January 6 Hearings and Fallout

[Jack Dracula]

Please post a link to the article you’re quoting Captain Nostalgia. I’d like to read it in full. Thanks.

[Captain Nostalgia]

Please post a link to the article you’re quoting Captain Nostalgia. I’d like to read it in full. Thanks.

No problem, The article was previously posted by other people on this forum, I just happen to wander across it during a late night bout of insomnia, but here you go, Harper's magazine.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/01/...cal-tradition/

Whether your left, right or a reserved centerist like myself, I personally think....it's well written.

[CaptainEurope]

A Maryland man who had served as a helicopter crew member under President George W. Bush was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for his role in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Andries arrest had drawn extra attention in 2021 after CNN had obtained records showing that “he served in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2009 and was assigned to the Marine Helicopter Squadron One, the unit responsible for transporting the president, Raw Story reported in March, 2021. He was listed as a helicopter crew chief, but not a pilot, on Marine One.

"Andries illegally entered the Capitol Building through a broken window near the Senate Wing Door at approximately 2:15 p.m., just two minutes after rioters’ initial breach at that location,” the DOJ reported. “Once inside, he proceeded to the Crypt and was among rioters who attempted to push past U.S. Capitol Police officers. Eventually he and others were able to surge forward past the officers and further into the building.”

[4theEarth]

Sigh, the little gems you find on the internet when you have insomnia.

If you look at the protestors involved in the January 6th resurrection the vast majority of them are Caucasian (White) I’m Canadian, and the anti covid trucker rally that made world headlines when they besieged our capital was made up almost exclusively of white truckers, who overall, I can pretty much guarantee make up a minority of workers employed in this field. So, it’s not hard to figure out who this ideology is targeting in order to garner support for power.

I realize I’m stating the obvious here.

I am afraid that you can't really say that and while sources that I have been able to find say people of color are growing in trucking let us remember Canada is less diverse than the US.

Yes and no...

Trump and his supporters are post modernists in that they are not afraid to utilize Derrida’s deconstruction method to try to annihilate truths that are in their way, but they are definitely nihilists, nihilism is at the core of fascism going all the way back to Nietzsche, and the January 6th insurrection was nihilist to the core.

All you are doing is asserting that they have no values when the quote says that they do, I least provide some evidence. The Jan 6 people routinely refer to themselves as trying to save democracy from a corrupt election. The posts over Trump being transactional may suggest a kind of nihilist strategy but he does have a consistent zero sum view of the world. It is a classic misreading of Nietzsche to say he leads to fascism. Is nihilism is anti-foundational moral and epistemological skepticism. I'll quote someone else here

A Nihilist would immediately tear down all of the structures of meaning the Fascist finds refuge in. He would ruthlessly reduce the highly esteemed symbols and ideals of the state down to that of a subjective opinion and mass brainwash. He would argue that the Fascists’ “State” does not become something virtuous and pure simply by the creation of symbols and propaganda for the masses to identify with. It is still fundamentally composed of imperfect and selfish people, who are trying desperately to hold on to a sense of meaning in their lives where there is none to be found.

Fascists believe there is a foundation in group hierarchy. A Fascist would say meaning to be found in the universe, but it cannot be found within an individual. They are currently using non-foundational arguments to mask their foundational beliefs.


Below, I think you are confusing the antidote with the cause. The author proposes a strong idealism over pragmatism granting it as non-foundational as well.

Here is where the article gets it wrong...

it assumes that Trump is solely a pragmatist who can be challenged by O Bama’s liberal ideals, of freedom and equality, but Trumpism itself is based on one of America’s strongest and oldest ideals, xenophobic nativism, which goes back much further than the Know nothing party of the nineteenth century.

Indeed, alongside economic nationalism, this ideal was at the core of Trump’s electoral success, as the primary ideal of “Make America Great Again” xenophobic nativism, gave him the edge he needed in his electoral victory over the Democrats.

Unionized Hispanic workers in Nevada & New Mexico weren’t supporting him, but Caucasian workers in Michigan auto plants and Pennsylvania smelters were.

Pragmatism can only function on the assumption of the working reality and the marjoritian impulses of the GOP which you dub as nativist are absolutely pragmatic. White America worked well before so what is the practical argument for its diversification. Or why should a majority change its system to accommodate a few?

[Jack Dracula]

I am afraid that you can't really say that and while sources that I have been able to find say people of color are growing in trucking let us remember Canada is less diverse than the US.







All you are doing is asserting that they have no values when the quote says that they do, I least provide some evidence. The Jan 6 people routinely refer to themselves as trying to save democracy from a corrupt election. The posts over Trump being transactional may suggest a kind of nihilist strategy but he does have a consistent zero sum view of the world. It is a classic misreading of Nietzsche to say he leads to fascism. Is nihilism is anti-foundational moral and epistemological skepticism. I'll quote someone else here
Fascists believe there is a foundation in group hierarchy. A Fascist would say meaning to be found in the universe, but it cannot be found within an individual. They are currently using non-foundational arguments to mask their foundational beliefs.


Below, I think you are confusing the antidote with the cause. The author proposes a strong idealism over pragmatism granting it as non-foundational as well.



Pragmatism can only function on the assumption of the working reality and the marjoritian impulses of the GOP which you dub as nativist are absolutely pragmatic. White America worked well before so what is the practical argument for its diversification. Or why should a majority change its system to accommodate a few?

White America worked well for white Americans at the expense of everyone else, so it didn’t really “work well”.
The majority still remains the majority and the system isn’t changing completely. The idea is accommodating the few in the present improves the situation for all in the long term. You know that and it shouldn’t have to be explained.

