[Plantagenet]

But we have had decades of Democrats running California. Just as in Chicago, the murder capital of the USA, and Barack Obama's hometown. Or in Philidelphia, Watts, Harlem, Oakland, Washington DC, East St. Louis, New Orleans, etc. etc.

All Democratic administrations of long standing. All hellholes of racial violence.

Good point.

People are focusing on resentment from white working class voters backing Trump, but Black Lives Matter and the demonstrations, race riots, and attacks against the police in our cities are also a product of the "Politics of Resentment". But blacks, instead of blaming the politicians like the white working class voters are doing, are instead blaming the "white" system and in particular blaming the police.

The Ds have been very clever at nursing this anger at the police along. Obama has derided the intelligence of the police, and put his administration on the side of criminals in several occasions---most releasing by releasing hundreds of federal felons from the prison. Ds have convinced black Americans living in cities with poor schools, poor services, poisoned drinking water, racial violence etc. to blame white policemen rather then hold their own elected D officials to account for the poorly run cities.

And, since one of the few good-paying jobs still available to White Working class males is the army, and many army people go on to be policemen, White Working class voters resent Black Lives Matter people when they go after the police and loot and burn stores down in race riots.

Cheers!


The Politics of Resentment on display in the black community

[onlooker]

To me the politics of resentment is just our modus operandi as humans. Bickering with and blaming each other. Funny but that diverts into what Ibon is saying about the overarching catalyst of problems being predicated on limits to growth. Well it seems to me that despite the recent history of abundance, we have nevertheless persisted in being acrimonious among each other. Thus it stands to reason that things will be worse now that the age of scarcity has arrived. Unless we can somehow learn to unite for the common good. So far not seeing it

[Tanada]

I find it somewhat amusing that when this board became a place to be online back in 2005 there were plenty of Partisans that pointed at the republicans as the cause of all evils. Now that the democrats have been in charge for going on ten years those same partisans do not get why Joe6P thinks things should have gotten better, but have not.

You can take it either way, R's got control of Congress in 1994 and lost it in 2006 then D's got Congress from 2006 to 2010 and gained the Presidency in 2008. In the last 24 years D's have had the Presidency for 16 and Congress for 6, R's had Presidency for 8 and Congress for 18. Technically Congress has been split sometimes with House and Senate being controlled by opposite parties, but in effect they have worked hand in glove for the benefit of the House and Senate members.

[KaiserJeep]

Both parties have certainly given us ample cause to resent them.

Which is why Trump the Washington outsider retains popularity in spite of being afflicted with foot-in-mouth disease. He's not for sale as are all the establishment R's and D's, especially HRC.

[Newfie]

One thing both parties have in common is the vast percentage of higher office holders are lawyers.

Maybe we just resent being a country run by lawyers?

[KaiserJeep]

One thing both parties have in common is the vast percentage of higher office holders are lawyers.

Maybe we just resent being a country run by lawyers?

In an SF novel that documented an alternative history, Robert A. Heinlein postulated a holiday called "The Day We Hanged All The Lawyers".

[Quinny]

Tanada's point merely demonstrates the point that the Democrats and Republicans are almost interchangeable. Like New Labour and the tories in the UK they support an establishment that has done little for the people at the bottom of the pile. The red tories support business as usual allowing the rich to get richer whilst the poor get poorer, whilst ameliorating the position of those at the bottom with some spending on public services and subsidisng essential supplies.

The fact that people want a change shouldn't come as a surprise, neither should the fact they are easily manipulated to follow the divide and rule politics of someone like Trump (or vote for Brexit that is against their own economic interests) as political and economic education is virtually none-existent.

It really is frightening how easily people can be so ignorant as to choose options that will damage them and their families during the downturn, and make the risks of major conflict even greater than under the warmongering Democans.

Something in this thread has just worried me almost as much as Trump though, but enlightened me as to how the USA's main claim to fame might be explained. KJ said he has sat on several juries, if others of a similar ilk are deemed suitable for jury service it explains why the USA is top of the incarceration league.

[KaiserJeep]

You couldn't be more wrong about that one. The cause of the high incarceration rate is the high level of murders and other violent crimes. The causes of that in turn are the official government policy of "diversity", the government policies that allow each group to retain cultural/ethnic and even nationalistic identities while living in this country, and the policies that say you have to tolerate, even coddle their differences. In addition to that, we now have to regard drug offenses - the proximate cause of street warfare - as nonviolent crimes.

