US Presidential election 2016

[Bilo]

Errr, I think you've missed the point. If you allow Muslims to enter your country you're going to get people from all those groups. More than one of them is undesirable.

Although I'd refrain from calling people undesirable (it really doesn't sound good does it), this goes for every single population in the world. So I take it you're against movement, period? No one should ever cross a single border since you get people from all the groups?

That just isn't sustainable mate.

And you're also wrong about the religion having no bearing whatsoever on whether people become terrorists. This is a line that's trotted out repeatedly but is demonstrably false.

When was this proven to the point that my statement is "demonstrably false"? From your next post, I'll be expecting something tangible proving a direct causation between religion and terrorism. I mean, you wouldn't make it up, would you? Best of luck.

There are plenty of other religions that have adherents you could classify as fundamentalists but who aren't dangerous. There are plenty of other oppressed people who don't resort to mass murder on a regular basis.

Sure, and there are lots of differences that come into the equation here too. But do you genuinely believe that without islam, there'd be no terrorists from the middle east? I'm trying to gauge just how far you're willing to go to blame islam for terrorism when throughout history, terrorism has always existed and there's no tangible line between it and religion. Causation, correlation and all that stuff it's so easy to ignore.

Of course most Muslims aren't terrible, dangerous people, but to claim the religion and the ideology are not linked is either disingenuous or ignorant.

It's not, it's a very common narrative. How nice of you to point out that most muslims aren't terrible, dangerous people though.

 

[Son of Cod]

fwiw when i first posted this on fb i got 30 likes and 2 shares. nice theft though BRO

*29

 

[Martino Quackavelli]

u just lost a friend

 

[epic73]

This politics section is serious stuff I see.

 

[G-Dragon]

It is shocking people believe there is no link between Islam and terrorism. Glad Trump won.

 

[Jockney]

I agree with most of this, but if the problems still are oppression of minorities than I think your line of arguing -- let's see if I get it right this time -- is that the system causes it? I disagree entirely, structural racism causes it and the system can work against it, or enable it. Trump's an enabler, Obama was naive but not all presidents have been Reagan.

This is extremely cynical throughout. I'll step back by saying I don't know quite enough about the American system to tell you that you're wrong; but I do live in Sweden, which is capitalistic, and here none of that is accurate. And believe me when I tell you that I do know enough about the political system in Sweden to tell you that what you're saying is inaccurate. I do think power in itself is problematic (what's that quote now, power corrupts and absolute ..?), but it can be both divided and controlled. Now I realize I'm forcing you into a corner where you either read up on Swedish politics or concede that there's two ways about it, but I can't see another way of going about this. For fairness sake, I'll give you a long run down if you actually ask me to do it. Please don't


Movements need politicians and politicians need movements, both can breed one another. Bernie called himself a socialist and almost beat Clinton, that was fairly new.


Well, there's more to it than that but I largely agree.


Feminism doesn't have a very strong class orientation, not contemporary feminism anyway. It's gender orientated to the point that it rhetorically tends to insinuate that the most oppressed white male is still more privileged than the most privileged woman. I concede that I shouldn't have said in its very nature, you're right. But contemporary feminism in its current state represented by those I broadly generalize through vague rhetorical similarities do, in fact, ignore class as much as they can because they, too, act in a political arena where every response has 30 seconds or you're done.


No, people have always been egocentric, they became individualized through under-developed world views presented to them by opportunists, rather than idealists.


Solidarity is extremely complex in practical terms. It's not a complex notion in theory, no, but in theory you never have to help to the extent that you damage your own welfare. In the real world, you're forced to, eventually. The only question is where you draw the line, if you're like Alty and draw the line as far away as possible or if you're ready to give up some of your welfare to help others. But to call it not a particularly complex notion is trivializing it.


I didn't say liberal democracy, I said democracy, which in the beginning was exactly what I described.


But this isn't Trump's fault at all.

Anyway, good post, I enjoyed reading it.

