Agreed. As someone who supported Warren and then Sanders over Biden, it's clear that Dem primary voters had some wisdom about the electorate that I did not. It's harder to say how some lesser known but centristy candidate like Booker would have done, but not really worth thinking about as they had no chance in the primary.
I do think some of the disappointment-based analysis might be overwrought. Florida is definitively an under-performance. Some of the vote margins in upper Midwest are probably a bad sign for the party's future there. But there were more than enough gains, it looks like, elsewhere to make up for that. It will be interesting do and read some deeper analysis once better numbers are available.
Oddly, there's apparently still a chance in Alaska for a 49th Senator. Winning that, there are very good odds for Warnock in Georgia. 50 or even 51 seats may still happen.
Agreed. As someone who supported Warren and then Sanders over Biden, it's clear that Dem primary voters had some wisdom about the electorate that I did not. It's harder to say how some lesser known but centristy candidate like Booker would have done, but not really worth thinking about as they had no chance in the primary.
I do think some of the disappointment-based analysis might be overwrought. Florida is definitively an under-performance. Some of the vote margins in upper Midwest are probably a bad sign for the party's future there. But there were more than enough gains, it looks like, elsewhere to make up for that. It will be interesting do and read some deeper analysis once better numbers are available.
Oddly, there's apparently still a chance in Alaska for a 49th Senator. Winning that, there are very good odds for Warnock in Georgia. 50 or even 51 seats may still happen.
Florida and Ohio are no longer swing states in my mind. They are solidly red. The tell is the numbers from Miami-Dade. The Cuban community has been lost to Democrats since the Bay of Pigs and Elian Gonzalez, but it's become even more entrenched. Ohio wasn't even close (though I'm curious as to what the difference is between that state and WI, MI and PA). On the flip side, Virginia and Colorado are now solidly blue going forward, and Arizona and Georgia are new battlegrounds. In retrospect, Obama seems like even more of political prodigy than he did at the time for what he pulled off.
Agreed. As someone who supported Warren and then Sanders over Biden, it's clear that Dem primary voters had some wisdom about the electorate that I did not. It's harder to say how some lesser known but centristy candidate like Booker would have done, but not really worth thinking about as they had no chance in the primary.
I do think some of the disappointment-based analysis might be overwrought. Florida is definitively an under-performance. Some of the vote margins in upper Midwest are probably a bad sign for the party's future there. But there were more than enough gains, it looks like, elsewhere to make up for that. It will be interesting do and read some deeper analysis once better numbers are available.
Oddly, there's apparently still a chance in Alaska for a 49th Senator. Winning that, there are very good odds for Warnock in Georgia. 50 or even 51 seats may still happen.
Florida and Ohio are no longer swing states in my mind. They are solidly red. The tell is the numbers from Miami-Dade. The Cuban community has been lost to Democrats since the Bay of Pigs and Elian Gonzalez, but it's become even more entrenched. Ohio wasn't even close (though I'm curious as to what the difference is between that state and WI, MI and PA). On the flip side, Virginia and Colorado are now solidly blue going forward, and Arizona and Georgia are new battlegrounds. In retrospect, Obama seems like even more of political prodigy than he did at the time for what he pulled off.
I dont necessarily think any of this is wrong per se, but we will need to see how things shake out in the next few years. The polls were off pretty significantly, especially battleground state polls, in 2016 and 2020. They were considerably better in 2018. I dont think that's a fluke necessarily. I think there was something motivating about Trump that worked for Conservatives and really brought them out.
I dont know what that special something was, but we're going to need to test the hypothesis and see how things shake out once Trump is out of politics (of course, that may not happen until after 2024...).
I agree Florida and Ohio are gone. They've broken the Democrat's hearts too many times in a row to be reliable. Georgia and NC might shape up to be the next set of "Leans red, but winnable" states. I guess you might technically say WI/PA/MI are that too, since each was more Republican's than the country as a whole the past two elections.
This is SUCH a good point, because I have personally been talking left-leaning relatives off the ledge for the last 36 hours. They knew, based on my reputation, that I was a reliable source of information they didn't know how to get themselves. And no matter how many times I told them Pennsylvania was in the bag, the balm of me saying that would only last for a few hours before they'd be checking in again. "How is it looking now, when are we going to know something, what about this state". I'm not gonna lie, even though I HAVE known, logically, since Wen. morning what would likely happen, my own anxiety had me scrolling Twitter so much that it almost became pathological. I still NEED that call from the media outlets as a seal on this thing. The psychic wounds of 2016 among the left are DEEP, and the first 8-10 hours of 2020 were like an honest to go case of PTSD. I just want this to be finished so I can relax and sleep again:
1 - On the subject of identity: I dont think I would qualify whether Jewish people are "The Chosen" is a matter of identity so much as a theological concept regarding their religion. I would say denying them their Jewishness would be more akin to ignoring their identity. I could imagine (and do not believe for a second, to be clear) someone regarding a person as being "Not a real Jew" because they dont support Israel or do not live in Israel. We broadly consider an attitude such as that as being anti-semitic. I do agree that people are free to accept another person's identity - but perhaps we should consider what that says about ourselves.
