Dealing With Trump Voters
Ever since the election, I’ve been thinking about how to deal with Trump voters I might meet. This article in the New York Times has helped me clarify my thinking. The star of the story is Amanda Delekta, identified as a sophomore at the University of Michigan and the Political Director of the College Republicans. She is “outraged” that students held vigils mourning the election results, and a biology professor canceled classes on the theory that students would be too upset to learn anything. She is further outraged that U of M’s president sent an email she interpreted as saying that the ideas of the “liberal majority” at the school are superior to the “ideology of their peers”. She thinks her ideology is entitled to respect. The article doesn’t explain exactly what her ideology is, or why it is entitled to respect.
This stupid election campaign did not reveal any ideological stance of the winner. He is devoted to himself and beyond that, who knows. His only serious promises involve walls, deportations, keeping out Muslims, lower taxes, and no regulations. And somehow that will bring back so many jobs in manufacturing. Delekta can’t possibly think that is an “ideology” or that this hodge-podge is worthy of respect. There is no evidence that any of this crap would help workers or anyone except Trump and his rich allies. She apparently doesn’t realize we’ve been trying trickle-down economics for decades without any improvement in the wages of the bottom 50% of Americans while the rich have separated themselves from the rest of us.
Delekta doesn’t seem to grasp the difference between liberalism as a set of ideas about politics, and a liberal educatioin, which is about free and oopen inquiry and analysis. She thinks students are somehow being brainwashed by using their brains to read and understand reality, without even noticing that plenty of people are using their liberal educations without in any way losing their conservative politics. Good examples can easily be found in business and engineering schools, but the same is true in most of the schools.
By rejecting the common understanding that the best way to learn advanced skills is through free and open inquiry and not from memorizing a textbook, she has aligned herself with the base of the Republican Party. That includes the Sandy Hook Truthers, the Pizzagate fanatics, and all the other loons who believe everything from Young Earth creationism to poisonous Chemtrails to whatever lies are peddled by Fox News.
If she were an active learner, she might have read about the rise of fascism in Germany, perhaps The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. Arendt says that when the artistic and intellectual elites were run out of Germany and Austria or neutralized in place, the masses took up all sorts of crackpot ideas and conspiracy theories as truth. They became fertile ground for Nazi propaganda, and this played a significant role in the rise of totalitarianism.
The Republican Party is now entirely the party of crackpot ideas and conspiracy theories. All scientists conspire with China to create the anthropogenic climate warming hoax. Chemtrails are used to spray us with something for some purpose by unknown malignant agents. If we cut regulations and give enough money to the rich, the economy will grow and manufacturing jobs will return at higher wages than are paid in Bangladesh. It’s only the tax code that caused jobs to leave the US, not the minimal wages and minimal environment standards in poor nations. Sandy Hook was a hoax or a government plot or something else nefarious. No harm will come from getting rid of banking regulations. Liberals worship Satan in the basement of Pizza Parlors in DC. Income taxes are voluntary. No one should be upset because Trump chose a White Supremacist as his chief policy adviser. Jailing your political opponents is normal politics.
Delekta thinks all the fear and anger among her classmates over the election could be solved by some Kumbaya about “we’re all Wolverines”, meaning the things that unite us are greater than our political differences. Sorry, but no. When you leave the Enlightenment for Crazytown, you go only with those who choose the crazy. Us post-Enlightenment people will stay in the present as long as possible, at least until you and your nutcase allies turn out all the lights except fire.
It’s the young people who have identified the way forward. They don’t want to be around Delekta; they think she’s nuts. They don’t want to be identified with any of the Republican ideology, especially racism, but also science denialism and anti-factualism, and presumably the entire truth-denying thing. That’s just as true of moderate Republicans, if there are any of those still around, as it is of liberals and independents. No sane person voluntarily hangs around with people who can’t agree on facts and basic morality.
Those of us not in school have to work and live with Trump supporters, but we don’t have to be friends with them. Bare civility will suffice. We don’t have to hire them, we don’t have to listen to them, and we don’t have to let them near our children. They can all keep company with each other. I’m sure Delekta will find many new and charming friends among the Breitbart crowd of White Nationalists, the facebook readers who liked and reposted fake news created in Eastern Europe, and militia groups scaring Muslims on their way to Mosques for services. She has a lot more in common with them than with her classmates at U of M. Or me for that matter.
