Election 2012: Post-Game Analysis Thread

It reminds them so much of mother's basement.

Runner-up for my favorite Slacktivist blog post on willful perverse stupidity:

Oil spills being the topical thing at that moment in 2010 for obvious reasons, but the point applies to denying electoral math adds up, etc.

Well I don't know that there is a "snap back to reality" mechanism for people who managed to wander, via ideological enthusiasms, into an insane view of the world. Instead they just live on in their bubbles. The racists-who-stayed-racist from the segregation/civil rights era, the sad old communist fanatics in the former USSR...

That's okay, Jason. The world will continue to move on, smoothly and easily, without them. I think we've just proven that rather decisively.

Have they seriously still not called Florida one way or the other? Man.

I really hope you're right, but it was only two years ago that those people were able to take over the government, remember. It might be a little too early to say definitively that the world has now moved on without them.

And the crazy old cranks do better at mid-terms, and the next election's a mid-term, and there are about a billion problems that require the Democrats to win that mid-term, in spite of mid-term electoral dynamics and in spite of gerrymandering.

I don't mean to be gloomy. I mean, youth turnout improved. Not sure if that's absolutely or just as a % of the population, given the huge 2008 total, but still. Certainly good news exit-poll-wise. But the fact remains that one of the main things on the to-do list is "do everything possible to set things up for 2014 mid terms so the US will have a functioning progressive legislative majority, as it has not had for 16 of the last 18 years."

I interpreted your statement accurately, I believe. If you're not comfortable with the implications of presuming hypersensitivity over an issue of ethnic identity relative to the history of such presumptions, then you should reconsider what you declare to be petty behavior as a default position. It's not my intention to have yet another pointless internet discussion about race where everybody rushes to a duel between polarized extreme renditions of their beliefs, especially in this thread, but it's one of those things that rankles if you leave it be.

So, let me be clear: I'm not accusing you of anything beyond what I said directly, which is that your stance has serious connotations in a conversation of this nature. The way these things proliferate is by people who aren't really -ists to any significant degree who repeat soft pedaled versions of historically problematic ideas. It happens to most everyone in some form at some time where we repeat things without thinking about what they might mean relative to those being described, and if you don't get asked about it (as I never was for much of my life) it becomes habit.

In retrospect, trying to defuse my gut response to what Ryslin said by substituting snippy humor was probably unwise. So I'll take the opportunity to address that more substantively.

When you say this, do you take into account that this proposal would seem considerably less appealing to a person who is not part of that majority identity by birth? Like, I don't think it's in conflict with being a person or being a citizen or anything else that someone chooses to acknowledge their ethnic or cultural or racial background as central to their self-image. But the sort of colorblindness you are describing is often seen as a defensive movement by white culture in the wake of the civil rights movement; now that minority identities are increasingly legally recognized and protected, *now* the majority culture wants to claim that those same identities that provided solidarity and distinct cultural development while they were being outright oppressed should be cast off.

It basically comes down to whether a white person with middle-class sensibilities in the United States can acknowledge that it might not be everyone else's ambition to a someday be a white person with middle-class sensibilities. It's one of those things that's really easy to miss when your identity is regarded as the default by society.

This is different but related. Detaching culture from ethnicity, race, gender etc. is something that each person has to do for themselves, especially in the case of identities that have historically been discriminated against. If you have been discriminated against by someone with power, you probably understand why being asked to just set aside the category rather than simply reclaim it into something positive is going to bother you, but not if it's a decision you make for yourself. The "colorblind" argument against that is usually "well you wouldn't like it if I went around talking about white pride", and that's a fine argument in a world with neither the history nor the power dynamics that the United States has. The downside of being the majority is that being decent to people often involves weighting context more than absolute logic. People aren't equations that can be balanced comparatively.

Finally, one last thing. When you're talking about Latin Americans, and you talk about them being or becoming Americans as a result of living in the United States, you're putting that issue of not perceiving the majority identity as a distinct identity rather than the "default" in sharp relief. Because the United States of America happens to be awkward to turn into a nationality, it stuck, and I believe that's the main reason people use it. But in this conversation about identity, it has connotations beyond that. Consider what it means to someone who considers America a continent of which the US is a part rather than a country and an idea that has such power that it gets to claim that as a title "just for convenience".

Again, whether or not someone is offended by that usage is not the issue. I'm certainly not, and I can't think of anyone who is ever offended by it per se although I have seen it come up as a part of pretty terrible arguments where it does become one of many issues that are raised. But I think it's a useful example for the discussion.

Finally, I get that some don't want to have the conversation at all, and some don't want to have it in this thread, and some just don't want to hear it from me because I'm kind of a jerk. I get that. But I don't think it's in good faith to just let it happen without saying something.

Remember how everyone made fun of Karl Rove's fever dream of a "permanent Republican majority"?

Racial discussions are sort of like eating a delicious taco full of glass.

It's all yummy looking and everyone wants in but fuck my face, the shards!

I understand not everyone wants to be middle class white whatever. I get it. People are people, who have different cultures. The underlying truth is they are still ..people. They fart, fuck , eat , poop.
Maybe they do it over a small hole squatting, maybe they have a 1000 dollar elaborate heated contraption for their poop. They still poop. Differences on the surface are what we get an identity from but not at root of who we are.