I can see that my analogy isn't perfect, but the issue with yours is the following: when a Jewish person says that another is "not a real Jew," we all know this isn't meant literally. Rather, it's a moral judgment (or something akin to that). The person who is called "not a real Jew" is apparently not meeting some moral or otherwise "ideal" standard of how a Jewish person "ought" to be, according to the accuser.
On the other hand, the feminist opposition to notions like "transwomen are women" is based on a disagreement on the literal definitions of woman/man. Saying "transwomen are not actually women" is meant in a completely literal sense, which is why these feminists keep pointing at dictionary definitions and biological classification of mammals.
The purpose of my analogy was to point out that, just like whether Jewish people are a "chosen people" or not is a genuine disagreement on a literally meant proposition, so is the question of whether trans people are the gender they identify as. Feminists don't believe that there's a "proper" way to be a woman or a man, and the trans-critical feminists will not hesitate at all to say that a transwoman is "a real man" and a transman is "a real woman."
2 - ON the subject of misinterpreting Rowling: I dont find anecdotal evidence to be terribly useful here. Other people's mileage may vary.
I'm not sure which part of my post you're referring to. If it's the part about the nastiness directed at Rowling, that's definitely a big trend on social media, and the examples I've given were merely some of the most extreme, to give a sense of how far it goes. There are some "archives" of the torrent of verbal abuse she's received, like the Medium post I linked.
If you meant my anecdotal experience with /r/AskTransgender, I'd say it's a concrete example of a trend I've observed over the years, but of course it's a difficult thing to prove a group's alleged subconscious intentions/thoughts. I can only say that my observations and discussions over the years led me to believe that while the transgender movement pays a lot of lip service to e.g. black transwomen who suffer from violence, they seem less interested in analyzing what truly leads to those conditions and more interested in making sure that a white middle-/upper-class transwoman never ever gets misgendered and everyone diligently repeats mantras like "trans women are women" as if it's going to change the living conditions of a black transwoman who has to do survival prostitution in a ghettoized community.
3 - on the subject of slurs: I dont think the age of a term is of particular interest to me. Incidentally, Nazis also hated being called that term. While I dont personally consider any of the three terms to be "slurs", I could agree that they are mostly used as a pejorative.
I also dont find the argument that the term is used in violent jokes to be particularly instructive on it being a slur. The internet is famously good at making everything violent or bad. This seems like an exceptionally low bar to clear if we want to reclassify terms into slurs.
The common online rhetoric around "TERF" is not limited to generic and juvenile expressions of hatred that could be passed off as standard Internet banter. It includes the expression of elaborate, detailed, drawn-out fantasies of physical and sexual violence, deeply dehumanizing language, and credible threats of physical violence, e.g. posing with a weapon. (I don't have all the links handy like in the last paragraph but ask me if you have doubts and I'll gather them up.)
If it were just raw Internet language, where are the examples of the term "TRA" being used alongside such violent rhetoric? ("TRA" stands for "Trans Rights Activist" which is meant as an analogy to "Men's Rights Activist" and is the term usually used by trans-critical feminists to describe the pro-trans activists they don't like.) Or you could try to find examples of trans-critical feminists using the t-slur against trans people.
4 - On the subject of Lesbian support of the trans community: I would not say dating preference is a good metric for evaluating the support of a community. Polling in general is going to be problematic due to the bias implicit in asking about a group suffering discrimination (to a group suffering a similar but mostly unrelated discrimination).
The statement wasn't about support, but "inclusiveness." Although most trans activists would probably dispute this, I would claim that even I'm "in support" of the trans community (despite staying broadly in opposition to the transgender movement as a political movement), insofar I'm in favor of anti-discrimination measures, analyzing the real pain-points that affect the most disenfranchised transgender people, and so on. When lesbians repeat mantras like "trans women are women" I think they really just mean to express a generic support like that, even though they don't believe nor feel that statement to be literally true.
I cant sleep so I'll go ahead and respond to some of those points:
About my comparison to Jews: I think you're mistaken here. I do think it is meant literally, or at least somewhat literally. If you arent a "real Jew", then while you may call yourself a Jew, you arent seen to espouse the qualities required by some arbitrary definition to define oneself as being Jewish. So it can absolutely be literal. A Jew in name only, so to speak. That's significant because it is calling into question what it means to be Jewish. As far as identity goes, it's hard to get more literal than that.
