is there anyone here who really believes trumps campaign core isnt white identity politics and demographic anxiety at this point?
Theres enough racist people that hes a candidate
Thats it, lets stop putting our heads in the sand with 'economic anxiety'
economic anxiety and racism go hand in hand. blame life stresses on the other simple as. classic demagogury.
I think sometimes people are just racist dude. Economic anxiety may exacerbate latent racism, but its not always the cause.
what a lack of dialectical materialism does to a mothafucka.
"Latent racism" as if this shit is an inherent property of humanity and not an instilled ideology, an "original sin". The christian moralism and idealism reeks from here.
making absolutist moralist denouncements instead of trying to see the chain of events, the cause, and to fix it
when Liberals and Idealists make racism into a “true” platonic eternal evil, all they are doing is admitting they will never fix or solve the issue and don’t know how to. They are even admitting that it’s somewhat correct or at least has a basis in reality because it’s an inherent law of the universe apparently that we can never escape. Racism was invented on a specific date, not too long ago, and it can be abolished. Anything that was created by people can be destroyed by people too.
Age of Napoleon Bonus Episode that examines the intertwined origins of capitalism and racism
this is idealist nonsense and is itself playing into/flirting with lending legitimacy to racist ideas.
It's true. America is such a segregated society it is almost inevitable, so long as the construct of race exists. The anxiety causes even good-natured people to do awkward shit sometimes. But the elites will literally use anything they can to divide us up. Skin is one of the easiest, humans are such visual creatures and it's the biggest organ, and we are segregated anyway. The construct of race works better than the elites could have even predicted though.
It's true not just economics anything that impedes our ability to empathize with one another will create the possibility of this. Though I think for demogogues economic stress it's the easiest to exploit and misdirect to protect from "levelling". Also geographic segregation makes it much easier to "otherise" people etc etc regardless. Look at the Brits and the Irish and they are all pale af but Brits wanted the land so they created a construct to legitimize it.
Yeah! Economic anxiety and racism go hand in hand, except for, like, half the time but every other instance than when it doesn’t
Yes of course even for the wealthy they are going to invent whatever construct they need to justify their own position in their own head. The capital is so concentrated though so there aren't too many of that kind.
As someone who is trans and queer, a POC, and coming from an immigrant family- I have to agree with u/Z_Poster365, this post and the comments come distastefully close to spoilerism (against the most basic simple stance against literal genocide).
Trump supporters are ghouls and whether they like it or not, racist through their willingness to stand alongside and fend for racism, yes- but the nasty, honest truth is that the same goes for all of Klanmala's supporters, with the disgusting caveat even that many more of those are not simply ignorant, but genuinely vile to their core, having seen the full extent of what they support and yet still making their peace with it.
Both sides (if the sides of 100% Hitler, orange flavor vs. 100% Hitler, coconut flavor are "separate sides) are truly and irreconcilably wretched. They might take minor detours in how they rationalize it, but at their core is imperial identity politics (that the lives of the "enlightened west" are worth infinitely more than those of the global south) and imperial anxiety (that those they would see as their slaves if not exterminated altogether are liberating themselves).
Thank you. Racism is not when white dudes with cowboy hats feel afraid of Black teens and call the cops on them. Racism isn't even when white ladies clasp their purse and feel afraid when they see an Arab at the airport. Those individual instances of racist behavior are part of the system of racism; racism isn't evil, it's not Darth Vader or Voldemort, it's a system. And, as a system, it's modular and multivariate. It's a complex phenomenon full of contradictions, like the liberal imperial identity politics you mention which exist in contradiction to the less hegemonic "white working class" aesthetics of the American right. But both aspects are part of the same social system. And like any social system, it exists within the broader context of our social structure, divided into its economic base and the superstructure, as part of the superstructure. And as we should all understand by now, the superstructure is shaped by the based. They are inseparable. Trying to explain racism without understanding that the system of racism operates within capitalism as one of several mechanisms that maintains the economic base is a fool's errand.
Racism is not when white dudes with cowboy hats feel afraid of Black teens and call the cops on them.
