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    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF8qmot-1L8

      Lol!

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    2. Oh, snap!!!

      hahahaha...


      More seriously, if corporate culture isn't down with diversity, why this:

      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/business/target-steps-out-in-front-of-bathroom-choice-debate.html
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      Why diversity officers as far as the eye can see?

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    3. Here is DIRECT evidence of Big Business playing at being SJWs:

      http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-backlash-to-north-carolinas-lgbt-non-discrimination-ban/475500/

      There are SJWs in charge of many of these.

      Or what about the money involved? It's well known by marketers etc (and marketing, if you ever interact with these people, are almost fully signed on to being hardcore SJWs).

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_money

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    4. Idiots. I am not denying business bows down to SJW shit. But you have the sequence backwards. The culture is not full of SJWs because the Fortune 500 instituted diversity training bullshit. Companies go along to get along, to avoid potests, and suits, and OHSA complaints, and bad press and ...
      You'd blame Hitler on I G Farben to follow your logic.

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    5. "The culture is not full of SJWs because the Fortune 500 instituted diversity training bullshit. "

      And we didn't say it was, Kenny boy.

      Yes, the change in culture did come first and drove it, via 1960s New Leftism, progressive Liberal anti-discrimination, and the Postmodernist obsession with diversity.

      I imagine many corporate managers are Generation Xers stepped in this stuff, because it was part of their upbringing and culture.

      But "diversity" in the sense of wanting a cheap pool of immigrant labour has also been a part of age old business practice.

      This has also been accompanied by an intellectual movement within neoclassical economics that has a distaste for discrimination, because it interferes with the efficiency of free markets, namely the tendency to clearing of labour markets.

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    6. You certainly did say it. You said they were part of the program. That's what part of the program means. If you meant they were useful idiots you'd have said useful idiots instead.

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    7. I meant they were active pushers. It is well-known that the 60s countercultural 'revolution' was driven by marketers:

      https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Cool-Business-Counterculture-Consumerism/dp/0226260127

      They pushed this crap in the 60s. Now the crap has become more extreme and they're pushing bathroom police and other nonsense.

      This is very much so corporate driven. And if you're familiar with corporate culture you'll know why.

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    8. Thanks for that link to Thomas Frank's The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism - I'd never heard of this book before.

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    9. I seriously recommend you take a look. He makes a strong case that the marketers had picked up on the corporate critiques from sociology in the 1950s and actually started the individualist, creative. 'do what you feel' aesthetic before the youth culture did. In many ways Big Business drove the youth culture.

      Today I strongly believe something similar is happening with SJWism.

      It's amazing to me that pro-capitalist/corporatist 'conservatives' don't understand this.

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  3. B.S.

    (1) you fail to distinguish between the left-wing and right-wing pro-diversity, SJW mentality.

    (2) the right-wing pro-diversity, SJW mentality openly supports neoliberal policies.

    (3) the left-wing SJW groups might say that they hate neoliberal capitalism, but in practice they often spurn serious concern for economic issues, and support policies very much in line with what the right-wing pro-diversity crowd love: open borders and mass immigration and a more diverse elite.


    (4) the origins of Postmodernism (which gave birth to SJW identity politics) go back to French Poststructuralism and Foucault and even to the 1960s New Left, yes. But the obsession with diversity has permeated popular culture and the business elites too. As Walter Benn Michaels has shown, they are steeped in it too, but with open support for neoliberal economics.

    There is no contradiction here.

    -------------
    Clinton is at core the right-wing pro-diversity type, although she might pose as the left-wing type.

    Sanders, unfortunately, was on board with the left-wing SJW mentality, but at least had a real commitment to anti-neoliberal economic polices, unlike Clinton.

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  4. "SJWs are not part of the neoliberal concensus."

