the very LOUD minority
The chaos that ensued in the past few months in our country is unsettling. It has created anger, frustration, and certainly angst. It is like nothing we have ever seen. It is always important to figure out how we got here.
There is a conservative force that is well funded by very wealthy white men who want to ensure that they remain in power. Power includes the agenda of keeping their bank accounts well funded, making sure that women do not have rights over their bodies, allowing a free-for-all when it comes to the environment, cutting back taxes that erode all safety nets for anyone without pockets as deep as theirs and certainly having no interest in empathy towards their fellow person in this country or anywhere around the globe. There is more but those are the highlights.
In the past, when a new President is sworn in, the country unites. It is one of the high points of how we transfer power in this country. That did not happen this time. We have seen people demean this Presidency in such disrespectful ways that it is mind-boggling. Not surprising because when Senators dissed Obama on the floor in ways that we once believed to be unfathomable, it opened up a can of worms for everyone.
The majority of millennials and certainly Generation Z seem to be more liberal in their social views. Some might be fiscally conservative but they believe in gay rights, immigration, weed, income redistribution and that means healthcare for all. The conservative force has been hell-bent on making sure that their voice continues on to the next generation but it is difficult when this generation tends to socially lean left. They are not happy about rolling back policies that are in line with the future.
On college campuses, the conservative speakers that have come to give speeches, be it Berkeley or the University of Buffalo are being drowned out by the majority of students. It is the small sector of conservative students who are fully supported by the capital intensive conservative force that is working on getting those right-wing voices to campus. The anger we are seeing on campuses is the same type of anger we are seeing across the country. The majority of people are not happy with the current Presidency. The polls have proven that as Trump’s approval rating is shy of 38%. Considering he has only been in office for a few months, that’s not a pretty picture.
The voices that we are hearing are perhaps the voters that came to the polls, the voices of the minority as he did lose the majority vote by over 3m. The minority, the right wing, the conservative force is loud and vocal. Loud and vocal takes up too much space in the media. The media are amplifying the minority voices with deep pocket books because it grabs eyeballs but the silent majority is finally becoming louder. Our future is not going to be run by conservatives, it will be run by a new socially in tune with the majority of us voice that I hope is a lot more organized than the current Democratic party. Things must change. The louder the majority becomes, the less angst, the majority of us will have.
Comments (Archived):
Preach.
I am hopeful in the long term and at the core I agree.It will get uglier but yes, autocratic stereotyping mentality will always lose.Bigotry and racism and hate are not part of a personality,they are its core and nothing else they may or may not do matters.
“Racism still a disease,ignored, uncheckedit spreads with ease.Passed down through generationsnormalizing abominations.Airborne & highly contagious,still an issue, simply outrageous”- http://falicon.com/post/158…
Completely agree
And to me no good things come from this center.That’s the core of the problem everything else is a sympton.
.I’m confused. Are y’all the vocal minority or the majority who didn’t vote for President Trump?The rest of it I get. Unwillingness to embrace the results of the election because one’s favored candidate lost. It’s gotten so virulent that I have begun to like it. It provides a clear understanding of where folks stand, removes speculation, and that informs society.Well, there is one other thing — who are the Senators who “dissed Obama on the [Senate] floor”?I must have missed that. I do recall a Congressman Joe Wilson of Charleston, SC in September 2009 screaming “You lie” at President Obama during a speech to a joint session of Congfess, but not a Senator dissing the President on the Senate floor.Point of order, that would be a violation of longstanding Senate rules. You may recall Sen Elizabeth Warren going on the warpath against a fellow Senator and being jerked up short and censured for her personal attack. I know she couldn’t control herself with that passionate Indian blood.In the spirit of full disclosure, I must reveal that Joe Wilson is a Washington & Lee grad (shares a property line with my alma mater, VMI, in Lexington, Virginia) and that makes me dislike him instinctively. Damn minks! His conduct was inexcusable, but I noted he was from South Carolina.The phenomenon of youth being liberal while the mature citizens trend more conservative is not a new phenomenon. Really, not even remarkable.”If you are not a liberal at twenty-five, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at thirty-five, you have no brain.”This quote is often attributed to Churchill but it is acknowledged to have appeared in print as early as the 1870s. I like the Churchill attribution though I admit it is not likely.This will all pass, though it will take some time.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
thank you for your wonderful voice
Racism is an economic system. Designed to keep the wealthy wealthy—and once you have wealth you have power. Economic power which you can then leverage into political power if you so choose. Sexism is likewise designed to keep economic power in the hands of a few—-but it is also designed to keep sexual power there as well. It’s an ugly set of overlapping systems, and when racism and sexism are openly touted as the ways for America to be great—well, it’s almost unfathomable for those who have worked so hard to end such oppressive systems.The people who agree with those systems are loud—but they are also very strategic. I recently found out, for example—that anti-feminism is used as a “gateway drug” to more radical ideas such as white supremacy. Once you can get someone to believe that feminism is bad, it’s a short step to get them to become more overtly sexist, racist, homophobic and Anti-Semitic. The vocal minority, as you call them, knows that they can go into online communities, and that “once the communities have accepted run of the mill anti-feminism, they will begin to espouse white nationalist ideas.” This was from research done by investigative reporters, but it is also what I have seen unfold over the years. I think its important to understand how this dynamic leads to what we are seeing at the top (ie, that is how they get their supporters) and to also understand that this is how our younger generation could be at risk.Things can change, and, as you say, things must change. The majority of people—those who believe that racism and sexism are oppressive systems and can see just how bad it can be if those systems are enabled—must work to see what is going on, speak about it clearly, and create that change.