I don’t know about you but that’s the most salient part of racism. Not sure I give a fuck about the metaphysical analysis when my literal skin color is being used to impale me with gunfire or make my conditions worse than oh, I don’t know, fucking yours or the average white dude on this here site.
Palestine and Nicaragua are literally the last thing on my mind when im living my day to day life, talking about these things while I live in despair might as well be a form of escapism
Admittedly, I hadn't quite considered racism in the way you describe (though I'm aware of that take of discrimination + social power = racism).
I'd say I fall somewhere between you and @Lussy@hexbear.net in this regard, though I also feel that my own experiences with racism and racial alienation and how they have shaped my mentality in- well, just about everything, do also result in me having an immense bias I don't know if I can entirely overcome. Logically I agree more with you and that aforementioned (racism requires power) take- mentally it is hard to do, FWIW I will admit that I myself similarly cannot fully divorce myself mentally from identity politics (though "imperial idpol" as I described in my previous comment was in response to the "white idpol" mentioned in the post- and I do think is absolutely a thing, though idpol as an... atomization of the proletariat and humanity in general does probably have an infinite number of takes that can be derived from the concept- imperial idpol being just a particularly vile and ubiquitous one across the imperial cores).
Since I @'ed Lussy though, figure I'd respond also here in saying-
Palestine and Nicaragua are literally the last thing on my mind when im living my day to day life, talking about these things while I live in despair might as well be a form of escapism
While not dunking on you for that take, I have to infinitely disagree with it. Solidarity is not escapism, and if we cannot hold onto it even in the worst despair then we are both truly doomed, and at least somewhat wretched. We can't look away, particularly not if we want others to stand by us in turn.
I get what you're saying, 100%, in regards to living in despair (I do as well)- and sometimes we need to just live disconnecting from these things for a while, because it isn't healthy and we can't survive like that while living with our own despair ourselves. But we can't disconnect from it altogether, when it comes up (and it always does) we cannot keep silent and keep to ourselves.
Honestly on some level I feel if I were to do it- for those who do it as well- honestly, perhaps we would deserve it then. Surely we would have asked for it, by looking away from those in even further despair and facing literal industrial genocide or kill squads. Think about it and just what you said (though I don't think the full meaning of it was intended)- is this what we want to be? Are we any better than those who are persecuting us for our race if we do so? Maybe it's just me and my ex-Catholic mentality, but I reject it (the empire) in its entirety even when it is far away doing more horrifying things to others I don't know in Palestine and Nicaragua, I would like to think I would reject it and would not look away or shy from it even if it kills me.
And like any social system, it exists within the broader context of our social structure, divided into its economic base and the superstructure, as part of the superstructure. And as we should all understand by now, the superstructure is shaped by the based
And the base also shapes the superstructure.
Is there anyone here who really believes Kamala’s campaign core isn’t imperialist war and genocide and smug bourgeois paternalism?
There’s enough genocidal people that she’s a candidate
That’s it, let’s stop putting our heads in the sand with ‘harm reduction’
I hate a lot of the immigrants the US lets in because they are all these ultra-capitalist greedy bootlickers from around the globe. the US has been doing this for the last century (since the russian revolution), and I think it is making the US an even more right wing pro-capitalist hellscape.
That is the entire point of this immigration, as Samir Amin states:
Successive waves of immigration also played a role in reinforcing American ideology. The immigrants were certainly not responsible for the poverty and oppression that lay behind their departure for the United States. But their emigration led them to give up collective struggle to change the shared conditions of their classes or groups in their native countries, and adopt instead the ideology of individual success in their adopted home.
Adopting such an ideology delayed the acquisition of class consciousness. Once it began to mature, this developing consciousness had to face a new wave of immigrants, resulting in renewed failure to achieve the requisite political consciousness. Simultaneously, this immigration encouraged the “communitarianization” of U.S. society. “Individual success” does not exclude inclusion in a community of origin, without which individual isolation might become insupportable. The reinforcement of this dimension of identity—which the U.S. system reclaims and encourages—is done to the detriment of class consciousness and the forming of citizens.