These policies are new and entirely due to the Democrats. They replaced prior policies where every prior group was in effect forcibly integrated into our society, retaining an ethnic identity for at most one generation.

I live in Silicon Valley, USA - aka San Jose, California. Where the mayor is Hispanic and nothing happens on the 4th of July, but we have a big parade and festival on Cinco de Mayo, aka Mexican Independance Day. Where we have battles in the streets between 102 different gangs, but mostly the Hispanic gangs who comprise the rival factions the Sureños (Southerners) and the Norteños (Northerners). Understand that those labels refer to the Mexican territories they control, and not the turf they claim here in this country or city. But these gangs permeate even the suburbs I live in, where High School and Intermediate school children are forbidden to wear the gang colors red and blue. Add to this the sizable Chinatown area and the rival neighborhoods of Vietnamese, Hmong, and Filipinos, all stubbornly speaking native tongues and barely literate in English - but only if they attended school here, otherwise not.

When the FF crash comes, this area will dissolve in ethnic and religious violence, with precious gasoline as the new trade commodity. Meanwhile, the high technology business environment has birthed the Smartphone, the HDTV, the Internet, and the first competitive electric cars in about a century. There is an incredible amount of wealth flowing in both the legal and illegal economies, and a burgeoning demand for drugs and prostitution.

Just like the similar things that are happening in the UK. The push to globalize business is destroying national identity, and the results include the Brexit vote and very probably the election of Donald Trump, who gains votes at every act of terrorism or gang warfare.

That's where the resentment comes in. We already had a revolution, followed by a civil war, and now we are devolving into a society that is about to have another civil war. The forced and failed "diversity" policies of the last eight years have whipped this country to a level of violence never before seen, with acts of Islamic terror thrown in for flavor. Our National identity as Americans is directly under assault by Democrats who label this "elitist culture" while (like Hillary Clinton) positively wallowing in it - and classical political corruption - as they whip the various groups into conflict and then promise to "fix" things. The fringes of our society often express themselves as groups like "Black Lives Matter" and "Occupy Wall Street" and so forth - and are openly encouraged by Democratic politicians.

In fact, once upon a time an American President and the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson, established a bounty on Indian scalps, because he wanted the White European immigrants to replace the Native Americans. Today, we need for somebody to establish a bounty for Democrat scalps, after everybody has been recorded in a DNA database along with political party affiliations.

A retired fellow like me could make a nice supplemental income in Democrat scalps here in California.

[Quinny]

I understand what you are saying, divisive policies in housing and employment lead to conflict. It's why need to strive towards multicultural societies. It's interesting that the highest levels of racism are found in areas where there are no immigrants.

The way to avoid diversity becoming an issue is to share life together and have equal access to services and employment. It's like the joke "A black a Jew a Christian and a Muslim are at the same table in a restaurant, they all have a drink and chat and make friends, because you don't have to be a racist a**ehole!"

Divide and rule has always been the strategy of the ruling class.

[Ibon]

This is the age of resentment in America, Haven't you ever seen a toddler scream when his mother refuses to buy him that shiny red truck at the Walmart store?

Many of you like to focus on the corruption and incompetency of our political leaders. Some of you focus more on the democrats. Some more on the republicans. Some of you on both parties. That's well and fine.

I prefer to focus on the cultural aspects in the general population that breeds this resentment.

It is really quite easy to blame incompetent leaders.

In the third world most impoverished folks do not expect much from clearly corrupt governments. They fall back on their own resources and those of their families.

[SeaGypsy]

Even in multicultural cities, workplaces often reflect a race dynamic or otherwise, depending on hiring policy. People working in racist workplaces tend toward racist banter. The industry I'm working in has a lot of it, but the employer I'm with has a specific minimal inclusion policy, so there is at least one of every ethnicity prevalent in the area, in 8 months there I have not heard a racist word spoken, the African & Indian & Maori & Anglo & SE Asians all get along well & the atmosphere is positive & friendly, wages are at the top of the sector & business is growing like crazy, from 2 brothers & a mate in 2003 to a fleet of 40 large trucks & 100+ staff operating 24/7 out of a $35 million coolroom.

In about 200 businesses I serve on my runs, the most successful are the most diverse. In one of the most multicultural cities in the world, the positives vastly outweigh the negatives, the more adaptable people & businesses thrive, while others stuck in an anti mindset feel threatened, because they are. The delusion is that they are threatened by other races, rather than the fact of being overwhelmed by the rapid emergence of this hybrid which in itself is not a culture, at least one which has yet to be defined.