No offence, but I think you need to read a lot more about this stuff before you can engage in any sort of meaningful discussion about these issues, especially if you want to identify as socialist. You're a fairly classic liberal going along this sort of line and your knowledge of history is fragmented and vague. Start off with some Hobsbawm. I mean, he was an awful apologist for Stalinism, but his work on the history of Modernism is really clear and critical and a great entry point to some of these talking points. Alternatively I'd also recommend Terry Eagleton for critique of culture and post-modernity. Frantz Fanon and Gayatri Spivak key post-colonial thinkers. I think you'd also enjoy DeBeavoir, who articulated the relationship between class and gender better than almost anyone who came after her.

 

[Abertawe]

No offence, but I think you need to read a lot more about this stuff before you can engage in any sort of meaningful discussion about these issues, especially if you want to identify as socialist. You're a fairly classic liberal going along this sort of line and your knowledge of history is fragmented and vague. Start off with some Hobsbawm. I mean, he was an awful apologist for Stalinism, but his work on the history of Modernism is really clear and critical and a great entry point to some of these talking points. Alternatively I'd also recommend Terry Eagleton for critique of culture and post-modernity. Frantz Fanon and Gayatri Spivak key post-colonial thinkers. I think you'd also enjoy DeBeavoir, who articulated the relationship between class and gender better than almost anyone who came after her.

Can we take a second to understand what kind of prick would write this sort of stuff, fuck me.

 

[Bilo]

No offence, but I think you need to read a lot more about this stuff before you can engage in any sort of meaningful discussion about these issues, especially if you want to identify as socialist. You're a fairly classic liberal going along this sort of line and your knowledge of history is fragmented and vague. Start off with some Hobsbawm. I mean, he was an awful apologist for Stalinism, but his work on the history of Modernism is really clear and critical and a great entry point to some of these talking points. Alternatively I'd also recommend Terry Eagleton for critique of culture and post-modernity. Frantz Fanon and Gayatri Spivak key post-colonial thinkers. I think you'd also enjoy DeBeavoir, who articulated the relationship between class and gender better than almost anyone who came after her.

Mate, this is ridiculously condescending. First of all, identifying my political orientation based on a contextual discussion regarding Trump becoming president and structural racism is to take unreasonable interpretative prerogative to an extent surely you can see is ridiculous.

And if you mean Simone de Beauvoir, thanks for the tip, I first found out about her when I was 16. Because I'm a Swedish person and we have philosophy in school, so I literally haven't been able to avoid her and I know very well what she stood for; also why she wasn't so credible as many would have you believe. I, personally, didn't enjoy her.

I will look up your other tips though, mostly because I enjoy reading. I can throw some tips back your way but something tells me you're not especially interested in what others have read and recommend. Je sais pas.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Warning - bad language from the start, so headphones on if you're at work.
Excellent listen though, why 'the left' are struggling to get their arguments across, or rather don't.

 

[smat]

Warning - bad language from the start, so headphones on if you're at work.
Excellent listen though, why 'the left' are struggling to get their arguments across, or rather don't.

No. It is not an excellent listen. This man is an arsehole.

Edit: to make it clear i don't know what he even said because i turned off after a minute of his pub-boor schtick.

 

[Carver]

It is shocking people believe there is no link between Islam and terrorism. Glad Trump won.

I know it is a joke how lefties never see this or even do some research on Islam and it's views to see what it really is.

 

[smat]

I know it is a joke how lefties never see this or even do some research on Islam and it's views to see what it really is.

If you think about it... "I slam"... sounds kind of violent. And that's just the name. So what must the religion be like?

 

[johnnytodd]

I couldn't watch Chomsky, mumbles far too much.

Great points there, really debunked what I said. Fuck me, even Jonny T has a greater grasp of the world than yourself.

You want a straightner lad?

 

[Jockney]

Mate, this is ridiculously condescending. First of all, identifying my political orientation based on a contextual discussion regarding Trump becoming president and structural racism is to take unreasonable interpretative prerogative to an extent surely you can see is ridiculous.