On edit: on Trump’s and the Republican Party’s science denialism.
Don’t you think you might be overreacting a bit? A student is a entitled to complain if a University cancels classes because of the result of a Presidential election, surely? I don’t know what’s been going on at Michigan, but unless the students were engaged in wild protests and teaching was impossible, universities have a duty to educate their students and, should uphold their schedule. The idea that you shouldn’t hire Republican voters is a little discriminatory too. I have read this blog, on and off, for many years, but I am beginning to worry about where your current trajectory is going to take you, and I am not referring to your President Elect. When did Americans start engaging in national mourning because their candidate didn’t win?
One teacher cancelled class. As I stated.
Doesn’t matter–students are paying for that class. Do you supposed they received a refund on their tuitions? I’ll bet they didn’t, and a lot of them are probably up to their necks in student loan debt. I hate Trump, but this student has a legitimate grievance.
Mr. Lewis : “a biology professor canceled classes on the theory that students would be too upset to learn anything.”
Sounds like a good reason to me.
“She thinks her ideology is entitled to respect.”
Typical present day right winger, to think an idea is entitled. Totally missing the point that respect is earned, in other words, your ideology has to have good goals (christian or otherwise) and it has to show that it can earn a place in workable real life (trickle down does not). Otherwise you are wasting my time.
If she wants, she should spend some time at Speaker’s Corner in London, along with a majority of drunks.
Wow. Have you considered getting some help with your Reality Displacement Syndrome?
You get one personal shot. Next time you disappear.
This comment has been deleted.
“I was, however, serious about getting some help with reality.”
B, that’s good. You need it.
emptywheel’s place takes individual responsibility seriously.
After you get help, maybe you can come back and learn some.
“..His only serious promises involve walls, deportations, keeping out Muslims, lower taxes, and no regulations. And somehow that will bring back so many jobs in manufacturing. ..”
Would it be fair to add: And a new approach to Foreign Policy that does not involve confrontation with Russia or regime changes in the middle east?
“…The Republican Party is now entirely the party of crackpot ideas and conspiracy theories…”
It certainly has its share of them but it is not alone. The Democratic party blames its election defeat on the President of Russia and a couple of hundred, mainly left wing, web sites whose dissent from the duopoly’s consensus is held to be Fake News. If that is not a crackpot idea based on a wild conspiracy theory, what is?
Trump’s policies look extremely dangerous but his opposition to NAFTA style trade pacts and his critique of the war on terror warmongering deserve to be taken seriously. As do the millions of Americans who voted for him.
Your point assumes that Mr. Trump’s public statements about his priorities and future conduct are credible, that they will be followed by policy and action. Mr. Trump has left a legion of creditors, partners, suppliers, employees and contractors who would refute the point.
No. It wouldn’t be fair. Trump is completely untrustworthy, so it would be foolish to count on anything specific he said as indicating policy.
You both make the same mistake. Whether Trump carries out his promises is not at issue. The fact is that he made them. And that was, quite wrongly, omitted in the post. I don’t trust Trump any more than you do. And I regard his policies, on the environment and society, with horror. Where we differ is that I have a certain respect for the electorate and understand that there were reasons, good reasons not simply atavistic, evil reflexes, why Trump was chosen. But then I am not an American intellectual so I need not regard the people as dangerous, irrational creatures with animal appetites who, but for the existence of the clerisy of college graduates, would be in a permanent rampage of violence.
“his critique of the war on terror warmongering”
Trump is against war? I thought he fell right in line with neocons, threatening to kill innocent family members of terrorists. His apparent psychological need to reach out in retaliation for criticisms, both real and imagined tell me that we are just going to incite more terrorism.
To paraphrase a question often asked of E.B. White during his school days: “Did you learn to believe at school today? Or did you learn to think?”
As to trade agreements, I read recently that many of the jobs we sent overseas involved less-skilled work and are now being automated. For example, FoxConn, the enormous Chinese electronics manufacturer, will be automating 30% of its jobs over the next few years; so having Apple build phones in the US instead won’t provide many jobs. Most assembly line work, from widgets to automobiles, is now done by robots. And there’s a giant new textile plant in South Carolina (remember the US textile industry?) that employs—get this—a hundred and fifty people total. Manufacturing jobs may never come back, because they will be gone to the machines, trade agreements or no. That one is not a winner for Trump, or for anyone.
