All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[zinderel]

good long term solution

beat Richard Spencer in the face

Long term? Education - real education, not the corporatist slave training we CALL education - is the only thing that'll save us. Teaching the next generation that their parents are secretly (or not so secretly...) hateful idiots and not people to look up to is how we save the future, but...in the short term, yeah. Punching Nazi's wherever they rear their ugly heads is a pretty satisfying short term solution, and a wonderful teaching opportunity! After all, the only thing nazis are good for is being punching bags for decent human beings who don't live in the past and who dont idolize famous historical losers.

[Mister Mets]

Which is weird to me since i have read some thing and kkk make less than 1% of the U.S population.

The numbers of official members are much lower. I posted this link a while back, but I saw an argument online that the number of organized racists in the United States is pretty low, all things considered. I'm open to any other analysis of the numbers.

The number of organized white supremacists is in the thousands; tens of thousands if you include some online groups.

1. Is Trump getting a lot of his support from white supremacist organizations?

No, because there are not enough organized white supremacists to make up “a lot” of anyone’s support.

According to Wikipedia on KKK membership:
As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League puts total Klan membership nationwide at around 3,000, while the Southern Poverty Law Center puts it at 6,000 members total
The KKK is really small. They could all stay in the same hotel with a bunch of free rooms left over. Or put another way: the entire membership of the KKK is less than the daily readership of this blog.

If you Google “trump KKK”, you get 14.8 million results. I know that Google’s list of results numbers isn’t very accurate. Yet even if they’re inflating the numbers by 1000x, and there were only about 14,000 news articles about the supposed Trump-KKK connection this election, there are still two to three articles about a Trump-KKK connection for every single Klansman in the world.

I don’t see any sign that there are other official white supremacy movements that are larger than the Klan, or even enough other small ones to substantially raise the estimate of people involved. David Duke called a big pan-white-supremacist meeting in New Orleans in 2005, and despite getting groups from across North America and Europe he was only able to muster 300 attendees (by comparison, NAACP conventions routinely get 10,000).

My guess is that the number of organized white supremacists in the country is in the very low five digits.

The alt-right is mostly an online movement, which makes it hard to measure. The three main alt-right hubs I know of are /r/altright, Stormfront, and 4chan’s politics board.

The only one that displays clear user statistics is /r/altright, which says that there are about 5,000 registered accounts. The real number is probably less – some people change accounts, some people post once and disappear, and some non-white-nationalists probably go there to argue. But sure, let’s say that community has 5,000 members.

Stormfront’s user statistics say it gets about 30,000 visits/day, of which 60% are American. My own blog gets about 8,000 visits/day , and the measurable communities associated with it (the subreddit, people who follow my social media accounts) have between 2000 – 8000 followers. If this kind of thing scales, then it suggests about 10,000 people active in the Stormfront community.

4chan boasts about 1 million visits/day. About half seem to be American. Unclear how many go to the politics board and how many are just there for the anime and video games, but Wikipedia says that /b/ is the largest board with 30% of 4Chan’s traffic, so /pol/ must be less than that. If we assume /pol/ gets 20% of 4chan traffic, and that 50% of the people on /pol/ are serious alt-rightists and not dissenters or trolls, the same scaling factors give us about 25,000 – 50,000 American alt-rightists on 4Chan.

Taking into account the existence of some kind of long tail of alt-right websites, I still think the population of the online US alt-right is somewhere in the mid five-digits, maybe 50,000 or so.

50,000 is more than the 5,000 Klansmen. But it’s still 0.02% of the US population. It’s still about the same order of magnitude as the Nation of Islam, which has about 30,000 – 60,000 members, or the Church of Satan, which has about 20,000. It’s not quite at the level of the Hare Krishnas, who boast 100,000 US members. This is not a “voting bloc” in the sense of somebody it’s important to appeal to. It isn’t a “political force” (especially when it’s mostly, as per the 4chan stereotype, unemployed teenagers in their parents’ basements.)

So the mainstream narrative is that Trump is okay with alienating minorities (= 118 million people), whites who abhor racism and would never vote for a racist (if even 20% of whites, = 40 million people), most of the media, most business, and most foreign countries – in order to win the support of about 50,000 poorly organized and generally dysfunctional people, many of whom are too young to vote anyway.

Caring about who the KKK or the alt-right supports is a lot like caring about who Satanists support. It’s not something you would do if you wanted to understand real political forces. It’s only something you would do if you want to connect an opposing candidate to the most outrageous caricature of evil you can find on short notice.

This is a Vox poll asking how many people had favorable vs. unfavorable views of different groups. 11% admit to “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” views of blacks, which sounds bad, except that 7% of people admit to unfavorable views of heterosexuals by the same definition. This makes me think “have an unfavorable view about this group” is not a very high bar. If we restrict true “white supremacists” to those who have only “very unfavorable” views of blacks, this is 3%, well in line with our other sources.