I dont have much else to say about the anecdotal evidence point, I'm sure plenty of people have seen plenty of trends that correlate to their slice of life. I dont see it as useful in any macro sense. Sorry. This isnt to say your experiences havent been instructive for you. I'm sure they have. They're just not useful to me. At all.
About TERF as a slur - the same criteria you've used here can be reestablished to a bunch of different terms or concepts in modern life, and I wouldnt necessarily consider any of them as slurs either. To be frank, I can go find the same material for probably any political or religious ideology whatsoever. Muslims easily fit all of those parameters and I wouldnt consider it to be a slur. I recognize that Muslims accept the term for themselves and perhaps TERFs do not - but I do not think simply rejecting a term is grounds for something to be a slur. To be honest - it feels like you and I are having different arguments on this point. I'm interested in the debate on if TERF is a slur, you're mostly just citing evidence that they are subject to prejudice. I dont see those two things as being equal.
Lastly - I still dont think it's instructive in the least to attempt to define the inclusiveness of the Lesbian community for trans women based on their dating preference. It's just an obviously narrow and particular circumstance to hone in on, and I dont think it does your argument any service. Of all of our disagreements, this one seems the most obvious to me (by a wide, wide margin).
@BallpointMan It's the morning here so I'll respond, but don't let me keep you up.
Maybe I'm just not familiar with the arguments about Jewishness. To be honest, this was the first time I've heard that there is such a thing as someone being called "not a real Jew" for not living in or supporting Israel. In any case, as you say, those are rather arbitrary criteria (given that Israel hasn't existed nearly as long as Jewish people have). On the other hand, the dictionary definition of woman and biological definition of female are anything but arbitrary, and have been in place since prehistoric times. (One doesn't require modern biology to note that mammals come in two categories w.r.t. reproductive anatomy and function.)
Regarding slur or not, I would be curious to hear what your criteria for a slur or hate speech are. To me, being coerced a label one doesn't agree with, then constantly verbally abused / dehumanized, being targeted with vandalism, suffering physical assault, and having all of this gleefully celebrated and even seriously intellectually defended, seems quite enough.
(CW: depiction of physical violence in next paragraph)
In the SonicFox video/tweet that got about 10K likes before being deleted by Twitter, he's heard sharply chanting "TERF!" with every blow his character Geras deals at opponent character Sonya's neck during his Fatality move. The fictional character Sonya isn't picked randomly for this; her voice actor Ronda Rousey is considered a "TERF" for having spoken out against transwoman Fallon Fox partaking in female MMA matches. Fallon Fox has, recently, bragged on Twitter about how they has enjoyed fracturing the skull of a "TERF," referring to the instance where Fox caused an orbital bone fracture to Tamikka Brents. Brents much later criticized the practice of a male-born MMA fighter competing against women, after initially not making any such statement despite the injuries she suffered... In all of this, I see a form and level of disdain, hatred and enjoyment of violence, and intellectual justification of said violence, that I would otherwise only expect from far-right extremists. I realize this may sound like an extreme analogy, but I mean it.
He doubled Hilary's win total in that category. The "American people" (a term I kinda hate) have spoken pretty loudly. And they said "we can't take this for 4 more years. Pack your shit."
It did have the illusion of a close election, but these ballots were always there. This thing should have been over late Tuesday night. This 72 hour anxiety-fest was brought to you by the Republican legislatures of WI, MI and PA.
He doubled Hilary's win total in that category. The "American people" (a term I kinda hate) have spoken pretty loudly. And they said "we can't take this for 4 more years. Pack your shit."
Likely going to be the second widest popular vote margin of the 21st century, trailing only 2008. This was not close. A red mirage only because they had yet to count many black voters.
Would be satisfying for Trump to lose Georgia due to his behaviour over John Lewis
Play stupid games...
I mean, that's part of the reason why he has apparently lost Arizona, too, isn't it? Trump's unwillingness to honor or even to barely acknowledge the passing of state icons like Lewis and McCain meant that he was going to alienate a lot of voters there.
Would be satisfying for Trump to lose Georgia due to his behaviour over John Lewis
Play stupid games...
I mean, that's part of the reason why he has apparently lost Arizona, too, isn't it? Trump's unwillingness to honor or even to barely acknowledge the passing of state icons like Lewis and McCain meant that he was going to alienate a lot of voters there.
Add Michigan to that list too, as he basically insinuated a politician that was universally liked in the state, John Dingell, was burning in hell. I believe @Balrog99 said it was one of the moments that cost Trump his vote.