And if you mean Simone de Beauvoir, thanks for the tip, I first found out about her when I was 16. Because I'm a Swedish person and we have philosophy in school, so I literally haven't been able to avoid her and I know very well what she stood for; also why she wasn't so credible as many would have you believe. I, personally, didn't enjoy her.

I will look up your other tips though, mostly because I enjoy reading. I can throw some tips back your way but something tells me you're not especially interested in what others have read and recommend. Je sais pas.

It was condescending. I think it was in reaction to yours, especially the tone you've taken with Ren, and the lack of theoretical substance to your counter arguments. I mean I disagree wholeheartedly with Alty but I cant accuse him of not having a coherent politics. You just don't know enough about this stuff to defend that position beyond a surface level critique of symptoms, which is not an insult just an observation. I'm not really interested in paraphrasing theory that developed over years of discussion, research and political action to make my position more understandable to people who are otherwise sympathetic and capable of reading those texts themselves.

 

[Renegade]

Yeah, I'm glad someone else noticed the hypocrisy, though I left myself open for that line of questioning to be fair. I don't think it's very productive to say "read this" or "google this" when you have no idea of the other person's knowledge, evaluating them based on a few hundred words they've typed on a message board that can easily be taken out of context. We fleshed it out though, water under the bridge.

 

[Benito]

Marine Le Pen next year in France.

 

[Red]

This.

In Germany we remember today the 78th anniversary of the horrifying "Reichskristallnacht". Just a coincidence that this lunatic was elected on this day.

Could be another "ice age" between our two countries, maybe even worse than those under the idiot G.W Bush?

I never thought it could ever have gotten worse than Bush, but it will.

He seems to be exhibiting a much more conciliatory tone since he won. Not that that diminishes anyone's worries.

 

[Red]

Fantastic result!

First brexit and now this, the liberals and elitists are losing and they only have themselves to blame for straying too far to the left and away from the middle and forgetting about the masses of ordinary people.

Whether Trump can do the business or not we will have to wait and see, but one thing for sure is that people are sick of the establishment and want change.

Too far to the left? Yeah, because Obama care and everything he did was rabid Communism. It's quite worrying that people are quite happy to overlook a politician's bigotry just because he's not part of the establishment. A whole country did that in 1933 and look where that ended. I'm not saying it would get like that because it wouldn't, but the principle is the same.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

It's an absolutely bizarre take to blame left-wing identity politics for Trump (particularly when you're invoking "normal people" - itself, an identitarian position).

The centre-left can't adapt to post-growth politics because their political project is contingent on constant growth, and, in a stagnating economy "vote for us to keep the rate of decline steady" isn't a compelling political message against those who promote easy answers, scape-goating, and a renewal of white supremacy. That is why they keep losing, not because someone at Goldsmiths organised a meeting they ask white men not to attend.

FWIW, I'd gladly add "identity politics" to Captain Scumbag’s dustbin of overused political terms that have become inimical to good debate. Almost every political issue has a strong identity component; therefore, on a certain view all politics is identity politics. And, yes, I imagine it is quite vexing, from a non-conservative POV, to see people in bright pink “Women for Trump” T-shirts lamenting the rise of identity politics. In a strictly literal sense, it’s perhaps a term no one should use pejoratively.

But please understand that when bigots like me and Lord Altrincham use it, it’s basically shorthand; or, put another way, a lazy umbrella term covering a litany of privileged white male gripes with the left: political correctness, moral and cultural relativism; uncritical support for minority grievances; “check your privilege” type hectoring and narrow-mindedness; a distrust of patriotism that borders on mindless self-hatred; ostrich syndrome regarding conservative and/or militant Islam (and other problems within minority groups); structuralist explanations for social problems that admit no room for moral agency. And so on.

The extent to which those are real problems requiring urgent remedy can certainly be debated, but I imagine most people would agree those grievances do exist, i.e. they are held by people, reasonably and not. And if we’re permitted to clump them together under a term like “left-wing identity politics”, then I think we are discussing something that is a significant problem for the left, as well as something that partly explains why right-wing and/or nationalist demagoguery of varying degrees (e.g Farage, Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Wilders, Hofer, et. al) is on the rise throughout the West.

