President Donald Trump

[Bernie Brewer]

Republicans play identity politics just as much as Deomcrats, and some of the identities they have played to recently are highly disturbing. As I have brought up before, Trump courted and instigated racists and white nationalists throughout his campaign. He won on a platform of tribalism, so I take anything hatch, an ardent supporter of trump with a large hunk of salt. He only sees the fault in his opposition without recognizing it in himself. No Republican on this board has challenged the fact that trump played to racists in his campaign, even though several still voted for him and support him.

I think you said pretty much what I’ve said. Trump figured out how to play the EC and the ID politics games and beat the Dems at both. I’m not happy about that but it is reality.

[Hornsby]

I Had something else writtten here, but I decided to let Orrin Hatch’s op ed form yesterday’s WSJ speak for itself. I agree with his comments and that’s why Identity politics sucks. Again, your mileage will very likely vary.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/identit...ent-1526680162

Let's not forget that Orrin Hatch was one of the leaders to block Merrick Garland without even a hearing...Garland was widely considered to be one of the most centrish jurists around. So I'm going to look at whatever Hatch says with a VERY skeptical eye. Walk the walk, don't just talk the talk...

[swampdragon]

Let's not forget that Orrin Hatch was one of the leaders to block Merrick Garland without even a hearing...Garland was widely considered to be one of the most centrish jurists around. So I'm going to look at whatever Hatch says with a VERY skeptical eye. Walk the walk, don't just talk the talk...

yep - https://www.politico.com/story/2016/...meeting-223626

[Bernie Brewer]

Let's not forget that Orrin Hatch was one of the leaders to block Merrick Garland without even a hearing...Garland was widely considered to be one of the most centrish jurists around. So I'm going to look at whatever Hatch says with a VERY skeptical eye. Walk the walk, don't just talk the talk...

I wasn’t endorsing Orrin Hatch, for goodness sakes. But, if your only defense in favor of identity politics is to find fault with the writer of a description that pretty much sums up my feelings on the topic, well then have at it.

Oh, and for the record, not that this thread is about Garland, I have no problem with the GOP blocking Obama’s nominee. I think it was a stretch by the GOP, but I’m certain that one day that maneuver will become another “reap what you sow” moment, just like when Harry Reid did away with the 60% rule. I’m sure the Dems learned a new trip that we’ll see play out the next time it can.

[Hornsby]

I wasn’t endorsing Orrin Hatch, for goodness sakes. But, if your only defense in favor of identity politics is to find fault with the writer of a description that pretty much sums up my feelings on the topic, well then have at it.

Oh, and for the record, not that this thread is about Garland, I have no problem with the GOP blocking Obama’s nominee. I think it was a stretch by the GOP, but I’m certain that one day that maneuver will become another “reap what you sow” moment, just like when Harry Reid did away with the 60% rule. I’m sure the Dems learned a new trip that we’ll see play out the next time it can.

I DO have a problem with the GOP blocking Garland. There was no other reason to do so other than to not allow Obama a 3rd SUPCO nomination. None whatsoever, so yeah, anything that come out of Hatch's mouth (or keyboard) like this reeks of hypocrisy.

And my problem with identity politics is that it's omnipresent, no one party has a lock on it.

It's your opinion and you're welcome to it...I've got mine as well. And the tit for tat thing is old and played out...ALL politicians need to grow up. But they won't because they're pretty much all petulant children.

[Bernie Brewer]

And the tit for tat thing is old and played out...ALL politicians need to grow up. But they won't because they're pretty much all petulant children.

That comment right there, with which I very much agree, pretty sums it all up. And, that’s why there will be no meaningful guns reform, DACA and ACA can’t get fixed, etc. etc.

Sadly, maybe it’s my age, but it’s why I get frustrated and lose hope for the future. And I don’t want to feel that way. But, something’s got to give. What will it be? It’s a rhetorical question. It’s, as I have tried saying forever on this Board, not just a GOP problem. If you blame one party, then you are a part of the problem. I’m not pointing at you, Horns, when I use the general generic “you,” I’m a part of the problem because I don’t know how I can contribute toward fixing it. Except, I guess voting for the best candidates and hope.

[DMT]

While I agree both parties share the blame, the obstructionism by Replublicans starting with Newt started the ball rolling and they ratcheted it up even further under Obama. Let's not forget McConnell's publicly stated goal.