And, well, he was pretty much correct. Joe Biden may have been the only one that could have pulled this off now that we know Trump's support was VASTLY undercounted in the polls.
No, this is not the lesson we need to take from this election.
Trump should have lost in a landslide. The fact that he didn’t speaks volumes about the failure of moderate Democrats.
No “blue wave” materialized. Democrats did not retake the US Senate and failed to knock out a single Republican in the House of Representatives. Millions more people voted for Trump than in 2016, and it became disturbingly clear that even if Trump himself is booted from office, this insane conspiracy laden “Trumpism” is alive and well.
There was no need for it to be this way.
Trump did not run a good campaign. Trump botched debates, squandered campaign cash, and sent out incoherent lies. Trump badly mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The economy is in awful.
Moderate Democrats failed. A clear and compelling alternative would have easily defeated Trump.
Biden defended the private health insurance industry and the fracking industry from attacks by the left. He ran away from proposals favored by the Democratic base like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. He didn’t try very hard to court core constituencies like Latino voters. His campaign ground game was pretty non-existent.
Fox News polling shows voters want universal healthcare, abortion rights and a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. Florida voters selected Donald Trump and also opted to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The Democrats do not need to propose uninspired half-measures when data and common sense indicates that the public are fully on board with a progressive agenda.
The answer for Democrats is not to be more like Republicans. The answer is not to run scared moderate pro-corporate campaigns. Bernie knew how to speak to Trump’s own voters, he could go to a Fox town hall and have the attendees cheering for single-payer healthcare. He could win over a crowd at Liberty University.
Democrats need to grow some spine. Joe Biden is hardly the only person on Earth that could beat Donald Trump in an election. The fact that Democrats spent hundreds of millions and lost ground to Republicans shows moderate Democrats to be extreme failures.
The latest Maricopa drop was not nearly good enough for Trump. It doesn't look like FOX and AP are going to have to retract anything. It's still gonna be close, but Biden is now clearly on track to hold in Arizona.
And, well, he was pretty much correct. Joe Biden may have been the only one that could have pulled this off now that we know Trump's support was VASTLY undercounted in the polls.
No, this is not the lesson we need to take from this election.
Trump should have lost in a landslide. The fact that he didn’t speaks volumes about the failure of moderate Democrats.
No “blue wave” materialized. Democrats did not retake the US Senate and failed to knock out a single Republican in the House of Representatives. Millions more people voted for Trump than in 2016, and it became disturbingly clear that even if Trump himself is booted from office, this insane conspiracy laden “Trumpism” is alive and well.
There was no need for it to be this way.
Trump did not run a good campaign. Trump botched debates, squandered campaign cash, and sent out incoherent lies. Trump badly mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The economy is in awful.
Moderate Democrats failed. A clear and compelling alternative would have easily defeated Trump.
Biden defended the private health insurance industry and the fracking industry from attacks by the left. He ran away from proposals favored by the Democratic base like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. He didn’t try very hard to court core constituencies like Latino voters. His campaign ground game was pretty non-existent.
Fox News polling shows voters want universal healthcare, abortion rights and a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. Florida voters selected Donald Trump and also opted to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The Democrats do not need to propose uninspired half-measures when data and common sense indicates that the public are fully on board with a progressive agenda.
The answer for Democrats is not to be more like Republicans. The answer is not to run scared moderate pro-corporate campaigns. Bernie knew how to speak to Trump’s own voters, he could go to a Fox town hall and have the attendees cheering for single-payer healthcare. He could win over a crowd at Liberty University.
Democrats need to grow some spine. Joe Biden is hardly the only person on Earth that could beat Donald Trump in an election. The fact that Democrats spent hundreds of millions and lost ground to Republicans shows moderate Democrats to be extreme failures.
I think people are failing to realize that (at least when Trump is on the ballot) none of the stuff you are talking about here (which I support nearly 100%) matters. The vote for President in 2020 was almost entirely a cultural statement about values. The down-ballot races and initiatives were where people made their policy preferences known. At the top of the ticket, it was "what do you want America to stand for". There actually IS some indication even in areas where Biden did ok but down ballot Democrats didn't that the "defund the police" and "socialism" stuff that Trump pushed so hard WAS effective, but it couldn't stick to Biden. It absolutely would have stuck to Bernie.
Trump may be on the ballot again in 2024. But if he's not, someone like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton will be. They will peddle the same garbage, but are MUCH smarter and more cynical. Trumpism is here to stay. The silence of Republicans today confirms once and for all that Trump has consumed the party. Even if he disappears (which he won't, he will be a sort of President in Exile for alot of these people) his cult is large, it was underestimated, and they are getting crazier by the minute.