In the grand scheme of things, of course Bahar Mustafa being a dipstick on Facebook doesn’t matter. If it were perceived to be an isolated or rare event (as perhaps it should), no one would care. People would laugh it off – Millie Tant from The Viz writ large, and so on. But I think a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, see stuff like the Goldsmiths row as symptomatic of a wider problem, namely the rise of an identity-obsessed type of grudge and grievance politics which has entirely fucked up priorities and which unfairly casts them as the villains. And the more the left (particularly the centre left) aligns itself with that while largely ignoring the problems caused by rapidly expanding global capitalism, the more it culturally alienates itself from working class and lower middle class people.

I wouldn’t blame this for the Trump victory because it would be reductive to blame it on any one reason. But the perception of ‘The Donald’ as some kind of uncouth, uncomplicated, swaggering antidote to that sort of thinking certainly didn’t hurt his prospects. Ergo, I don’t think positing some kind of causal link between the two is bizarre at all.

 

[Bilo]

It was condescending. I think it was in reaction to yours, especially the tone you've taken with Ren, and the lack of theoretical substance to your counter arguments. I mean I disagree wholeheartedly with Alty but I cant accuse him of not having a coherent politics. You just don't know enough about this stuff to defend that position beyond a surface level critique of symptoms, which is not an insult just an observation. I'm not really interested in paraphrasing theory that developed over years of discussion, research and political action to make my position more understandable to people who are otherwise sympathetic and capable of reading those texts themselves.

I lack theoretical substance to my counter arguments?

First and foremost, I don't at all by into that your theory is based on years of discussion, research and political action as half of it is pretty much directly paraphrasing others; changing only that you present it not only as your own opinion but also, as if it holds more substance just because you throw names into the bin and say "they said this", although you don't quote them, you just throw the names in the bucket. Which is weird as fuck because anyone can see it offers nothing unless you at least give the broad brush on what they stood for and what you subscribe to.

What you call lack of theoretical substance I call trying to make yourself understandable; when I throw in a name I do so to refer to what they said and/or did, not to say that I read this or that. Furthermore, you used a ridiculously pretentious language which genuinely leads me to believe you don't want to be understood, you just want to look clever and intelligent. Which I suppose is why you sell your political viewpoint as one you came up with yourself.

Like I said, I don't find Simone at all credible as a voice of feminism. I'm not one usually to critique those who don't practice what they preach, but she'd be an exception. Which goes some way to explain why I don't at all think feminism is so correlated to class as you do; instead I'd recommend reading Ebba Witt-Brattström -- she very well paints the conflict within fighting against two forms of oppression at once. The conflict is, essentially, a product of our time but nonetheless. I'm not arguing you have to choose, but contemporary feminism ignores class to avoid the conflict, which is understandable considering most left wing movements tend to be riddled with conflicts within themselves; there are multiple examples of that.

Furthermore, if you subscribe to Hobsbawm's theories you must consider nations as outdated and something of the past? I disagree with that, I think they're essential cornerstone's of today's society and while they are not productive in their own nature, we have a long way to go before we're so blessed that we can consider them a thing of the past. Either way I find it odd because your line of arguing generally doesn't seem to include his standpoint, but maybe you just threw him in as a reading tip rather than someone you actually base your opinion on.

I could go on but I genuinely don't have the time right now.

 

[Benito]

https://www.rt.com/usa/366346-man-attacked-trump-chicago/

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

Guys, I think that calling one another dangerous c*** and pompous pricks should probably be considered poor form given the end of the world is nigh. Please desist (or don't, we're all going to die anyway).

Yours,

The Peaceful Pineapple (not a mod)

 

[Benito]

 

[Alty]

Guys, I think that calling one another dangerous c*** and pompous pricks should probably be considered poor form given the end of the world is nigh. Please desist (or don't, we're all going to die anyway).