Communitarian ideologies cannot be a substitute for the absence of a socialist ideology in the working class. This is true even of the most radical of them, that of the black community.
That was his core demographic that won him the 2016 primaries. He had a bigger coalition than that for the 2016 general. But he ain't got shit but that core now.
"Economic Anxiety" is just liberal weasel words for economic failures of capitalism, but those are real and they do cause racism. Some people are just raised racist. But the worse the economy does the more racism you well see.
its wild that a few people in this thread are acting like racism is like an unexplainable part of human nature lol. literally falling into a racist idea because you just refuse to understand dialectical and historical materialism i guess. idealist nonsense! read stalin!
idealist nonsense! read stalin!
This reads like one of Lenin's quips
high praise lol thank you it's just one of my favourite things to call people out for on here (and happens all too often)
I just said i don't think capitalism caused racism and that racism was around before capitalism.
Sorry, im not into giving chuds excuses for their venomous hatred of sexual minorities or POC
It's not about "giving excuses." It's about scientifically analyzing and breaking down the reality of the world around you.
For example, I (hope) you'd never say "I'm not giving that thief an excuse for stealing!" You understand that society, under a capitalist economic system, drove that person through a variety of ways to desperation that led down that path. We all recognize that attributing actions like stealing to "human nature" is inherently a reactionary way of viewing humanity. People, for the most part, would much rather cooperate than compete.
Further, racism the way it exists in the modern world was essentially invented. No that doesn't mean white Europeans in 1400 meeting darker skinned American continent natives didn't immediately have whatever crazy thoughts about their nature and wonder "Are these even the same as me?" We know pretty absolutely that they did have racist thoughts, beliefs and of course actions.
However, the way racism evolved from that time period up to today follows a deliberate path set out by people who weren't capitalists, correct, but also not far off in their views of humanity, human nature, exploitation of human labor from any capitalist that came along shortly after them (couple hundred years or so).
For example, without rewriting books from memory (trying not to anyway...) Catholics, the religion of the first Europeans in the Americas, at the time basically had a system that was Catholic-exclusive. Ie you could enslave a non-Catholic. But if someone converted to Catholicism they could no longer be enslaved. That's what the Church laid out basically. Race was irrelevant on paper. A black Catholic or indigenous American Catholic was supposed to be treated the same as a white European Catholic.
Obviously that presents a problem if your name is Cortez or Columbus and you want to enslave and rob entire continents. So long story short, "race"-based (skin color-based) systems were soon implemented to override the "problem." Instead of religion determining your worthiness of freedom and rights such as they exists society shifted to race, skin color, ethnicity being the determining factor. This was a great change for those involved in the slave trade and generally involved in exploiting labor. Now people were permanently locked out of personhood, legally, based on their skin color. A system the United States took its inevitable heights in the hundreds of years prior to the civil war. And clearly the remnants of that system of American Apartheid still exist.
Anyway, none of this gives excuse to anyone, then or now, for their actions and beliefs. But if you have a system that at its core is built upon exploitation of labor, as we do, and that exploitation of labor leads to horrific outcomes like extreme poverty causing starvation, homelessness, lack of medical care, etc. Meanwhile you have "opportunists" telling the exploited masses "Hey, you know why your life sucks? No, no... not your boss! It's actually that transgender teenager in another state on the swim team! Isn't that fucked up?! Aren't you really angry about that?!" Mix in purposeful defunding and de-emphasis on education for decades and decades resulting in functionally illiterate adults, living in ever-shittier standards, with no material analysis or knowledge to guide them... and you get people freaking the fuck out, some cynical and some legitimate, about "transgender Mexicans" invading the US.
It's a long path to get people to this point, and obviously they are, due to their actions and beliefs, an enemy of humanity currently. It's still extremely important to always understand how people get to that point. And understand that society and economic systems organized by political forces drive to these reactionary tendencies. If we change the political system, we change the economic systems, we will see differences in how people act.
Capitalism doesn't cause racism any more than it causes markets. But it takes advantage of both to maintain control over society.
you literally said "sometimes people are just racist". do you not see how that is an idealist statement? do you understand the difference between materialism and idealism?