It is a winner for a universal basic income.
Liberals worship Satan in the basement of Pizza Parlors in DC.
I don’t live anywhere near DC! As for my terminally ignorant Trump voting coworkers, the only thing I have left is humiliation; theirs. Every time they realize they’ve been played for the fools they are, if they even realize it, I will simply point and laugh and remind them the GOP saw them coming from miles away. They’ve earned it.
Okay, but I am a therapist. Do I fire them? Nope. Not therapeutic. I teach non judgment and dialectical thinking. I really have no choice but to love them.
After I wrote this, I realized it applies mostly to people in Delekta’s position. I don’t quite feel the same way towards people who don’t have her advantages. What really makes me feel hostile towards Deletka is that she is taking advantage of the hopes and fears of the less lucky, and profiting from their misery, rather than try to help them understand the problems of our multicultural society. That’s not to excuse racism or the general hatred of many Trump voters towards those not like them, of course, merely to say that one role of the lucky is to help others come to grips with their own fears rather than to stoke them in search of votes and power.
You know, the left or whatever this website is can promote division and separation from the unwashed all it likes, it is frankly an idiotic notion.
While apparently emptywheel has been publishing the documentation (where is it exactly?) to show without a doubt that Putin himself directed hacks and massive interference with the US “democratic process” it seems to have missed that tens of millions of disaffected and economically suffering people voted for an insurgency against Neoliberal entrenched power. The status quo has been deeply wounded as the insurgency has reached the center of power.
The paradigm is changing, the vicious Neoliberal establishment has lost the narrative, no on believes them any more (nor do they believe those who seem to support them).
There is no more right or left, no more Dems and Repubs. Those are history – part of the past. Now there is an insurgency, an insurgency by tens of millions of people emptywheel hates rejects and wishes to marginalize and subjugate (the very same people the old left claimed to support). On the other side is the Neoliberal establishment.
Emptywheel can wait for the revolution where Snowden and Amy Goodman walk hand in hand into power while no harm is done and the world is made good if they like, in the mean time the insurgency will be – in very ugly ways – making changes, many of which might actually help mankind – such as rapprochement with Russia.
“…..in the mean time the insurgency will be – in very ugly ways – making changes, many of which might actually help mankind – such as rapprochement with Russia.”
Maybe, unless of course Trump causes a war with China over Taiwan. ..or the South China seas. Insert two rolling eyes smiley here.
In the meantime, the Trumpettes will begin to reap all those benefits of “what do you have to loose”. Meanwhile, I’m sure all the Goldman Saks alligators he’s dumped in the swamp have good things in mind for Murika. At least.. the .01% part. The other part.. not so much. Meh.. what’s a few lies here and there. They’ll get over it. Besides, everyone loves a winnuh. Even when their SS and Snap begins to disappear. They’ll get over it. After all…they made Murika GREEEEEEEEEEEAT Again!!!
sheeezusfuckingchrist. The Dumbest Country on the Planet just redefined delusional.
See my response to Katie Jensen above. I don’t hate anyone, and I have been writing about the sickness of neoliberalism here and at FDL for years. The problem of Trump is not policy. It’s that he has no policy and is easily manipulated by suck-ups who have specific goals, not one of which will help anyone but themselves. There are too many negatives and no positives. The people may want an insurgency, but this isn’t going to help.
Tell you what, sport. As soon as we go to war, I think you can fight your insurgency with whomever last said trump has short fingers. As a vet. I’ll help you enlist.
Ed… good for you. My sister was one who voted for Trump. She’s already pissed for being a such a dumb ass believer.
Good for her at lest she woke up unlike obomber bots.
Ed, you know economics. What metrics should we use to measure the success or failure of Trump at bringing good jobs back to American workers? Should we track manufacturing employment, number of jobs paying over $N per hour, etc.? In other words, can we do a scorecard now for the current state of affairs, then fill it in again in four years to compare, so we don’t have to rely on only general employment levels, feelings, etc., to judge? Thanks.
This is a smart point. If there is no measuring stick, those clowns will make up some garbage and sucker the crowds again. I’ll think about it.