Yours,

The Peaceful Pineapple (not a mod)

Oh I don't know. I quite liked it. Most people think I'm about as threatening as a blancmange.

 

[Carver]

Too far to the left? Yeah, because Obama care and everything he did was rabid Communism. It's quite worrying that people are quite happy to overlook a politician's bigotry just because he's not part of the establishment. A whole country did that in 1933 and look where that ended. I'm not saying it would get like that because it wouldn't, but the principle is the same.

Well the establishment allies itself with countries like Saudi Arabia who are run by a tyranny.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

FWIW, I'd gladly add "identity politics" to Captain Scumbag’s dustbin of overused political terms that have become inimical to good debate. Almost every political issue has a strong identity component; therefore, on a certain view all politics is identity politics. And, yes, I imagine it is quite vexing, from a non-conservative POV, to see people in bright pink “Women for Trump” T-shirts lamenting the rise of identity politics. In a strictly literal sense, it’s perhaps a term no one should use pejoratively.

But please understand that when bigots like me and Lord Altrincham use it, it’s basically shorthand; or, put another way, a lazy umbrella term covering a litany of privileged white male gripes with the left: political correctness, moral and cultural relativism; uncritical support for minority grievances; “check your privilege” type hectoring and narrow-mindedness; a distrust of patriotism that borders on mindless self-hatred; ostrich syndrome regarding conservative and/or militant Islam (and other problems within minority groups); structuralist explanations for social problems that admit no room for moral agency. And so on.

The extent to which those are real problems requiring urgent remedy can certainly be debated, but I imagine most people would agree those grievances do exist, i.e. they are held by people, reasonably and not. And if we’re permitted to clump them together under a term like “left-wing identity politics”, then I think we are discussing something that is a significant problem for the left, as well as something that partly explains why right-wing and/or nationalist demagoguery of varying degrees (e.g Farage, Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Wilders, Hofer, et. al) is on the rise throughout the West.

In the grand scheme of things, of course Bahar Mustafa being a dipstick on Facebook doesn’t matter. If it were perceived to be an isolated or rare event (as perhaps it should), no one would care. People would laugh it off – Millie Tant from The Viz writ large, and so on. But I think a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, see stuff like the Goldsmiths row as symptomatic of a wider problem, namely the rise of an identity-obsessed type of grudge and grievance politics which has entirely fucked up priorities and which unfairly casts them as the villains. And the more the left (particularly the centre left) aligns itself with that while largely ignoring the problems caused by rapidly expanding global capitalism, the more it culturally alienates itself from working class and lower middle class people.

I wouldn’t blame this for the Trump victory because it would be reductive to blame it on any one reason. But the perception of ‘The Donald’ as some kind of uncouth, uncomplicated, swaggering antidote to that sort of thinking certainly didn’t hurt his prospects. Ergo, I don’t think positing some kind of causal link between the two is bizarre at all.

With you on the first paragraph. It doesn't really mean anything other than the meaning that someone wishes to apply to it at any given time. Trouble is, it's pretty much always used as a pejorative; something to be mocked and dismissed. Is any concept (thinking also political correctness, perhaps multiculturalism) largely defined by those who oppose it really very useful at all, I wonder?

To my mind identity politics is primarily about recognising oppression, realising that you may be negatively impacted by having certain characteristics and finding positive solutions. No doubt the methods that some people use to achieve the desired outcome are hypocritical, over the top, stupid, shallow etc (think some of the examples you cite are perfectly valid) but that's not unique to any political idea or worldview. What makes me feel a bit queasy about some of the objections to and focus on identity politics is that they largely seem to perpetuate a myth that this is only a feature of left wing politics or it's only minorities or their allies who behave like this (which is arrant nonsense). Much of the bigotry experienced by minority groups often stems from a perceived threat to the identity and status of the majority (and what is that if not identity politics)? This is what I find terrifying about Trump - the Othering, the insinuation that minorities have made gains at the expense of poor white folk and that they're right to feel aggrieved at this (as if the fucking Trumps of this world care a jot about improving the socio-economic lot of the poor and left behind). It is, in itself, a type of identity politics and it's a type which is divisive, dangerous and simply untrue. And yet it rarely seems to be viewed as such - Trump is tapping into the concerns of "ordinary people".