Fascinating
.Wow, you are way overthinking the issues.There is a virulent Southern racism which is just hate. Nothing more. It is the embodiment of evil and it doesn’t spend any time thinking about anything once it sees the color of a man’s sin. Suggesting it has an intellectual basis only dignifies it in a manner which obscures its elegant simplicity. It is hate.It became institutionalized in the US from the practice of slavery and the end of the Civil War during Reconstruction. This was from an instant in time in which the words sexism and feminism and homophobic were not even part of the language. Words hadn’t been invented.Racism does not require any travel companions. It travels well all by itself and doesn’t look for or need support. We may chuckle and laugh at books like The Help, but it is real and it has its own country clubs.Its institutionalization was manifested in creating a physical plant with bathrooms and other facilities titled White and Colored. As a kid, I saw those facilities. You would have to look pretty damn hard to find that institutionalization today. The physical plant is gone though the hatred remains.We had a segregated Army. It is hard to believe that ever happened. We were reluctant to allow a black man to die for our country.Anti-Semitism is centuries old and emigrated to the US with the European floods. There is a core of financial envy which drives this evil. To this day, a Jew in Savannah, Georgia cannot find a country club to join.I note with interest that a Saudi King shook hands with an observant Jew and his wife, an unscarfed Jewess. I also note that the Wailing Wall has a proscribed “men’s” and “women’s” section.Our country barely agrees on the definition of “feminism” let alone being able to articulate the behavior in favor of or against it. We can pick a fight on abortion but it is a binary spat with no middle ground or nuance.The notion of “white nationalist” ideas is an attempt to put a college degreed description on old fashioned red necks with Confederate flags. There are some things which are best served by ignoring them and hoping they will breed themselves out of existence.These are not “systems” in any sense of the word. The future of the world is still held hostage to parenting. Always has been. You get lucky on your parents and you become like them.When we try to make problems complex, we overlook the simple solutions.When the Army became integrated, within twenty years, the NCO corps became dominated by excellence. And excellence was color blind.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Absolutely. I keep telling this story to all my friends who are outraged by the current political situation. When I tell them that’s it’s strategic, they don’t believe me. They tell me things like, “Trump is an idiot, there is no way he has any strategy.” Liberals have to take their blinders off and truly try to understand the strategic way that right/religious wing conservatives are systemically creating paradigms and culturing whole new generations. They have to understand that it’s not just Trump but a whole underground movement that conservatives have been patiently culturing over decades.
.Holy shit! You actually believe that?Trump is neither a Republican nor a conservative. He didn’t have any real involvement in politics until a year ago. He was not even part time.The left is struggling to find an explanation which has a plan beneath it so they can justify the disheartening loss of their hand picked hand maiden.The 2014 election was about anger. The 2016 election was about anger.The guy was a part time, amateur who beat a seasoned pro because the seasoned pro was lazy and was expecting a canonization rather than a fight. The media, in many ways, created the outcome.The MSM told Hillary, “We go this for you.”The MSM told the public, “Trump is an idiot.” Remember how they laughed when Ann Coulter said Trump would not only get the nomination, he could win? They laughed at Ghandi and they laughed at Trump.Hillary denigrated the deplorables. The MSM doubled down and provided the glue to make them stick together.All Trump did was to say to them, “See? See what THEY think of you? Me, I love you.”All that is happening now is the liberal left and the MSM are solidifying the Trump support and making converts of the fence sitters. The end of this movie has already been written.Turns out the Vast. Right. Wing. Conspiracy. wasn’t real. But, they voted like they were.JLM
Decades!
Yes, decades.SCHOLARLY OVERVIEWS:The Rise of Right-wing Populism in Europe and the United States – http://www.fesdc.org/filead…Conservative and Right-Wing Movements | Annual review of Sociology, 2010 – http://www.annualreviews.or…The Religious Right in America | Oxford University Research -http://religion.oxfordre.co…ARTICLES, BOOKS, AUTOBIOGRAPHY:I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School, Awaiting Someone Like Mike Pence as a Messiah – https://www.autostraddle.co…Escaping the Extreme Christian Fundamentalism of “Quiverfull” – http://www.slate.com/blogs/…Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement – https://www.amazon.com/Quiv…
George Soros is an old wealthy white male, he’s not funding conservatives. As a matter of fact, most of the people funding the hard left are old wealthy, white males. I disagree with your premise that conservatives are in the minority. Perhaps as you define it. But, what I find with people is they want smaller less intrusive government-and lately they are willing to migrate to get it.What I am seeing in the left is a lack of tolerance, and an attitude that is reminiscent of a different era.