As a relative outside, it seems to be me that there was a quite impressive blue wave. But the blue wave was matched by a slightly less impressive red wave for Trump - after all both of them received very high number of total votes.
This also means that almost half of the US is willing to throw their support behind what seems to be a would-be dictator. This may seem like a stretch, but it is hard to believe for me that if the military, the supreme court or the police offered to intervene and call the election for him - and thankfully that won't happen - he wouldn't take them up on this offer to retain power despite losing the election.
Moreover - this was clear from the start. Even now very prominent Republican political like Senator Graham are throwing their weight behind Trump and asking States to disregard the vote by sending unfaithful electors.
Would a less moderate politician have done better? I doubt it, since it would have potentially helped the red wave more than the blue wave. But of course it is hard to convincingly argue counter-factuals.
Moderate Democrats failed. A clear and compelling alternative would have easily defeated Trump.
The thing is we actually have some examples in the data to put this hypothesis to the test. And it fails. Biden did better than Ilhan Omar in her district. Biden did better (and won) the congressional district in Omaha, Nebraska while the Democrat who had endorsed Medicare For All lost.
Look, I find the results disappointing. And I'm not a centrist Dem. But if your immediate analysis about the election coincides exactly with your priors, I think you need to be a little self-skeptical.
I make alot of predictions, and they aren't all correct, but the ones about the shifting Republican position on deficits the literal MOMENT a Democrat wins office are NEVER wrong.
I'm just basking in the glow of no political robo-calls, texts, or ads. God it feels good! Might take a couple weeks off of actual posting just to reboot my mind to post-election mental health status...
He was ALWAYS going to do this, but here is why Trump's attempts to "stay" so to speak, aren't going to work:
1.) Biden's position on this the last three days has been crystal clear and strong. Trump doesn't get to decide this election, the people do, count every vote. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign position has ranged from incoherent to demented.
2.) It now looks like he would have to flip the final results in three separate states with legal challenges. If it was one, maybe, but three is an impossibility.
3.) He has so alienated the military brass that they would never stand for such an assault on democracy.
4.) The general posture of those opposed to Trump hasn't been fear of what he is doing, but mockery, which is exactly the right play. It robs him of any sense of perceived power over the situation.
The fact is, Donnie has finally found the one situation in his life he can't scam, sue, or bullshit his way out of. And alot of it is because they telegraphed every move they would make along the way. Everyone was prepared for this, and the general consensus is "ignore him and let him wallow in his own private hell of rejection".
People here are absolutely losing their minds about Trump fighting the results as if this is the first time it has ever happened before. There are still people to this day who think 2000 and 2016 were stolen elections. Trump himself was investigated for years based on those conspiratorial and false claims. Relax. The country is not as fragile as you think. There are actual processes for these things.
A little attachment to reality goes a long way. This is barely more than an average uproar.
In fact I would go a step further and say challenging results is usually a net positive. People only seem to want it to be a bad thing because they cling to this idea that it leads to authoritarianism with no evidence. It leads to more stringent election laws, such as the ones in Ohio and Florida drafted after the controversies there, and the fact that elections are put under such a microscope is the best guarantee there is that there isn't fraud of any sort.
Couple things, people may have argued Russia hacked the voting machines, I never argued that. I did argue that they hacked voter ROLLS, because they did, and said it wasn't much of a step up to get to the next level. Never said they messed with tabulations.
Secondly, the Trump argument in PA is based on the difference between poll watchers being 6 ft. or 10 ft. distance due to COVD-19 protocols, and they are bitching about ballots that were POSTMARKED by November 3, but were RECEIVED afterwards. But the fact is that these votes are NOT in the current pool of votes. They have been set aside on purpose in anticipation of this. Because it was always transparently obvious what their legal play would be, so the PA election officials cut it off at the pass by preemptively making it meaningless.
Comments
I do think some of the disappointment-based analysis might be overwrought. Florida is definitively an under-performance. Some of the vote margins in upper Midwest are probably a bad sign for the party's future there. But there were more than enough gains, it looks like, elsewhere to make up for that. It will be interesting do and read some deeper analysis once better numbers are available.
Oddly, there's apparently still a chance in Alaska for a 49th Senator. Winning that, there are very good odds for Warnock in Georgia. 50 or even 51 seats may still happen.
Florida and Ohio are no longer swing states in my mind. They are solidly red. The tell is the numbers from Miami-Dade. The Cuban community has been lost to Democrats since the Bay of Pigs and Elian Gonzalez, but it's become even more entrenched. Ohio wasn't even close (though I'm curious as to what the difference is between that state and WI, MI and PA). On the flip side, Virginia and Colorado are now solidly blue going forward, and Arizona and Georgia are new battlegrounds. In retrospect, Obama seems like even more of political prodigy than he did at the time for what he pulled off.