Meanwhile the much talked about race war fails to emerge for the same reason economic revolution fails, the stronger, smarter individuals acting in self interest, dismantle racism (through realising business opportunities) & facilitate continuance of the economic status quo by participation in the standard markets.

The balancing of capital markets & social supports is the art of developing modern societies, whether people want to admit this or not, the welfare state & capitalism are both here to stay, for as long as the gambit we call the global economy holds together. People are going to keep being drawn towards opportunity wherever it presents itself. Societies are going to have to continue to apply supplication for those who "fail to thrive", a key mechanism of which is racism.

Regarding divide & rule, as applied in the current era, it all seems mostly theater, distraction. It works effectively for this purpose, keeping the hoy poloi engaged in futile negativity while the big end of town shops for multilingual business consultants. Want your kids to be rich? Get them learning Chinese, Hindi, Spanish & Arabic & send them to business school majoring in international commerce.

[Newfie]

That all well and good Sea, I just doubt that will survive once we hit a serious down turn and hunger is at the door. There's little doubt you way is the more intelligent way. But to retreat into enclaves is the more emotional way.

But....no point arguing, we will find out soon enough.

[SeaGypsy]

I'm not arguing about the long term, just about the way things are moving now in the parts of the world still economically viable. How these experiences transcend to post apocalyptic treatment of people by people I don't know, but I doubt they are of no effect. If the multicultural experiment is successful for long enough, builds enough harmony between ethnicities, this would I think be a great aid to people in general on the downslope. If humanity is to get it's act together, this will require a different focus than the predisposition of xenophobia.

[onlooker]

If humanity is to get it's act together, this will require a different focus than the predisposition of xenophobia.---This is a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with

[KaiserJeep]

I understand what you are saying, divisive policies in housing and employment lead to conflict. It's why need to strive towards multicultural societies. It's interesting that the highest levels of racism are found in areas where there are no immigrants.

The way to avoid diversity becoming an issue is to share life together and have equal access to services and employment. It's like the joke "A black a Jew a Christian and a Muslim are at the same table in a restaurant, they all have a drink and chat and make friends, because you don't have to be a racist a**ehole!"

Divide and rule has always been the strategy of the ruling class.

Except you still are not getting it. The various Local, State, and National governments don't have "divisive policies", unless you are labelling the "diversity" policy itself divisive. The ethnic groups divide and exclude others by themselves and in defiance of government policy. Meanwhile the affluent suburbs are where every race and ethnicity and culture lives with every other in full compliance with government policies. My immediate neighbors are Hispanic (Norteños complete with "NorCal" bumper stickers), Russian, Indian, Sikh, and a rental property that changes frequently but this year is Cantonese.

The high levels of violence, the gang warfare over turf, the selling of hard drugs, the sex trafficking in adults and children all happen in the "diverse" communities, aka "the Barrios", "the slums", etc. The biggest of these is Oakland, CA - a nearby city and primarily a slum where most of the Blacks in the San Francisco Bay Area (about 43% of Oakland's population) choose to live. Oakland is also the area that leads the news every night with violence, and is awash in corrupt Democratic politicians.

Now you know why I have been on so many juries and have sat for so many murder trials. Which is because I don't shirk my duty as a citizen. But I have lived in this city since 1986 and I can say without any doubt that it is being destroyed by the abandonment of the older "Melting Pot" policies which forcibly integrated people and Americanized all, teaching English language and mainstreaming everyone.

Note also that there is another policy of the Democrats which can be summarized most distinctly by saying "Blame Whitey". My ancestors got off a boat from Cork, Ireland in the 1920s, refugees from a potato famine. Neither I nor my family ever oppressed anyone, indeed the Irish were the despised minority of their time. We never owned slaves, either. But according to those groups that are publicly supported by the Democrats, I and like people owe "slavery reparations" to Blacks because our skins are White.

That's right - America's Civil Rights era was the 1950s and 1960s, and three generations or so afterwards, everybody else is supposed to pay Blacks because of the color of their skin. Meanwhile, silly White women show up on my doorstep and ask me to sign petitions that would restore "racial balance" in our prisons which are largely Blacks and Norteños and Sureños. As near as I can figure out, they are proposing changes to sentencing policies, that would classify drug offenses as non-violent crimes - but only for those whose skins are not White, until "racial balance" is achieved. Because here in the USA where Blacks are 13% of our population and Hispanics are 15%, they comprise the majority of prison populations under uniform sentencing guidelines.