[Hornsby]

That comment right there, with which I very much agree, pretty sums it all up. And, that’s why there will be no meaningful guns reform, DACA and ACA can’t get fixed, etc. etc.

Sadly, maybe it’s my age, but it’s why I get frustrated and lose hope for the future. And I don’t want to feel that way. But, something’s got to give. What will it be? It’s a rhetorical question. It’s, as I have tried saying forever on this Board, not just a GOP problem. If you blame one party, then you are a part of the problem. I’m not pointing at you, Horns, when I use the general generic “you,” I’m a part of the problem because I don’t know how I can contribute toward fixing it. Except, I guess voting for the best candidates and hope.

And I have some hope for the future...I see the kids getting involved in politics, due to the adults in power, either being incapable, or unwilling, to do what's right. I see Vets getting involved, people who know what it's like to be in harms way, I see women getting involved because they're tired of being ignored. Sooner or later, they WILL throw the bums out...and then hopefully, they won't become the NEW bums.

And yes, it's largely a Democratic rising, but there's nothing at all stopping the GOP from getting into the mix. All they have to do is to look at this country, and see what it really needs...

[Fresno Bob]

I will play along although i rarely vote Republican. I am by no means in the .01%. We are solidly middle class. I own a very small seasonal restaurant (12 seasonal college aged employess) and my wife is a spec ed teacher. The GOP just enacted a tax cut that gets us an extra $1900/yr, which i think is pretty good (but obviouslycrumbs to the Pelosi crowd). We have health care thru her job. Please tell me what the Dems have done ECONOMICALLY for people like me that will allow me to ascertain that i would be 100% voting against my interests to vote GOP

The democratic platform is to provide health care and education to your customers, workers and your wife's students, all of which has a cost 10X the 1900 a year you get

[B-Fly]

I had something else writtten here, but I decided to let Orrin Hatch’s op ed from yesterday’s WSJ speak for itself. I agree with his comments and that’s why Identity politics sucks. Again, your mileage will very likely vary.


Identity Politics Threatens the American Experiment
Increasingly we sort each other into groups, making sweeping assumptions based on binary labels.




Our tendency to use labels to box each other in is indicative of a much larger societal problem: the unleashing of identity politics. Identity politics is tribalism by another name. It is the deliberate and often unnatural segregation of people into categories for political gain. Under this cynical program, the identity of the group subsumes the identity of the individual, allowing little room for independence, self-realization or free thought.

Some play down the dangers of this practice, but identity politics is a blight on our democracy. It feeds fear, division, acrimony and anger. Worse, identity politics is inimical to the very idea of what it means to be American.

For more than two centuries, we have been able to weave together the disparate threads of a diverse society more successfully than any nation on earth. How? Through the unifying power of the American idea that all of us—regardless of color, class or creed—are equal, and that we can work together to build a more perfect union. It’s the idea that our dignity comes not from the groups to which we belong but from our inherent worth as individuals—as children of the same God and partakers of the same human condition.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/identit...ent-1526680162

I want to go back to this Orrin Hatch statement, particularly with regards to American history. He says that "for more than two centuries we have been able to weave together the disparate threads of a diverse society more successfully than any nation on earth...through the unifying power of the American ideal that all of us--regardless of color, class or creed--are equal..."

Yet two centuries ago Blacks were still legally enslaved. In the early history of the United States, only white male property owners were allowed to vote. Even after Emancipation, poll taxes, literacy tests and religion tests were used in many states to deny citizens the vote. Women couldn't vote until the 20th Century. Jim Crow laws denied equal protection of the laws based on race until the latter part of the 20th century. Our nation made progress in those areas over the last two centuries, but that progress was slow and unsteady, and it required active, progressive advocacy for equal justice. To decry "identity politics" as antithetical to "the very idea of what it means to be an American" while referencing over 200 years of American history seems grossly obtuse to the role over those two centuries of "social justice warriors" of many stripes to drive the country, often kicking and screaming, toward increasing recognition of legal and moral equality and a more universal concept of human dignity. Only a trick of semantics allows one to define "identity politics" in a way that condemns it as mere tribalism and a cancer on our political society, and yet still carve out room to embrace the abolition movement, the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, etc, as acceptable advancements in equality and human dignity. What, in your opinion, legitimately distinguishes the now well-accepted positive progressive efforts of the past to address legal, political and societal inequality on the basis of color, class, sex or creed from the hobgoblin of "identity politics".