I dont necessarily think any of this is wrong per se, but we will need to see how things shake out in the next few years. The polls were off pretty significantly, especially battleground state polls, in 2016 and 2020. They were considerably better in 2018. I dont think that's a fluke necessarily. I think there was something motivating about Trump that worked for Conservatives and really brought them out.
I dont know what that special something was, but we're going to need to test the hypothesis and see how things shake out once Trump is out of politics (of course, that may not happen until after 2024...).
I agree Florida and Ohio are gone. They've broken the Democrat's hearts too many times in a row to be reliable. Georgia and NC might shape up to be the next set of "Leans red, but winnable" states. I guess you might technically say WI/PA/MI are that too, since each was more Republican's than the country as a whole the past two elections.
I can see that my analogy isn't perfect, but the issue with yours is the following: when a Jewish person says that another is "not a real Jew," we all know this isn't meant literally. Rather, it's a moral judgment (or something akin to that). The person who is called "not a real Jew" is apparently not meeting some moral or otherwise "ideal" standard of how a Jewish person "ought" to be, according to the accuser.
On the other hand, the feminist opposition to notions like "transwomen are women" is based on a disagreement on the literal definitions of woman/man. Saying "transwomen are not actually women" is meant in a completely literal sense, which is why these feminists keep pointing at dictionary definitions and biological classification of mammals.
The purpose of my analogy was to point out that, just like whether Jewish people are a "chosen people" or not is a genuine disagreement on a literally meant proposition, so is the question of whether trans people are the gender they identify as. Feminists don't believe that there's a "proper" way to be a woman or a man, and the trans-critical feminists will not hesitate at all to say that a transwoman is "a real man" and a transman is "a real woman."
I'm not sure which part of my post you're referring to. If it's the part about the nastiness directed at Rowling, that's definitely a big trend on social media, and the examples I've given were merely some of the most extreme, to give a sense of how far it goes. There are some "archives" of the torrent of verbal abuse she's received, like the Medium post I linked.
If you meant my anecdotal experience with /r/AskTransgender, I'd say it's a concrete example of a trend I've observed over the years, but of course it's a difficult thing to prove a group's alleged subconscious intentions/thoughts. I can only say that my observations and discussions over the years led me to believe that while the transgender movement pays a lot of lip service to e.g. black transwomen who suffer from violence, they seem less interested in analyzing what truly leads to those conditions and more interested in making sure that a white middle-/upper-class transwoman never ever gets misgendered and everyone diligently repeats mantras like "trans women are women" as if it's going to change the living conditions of a black transwoman who has to do survival prostitution in a ghettoized community.
A few points:
The use of "TERF" with relation to violent rhetoric is not limited to the Internet. People who call radfems "TERF" have vandalized property, committed physical assault, celebrated said physical assault, and wrote lengthy articles encouraging the use of violence as a political strategy.
The common online rhetoric around "TERF" is not limited to generic and juvenile expressions of hatred that could be passed off as standard Internet banter. It includes the expression of elaborate, detailed, drawn-out fantasies of physical and sexual violence, deeply dehumanizing language, and credible threats of physical violence, e.g. posing with a weapon. (I don't have all the links handy like in the last paragraph but ask me if you have doubts and I'll gather them up.)
If it were just raw Internet language, where are the examples of the term "TRA" being used alongside such violent rhetoric? ("TRA" stands for "Trans Rights Activist" which is meant as an analogy to "Men's Rights Activist" and is the term usually used by trans-critical feminists to describe the pro-trans activists they don't like.) Or you could try to find examples of trans-critical feminists using the t-slur against trans people.
The statement wasn't about support, but "inclusiveness." Although most trans activists would probably dispute this, I would claim that even I'm "in support" of the trans community (despite staying broadly in opposition to the transgender movement as a political movement), insofar I'm in favor of anti-discrimination measures, analyzing the real pain-points that affect the most disenfranchised transgender people, and so on. When lesbians repeat mantras like "trans women are women" I think they really just mean to express a generic support like that, even though they don't believe nor feel that statement to be literally true.
About my comparison to Jews: I think you're mistaken here. I do think it is meant literally, or at least somewhat literally. If you arent a "real Jew", then while you may call yourself a Jew, you arent seen to espouse the qualities required by some arbitrary definition to define oneself as being Jewish. So it can absolutely be literal. A Jew in name only, so to speak. That's significant because it is calling into question what it means to be Jewish. As far as identity goes, it's hard to get more literal than that.
I dont have much else to say about the anecdotal evidence point, I'm sure plenty of people have seen plenty of trends that correlate to their slice of life. I dont see it as useful in any macro sense. Sorry. This isnt to say your experiences havent been instructive for you. I'm sure they have. They're just not useful to me. At all.