That's his core, yeah, the people who will vote for him no matter what. But I don't think those people alone are enough to give him a victory. If he wins, it's because it's that core plus the people who feel economic pressure, which generally translates to voting for whoever isn't currently in the White House.
The small whites are for sure afraid they will be treated economically like a minority. That is the anxiety. They don't want to lose the benefits of their white privilege. So kidna
The small whites are for sure afraid they will be treated economically like a minority
No, they're afraid they'll be treated equally. Equality feels like oppression
If you actually treated them like a minority they would all sudoku in like 3 days from the shock
no, they don't think they will be treated equally; it is an inherent part of colonialism (from which white supremacy arose) to condition a projection of a 'reversed consequence' if power is let go by making the colonized subject into a 'dangerous' and 'unpredictable' embodiment of 'barbarity,' against whom the colonizer is instead a 'civilized' and 'rational' embodiment of 'good' in dialectical antithesis to it. It is where the ideological dynamic of 'civilizing the savages' comes from in the material relation of colonialism and its white supremacist expression in history (how European colonialism unfolded and reified its relations). ie. there is an underlying understanding in the white supremacist consciousness that "they want to do to us what we did to them or worse, and will if we let them" (the implication being, we can never 'let them,' meaning never give up vigilance and power over them, securing the colonial relation).
It comes out very obviously from white liberals in conversations about decolonization when they are pressed that they are not to and can not insert themselves into deciding 'how' the colonized 'should' carry out decolonization. There is a deep primal fear in this projection which dialectically necessarily grows out of the material relations of colonialism and colonization; as for there to be a colonizer there must be a colonized --- which inherently necessitates dehumanization and justifications for 'why' maintaining control and dominance over the colonized subject is "right," "natural," or "the only option." Which then cyclically reinforces the material relations to the material base --- land, resources, labor, means of production and subsistence and reproduction of labor. Cyclically because then every act of defiance and resistance against this colonial relationship by the colonized, in the perspective of this superstructural ethos, 'justifies' the claim of the 'dangerousness' and 'barbarity' of the colonized and so the colonizer's need to 'keep them under control'. As we saw it also with oct7 in Palestine. As we see in every uprising and riot of colonized people or major push against the structures and systems of their subjugation.
I recommend The Wretched of the Earth by Fanon for a good understanding of colonialism and decolonization and all its inter-relations.
Most of the Harris voters I know also talk a lot about economic anxiety. But they do the same shit...Yes Harris will be bad for the economy but Trump will be WORSE! Libs are incapable of genuine thought
Good thing i cant vote for harris because im a felon and wouldnt anyways.
I've seen plenty from his campaign, or the general republican campaign, that hammers on economic stuff
Whats the majority of what you hear about? An 'invasion' of immigrants and how they are 'poisoning our blood'
that is economic stuff, it's about people who are "cutting in line" for the american dream when many americans feel left behind. if those americans didn't feel left behind (by 40 years of neoliberalism) they wouldn't be looking for someone to blame and trumps BS wouldn't work.
What's the difference?
Well, lemme put it this way, beyond serving rentier western hegemonic capitalist masters of shareholders and lenders (Ego)
Trump appeals to the petit-bourgeois (read: "small" business) settler-colonial descendants of Amerikkka, that promise further radical rightist change to the nation, regardless of how dirty or feasible it is (ID)
And Kamala appeals to the labor aristocrat PMC tendencies of it, that hope to maintain the bloody imperial hegemony as is, and its image (Superego)
Both still further Amerikkka's interest in different faces, under the same Ego...
Are you talking about like old stock american's of british ancestry when you talk about the settler colonial stock?
My fathers family were scots irish who have been here since the late 1600s and a large number of them are very racist
That includes them, alright!
That's the core of Trump's movement, but the cultural and political membrane surrounding it stands in for industrial American conservatism which alot of non white nationalists buy into
Fuckin awesome post. Thank you.
Narrator voice: It was not
trump is the blowback to neoliberalism
thread locked. everyone put out their good faith arguments, but its devolving into hostility.