Anti-Woke as Vice-Signaling

Last week's awful speech set me on edge immediately.  The first words about handouts were a signal, but the thing that confirmed that the talk would be awful was Maisonneuve invocation of "woke."  Whenever I hear anyone tossing around that word contemptuously, I immediately code that person as not worth listening to.  Why?

To be clear, woke refers to folks who have become aware of the historical legacies of discrimination and the present-day implications.  That's pretty much it, that woke people understand that there is and has been significant discrimination.   That's it.  

To be anti-woke, which many folks on the right are now so proud of, means denying that discrimination happened and/or it has made an impact on today.  Of course, it is more complicated than that--it can mean being opposed to the measures used to address the remedial efforts aimed at reducing discrimination and compensating for its impact.  The classic case of this maybe opposing affirmative action as it may be seen as unfair to white men, and the opponents usually say that such measures are unfair as it means that those who are more meritorious are being denied opportunities due to the sins of their fathers.  There is a lot built into that including the notion that today's procedures would be otherwise focused entirely on merit if not for considerations of race, ethnicity, gender, etc.

The reality of today's politics is that when one loudly proclaims that one is anti-woke, one is doing one of two things (or both):

a) one is signaling to one's white, male, "Christian" supporters that one is with them, an enthusiastic supporter of some past status quo (real or imagined) where the woke folks were kept in their place;  folks, including myself, refer to this as vice-signaling. 

b) one is actually one of these folks who are actually an enthusiastic supporter of some past reality (fake or real) where the uppity folks knew better and that one could discriminate, harass and do more without being called out for it.

I tend to think Ted Cruz, for instance, is in the first category--that he does not really believe anything but wants power and signals being anti-woke to appeal to his racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist supporters.  That does not make these folks better even if they don't believe in the hate they are inciting--it makes them just as bad as the genuine article as they are inciting and providing comfort for them.  Vice signaling is dangerous and awful and should be called out.

Is this cancellation?  No, free speech means one has the right to engage in vice-signaling, but it also means that others have the right to call it out for what it is. 

Maisonneuve got more than just a right to speak last week--he got to have a platform to do it.  And he abused it.  And I have the right to call him out as does everyone else who considers his speech to be awful, intolerant, and retrograde. 

 

 

HRC Stances As Signs of Progress

Ok, the advent of Trump has been thoroughly depressing.  What good news can we glean from our political world?  How about Hillary Clinton focusing on the LGBT stances of the GOP and of Mike Pence?  What makes this good news?

Sure, HRC could be taking this stance because she genuinely believes that the government should not discriminate against LGBT people.  Or, one could be thinking that she is pandering to a small portion of her base. 

I cannot help but think that Clinton will only focus on issues and themes that are focus-grouped/poll-tested winners.  That is, that Clinton has many ways to attack Trump and Pence, and she has chosen to focus much of the attention on LGBT.  This kind of surprises me since it was not that long ago that the Democrats were afraid of issues relating to LGBT, that referendas in states on LGBT issues would be seen as hurting the Democrats' chances in those states due to the effect on turnout.

What has changed?  Mostly American public opinion.  The Republicans, with their heinous platform and with Pence as the poster boy of intolerance, are fighting old wars.  HRC, I am guessing, has done the homework to figure out that the polls we know about are pretty valid--that the tide has turned.  Sure, there are states and parts of states where intolerance towards LGBT play, but as Hillary Clinton looks to the patterns across the country, the need to pick up a number of battleground states, she is seeing this issue as a winner.

Yes, because I am cynical about the Clintons--that Bill always went by the polls and that Hillary is not going to base her campaign just on what is right but on what will work, I have some hope about where the country is on this.  Of course, we still have way too much support for xenophobia, for anti-Muslim stances, for racist politicians (that go by the name of Trump), but I see glimmers of progress in HRC's stances.  Given the awfulness of the GOP convention, complete with homophobia, racism, xenophobia, ignorance, hate, white supremacy, misogyny and all the rest, I will take what I can get.

Terrorism and the Election

One of the common refrains has been that Hillary Clinton will win unless something bad happens like a recession or terrorist attack.  Well, it is too late for a recession to make a difference, but we know have that terrorist attack.  Will it make a difference?

Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I don't think so.  It goes to the basic problem Trump has: he is unqualified to be president.  In a term of crisis, will people turn to him?  Will they think he has the right ideas and can handle the tough decisions?   The past 24 hours suggests that he lacks any/all of the qualities people want in a leader during a crisis.

Sure, the resort to hate might play well, and fear could help him.  But his first actions were to take credit for getting things right--and was widely scorned.  This morning's messaging suggests that Obama is actually working for the terrorists.  This may play well for Trump's base, but not so much for anyone else.

Here's the thing: the GOP is smaller than the Democrats, so a winning Republican candidate needs to reach out to independents and right-leaning Democrats.  This is a key part of why the primaries are so very different from the general election AND why Trump's doubling down on his primary strategies is problematic for him. 

