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Robinson isn’t talking about Trump voters, when he talks about the supposed “populist right,” and he doesn’t try to “define” those voters. He’s talking about those in power, which includes Trump, and the fraud they consistently perpetrate on those voters. Compare, for instance, Trump’s deeds to his rhetoric and the fraud is beyond obvious. Compare his deeds to virtually any president in the last 100 years (or more), and no one comes close to his deadly and destructive actions, or his lies.
No–Robinson starts by talking about the voters & Ball and Enjeti’s attempt to talk to these voters. Take a look at the beginning of the article:
There is a populist movement, they [Ball & Enjeti] write, as seen in “working class uprisings across the globe, from Donald Trump’s election [to] Bernie Sanders’ campaign.”
Reading the book, I found the idea of “left populism” and “right populism” being a unified “working class politics” to be deeply troubling. After all, once you get past abstractions like “families are the future,” what is “right” populism? Who are the right-wing populists? Well, they tend to be authoritarian nationalists who say the word “workers” a lot but are actually deeply xenophobic and militaristic. Are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders part of the same movement?
Robinson, then shifts to Tucker, Trump, and Hawley to dismiss the idea of trying to talk to the populist Right voters so that the US moves away from corporate Dem & Rep positions.
Robinson’s assertion seems to be that Tucker & Trump are representatives these voters have specifically chosen and look how terrible those two are. There can never be any significant work done between Bernie voters and the Trump voters because those voters have chosen repulsive leaders to represent them.
Robinson is probably right–It’s hard to see our leaders in DC start working for actually smart and good policies because voters have almost zero ability to choose capable leaders.
But, the failure is also a failure of the press. I find Robinson’s argument more “sound and fury” than anything insightful and helpful. If you want to talk about right wing populism and say anything interesting in 2020, you should at least use Thomas Frank who has written about this stuff, for what, 20 years?
Part of the failure to move toward better policies is the Left’s failure. Bernie has failed to talk effectively to anyone outside his own camp. A year ago, Bernie did a Fox Town Hall and ended up advocating for the right to vote for people in jail.
Think about that, the leader of the Left goes on Fox and advocates a fringe position that regular Fox News Americans will laugh at and just dismiss. Going on Fox to talk sense to those voters is a good idea, but you have to sell your ideas and make appealing arguments.
Another example, remember Bernie’s appearance on 60 Minutes when he ended up defending his interest in Cuban communism by praising Cuban literacy? That was a super easy question to respond to. Bernie flat out failed.
Of course, most of the responsibility for our current situation belongs to the people who watch Fox and continue to vote for republicans. Robinson is right to be annoyed by Ball’s attempt to talk to these voters. But where will be if these people don’t come to their senses?
Robinson’s argument sounds a lot like Trump and the republicans are crazy and unless they want to come to their senses, there’s no need to work with them.
That dismisses many voters who voted for Obama twice. Ignoring and abandoning those voters because they voted for Trump seems like madness if you want to actually win elections.
Robinson’s one dimensional characterization of right Populists betrays an incomplete understanding of some of these voters who don’t always vote for Republicans. If you want to understand right Populists I think you have to consider Thomas Frank.
A key point of Frank’s is that Democrats don’t know how to talk to the working class who have been abandoned by Democrats since Bill Clinton.
Yes, Trump was–and is–full of lies, but he still does a good job of appealing and talking to those voters, even if they are foolish to trust Trump and the Republicans. According to Frank, Trump deliberately echoes FDR’s own language at times and those Old School, New Deal Democrats like Roosevelt, Truman, and LBJ knew how to talk to rural voters in Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas that Democrats NEVER win nowadays.
Corporate Dems have no clue how to talk to those voters and Lefty leaders like Bernie aren’t very good either.
Check out this from Harry Truman in 1948:
Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home—but not for housing. They are strong for labor—but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights. They favor minimum wage—the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all—but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine—for people who can afford them … They think American standard of living is a fine thing—so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.
Can you imagine Bernie or any democrats starting off a criticism of Republicans by talking about farmers?
The right is awful on a lot of issues–college tuition, climate change, taxing the rich, massive military budgets, health care, etc.
But immigration is a tool the left should use to forward causes like climate change and taxing the rich to fund other programs. I don’t watch Rising much and I doubt Krystal Ball and the other guy have talked about overlapping interests in restricting immigration.
But there are interests that overlap there.
One is fighting for working people. The rich and elites are happy bringing in millions of poor people who work for crap wages and shitty hours.
When I had some construction in my rental house done recently, who do you think my landlord sent over on a Saturday morning?
This is what happens when you import thousands and thousands of cheap laborers. They work cheaply and shitty hours. Who wants to work 6 or 7 days a week?
Right populists point this out all the time, but Robinson dismisses it as racism. Yes, that’s part of it, but there are some legit problems, I think, with importing cheap labor by using immigration.