[Kirby101]

Isn't the non-white "few" about 40% now?

[The Cool Thatguy]

Pragmatism can only function on the assumption of the working reality and the marjoritian impulses of the GOP which you dub as nativist are absolutely pragmatic. White America worked well before so what is the practical argument for its diversification. Or why should a majority change its system to accommodate a few?

...wow.

"Is oppression really a problem so long as the oppressors benefit?"

I'm white, but damn...

[babyblob]

...wow.

"Is oppression really a problem so long as the oppressors benefit?"

I'm white, but damn...

Some people couldnt vote, eat at restaurants, had to use different bath rooms, couldnt swim in some pools, couldnt go to the good schools, and lets not forget about being attacked for the smallest slight and the victims never seeing justice.

But hey it worked right? Look at all the problems equality has caused damn it!

[Kirby101]

Actually, it only really started "working", even for white people with the New Deal and the Democratic efforts to lift the middle class and poor. Something the GOP has fought tooth and nail since Reagan to destroy. To the GOP we are all Morlocks.

[Mister Mets]

Isn't the non-white "few" about 40% now?

Non-hispanic White is about 60 percent. White is over 75 percent.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fa...e/US/PST045221

In the context of election results, a slightly higher percentage of people voting age are white.

[Kirby101]

Thanks for the info. So I guess 30% is too few to help for a "pragmatist".

[The Cool Thatguy]

A good argument for equality is that the oppressed have this annoying habit of rising up and unleashing destruction on their oppressors.

If, ya know, general decency isn't reason enough

[Captain Nostalgia]

I am afraid that you can't really say that and while sources that I have been able to find say people of color are growing in trucking let us remember Canada is less diverse than the US.

This is incorrect, Canada is more diverse than the United States.

The only western country to break into the top 20 most diverse is Canada. The United States ranks near the middle, slightly more diverse than Russia but slightly less diverse than Spain.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...-in-the-world/
https://worldpopulationreview.com/co...erse-countries

This is in part because we have the highest rate of landed immigrants than any other G7 nation, which is why Toronto is often cited as the most diverse country in the world.

https://www.immigration.ca/toronto-d...n-world-audio/

I have to drive down to California before I see any diversity in the States, Seattle and Portland are overwhelmingly Caucasian….it’s like going back into a time machine when I was little.

I live in Vancouver, one of Canada’s largest cities, and I can be pretty assertive in saying that the majority of truck drivers in my Province & major urban centers, are most likely, but not emphatically, people of colour in their skin pigmentation, (ie not white)

And for arguments sake, let’s say they are, the large trucker rallies I bore witness to in my Province were overwhelmingly Caucasian. The running joke was to spot the poc at the protests.

Why? Because the ideology of right wing populism is largely built upon xenophobia, and the anxiety the white working class feels about changing racial (skin pigmentation) demographics. That’s who it speaks to and looks to recruit to establish its base of power. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that it’s solely about manufacturing job losses in the mid west & Northern England.

All you are doing is asserting that they have no values when the quote says that they do, I least provide some evidence. The Jan 6 people routinely refer to themselves as trying to save democracy from a corrupt election. The posts over Trump being transactional may suggest a kind of nihilist strategy but he does have a consistent zero sum view of the world. It is a classic misreading of Nietzsche to say he leads to fascism. Is nihilism is anti-foundational moral and epistemological skepticism. I'll quote someone else here
Fascists believe there is a foundation in group hierarchy. A Fascist would say meaning to be found in the universe, but it cannot be found within an individual. They are currently using non-foundational arguments to mask their foundational beliefs.

Okay, yes not Nihilist in a existential sense, philosophically Trumpism and individuals like Steve Bannon, do have values, and to support your argument, he believes in group hierarchy (his Fuhrer Trump) who will protect the United States from the enemy within (Critical theory ect), and preserve its collective Christian identity.

They are nihilists in that they seek to undermine and distort objective truths because they believe in Nietzsche’s will to power, in short elections are not won on rational truths, they are won on sentiment, emotion and the willpower of a strong man. (Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban) They are willing to annihilate the truth for power.

I could go on about how they pass appointments and legislation that erodes the democratic process once in power, but I would like to keep it short.

As for their followers who took part in the January 6th insurrection, to quote the old Soviet phrase, they are “useful idiots” The vast majority of them most likely subscribe to non rational, conspiracy theories that have no evidence to back them up. They probably haven’t a clue of what a primary or secondary source is.

Finally, I’m not referring to Conservatives or traditional Republicans here, just the far right sect that has always existed within the party from Patrick Buchanan on back. William F. Buckley’s traditional conservativism is divorced form this.

Bye the bye, I wasn’t challenging you. Honestly I didn’t read a word you said. I was just musing with late night insomnia, I loved the article.

[babyblob]

My grandpa made a comment years ago that sums up the Gop Party. And the comments in this thread reminded me of it.

"This country really went to Shit when they told woman and blacks they were as good as anyone else."

[4theEarth]

White America worked well for white Americans at the expense of everyone else, so it didn’t really “work well”.
The majority still remains the majority and the system isn’t changing completely. The idea is accommodating the few in the present improves the situation for all in the long term. You know that and it shouldn’t have to be explained.

Let pick a year say 1950 and the white population is 89.3 percent for whom it is working well for isn't that doing a good job politically? It should be explained rather than be a truism that Majoritarians can dismiss. How does backing minorities help everyone? It is part of the author's point here that the narrative is incomplete because the ideals are presented uncritically..