Thank you kindly, sir. :)
It could be tricky. For example, saying “manufacturing employment is up 5%” is meaningless unless we can compare that number to (population increase) or (number of still unemployed manufacturing workers) or (some such, there’s a thousand possibilities), to provide needed context. And do we need a geographic component? For example, I’ve noted that the voting results seem to be available down to the county level. Has “manufacturing activity” or “industrial activity”, in the past, been tracked down to that level? Perhaps the Department of Labor statistics have all this. Then focus on certain counties that both (i) went Trump and (ii) have seen those activity levels crater over the last few decades. OTOH, this seems to be the type of standard economic task that political parties should be routinely undertaking, no?
The metrics have all been fixed. The unemployment rate bears almost no relationship to the number of people who are jobless, for example.
But people on the whole are expert in measuring whether or not they feel secure, have enough leisure, find it hard to meet their basic bills, feel confident of the future and insured against catastrophes. Most Americans are worse off today than they or their parents were half a century ago. And they don’t see things getting better. For a time you can tell those who feel hurt that they are part of a small minority whose time will shortly come, but after a while the truth becomes inescapable: the system is stacked against them and they are going to have to change it or they will slide down into peonage.
1.The number of homeless there are on the streets.
2. The number of SNAP recipients
3. The amount of taxes being paid.
4.Trumps re-election.
It doesn’t matter. Economics is fucked up no matter what.
http://qz.com/863154/economics-has-become-horrendously-misguided-by-obsessing-about-completely-unimportant-things-according-to-economist-jeffrey-sachs/?google_editors_picks=true
Meanwhile.. here’s a beginning benchmark….
http://qz.com/862412/trumps-16-cabinet-level-picks-have-more-money-than-a-third-of-american-households-combined/
The president of South Korea has been impeached. State prosecutors said they believed the president was “collusively involved” with a longtime friend (Choi) in criminal activities including bullying large companies into providing tens of millions of dollars and favors to foundations and businesses that Choi controlled, and enabling Choi to interfere with state affairs and have extraordinary sway over government decisions.
Isn’t that how Trump is operating?
Does it not take a majority of the House to impeach and 2/3 of the Senate to convict? I think a lot of people have already done the math for a number of presidents and president elects.
I don’t see – right now – that Trump is doing what South Korean President Park did vis her friend Choi. I’m not following his antics in detail, but basically he seems to have pushed Carrier to keep some jobs in the USA, although it seems up for debate whether those jobs were being moved to Mexico or not. And then Trump took a stab at threatening Boeing that he’d cancel the current Air Force 1 contract, which temporarily caused Boeing’s stock to drop.
I don’t see how those two actions are similar to the situation with President Park and her friend Choi.
Disclaimer: I’m not a Trump fan, but I prefer to be based in reality about what’s going on, insofar as possible.
Want to pass on here what I shared with Ed behind the site’s front page:
Sure, we should encourage free speech on campus. But we should also actively encourage opposing speech when students like Deletka so clearly misunderstand what is meant by liberalism as a philosophy. Her open dissent itself is a manifestation of liberalism’s free speech. Her education is failing her if she does not appreciate both the history and this distinction.
Knowing about College Republicans’ history on U of M’s campus, there is a point at which free speech becomes hate speech as it did in 2006 with ‘Catch an Immigrant Day’ — hate speech should not be tolerated. Deletka didn’t cross that line this time, but her student organization’s history suggests unilateral and unqualified demands for respect should be viewed with skepticism.
quote”What was ten years ago absolutely disgusting and attributed to youthful hijinks is now embedded in the party. Those youths are now entrenched as GOP faithful.”unquote
Yeah, well look what the scumbag conservative McCarthy wannabes are doing TODAY….
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/education/2016/11/professor_watchlist_is_a_grotesque_catalog_of_left_leaning_academics.html
They give new meaning to the word disgusting. However, the entire GOP redefines the word degenerate. Especially those maggots in Trumps transition team who tried to intimidate the Department of Energy. Fucking assholes.
The people may want a revolution, in the sense that they want to reform politics so that they can be made to work for them, too, not just the oligarchy. They are less likely to get it from Mr. Trump – a billionaire (maybe) whose life work has been to game the system and everyone who depends on him – than from Mr. Obama and the hope and change he marketed.
Yes because canceling classes after a presidential election is perfectly normal, non-snowflake behavior. Why, who can forget the cancellations of 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, 199…. oh wait.
