There are many things I don’t feel like I fully understand. The concept of identity politics is one of them. Perhaps it’s not that I don’t understand it as much as it confuses me because it seems thrown around so much that it’s kind of meaningless to me. But for many years I’ve thought of identity politics as a term used to describe the way that politicians try to attract voters of specific identities. The way that democrats have tried to appeal to LGBTQ voters or African-American voters, and the way that republicans have tried to appeal to military members and people who are very religious. When I think of identity politics, it’s about appealing to people with these specific labels being part of their identity. But I think the idea can also be thought of in the converse: that support for a specific politician becomes part of a person’s identity. A shorthand for what’s important to them and where they stand on issues.
Continue reading “Trump and the new version of identity politics”Tag: Trump
Florida man…oh man
Florida has announced that all efforts to prevent the spread of COVID are over. Mask mandates cannot be enforced statewide, and restrictions are being lifted. This is so unfortunate. Again, as I’ve been saying, let’s compare this to Israel, then let’s think about how hard we work to stop people from dying from car accidents.
The Thing About Biden
Full disclosure, I’m planning to vote for Joe Biden in the New York Primary and I hope to vote for him again in November. I won’t think twice about voting for Sanders in November if he wins the nomination. But I cannot ignore the thing about Biden: that he’s getting old and he’s not as quick as he once was. He stumbles on simple sentences. He makes mistakes as he speaks. He garbles words and can’t recall phrases that I bet he’s known his whole life. He’s getting old and he’s not as quick as he once was. But…
Quick thoughts on impeachment
I’m a bit pressed for time, but wanted to vent about a couple of things before I have to run. I heard somebody on the news this morning say that the impeachment situation is a lot like the viral dress picture that had America fighting over color. There were true perceptual differences in how it was seen, and that may be the case here, but I can’t help but be incredibly frustrated by the way that people (both republicans and democrats) are talking about things.
Dueling Perspectives: thoughts on Russia, Trump, and Climate Change
I got a new car a few months ago and it came with a subscription to Sirius XM. I had never had it before, except in a rental, and never appreciated it. Now I have it, and it’s fueling my news addiction. That only matters because it’s directly responsible for me writing something this morning, for the first time this month. A former Congresswoman, a republican, was on CNN. I was listening in the car, and didn’t recognize her voice, nor was I listening when they introduced her and told us who she was. Without the chyron below, showing her name, the piece ended and I was left not knowing who she was. She was asked about the difficulty being a republican in Congress in the time of Trump. She spoke, more frankly than most republicans do these days, about the clear evidence that there was bad behavior by the Trump campaign. She said something like, “honestly, we have to be concerned about the people surrounding the President who were involved with the Russians.” But, in the end, she drew the line and differentiated between what the President (then candidate) knew and did. It’s a funny line to draw, and leaves me with some competing narratives: dueling perspectives…which in my head quickly pivoted to Climate Change. Follow me for the ride.
Continue reading “Dueling Perspectives: thoughts on Russia, Trump, and Climate Change”
Amazon and the Cult of Trump
Trump took to Twitter this morning to share some thoughts about Amazon. He doesn’t like Amazon. My guess is that he doesn’t like Jeff Bezos, because Jeff Bezos leans liberal. There’s not much out there on his political views, but when he bought the Washington Post, there was some reporting on it, and there’s not much evidence for any support for traditional conservative/republican causes. So, like most things with Trump, my guess is that this is a personal, and petty, feud, with no principled structure at all. But Trump is still out for Amazon. And that’s going to be a big point of conflict for the Cult of Trump, who show their true colors over and over when it comes to going against their proclaimed values to follow their cult leader.
The slow march to boredom, calculated in words per minute
It should be clear to anybody that I like following politics. Parts of politics that others find boring, I find interesting. I recognize that boring is a subjective term. That said, I was bored by last night’s State of the Union address. It felt like it went on and on, and without much said. Being somebody who likes to take a fact/data-based approach to things, I spent a little time this morning checking my emotional response, in the way that I’ve always wanted to maintain at Hitting Bregma (see here). Here’s what I found.
Continue reading “The slow march to boredom, calculated in words per minute”
The problem with bluster
The President of the United States is a pretty strange dude. He’s certainly not the only person in the world with the same kind of strangeness, but he seems to be almost completely devoid of humility and modesty. This may be what attracts some people to him, because it could be seen as strength to them, but to me it just makes him look like a really insecure person who is in constant need of validation to counteract his self-loathing. I can’t stand too strongly by that assumption, because I don’t know him. I’ve never talked to him in real life, and even if I had, I don’t have the ability to read his mind and know what he really sees when he looks in the mirror. So in the end, this is much like the missed opportunities that I’ve pondered before (here and here), but it’s amazing to me how much more mileage it seems the president could get by just being accurate, without the exaggeration and bluster.
“Shithole countries”
Trump said an awful thing. Although he denies it, several sources have confirmed that, in a closed-door meeting about immigration policy, he asked, “Why do we want all these people from ‘shithole countries’ coming here?” People went nuts, with good reason, but I think the focus has been wrong. This is cross-posted from my FaceBook, word for word (except this paragraph of introduction).
Disrupter in Chief
I think this is going to be another long, winding road. My thoughts are coming together in waves, and not all that organized. I may delete this opening before posting…or may just leave it here so I can watch the winding road and maybe enjoy the ride. I have a Facebook friend who I do not know in real life, and I don’t think I’ve ever met in real life. He became a Facebook friend because he maintains a pretty sizable following of Trump loyalists, and after going back and forth a few times, he asked me to join the fun. I don’t participate in the banter all that much since the start, mostly because it’s not my style (the typical response from the Trump loyalists is a meme about Hillary being ugly or something like that), and I get bored with the lack of real discussion. The folks over there seem more about winning, when I’m not there to compete. But this group has given me a window into Trump loyalists that I might not otherwise have, and I’ve made some generalizations. I know generalizations are often unwise, and I’m sure there are individuals who support Trump and do not fit this mold. Indeed, I’m not sure at all that these loyalists are representative of Trump supporters at all, so in truth I see this more as a focus group than a survey, but I’ve still seen some interesting things. Let’s start the ride.
Hitting Bregma 