[DMT]

[Mithrandir]

I want to go back to this Orrin Hatch statement, particularly with regards to American history. He says that "for more than two centuries we have been able to weave together the disparate threads of a diverse society more successfully than any nation on earth...through the unifying power of the American ideal that all of us--regardless of color, class or creed--are equal..."

Yet two centuries ago Blacks were still legally enslaved. In the early history of the United States, only white male property owners were allowed to vote. Even after Emancipation, poll taxes, literacy tests and religion tests were used in many states to deny citizens the vote. Women couldn't vote until the 20th Century. Jim Crow laws denied equal protection of the laws based on race until the latter part of the 20th century. Our nation made progress in those areas over the last two centuries, but that progress was slow and unsteady, and it required active, progressive advocacy for equal justice. To decry "identity politics" as antithetical to "the very idea of what it means to be an American" while referencing over 200 years of American history seems grossly obtuse to the role over those two centuries of "social justice warriors" of many stripes to drive the country, often kicking and screaming, toward increasing recognition of legal and moral equality and a more universal concept of human dignity. Only a trick of semantics allows one to define "identity politics" in a way that condemns it as mere tribalism and a cancer on our political society, and yet still carve out room to embrace the abolition movement, the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, etc, as acceptable advancements in equality and human dignity. What, in your opinion, legitimately distinguishes the now well-accepted positive progressive efforts of the past to address legal, political and societal inequality on the basis of color, class, sex or creed from the hobgoblin of "identity politics".

After he said that part that I put in bold did Hatch say "unless you're not a a white guy?".

Go to 2:10 of the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf6lMzLI47g

[Bernie Brewer]

I want to go back to this Orrin Hatch statement, particularly with regards to American history. He says that "for more than two centuries we have been able to weave together the disparate threads of a diverse society more successfully than any nation on earth...through the unifying power of the American ideal that all of us--regardless of color, class or creed--are equal..."

Yet two centuries ago Blacks were still legally enslaved. In the early history of the United States, only white male property owners were allowed to vote. Even after Emancipation, poll taxes, literacy tests and religion tests were used in many states to deny citizens the vote. Women couldn't vote until the 20th Century. Jim Crow laws denied equal protection of the laws based on race until the latter part of the 20th century. Our nation made progress in those areas over the last two centuries, but that progress was slow and unsteady, and it required active, progressive advocacy for equal justice. To decry "identity politics" as antithetical to "the very idea of what it means to be an American" while referencing over 200 years of American history seems grossly obtuse to the role over those two centuries of "social justice warriors" of many stripes to drive the country, often kicking and screaming, toward increasing recognition of legal and moral equality and a more universal concept of human dignity. Only a trick of semantics allows one to define "identity politics" in a way that condemns it as mere tribalism and a cancer on our political society, and yet still carve out room to embrace the abolition movement, the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, etc, as acceptable advancements in equality and human dignity. What, in your opinion, legitimately distinguishes the now well-accepted positive progressive efforts of the past to address legal, political and societal inequality on the basis of color, class, sex or creed from the hobgoblin of "identity politics".

Are you asking this question of me? If so, where did I endorse Orrin Hatch? I just said he summed up my feelings on identity politics which was discussed earlier in this thread. Legit Identity politics has lead to many mostly positive changes and cultural and legal advancements, but it’s the co-opting of causes bothers me. I never said I agreed with absolutely every premise Hatch wrote. But because I think identity politics as played by both parties with little regard for the people identified are bad for the country, am I to now address and answer for all of human history or just the last 236 years? That would be extremely difficult because I’ve only 61 of those years and maybe only politically aware for 30 years. I simply said that Co-opting the breaking of people into tidy little groups that serve to exploit them and only achieve a political gain is bull shit. We were taking about women and their rights. Now, I didn’t create the phrase “war in women” but was completely contrived by the Democrats as a means to wedge women to their side. Yes they actively promote women’s rights. But I contend they do so to pander to their audience. Your mileage may vary. I asked and no one answered legitimately what platforms are the Republicans putting forth that try to take away women’s rights exactly. Yes, I understand there are differences of opinion on right to life or pro choice. But what else? Someone posted various bills that promote causes for women as a way to demonstrate that republicans are against women. Hardly! Like many bills, it’s whats in the bill, not the idea of it. The feminism movement doesn’t promote the advancement of all women, their very selective in whom is “breaking glass ceilings” and those who is a pawn of the male dominated right. We have as of this morning the first female CIA Director. I’ll bet NOW is throwing a huge parade! Glass ceiling shattered, but then again, maybe not. If you think the kind of identity politics going on today as it has been weaponized to divide and create extremism is acceptable, well then, enjoy the Trump ride. Because he is really good at it. And, not in the Good way.