Mr. Ed,
I very much enjoyed your article “Dealing with Trump Voters”. I hoped it has helped you through at least some of your Post-Election Delayed-Stress reaction difficulties.
When you come back, with nerves, hopefully, in better state, I suggest you re-read the NYT article you jumped off from. Don’t stop again after the first segment, as your first paragraph sentence: “[This article] in the New York Times has helped me clarify my thinking. The star of the story is Amanda Delekta, identified as a sophomore at the University of Michigan and the Political Director of the College Republicans.” indicates you did the first time: Amanda Delekta is the “star” of the first section of the NYT article, by Anemona Hartcollis, who goes on to “star” others in subsequent sections.
In your reading of Amanda Delekta’s section you appear to have fastened on Hartcollis defining Ms. Delekta as “…”outraged” that students held vigils mourning the election results, and a biology professor canceled classes on the theory that students would be too upset to learn anything.” and you erroneously stated, in continuation, that “She is further outraged that U of M’s president sent an email she interpreted as saying that the ideas of the “liberal majority” at the school are superior to the “ideology of their peers”.”
The article does not state that Ms. Delekta was “further outraged”, it states that she circulated a petition in response to the UofM president sending an email.
But where you lose contact with reason and reality is where you then state: “She thinks her ideology is entitled to respect. The article doesn’t explain exactly what her ideology is, or why it is entitled to respect.”
Your first sentence in this quoted section states that you do not respect Ms. Delekta, or her “ideology”, whatever it might be, which your deprecation indicates you to have no interest to learn, or to know. your second sentence in the here quoted section is an attack. It attacks Ms. Delekta and her “ideology” by implying them not “entitled to respect”.
You did not read the immediately following, in the NYT article: ” Three days later, she was invited to meet with the president in his office. [paragraph] “I was completely shocked that he even read the letter,” she said. “That was definitely a new thing. It was very exciting.””
What the article indicates the UofM president did is what you dismissed Ms. Delekta as not worthy of having done for her.
Which reaction shows respect, and which shows prejudice? Which defines an other, with unknown, perhaps other, views as a fellow-person, and which dismisses the other as a lesser, and dismissable, being, or thing?
Note Ms. Delekta’s quoted (in the NYT article) response: “It was very exciting.”. Notice the effect that recognizing another as a person with equally legitimate views and ideas has.
I recommend you follow “B’s” advice (second comment), or at least dose yourself with some hot cocoa and slow and deep breathing exercises. Maybe ice-packs and a darkened room.
In addition, Hannah Arendt is NOT a good source for information about the mid-20th-century Nazi phenomenon in Europe. Hannah Arendt was over-sensitive to events and so not qualified to be an objective viewer or analyst of events (she was devastated when a philosopher, Heidegger, failed to recognize her when not looking for her in a train station crowd) and she was Jewish with a desire to be integrated, who perceived difficulties and had difficulties with real difficulties. Two better books to recommend to gain understanding of the mid-20th-century rise of fascism phenomenon are Adam Fergusson’s “When Money Dies”, for background for the events that made Europeans, ex-Austro-Hungarians especially, susceptible, and Adolph Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, for background and an understanding of the motive forces impelling the leadership that created environment and impelled the events that Ms. Arendt beat her head against, and felt beaten by, but did not understand. I suggest also reading Nevile Henderson’s “Failure of a Mission” for its depiction of how the leadership of the fascist Reich functioned.
It does not matter if the person identifying the other as ‘inhuman’ is a black-supremicist, a Takfiri Muslim, an anti-Putin neo-con, an outraged Hillariat, a controller-spouse, a prejudice-blindered economist, or any other form of adversarial antagonist wanting to force and fight and not interested in either ignoring or understanding, the end will be escalation instead of resolution.
Evangelista,
Thanks for the humor. I know it was unintentional, but it’s appreciated all the same.
“…She was devastated when a philosopher, Heidegger, failed to recognize her when not looking for her in a train station crowd…”
It reads better without the “not.” But with you, who knows.
Arendt studied under Heidegger. They were lovers. Did you not know that Heidegger was a Roman Catholic and member of the Nazi party or did you intentionally omit it?