    The hardcore left-wing SJWs *think* they are anti-neoliberal. In practice, they are not since they

    (1) frequently know crap about serious economic issues and ignore or neglect these concerns, and

    (2) are also -- for reasons related to multiculturalism, refugee rights or postcolonial guilt -- strongly in favour of open borders and mass immigration, which corporate neoliberals love, and which the latter justify by saying how "diverse" they are.

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    1. Look, if all you are saying is that the cult of divsersity makes them useful idiots for open borders neoliberal corporations then sure. But your claim was much different: that they are creatures of the neoliberal corporate elite. That's wrong.

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    2. As for the video, that proves what exactly? That marketers know how to appeal to niche identity groups?

      https://priceonomics.com/how-an-ad-campaign-made-lesbians-fall-in-love-with/

      Let me ask you. Did that Vodka ad compaign come before or after the subculture became cool?

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    3. Irrelevant. Chicken and egg. You're looking for 'origins'. That is nonsense. What is interesting is which power groups are behind this stuff. Corporate capitalism has always been in the camp of the leftist culture warriors and now they are, very naturally, teaming up with SJWs.

      Conservatives who uncritically support capitalism are the biggest, most self-deluded morons I've ever come across. But once you understand that they're not ACTUALLY conservatives and that libertarians are really just pot-smoking lefties it makes lots of sense.

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    4. "... libertarians are really just pot-smoking lefties it makes lots of sense."

      oh, hahaha. I'm still laughing as I write.

      Of course, this might hit home when you realise that various pot smoking millennial leftists might vote for the pro-weed libertarian Gary Johnson, after their disillusion with Clinton and Bernie? -- that is, if they can remember what day the election is on and how to get to the voting booth.

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    5. TheIllusionist@August 26, 2016 at 1:53 AM

      Have you read the interview "Let Them Eat Diversity!" by Walter Benn Michaels? Had you seen this before?

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    6. Yes, I'd deen Michaels before. He's very Marxist. I think there are better accounts of the same phenomenon. As I keep saying, the disconnect on the cultural left can be traced right back to the late 19th century. No Freudian stuff in here I assure you:

      https://www.amazon.com/New-Radicalism-America-1889-1963-Intellectual/dp/0393316963

      But of course its true that this stuff has now completely taken over.

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    7. Surely this review of Lasch makes you want to read the book!
      __________

      3.0 out of 5 stars
      No longer of use
      By A Customer on May 19, 1999
      Format: Paperback
      I see no reason for anyone to waste any time on this book or on Lasch. Those of us challenging contemporary paradigms have had to endure a lot of hypocritical criticism lately, and Lasch is really not so different from other clueless white males who used to refer to themselves as left before jumping ship and swimming to the right. The reason that the contemporary unviersity course of study in the humanities favors individual experience and expression is because white heterosexist patriarchy has denied us this expression in the past. It is the structuring of Difference that has finally received some attention, instead of the usual empty and dry western civ type of stuff. I am proud to be a radical interrogating paradigms and subverting other people's dearest assumptions. Who needs a tiresome white male like Lasch whining about how radicalism has departed from his narrow-minded "principles"?

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    8. Do you have any other book recommendations?

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  5. Not sure I would agree on it being a left right divide here. I think its more about economic nationalism vs economic globalism. The protectionist position Trump endorses seems more about USA exceptionalism towards China. He also seems head scratchingly capricious. One minute he'll be in favour of universal healthcare, the next he wants it free market style. The other travesty is that the "free trade deals" have almost nothing to do with free trade as in reducing tarrifs. Ttip, NAFTA and so on are more about giving firms the right to override the rule of law. I'm pretty sure Hillary's against it anyhow. Let's hope it doesnt go through under Obama.

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  6. "Hillary Clinton is not going to throw a rock at a bees nest unless she gets a lot of money for it." LOL True, true!

    The problem still remains how seriously can you take Trump when he constantly shifts the ground he's standing on, makes his own products in China, and chose Mega-Free Trader Mike Pence for his Veep.

    Jill Stein. I'm tellin' ya, she's the real Keynesian in this race.

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