As I promised DMT, I will re-read my posts to read them how another person might. I’m not angry, although it seems that way. Im just disappointment and frustrated with the current political environment. Both parties are to blame, IMO. Equally, not sure, but both are to blame.

[OaklandA's]

I asked and no one answered legitimately what platforms are the Republicans putting forth that try to take away women’s rights exactly. Yes, I understand there are differences of opinion on right to life or pro choice. But what else? Someone posted various bills that promote causes for women as a way to demonstrate that republicans are against women. Hardly! Like many bills, it’s whats in the bill, not the idea of it. The feminism movement doesn’t promote the advancement of all women, their very selective in whom is “breaking glass ceilings” and those who is a pawn of the male dominated right. We have as of this morning the first female CIA Director. I’ll bet NOW is throwing a huge parade! Glass ceiling shattered, but then again, maybe not.

I did answer; you just chose to disagree with the evidence. If there is something specific in those bills promoted by Democrats on issues like equal pay, anti-discrimination, anti-violence that the GOP didn't like, then I hope they would present their own bills that address those issues. But they haven't, mainly because they dispute the idea that such bills are needed.

The goal of the feminist movement is not to shatter a glass ceiling - the goal is to enact policies that promote equality and fairness. The idea is to help everyone, not one specific person. Politicians like Haspel and Palin are not getting the support of NOW because of their ideas.

By the way, great post by B-Fly above.

[B-Fly]

Are you asking this question of me? If so, where did I endorse Orrin Hatch? I just said he summed up my feelings on identity politics which was discussed earlier in this thread. Legit Identity politics has lead to many mostly positive changes and cultural and legal advancements, but it’s the co-opting of causes bothers me. I never said I agreed with absolutely every premise Hatch wrote. But because I think identity politics as played by both parties with little regard for the people identified are bad for the country, am I to now address and answer for all of human history or just the last 236 years? That would be extremely difficult because I’ve only 61 of those years and maybe only politically aware for 30 years. I simply said that Co-opting the breaking of people into tidy little groups that serve to exploit them and only achieve a political gain is bull shit. We were taking about women and their rights. Now, I didn’t create the phrase “war in women” but was completely contrived by the Democrats as a means to wedge women to their side. Yes they actively promote women’s rights. But I contend they do so to pander to their audience. Your mileage may vary. I asked and no one answered legitimately what platforms are the Republicans putting forth that try to take away women’s rights exactly. Yes, I understand there are differences of opinion on right to life or pro choice. But what else? Someone posted various bills that promote causes for women as a way to demonstrate that republicans are against women. Hardly! Like many bills, it’s whats in the bill, not the idea of it. The feminism movement doesn’t promote the advancement of all women, their very selective in whom is “breaking glass ceilings” and those who is a pawn of the male dominated right. We have as of this morning the first female CIA Director. I’ll bet NOW is throwing a huge parade! Glass ceiling shattered, but then again, maybe not. If you think the kind of identity politics going on today as it has been weaponized to divide and create extremism is acceptable, well then, enjoy the Trump ride. Because he is really good at it.

Well, I'd certainly say that the many, many restrictions on reproductive rights passed by Republicans in state legislatures take away women's rights and harm women. There have been many hundreds of measures actively promoted and passed by Republican state legislatures rolling back abortion rights and removing insurance coverage for contraception and family planning. The federal government and many state governments, under Republicans, have removed or materially curtailed public funding for health clinics serving women who can't necessarily afford to otherwise obtain those health services, including but not limited to Planned Parenthood. They also slashed the WIC program that provided federal assistance for health services for low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women and infants and children under five. Trump expanded the "gag rule" implemented by Reagan that withholds US funding from global health clinics serving the needs of women if they dare to even so much as acknowledge the option of abortion. Scott Walker in Wisconsin actively repealed the state's Equal Pay Enforcement Act. Trump and DeVos also affirmatively rescinded Obama-era guidance designed to attach some standards and Office of Civil Rights enforcement muscle to investigations of on-campus sexual assault under Title IX. So even if I ignore Republican omissions (e.g., Republican opposition to Democratic-sponsored bills aimed at protecting or expanding the rights and interests of women), there are still plenty of things Republican's have affirmatively done that harm women.