“Beginning in 1917, German-Jewish philosopher Edmund Husserl championed Heidegger’s work, and helped him secure the retiring Husserl’s chair in Philosophy at the University of Freiburg.[98]
On 6 April 1933, the Reichskommissar of Baden Province, Robert Wagner, suspended all Jewish government employees, including present and retired faculty at the University of Freiburg. Heidegger’s predecessor as Rector formally notified Husserl of his “enforced leave of absence” on 14 April 1933.
Heidegger became Rector of the University of Freiburg on 22 April 1933. The following week the national Reich law of 28 April 1933, replaced Reichskommissar Wagner’s decree. The Reich law required the firing of Jewish professors from German universities, including those, such as Husserl, who had converted to Christianity. The termination of the retired professor Husserl’s academic privileges thus did not involve any specific action on Heidegger’s part.[99]
Heidegger had by then broken off contact with Husserl, other than through intermediaries. Heidegger later claimed that his relationship with Husserl had already become strained after Husserl publicly “settled accounts” with Heidegger and Max Scheler in the early 1930s.[100]
Heidegger did not attend his former mentor’s cremation in 1938. In 1941, under pressure from publisher Max Niemeyer, Heidegger agreed to remove the dedication to Husserl from Being and Time (restored in post-war editions).[101]
Heidegger’s behavior towards Husserl has evoked controversy. Arendt initially suggested that Heidegger’s behavior precipitated Husserl’s death. She called Heidegger a “potential murderer.” However, she later recanted her accusation.[102]
In 1939, only a year after Husserl’s death, Heidegger wrote in his Black Notebooks: “The more original and inceptive the coming decisions and questions become, the more inaccessible will they remain to this [Jewish] ‘race’. (Thus, Husserl’s step toward phenomenological observation, and his rejection of psychological explanations and historiological reckoning of opinions, are of enduring importance—yet it never reaches into the domains of essential decisions”,[103] seeming to imply that Husserl’s philosophy was limited purely because he was Jewish.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger#Treatment_of_Husserl
After the war, Arendt was beyond heroic in defending Heidegger and keeping he and his wife–who was a more fervent Nazi–alive.
Did you make up the train station fantasy?
John,
I was not writing about Heidegger, or Husserl. I was writing about Arendt, and ONLY about Arendt’s not being a good source for information about mid-20th century fascism. As I recall, the incident that upset Arendt occurred before the Reich invoked a formal anti-Jewish policy. If this was the case my remark was to being upset by a philosopher (or any intellectual) not being fully aware of his surroundings, If Heidegger was already demonstrating himself craven at the time of the incident it would be all the more reason Arendt should not have been upset (in my view, which does not mean Arendt should not have been – she was a different person than I, she had her own rights to be herself – as Ms. Delekta, of the NYT article, has, too. to live in free societies we have to accept and respect differences, and not hate the different).
My comment on Arendt had nothing to do with religion, hers or Heidegger’s, or her qualities as a human being (which were certainly above Heidegger’s) or her qualification to write about Nazis, only her qualification to write _objectively_ about that subject and era.
For the train station incident, read Arendt; she recorded it.
Evangelista,
You wrote “I was not writing about Heidegger, or Husserl.”
So if you didn’t write “…She was devastated when a philosopher, Heidegger, failed to recognize her when not looking for her in a train station crowd…,” who did?
I never said you wrote about Husserl. You omitted context to smear Arendt. Roman Catholics call that calumny. It can be a mortal sin.
How did Stanford get it so wrong about Arendt?
“First published Thu Jul 27, 2006; substantive revision Thu Apr 10, 2014
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, The Human Condition, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age. At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes of her last major philosophical work, The Life of the Mind, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/
Have you contacted them?
In which of her books did Arendt write about the trade station? What page(s)?
What are your “qualifications” to question Arendt’s?
Prior to her death in ’75, who are your top five writer’s on “Nazis?”
You get one personal shot. Then you disappear.
Ed,
Here is my personal shot: It is NOT OK to write hate-speech about a white person if it is not OK to write the same about any other color, race, gender, ethnicity or religion person. Your blast at Ms. Delekta is hate-speech. To affirm this, write same you wrote against her against a recognized minority, then read and see how it reads.
The Democratic Party has turned into a hate-party, from its blanket deprecation of ‘others’ as “deplorables” through its carrying on its electioneering slanders of Trump as “unqualified”, a “sexual predator”, “homophobic”, “anti-semitic” and so on, none of which has more real evidenciary backing than “black people stink” or “Mexicans are greasy”, its expressions are of hate and hateful and as deprecatory as any other self-styled supremacist group blows out.