(of note, 1% of respondents had “never heard of” blacks. Um…)

Maybe a better way of looking for racists: David Duke ran for Senate in Louisiana this year. He came in seventh with 58,000 votes (3%). Multiplied over 50 states, that would suggest 2.5 million people who would vote for a leading white supremacist. On the other hand, Louisiana is one of the most racist states (for example, Slate’s investigation found that it led the US in percent of racist tweets) and one expects Duke would have had more trouble in eg Vermont. Adjusting for racism level as measured in tweets, it looks like there would be about 1 million Duke voters in a nationwide contest. That’s a little less than 1% of voters.

So our different ways of defining “open white supremacist”, even for definitions of “open” so vague they include admitting it on anonymous surveys, suggest maybe 1-2%, 1-2%, 4-7%, 3-11%, and 1-3%.

But doesn’t this still mean there are some white supremacists? Isn’t this still really important?

I mean, kind of. But remember that 4% of Americans believe that lizardmen control all major governments. And 5% of Obama voters believe that Obama is the Antichrist. The white supremacist vote is about the same as the lizardmen-control-everything vote, or the Obama-is-the-Antichrist-but-I-support-him-anyway vote.

(and most of these people are in Solid South red states and don’t matter in the electoral calculus anyway.)

[zinderel]

Which is weird to me since i have read some thing and kkk make less than 1% of the U.S population.

That IS wierd! And then you realize that the KKK isn't the only racist shitbag organization in America. There are a LOT of them, and most of them are passing for churches, thanks to the incredibly lax laws that religious zealots won't allow anyone to enforce about what constitutes a religion here.

[Tazirai]

I hope Democrats have learned that they need to be just as ruthless as the GOP.

Democrats are puss sadly. They want to be the "Gentlemen and Ladies" of Politics. They are part of the "Decorum over Policy" crowd. Just watch MSNBC basically anytime of the day except from 8-11pm.
It's all about the PERSON, not the POLICY~ drives me bonkers.

[Tazirai]

Better solution to the world problems, put Alex Jones and Cenk Ygur in a cage match on Pay per view and the money goes to charity.

Cenk almost bet him down before, and yes I'd pay good money for that fight. Cenk is huge but he outran Anna Kasparian a younger, fitter, aerobic nut in a race. He did ALl the laps. She noped out.
I think Alex once confronted will Nope out.

Then toss in Spencer and Hilarity will reign.

[heretic]

I think the neonazis deserve to be criticized and reviled, but that most people aren't under an obligation to waste their time on them. Responding as if individual Neonazis were as prominent as NFL athletes (the only case in which 40-50 athletes are equivalent to 40-50 Neonazis) is also unlikely to discourage Neonazis.

"They are just looking for attention, if you ignore them they will go away."

I have to admit that is not a terribly effective means of dealing with bullying or harassment.

[Tazirai]

Man, this is like watching the aftermath of a Skynet attack. Devastating.

[Tami]

Eminem wasn’t just calling out President Trump. He was talking to his fans.

Tuesday night during the BET Hip Hop Awards, Eminem essentially initiated a rap battle with President Trump. He also, as he put it, “drew a line in the sand” for anyone who loves his music: You can’t be a Trump supporter and an Eminem fan.

Eminem’s video was part of a BET tradition: the Cypher, a pre-recorded freestyle performance by a rapper that airs during the network’s annual awards ceremony. Introduced as “The Storm” and filmed in a Detroit parking garage, the video went viral before the show was even over. (Eminem grew up in Detroit; it’s a tradition in rap to go back to the streets that made you.)

While for some artists this might not be a major statement, Eminem is the most popular artist in a heap of red states, including Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Eminem knows a significant contingent of his fan base put Trump in office. BET is a major platform; he’s not wasting it here. He’s showing that he’s serious — and not afraid of risking losing support from his fans in conservative swaths of the country.

This anti-Trump stance may seem a little out of character. It’s not as if Eminem is famous for his progressive politics; his songs are infamously filled with dark references to his ex-wife and graphic descriptions of fantasies involving violence against his mother.

But close listeners will recognize a through-line: Eminem has been mocking, analyzing, and criticizing the ideology for which Trump stands for years.

Take “White America,” from his album The Eminem Show released back in 2002, less than a year after 9/11 and in the midst of George W. Bush’s presidency. In the song, Eminem paints the United States from his point of view: a divided nation tinted in hypocrisy that leaves a white rapper feeling on the fringe. Pressure to appear patriotic was high, yet Eminem saw it necessary to call out Washington — he cites Ms. Cheney and mocks freedom of speech. The song’s name and content also demonstrate that Eminem was increasingly aware of his whiteness and his white fans, and wouldn’t hesitate to unpack the privilege this afforded him.

---------------------

Trump-Supporting Eminem Fans Express Outrage on Twitter Over Rapper's Anti-Trump Freestyle

Eminem didn’t hold back in his cypher -- called "The Storm (Freestyle)" -- against Trump and his supporters, at BET’s Hip Hop Awards on Tuesday (Oct. 10). He protested the “racist 94-year-old” president by cutting deep into issues like Islamophobia, white supremacy and racism against Black Lives Matter protesters.