If I treat someone as latino that has a whole context associated both good and bad. If I start from here is a person. I don't bring any of the rest of it to play. If they chose to share their culture with me that can frame their identity as -they- please. It is not my place to frame it for them.

This all stems from my personal belief system. Call it self centered , because that is what it is. It simply states I am not you so I cannot in the end know everything about you. You being anyone in this case who is not me. Yet instead of feeling that the rest of the world should be like me I work from the point that no one is like me, and they are not like anyone else either. Similarities between us fill my armchair days with musings but I do not kid myself that I have any greater understanding. The only things I can point at that make any of us similar are the very things that make us human vs a cat.

The same argument can be used for the gender equality routine. Yes there are very real differences between male and female, yet any attempt to cater to those differences ends up in very convoluted and often destructive situations. It is better to start from .. this is a person, then work into what -they- want to be treated as.

John Collison ‏@collision
Results ask Nate Silver if they're significant. #natesilverfacts
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This is the best part of the post-election analysis BY FAR.

It must be exhausting to be you. And by you I mean you the person who is not me but is also not anybody else other than you. It's in human nature (and really animal nature) to start with a baseline for how we perceive others and to group folks up in all sorts of ways that simplify our ability to deal with the incredible diversity in the world. Starting at zero and working your way from there for every single human interaction is not how anyone is wired.

Having some basic groupings we all can generally agree upon facilitates communication and discussion of broad ideas. In terms of discussing broader policy issues, it's a bit more useful perhaps to have a discussion about what issues might be a higher priority to Hispanic men than Caucasian women, even if those broad strokes obviously don't describe all the various wrinkles of whether the folks I'm lumping into those groups want to be treated as such or not.

Perhaps we can have the discussion about whether it's right or wrong for a white-skinned immigrant from Cape Town to self-identify publicly as an African-American again?

I don't think L_K or anyone else here is disputing the physical reality that we're all Homo Sapien as a matter of biology. And to the extent that you're advocating against the notion of biological superiority/inferiority based on race, then I think everyone around these parts would wholeheartedly agree. But I think you're downplaying the importance of identity regardless of whether it's based on culture or otherwise. I would argue that identity is the root of who we are, because if we're all fundamentally the same biologically, then by what other means can we distinguish ourselves as individuals?

On a personal level, your message of equality is all fine and good, but trying to process these types of issues as a society in a way that doesn't take into account the historical context of gender and racial discrimination is, I believe, a sure-fire way to arrive at the type of "convoluted and destructive" outcomes that you, understandably, want to avoid.

#drunknatesilver is pretty great too.

Why yes, yes the Romney campaign was drinking the conservative polling kool-aide right up to Election Night.

Did America actually vote for a Democratic house?

Was there really a conversation about that? Has that incident which is not any other incident actually happened?

PIX OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN

Important argument to be made but that article didn't bring enough math. Wouldn't be surprised if the math bore it out, and that should be an issue going forward.

There's a variety of institutional reasons the GOP is systematically favored in the House.

Lots of news today.

Boehner says the GOP will stop trying to repeal Obamacare, it's the law of the land. Immediately retracts it once out of the interview.

Apparently the Romney campaign and elite Republicans really did think they were win. They weren't just shitting everyone to create a bandwagon effect.

I am just dumbfounded by these morons.

When you live in a bubble the reflections drive you crazy.

That sounds familiar.

Source: Edited for length.

I SEE RAINBOWS.

No, wait, that's just a film of oily residue.

Romney may have been the first Republican leader to realize he'd lost.

Went out classy, I guess.

Probably one of my favorite parts of election night was watching the FOX staff react to the exit polling, that independants and registered Republicans had actually voted for Obama, and they had been "tricked" somehow......oh the looks on their faces.....it was wonderful!

I'm not surprised. There may still have been, at various levels, a strategy of confidence-projection at work as well, but bubbles are powerful and the possibility of systemically mistaken assumptions their model banked on did exist, albeit as an improbability.

The crazy-people-in-bunker phenomenon isn't exactly novel in politics. Have we forgotten the interminable twilight-zone phase of Hillary Clinton's 2008 primary campaign? Choice adjectives for Mark Penn aside, that wasn't what you call a dumb group, politically.

ROMNEYIS45

A coworker of mine has a Tea Party sticker on his car.

A first-gen Honda Prius.

Dunno if Triggercut posted this here as well as on Qt3 but I don't see it and it could stand posting: Post-game from Barack Obama.

Normally I try not to link to the other place, but I also don't want quote all 3 pages of awesomeness. So here you go.

White African-American

On a related note, this reminds me that white South African rappers Die Antwoord made a video where they were in black face.

Some wonderful examples of what happens when logic becomes "logic" by ignoring context in that thread. It's hard to pick between St. Gabe's usual drivel about language and jpinard's magnificent acronym.

I kinda like the African dude going off on a rant about African Americans. There's just something about it that screams HELLO I DO NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING AT ALL.

I don't want to cross streams or anything, but jesus is that filled with gems. It's like you guys gave me a treasure map and the X was where I was standing.

SEE

Or not!

that's.... really low.