To be honest, I think the idea that the left is overly preocuppied with this stuff at the expense of trying to effect real socio-economic change, is a load of baloney. I think it would be truer to say that the political class (politicians on the left and right) have been slow to cotton on to people's anger and frustration with the system, but that's hardly unusual. The attention the right affords "identity politics", "political correctness" and the like seems downright weird to me (well it doesn't, but y'know). Easier to rail against the absurdity of what some silly student union's doing than to seek to improve things for the better, I suppose.

 

[Techno Natch]

Well the establishment allies itself with countries like Saudi Arabia who are run by a tyranny.

I never knew that you cared about the plight of human rights in Saudi Arabia . Sorry I had you all wrong.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

FWIW, I'd gladly add "identity politics" to Captain Scumbag’s dustbin of overused political terms that have become inimical to good debate. Almost every political issue has a strong identity component; therefore, on a certain view all politics is identity politics. And, yes, I imagine it is quite vexing, from a non-conservative POV, to see people in bright pink “Women for Trump” T-shirts lamenting the rise of identity politics. In a strictly literal sense, it’s perhaps a term no one should use pejoratively.

But please understand that when bigots like me and Lord Altrincham use it, it’s basically shorthand; or, put another way, a lazy umbrella term covering a litany of privileged white male gripes with the left: political correctness, moral and cultural relativism; uncritical support for minority grievances; “check your privilege” type hectoring and narrow-mindedness; a distrust of patriotism that borders on mindless self-hatred; ostrich syndrome regarding conservative and/or militant Islam (and other problems within minority groups); structuralist explanations for social problems that admit no room for moral agency. And so on.

The extent to which those are real problems requiring urgent remedy can certainly be debated, but I imagine most people would agree those grievances do exist, i.e. they are held by people, reasonably and not. And if we’re permitted to clump them together under a term like “left-wing identity politics”, then I think we are discussing something that is a significant problem for the left, as well as something that partly explains why right-wing and/or nationalist demagoguery of varying degrees (e.g Farage, Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Wilders, Hofer, et. al) is on the rise throughout the West.

In the grand scheme of things, of course Bahar Mustafa being a dipstick on Facebook doesn’t matter. If it were perceived to be an isolated or rare event (as perhaps it should), no one would care. People would laugh it off – Millie Tant from The Viz writ large, and so on. But I think a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, see stuff like the Goldsmiths row as symptomatic of a wider problem, namely the rise of an identity-obsessed type of grudge and grievance politics which has entirely fucked up priorities and which unfairly casts them as the villains. And the more the left (particularly the centre left) aligns itself with that while largely ignoring the problems caused by rapidly expanding global capitalism, the more it culturally alienates itself from working class and lower middle class people.

I wouldn’t blame this for the Trump victory because it would be reductive to blame it on any one reason. But the perception of ‘The Donald’ as some kind of uncouth, uncomplicated, swaggering antidote to that sort of thinking certainly didn’t hurt his prospects. Ergo, I don’t think positing some kind of causal link between the two is bizarre at all.

There's an understandable tendency for people to approach massive, seismic political events like this and claim "actually this was caused by that thing I've been hammering on about forever". I know I do it. A good previous example was people saying the Tories won in 2015 because Ed Miliband wasn't left-wing enough. I think something similar is the case here.

Left-wing identity politics is good and I reject some of your characterisation of it in your first and third para. Fundamentally, identity politics is an attempt to understand how race and gender (alongside class) unconsciously shape social, economic and political interactions, not about casting people as villains*. Any form of identity politics that doesn't ignore the problems causes by rapidly expanding global capitalism** is fundamentally worthless and not left-wing. Equally a left-wing politics that refuses to acknowledge that problems caused by capitalism has more severe impacts on marginalised groups is of limited value***.