“Says he wants to lower our taxes,” he raps in one line. “Then who's gonna pay for his extravagant trips / Back and forth with his fam to his golf resorts and his mansions?”

He points at the hypocrisy of Trump’s pro-military rhetoric by touching on his past comments criticizing John McCain for being captured while serving during the Vietnam War. “Unless you’re a POW who’s tortured and battered ‘cause to him you’re zeroes ‘cause he don’t like his war heroes captured.”

The rapper is still trending on Twitter -- he’s received plenty of support from fellow celebrities, including Colin Kaepernick, Ellen DeGeneres and T-Pain.

But his incendiary lyrics are getting backlash from Trump supporters, whose platform he mocked by putting on a fake Southern accent during lines like, "[Trump's] gonna get rid of all the immigrants.” The rapper makes it clear that he won’t tolerate pro-Trump views from anyone, even if they come from his fans. “Any fan of mine who’s a supporter of his,” he rapped. “I’m drawing in the sand a line.” Then he comes close to the camera and appears to say “**** you” behind a censor while flipping them off.

[Malvolio]

"They are just looking for attention, if you ignore them they will go away."

I have to admit that is not a terribly effective means of dealing with bullying or harassment.

Yeah. It looked small over the weekend because only 40-50 people showed up for only 10 minutes, but just because the majority of the attendees of the previous rally stayed away this time doesn't mean they won't stay away the next time. Pretending they don't exist just results in shock the next time they show their ugly faces.

[aja_christopher]

I think the neonazis deserve to be criticized and reviled, but that most people aren't under an obligation to waste their time on them. Responding as if individual Neonazis were as prominent as NFL athletes (the only case in which 40-50 athletes are equivalent to 40-50 Neonazis) is also unlikely to discourage Neonazis.

It's telling that you see responding with a zero-tolerance policy to actual NAZIS as a "waste of time"... yet you question why Democrats aren't falling over themselves to denounce "individuals" like Harvey Weinstein en masse.

It doesn't matter how many Nazis (and other white supremacists) there are -- just like cockroaches and other vermin, if you ignore them, they will breed.

Really looking forward to you one day finding the "time" to respond to the racist rhetoric that drove Trump to the top of the heap of the Republican party.

Not holding my breath -- but looking forward to it all the same.

[Mister Mets]

That IS wierd! And then you realize that the KKK isn't the only racist shitbag organization in America. There are a LOT of them, and most of them are passing for churches, thanks to the incredibly lax laws that religious zealots won't allow anyone to enforce about what constitutes a religion here.

How many people are in these organizations altogether?

It's telling that you see responding with a zero-tolerance policy to actual NAZIS as a "waste of time"... yet you question why Democrats aren't falling over themselves to denounce "individuals" like Harvey Weinstein en masse.

It doesn't matter how many there are -- just like cockroaches and other vermin, if you ignore them, they will breed.

Really looking forward to you one day finding the "time" to respond to the racist rhetoric that drove Trump to the top of the heap of the Republican party.

Not holding my breath -- but looking forward to it all the same.

My response wasn't about a hypothetical zero-tolerance policy, but about the idea that the President should spend time on a public statement, due to 40-50 idiots protesting.

"They are just looking for attention, if you ignore them they will go away."

I have to admit that is not a terribly effective means of dealing with bullying or harassment.

It depends on the form of bullying/ harassment. Publicizing a protest to tens of millions does give them what they're looking for.

[Duskman]

The problem with ignoring scum, is that it worms it's way into all the cracks and crevices, and then a few years later, you wonder why everything you touch is tainted with scum. Kind of like our present situation.

[mojotastic]

Cenk almost bet him down before, and yes I'd pay good money for that fight. Cenk is huge but he outran Anna Kasparian a younger, fitter, aerobic nut in a race. He did ALl the laps. She noped out.
I think Alex once confronted will Nope out.

Then toss in Spencer and Hilarity will reign.

Nah m8 Cenk just got histerical for a moment, Alex Jones seem strong enough to leave someone in the floor with a punch, besides Alex screaming might affect Cenk in someway lol.

Water merchant for the win.

[numberthirty]

Now the Orange skinned Man Child is threatening to revoke NBCs broadcast license

which he can't do

Dude, shhh.

I wanna see him try it.

[aja_christopher]

And , as I said before, the hypothetical law that targets Neo-Nazis for hate speech, and thus supposedly protects "the people who aren't their primary targets," can just as easily be turned against those people.

Given a law that muzzles David Duke, what keeps the same law from muzzling Louis Farrakhan as well? Because liberals don't think it ought to?

I've never said anything about "muzzling" anyone, whether it's David Duke, Farrakhan or even you.

Don't even start with me because I'll tell you up front: you're not worth the effort.