About TERF as a slur - the same criteria you've used here can be reestablished to a bunch of different terms or concepts in modern life, and I wouldnt necessarily consider any of them as slurs either. To be frank, I can go find the same material for probably any political or religious ideology whatsoever. Muslims easily fit all of those parameters and I wouldnt consider it to be a slur. I recognize that Muslims accept the term for themselves and perhaps TERFs do not - but I do not think simply rejecting a term is grounds for something to be a slur. To be honest - it feels like you and I are having different arguments on this point. I'm interested in the debate on if TERF is a slur, you're mostly just citing evidence that they are subject to prejudice. I dont see those two things as being equal.
Lastly - I still dont think it's instructive in the least to attempt to define the inclusiveness of the Lesbian community for trans women based on their dating preference. It's just an obviously narrow and particular circumstance to hone in on, and I dont think it does your argument any service. Of all of our disagreements, this one seems the most obvious to me (by a wide, wide margin).
REPEAT: BIDEN IS LEADING IN GEORGIA!
Ahem...
@BallpointMan It's the morning here so I'll respond, but don't let me keep you up.
Maybe I'm just not familiar with the arguments about Jewishness. To be honest, this was the first time I've heard that there is such a thing as someone being called "not a real Jew" for not living in or supporting Israel. In any case, as you say, those are rather arbitrary criteria (given that Israel hasn't existed nearly as long as Jewish people have). On the other hand, the dictionary definition of woman and biological definition of female are anything but arbitrary, and have been in place since prehistoric times. (One doesn't require modern biology to note that mammals come in two categories w.r.t. reproductive anatomy and function.)
Regarding slur or not, I would be curious to hear what your criteria for a slur or hate speech are. To me, being coerced a label one doesn't agree with, then constantly verbally abused / dehumanized, being targeted with vandalism, suffering physical assault, and having all of this gleefully celebrated and even seriously intellectually defended, seems quite enough.
(CW: depiction of physical violence in next paragraph)
In the SonicFox video/tweet that got about 10K likes before being deleted by Twitter, he's heard sharply chanting "TERF!" with every blow his character Geras deals at opponent character Sonya's neck during his Fatality move. The fictional character Sonya isn't picked randomly for this; her voice actor Ronda Rousey is considered a "TERF" for having spoken out against transwoman Fallon Fox partaking in female MMA matches. Fallon Fox has, recently, bragged on Twitter about how they has enjoyed fracturing the skull of a "TERF," referring to the instance where Fox caused an orbital bone fracture to Tamikka Brents. Brents much later criticized the practice of a male-born MMA fighter competing against women, after initially not making any such statement despite the injuries she suffered... In all of this, I see a form and level of disdain, hatred and enjoyment of violence, and intellectual justification of said violence, that I would otherwise only expect from far-right extremists. I realize this may sound like an extreme analogy, but I mean it.
Now gotta go back to celebrating Georgia.
There it is! Posted after 4 of the 5 videos from his ‘news conference’ was blocked by Twitter.
Truthfully Twitter should have cracked down on him 6 years ago, but better late than never.
This was not a close election, in addition to a solid EC victory (barring changes in AZ and GA), you also have this:
He doubled Hilary's win total in that category. The "American people" (a term I kinda hate) have spoken pretty loudly. And they said "we can't take this for 4 more years. Pack your shit."
It did have the illusion of a close election, but these ballots were always there. This thing should have been over late Tuesday night. This 72 hour anxiety-fest was brought to you by the Republican legislatures of WI, MI and PA.
My nephew made this up an my my wife and I suggested to him that was needed.
Likely going to be the second widest popular vote margin of the 21st century, trailing only 2008. This was not close. A red mirage only because they had yet to count many black voters.
Play stupid games...
I mean, that's part of the reason why he has apparently lost Arizona, too, isn't it? Trump's unwillingness to honor or even to barely acknowledge the passing of state icons like Lewis and McCain meant that he was going to alienate a lot of voters there.
Add Michigan to that list too, as he basically insinuated a politician that was universally liked in the state, John Dingell, was burning in hell. I believe @Balrog99 said it was one of the moments that cost Trump his vote.
No, this is not the lesson we need to take from this election.
Trump should have lost in a landslide. The fact that he didn’t speaks volumes about the failure of moderate Democrats.
No “blue wave” materialized. Democrats did not retake the US Senate and failed to knock out a single Republican in the House of Representatives. Millions more people voted for Trump than in 2016, and it became disturbingly clear that even if Trump himself is booted from office, this insane conspiracy laden “Trumpism” is alive and well.
There was no need for it to be this way.