I still think that all of the fundamentals of this election mean that HRC will win:

• the economy is not bad
• the incumbent is popular
• Trump has no organization
• HRC's organization is excellent, has great data and digital games
• the electoral college favors the Democrats
• the hate/fear mongering will mean that Trump can only get white votes
• Trump's misogyny produces a large gap in attracting the votes of women, so he will need to incredibly well among white men
• Bernie will endorse HRC tomorrow, so talk of party disunity will fade soon enough
• The Democratic bench is deep with strong campaigners: President Obama, VP Biden, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, etc.  Which Republican stars will help Trump run from coast to coast?  

 Anyhow, it may be too soon to think of this stuff, but I can't help it.  All I know is that yesterday was an awful event, with another one that could have been as awful that was prevented in L.A.  Does it move the needle in American politics?  It should, given how many mass killings the US has been having lately.  But I doubt it, as others have noted, if the slaughter of a bunch of kids is not going to make much of a difference, not sure why this event would, except, of course, that the perpetrator was a Muslim. 

Project Much? Understanding the Latest NSFW Obsessions

Last night, on twitter, I learned some new lingo.  I had been seeing on cuck mentioned a lot on a conservative academic's twitter feed and seeing it elsewhere, but was mostly confused about the origins of cuckservative.  Pegging? That was new to me.  The common theme, of course, is emasculation. Obviously, what is going on here is that the utterer/twitter-er/whatever is insulting someone by suggesting that their wife is sleeping with someone else or one is being penetrated by one's wife--that the person is less of a man because of their political opinions.  And maybe calling someone gay or an f* is not as acceptable so these people have had to get more creative?  (I guess there must be sociologists already on this stuff, looking at trends of insults).

*I don't want my blog posts to be searchable by epithet

This may not be an entirely right-wing thing--my guess is that the misogynists among the Bernie bros are probably saying similar stuff.  Why?  Tis in the title: these folks are projecting.  They want to make men (mostly) feel bad by suggesting that they are lousy men.  Why?  I am no feminist scholar (I am a feminist, just not a scholar who uses feminist theories/methods), I guess this people are themselves feeling emasculated.  This may be why this campaign seems to be gamer-gate in a different arena. 

Of course, some will note that women use these terms as well.  Sure, but much of the volume seems to be from males.  Of course, when women are the target, the language is not about cucks and the like, but the usual misogynist vocab and, of course, threats (the woman with whom Justin Trudeau made contact in "elbowgate" or parliamess is now being hit by the barrage of internet insults because fans of Liberals can also be illiberal).
 
The extreme political stances are chock full of hate--hate for women, hate for those who support women, hate for African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Jews, Latinos, LGBT, and Muslims (and Sikhs because ignorant people are easily confused).  And the US now has a candidate who has successfully been stoking these flames of hate to get to the nomination of a major party.

Lots of stuff is being written on why this is coming out from under the rocks now, but it has always been there, of course.  Racism, homophobia, misogyny, and xenophobia are not new.  The internet has made it possible for groups of losers (those who either lost in life or feel they are losing their advantages over others) to gain an outsized voice by directing attacks at specific people, especially women and minorities.  It is not just the anonymity of the web as plenty of idiots gave away their identities when attacking the Nevada Democratic Chairwoman, but anonymity does have a role, of course.  As does Donald Trump who has been inciting hate for the past year (more than that since he was a birther for quite some time, but more so lately), leading to hate crimes quite directly.

And, yes, this stuff is intensifying because these folks have been losing the big political battles.  They rail at Social Justice Warriors precisely because gays are now more accepted, that transgender people are now being treated more positively (a long way to go, of course), that women are breaking through some glass ceilings, and, yes, we have a black President.  Whenever I see someone use the SJW, I assume that they are a gamer-gate kind of misogynist because if one is on the opposite side of a social justice warrior, does that not make the person a fan of injustice?

So, what can I conclude from this rambling rant? That it sucks to be a loser?  That much of the hate is venom spewed by those on the wrong side of history?  That those who use cuck and other terms to denigrate the masculinity of their opponents have small hands and peni?  I guess we cannot dismiss these folks because they can and do resort to violence, but perhaps we can remember that they are losing, that their losing is a source of their animus, and that we need to keep winning the battles that improve the opportunities for all.  And if the losers do not want to partake in a better society, we need to marginalize them and the politicians who tolerate or empower them.  Which, of course, means vote against Trump.  

Update: I forgot one of my key points: there are all kinds of men with all kinds of ways to be a man, so these folks have a very specific idea of what is it is to be a man.  And, the irony is that their cowardice--attacking folks online, using lame insults rather than good arguments--actually contradicts their ideal John Wayne-esque kind of manhood.  But then again, their efforts to emasculate others emasculates themselves more than anyone else.

Writer's Bloc or Exhaustion of Ideas

I was going to write this morning about the selective use of the bible to justify intolerance of gays, but then I realized I had written that already.

So, then I decided to post this pic:

And perhaps post a good pic that reveals the ignorance and irony of selection bias:

 Yep, one pic shows the selective reading of the bible.  And this guy is not unique at all, unless the folks behind the spate of anti-same sex marriages are also seeking to bring back other bible stuff....

Anyhow, this has all made me realize why I may be blogging less these days--hard to say new stuff about dynamics that have been in abundance the past six years (and yes, this month marks Six Years of Spew).