Rising should explore those perspectives because there’s an opportunity to help poor Americans and poor Central Americans I would think.
Robinson’s criticism of Taibbi’s article is a perfect illustration of what Taibbi is criticizing. I’ll just use Robinson’s first example of the professor who created a controversy by not censoring MLK’s “Birmingham Jail” that intentionally uses provocative language and by showing disturbing images of a documentary about lynching even though some students objected.
A college history class should include material that does make people uncomfortable. Or if some material is inappropriate, the university should make that decision and share that expectation with the professor.
Robinson’s own solution to this situation seems to be part of the problem that Taibbi is criticizing.
Here’s Robinson:
Today I’m going to read from Letter From Birmingham Jail. The letter contains the n-word. I am considering saying it aloud because I think it’s important to hear exactly what King wrote rather than my censored version of what King wrote, but I know the word is very painful and if anyone would like to object, I will omit it. Also, I plan to screen a video about civil rights today that contains both the word and a graphic depiction of lynching. The video uses these on the theory that it is important for us to see and hear the uncomfortable truth.” I think actually when you present things this way students will feel respected and are less likely to complain. The problem was actually that the professor did not care what the students thought of what he did and said.
Sorry, 18 year olds don’t get to decide what is censored. Again, if the university and professionals want to make that decision, fine.
Here’s the problem with Robinson’s suggestion: What if a racist student or a student who just wants to be an ass objects to seeing a documentary with disturbing images or objects to reading a poem about a lynching? Do you omit an important part of the course because of one objection?
The link that Robinson contains a sentence about protesters calling for the firing of the history professor in this example AND another professor who refused to delay or cancel exams at UCLA because of Floyd’s death.
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Richard Wright–“Between the World and Me”And then they had me, stripped me, battering my teeth
into my throat till I swallowed my own blood.
My voice was drowned in the roar of their voices, and my
black wet body slipped and rolled in their hands as
they bound me to the sapling.
And my skin clung to the bubbling hot tar, falling from
me in limp patches.
And the down and quills of the white feathers sank into
my raw flesh, and I moaned in my agony.
Then my blood was cooled mercifully, cooled by a
baptism of gasoline.
And in a blaze of red I leaped to the sky as pain rose like water, boiling my limbs
Panting, begging I clutched childlike, clutched to the hot
sides of death.Instead of rejecting the entire notion as a method of deflection and privilege, we will attempt to formally dismiss the conversation forever by laying out the facts about why white America never hears us talk about black-on-black crime.
It’s not a thing.
According to the FBI’s uniform crime-reporting data for 2016, 90.1 percent of black victims of homicide were killed by other blacks, while 83.5 percent of whites were killed by other whites. While no life is inconsequential, the statistical evidence shows that—just as for blacks when it comes to black-on-black crime—whites are mostly victimized by other whites, with the vast majority of white murders committed by whites. This is because most victims of crime personally know their assailants. And while this is a truth across racial boundaries, no one ever talks about “white-on-white crime.”
Furthermore, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ arrest data analysis tool shows that less than 1 percent of blacks overall (about 2 percent of black men) commit a violent crime in any given year. This means, factoring in interracial violent offenses, 99 percent of black men do not commit black-on-black crime.
This is a terrible argument. Way more black people are murdered by guns every year than white people. I picked the random dates of 2015-1018 and, according to the CDC, 10,000 more black people were shot and killed than white people for the time period.
If 1% of black men are committing violent crimes every year, THAT is a lot. That would be near 200,000 people committing violent crimes every year, right?
I know black on black on violence is probably a distraction Fox News is using right now, but the violence ties right in with the class and race jumble that is important to discuss.
Just dismissing important trends with some bogus arguments like this one source is frustrating to me.
scheme fit. i’m guessing a lot of it comes down to that. mcvay knows what kind of running back and receiver he wants. so i’ll trust him on this. but i was a little underwhelmed. my favorite pick is jefferson. he’s like robert woods and cooper kupp. sounds like a versatile receiver. a technician. precise.
they need a center and an offensive tackle. maybe they find them today.
It would be a nice to have a highly touted prospect on the line, but McVay may be happy to use the same line he did last year.
The first 2 games were probably the best games the Rams had running the ball all year.
In game 1 vs. the Panthers Brown and Gurley combined for 150 yards on 25 carries.
In game 2 vs. the Saints Brown and Gurley combined for 100 yards on 22 carries.
Injuries popped up in game 2 as Blythe sprained an ankle and missed game 3 vs. the Browns and may have been gimpy in that awful game against the Bucs.
The running game was rolling those first 2 weeks, and that includes Brian Allen who takes a lot of abuse from Rams fans.
I actually kinda like Allen and am rooting for him to be the starting center this year–he’s tough, strong, and moves pretty well. According to PFF he was the 15th best run blocking center. And that’s as a 24 year old with almost no experience.