US politics has carefully nurtured**** a kind of toothless, state-sanctioned, anti-racism that doesn't address the roots, and you could probably make the claim that a form of liberal identity politics that doesn't make any attempt to analyse root causes has emerged.

But if the Clinton campaign used a form of identity politics, it was mainly using borrowed rhetoric to silence her critics to the left. The Bernie Bros. The Manarchists*****. Trump's main line of attack on Clinton was that she was crooked - an establishment stooge in the pay of Goldman Sachs (and, that's pretty valid). Clinton's main line of attack on Trump was that he was a rapist (probably true), an incompetent (ditto) and a Russian agent (absolutely fucking bananas).

Polls of Trump's supporters indicate that they view immigration as their most important concern. Further, the fact that Trump's most important bases were cops and their unions, and evangelicals suggests that Trump's support was based on a reaction to Black Lives Matter and the legal advances of LGB rights, and an escalating cultural war over the right of trans people to use public toilets safely. Black Lives Matter and LGBT civil rights are, of course, also identity politics, but I don't think Nick Cohen (or whoever) is referring to either demands for ending Police impunity when killing black people, or gay marriage when he rails against the regressive left.

The people who get most worked up about campus no-platforming, safe spaces and trigger-warnings seem to be self-described left-liberals (though in truth the "left" is more a self-perceived identity than a description of their politics). And they, almost monolithically, viewed Trump as an abomination and Clinton as a sensible moderate who'd win over sensible republicans, compared to Sanders' scary socialist nonsense. It's having their cake and eating it to turn around, having fought an election mainly on their terms, and say "actually this is a reaction to campus no-platforming".

(sorry for all the footnotes)

* I kind of accept that there's sometimes a clumsiness - particularly in student politics - in how this is applied, but when is student politics anything other than clumsy. FWIW, I wouldn't include Bahar Mustafa in this - she's dead sound and the scandal surrounding her had far more to do with shrill opportunism of the sections of the right-wing press (can we use the term unpopular press to describe barely-read right-wing rags like The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph please?) than it did in anything she actually did.
** Rapidly expanding global capitalism is a problem - what I think is equally a problem (as Wolfgang Streeck persuasively argues) is receding global capitalism. He also argues that these two states can sort of exist together - as the external borders of capitalism in the global south become increasingly ungovernable, the internal borders - that is how much labour each capitalism forces each person/household to sell become increasingly contested. And that capitalism It's interesting stuff, I'd be lying if I said I understood it all, and it's not really relevant to my general point.
*** I would argue that an anticapitalist politics that is unthreatening to whiteness immediately comes unstuck. Without addressing the imperialist legacy and present of the capitalist programme, you're left with half-baked and dangerous stuff - like positioning capitalism as a system imposed on "the people" by a sinister cabal of bankers. And you don't need to be Elie Wiesel to see where that leads.
**** And through stuff like COINTELPRO, assassinated or incarcerated nearly all the black communist leaders in the US and destroyed radical liberationist movements like the Black Panthers, the Young Lords etc - that did have a radical analysis that viewed class struggle, women's liberation and LGBT liberation as inseparable from anti-racism. There's an interesting point here - that Western governments have systematically pathologised black and brown anger about US foreign and domestic policy - through COINTELPRO and through counter-extremism programmes. White anger, though, is always centred as a "genuine concern".
***** Maybe this is the difference - left-wing identity politics would adopt a position of something like this: "unconscious sexism is a problem even within left-wing groups so it's important to be aware of how sexism comes into play when criticising Hillary - and hence do so with care" versus the liberal position of "everyone who criticises Hillary or supports her male opponent is a sexist regardless of their reasons or their gender". I tend not to view the latter as identity politics because it's self-serving, opportunistic and selectively applied.

 

[JimJams]

25 pages, tl;dr. Someone summarise please. Much appreciated.

 

[.V.]

25 pages, tl;dr. Someone summarise please. Much appreciated.

The world is heading in a scary direction and we're all fucked.