You needed to write your attack against the girl in the privacy of your own computer, to get it out of your system, and then hit delete. To make it disappear.
Evangelista,
It’s so nice to see you Italians defending “white” people. Do you consider Italians and Spaniards “white?” What about the Irish and descendants of Semitic peoples, such as Arendt? Do you consider Derek Jeter “white?” What about Jessica Alba? If someone disagrees when a person declares they’re “white,” is there a court that determines ethnicity?
Are you related to any descendants of the slaves?
“The First Family: A New Glimpse of Michelle Obama’s White Ancestors”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/22/us/first-lady-family-q-and-a.html?_r=1&
Since 1920, how many people has the Democratic Party lynched–you know murdered, in reality? Ever hear the expression “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me?”
Most of us here aren’t fond of “hate crimes” legislation.
We are, however, big on the First Amendment, liberty, and pluralism. Michael Novak’s wrong about a lot, but in his signature work–“The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism,” he’s good on pluralism. If his tolerance is too much for your sensitivity, maybe this isn’t the place for you?
Please apologize to Ed and take a course in logic.
We’re fortunate to have Francis I in Rome. Unfortunately, today popes don’t wield as much authority.
Pius XII–Hitler’s Pope–
https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Pope-Secret-History-Pius/dp/014311400X
doesn’t get enough credit for the European Holocaust.
He wasn’t pope in 1933, but he championed the Concordat between Rome and the German Reich. That allowed Catholics to follow Hitler’s orders. If Pius IX had broken the Reichskonkordat by ’43, it would have shortened the war and saved a lot of lives.
Pius IX was anti-semitic. He wanted to use the war to re-establish the Vatican’s temporal power by brokering the peace among the Axis and the Allies. He was more than willing to sacrifice Roman Catholics in Poland. He never saw the collapse coming. On the short list of worst popes.
Robert and Karl,
Sorry you missed that the current leadership of the Republican party doesn’t believe in education. They don’t believe in evolution, unless they’re drilling for fossil fuels. Then it’s ok. They reject individual liberty, except when it comes to owning a firearm.
Without education we don’t have democratic capitalism.
Maybe Ed wasn’t as diplomatic as we’re used to so try this from a few years back.
“Oligarchy Exists Inside Our Democracy”
“The primary impact of this leverage in the hands of the minority is on economic issues. The oligarchy is just as divided as the rest of the population on social issues, like immigration, LGBT rights, women’s issues and similar non-financial matters. It turns out that, for example, some of the oligarchs have family or friends or are themselves LGBT. Their interests in wars and other kinds of issues are also divided. Because of that, democracy could theoretically work on those issues. It’s only those economic issues where the rich are on the same team, and they always win those battles.
And that’s exactly how things are working out. On matters of direct interest to the oligarchy, they win. You can have your silly laws about marriage or abortion as long as they get their way on money. It’s a lousy bargain, and it doesn’t have to be that way.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/oligarchy-exists-inside-our-democracy.html
Courtesy of the choking on their own debt multi-nationals, we’ve got Soviet style central planning. Wave goodbye to innovation.
As technology evolves, capital gets more expensive. That’s why education and health care are more expensive. What’s left of the Republican party want to go backward.
It seems the article is an outrage about a young woman’s outrage.
I can sense your emotion embedded in your words.
With that said, I am not sure how this young woman’s comments on unusual actions in her surroundings qualify for a discussion on “dealing” with those that may voted for a different candidate than you. There is a lot of “us verses them” in your comments.
What is there to “deal” with, other than their candidate is going into office? Maybe you think they must all be crackpots and conspiracists. I don’t think either major political party has a monopoly on those nor that either party is that homogenized.
The voter that concerns me is one that is not an independent thinker. Thoughtless sheep seem to group together and follow blindly. We can see that within both major parties. Another scenario is a voter that may think based on mistruth. Again, this is not found in just one political party.
I urge you to refocus your emotional energy to promote thoughtful process of facts. Engaging conversation with these people is usually rewarding and above the typical name calling tactics found in “sheep”. It is an opportunity to reinforce your beliefs or reconsider them. It raises you up rather than dragging you down to the fourth grade playground.
I appreciate your article, the time you invested in it, and the opportunity to comment on it.