Trump did not run a good campaign. Trump botched debates, squandered campaign cash, and sent out incoherent lies. Trump badly mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, which killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The economy is in awful.
Moderate Democrats failed. A clear and compelling alternative would have easily defeated Trump.
Biden defended the private health insurance industry and the fracking industry from attacks by the left. He ran away from proposals favored by the Democratic base like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. He didn’t try very hard to court core constituencies like Latino voters. His campaign ground game was pretty non-existent.
Fox News polling shows voters want universal healthcare, abortion rights and a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. Florida voters selected Donald Trump and also opted to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The Democrats do not need to propose uninspired half-measures when data and common sense indicates that the public are fully on board with a progressive agenda.
The answer for Democrats is not to be more like Republicans. The answer is not to run scared moderate pro-corporate campaigns. Bernie knew how to speak to Trump’s own voters, he could go to a Fox town hall and have the attendees cheering for single-payer healthcare. He could win over a crowd at Liberty University.
Democrats need to grow some spine. Joe Biden is hardly the only person on Earth that could beat Donald Trump in an election. The fact that Democrats spent hundreds of millions and lost ground to Republicans shows moderate Democrats to be extreme failures.
I think people are failing to realize that (at least when Trump is on the ballot) none of the stuff you are talking about here (which I support nearly 100%) matters. The vote for President in 2020 was almost entirely a cultural statement about values. The down-ballot races and initiatives were where people made their policy preferences known. At the top of the ticket, it was "what do you want America to stand for". There actually IS some indication even in areas where Biden did ok but down ballot Democrats didn't that the "defund the police" and "socialism" stuff that Trump pushed so hard WAS effective, but it couldn't stick to Biden. It absolutely would have stuck to Bernie.
Trump may be on the ballot again in 2024. But if he's not, someone like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton will be. They will peddle the same garbage, but are MUCH smarter and more cynical. Trumpism is here to stay. The silence of Republicans today confirms once and for all that Trump has consumed the party. Even if he disappears (which he won't, he will be a sort of President in Exile for alot of these people) his cult is large, it was underestimated, and they are getting crazier by the minute.
This also means that almost half of the US is willing to throw their support behind what seems to be a would-be dictator. This may seem like a stretch, but it is hard to believe for me that if the military, the supreme court or the police offered to intervene and call the election for him - and thankfully that won't happen - he wouldn't take them up on this offer to retain power despite losing the election.
Moreover - this was clear from the start. Even now very prominent Republican political like Senator Graham are throwing their weight behind Trump and asking States to disregard the vote by sending unfaithful electors.
Would a less moderate politician have done better? I doubt it, since it would have potentially helped the red wave more than the blue wave. But of course it is hard to convincingly argue counter-factuals.
The thing is we actually have some examples in the data to put this hypothesis to the test. And it fails. Biden did better than Ilhan Omar in her district. Biden did better (and won) the congressional district in Omaha, Nebraska while the Democrat who had endorsed Medicare For All lost.
Look, I find the results disappointing. And I'm not a centrist Dem. But if your immediate analysis about the election coincides exactly with your priors, I think you need to be a little self-skeptical.
I make alot of predictions, and they aren't all correct, but the ones about the shifting Republican position on deficits the literal MOMENT a Democrat wins office are NEVER wrong.
WOW. ?
Hm, I wonder if there are any meme or remix videos of that woman... ?
... was not disappointed! ?
1.) Biden's position on this the last three days has been crystal clear and strong. Trump doesn't get to decide this election, the people do, count every vote. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign position has ranged from incoherent to demented.
2.) It now looks like he would have to flip the final results in three separate states with legal challenges. If it was one, maybe, but three is an impossibility.
3.) He has so alienated the military brass that they would never stand for such an assault on democracy.
4.) The general posture of those opposed to Trump hasn't been fear of what he is doing, but mockery, which is exactly the right play. It robs him of any sense of perceived power over the situation.
The fact is, Donnie has finally found the one situation in his life he can't scam, sue, or bullshit his way out of. And alot of it is because they telegraphed every move they would make along the way. Everyone was prepared for this, and the general consensus is "ignore him and let him wallow in his own private hell of rejection".
A little attachment to reality goes a long way. This is barely more than an average uproar.
Secondly, the Trump argument in PA is based on the difference between poll watchers being 6 ft. or 10 ft. distance due to COVD-19 protocols, and they are bitching about ballots that were POSTMARKED by November 3, but were RECEIVED afterwards. But the fact is that these votes are NOT in the current pool of votes. They have been set aside on purpose in anticipation of this. Because it was always transparently obvious what their legal play would be, so the PA election officials cut it off at the pass by preemptively making it meaningless.