If you made up a story about such things and wrote it into a book, nobody would believe it. Beginning to understand that Politics of Resentment yet? It is anti-Democratic resentment.

[Ibon]

If you made up a story about such things and wrote it into a book, nobody would believe it. Beginning to understand that Politics of Resentment yet? It is anti-Democratic resentment.

Resentment is a many faceted prism in the US. Your story is one small aspect. There are entitled people on the political left who feel resentment as well.

If we want to reduce the politics of resentment down to its origin it really is about a wealthy country losing its wealth. This affects equally some one on the left that is resentful that college tuition isn't free as much as the uneducated white racist.

There is a common denominator here that transcends the political polarity and it simply has to do with entitlement the perspective life on the downslope which Americans, as a culture, are just beginning to familiarize themselves with.

[KaiserJeep]

Ibon, when did I become "entitled"? Like I said, I'm a 3rd generation Irish immigrant. My parents faced grinding poverty in the Great Depression, and earned their way to Middle Class status by working hard. I did my hitch in the military (a family tradition) and then went to a tough Engineering school, then worked for 37 years. Now I own a fairly valuable but still tiny 1350 square foot 3-bedroom home with a 16X32 swimming pool they won't let me use, and I just signed up for Social Security and Medicare. Yes I married somebody who inherited an even smaller home on Nantucket, and I've been paying the taxes while the Mother-In-Law lives there for over a decade.

Nor do I consider myself Right-Wing. I consider myself a Classical Liberal. I consider Democrats as NeoLiberals and Republicans as NeoConservatives. But I remember a time when you found greater ideological differences within the two major parties than between them. I remember when an arch-conservative JFK beat a middle-of-the-road moderate Republican named Nixon. I remember when the extreme Right Wing of American politics were the Dixiecrats - the elitist, racist, and downright repugnant Democrats like George Wallace.

I believe that those who work hard deserve more than the idle, and consider myself anything but entitled. I deserve only what I earned, as does anyone else.

[onlooker]

I think Ibon hit the nail on the head. The Resentment present in the US is at its root borne from a country and people who have this notion of being entitled, the chosen ones ie. American exceptionalism. That is why I think the economic downturn is mostly deeply affecting white poor Americans. Because they are cultured to this sense of entitlement from generation to generation. People who are newly arrived or just 1st or 2nd generations Americans do not have anywhere near this sense of entitlement as they come generally from places where life is more difficult and money is hard to come by. So these people do not have this sense of economic entitlement embedded in their cultures. Trump is garnering this white resentment because he speaks directly about it and tends to simplify the economic troubles down to a few causes which these white people can identify with and rally behind such as no more jobs being exported and no more easy immigration into this country. Also, because the Republicans are seen as more the party of white people while the Dems as the multi-cultural/race all encompassing party.

[Ibon]

KJ, I did not mean to imply that you are entitled. I was more pointing out that there are many facets. You were explaining this anti-democratic resentment which does not tell the whole story. It's part of a deeper phenomenon.

The political polarity has reached extremes where the polarity and differences overwhelms the common sense of cohesion that in the past would allow a democrat and republican to both in a civil way express their differences. This is increasingly rare. The lack of cohesion is also related to how those neighborhoods in California fall along distinct ethnic identities.

[Ibon]

I think Ibon hit the nail on the head. The Resentment present in the US is at its root borne from a country and people who have this notion of being entitled, the chosen ones ie. American exceptionalism.

Yes Onlooker. Sometimes to the point they are blind to their hubris. I was watching an American couple a few weeks back in a fast food joint here in Panama freaking out to the attendant employee because they ordered their meal take out and the paper plate hand wrapped in aluminum foil was not acceptable as a take out packaging and this couple were complaining in their horrible spanish that they needed to package their take out meal in proper take out packaging and that hand wrapping a plate in aluminum foil was unacceptable. The attendant just kind of looked at them like they were nuts. Here they were in a foreign country were normally you should be flexible to differences and they were wanting their home standards met in something so simple as take out food. this american couple was African American, I was watching and since 80% of Panamanians are people of some mestizo color you don't see color differences. I did not see them as black african americans I only saw the American arrogance that they themselves were not even able to recognize. This is a silly example but it is instructive in subtle ways of this entitlement that is not limited to one race or ones place socio economically or ones ethnic background or religion. It is American hubris. And oddly provincial.