Donald Trump and the Alt-Right

Fox

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 12:15 pm

Amarante wrote:

And I am not going to restate my position on the altright consisting of neo nazis who should be an abomination to anyone anymore than why Brown v Board of Education was not dissected in my constitutional law class.

I'm sorry that your class didn't dissect Brown v Board of Education. I think you might have gained a lot from the discussion.

The case is not simply an example of the application of the 14th Amendment. From a legal perspective, the case offers lessons in the ramifications of litigation campaigns as well as the relationship between SCOTUS and political institutions. From a social policy perspective, it offers lessons in the possibilities and limits of the law to advance social and political aims.

The alt-Right offers plenty of fodder for criticism. In fact, the two clips I posted above are certainly less than fawning. But even Justice Warren didn't explain the decision of the Court in Brown v Board of Education with "We can't even . . . " or "The unanimous opinion is in favor of the plaintiff, and it should be obvious why!"

Amarante

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 12:25 pm

Fox wrote:

You misunderstand as it wasn't discussed in the usual way because it was so morally correct that any discussion of it in the normal way would demean those discussing it. That is my analogy to altright as anyone who attempts to defend a neo nazi group is in an alternative moral universe to the one I choose to inhabit.

And thank you very much for attempting to school me on con law but I did quite well in the subject at a top ten law school. 😀 Order f the Coif and Law Review. 😀😀

I am intellectually and fully fully aware of the arguments you make but I don't agree with them as my judicial philosophy and how I view the constitution is different. I studied your arguments in law school and made my own choices. And gasp my law school professors were for the most part conservative Republicans. My con law prof first year clerked for Justice Powell and was appointed to the federal court of appeals by a Republican president.

Last edited by Amarante on Mon, Aug 22 2016, 12:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

Fox

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 12:27 pm

sushilover wrote:

Is Bannon really alt-right himself, or is he just soft on the alt-right?
I think there is a big difference, no?

There's no official membership application. Anybody can claim to be part of the alt-Right, and since it's the hot new tag in conservative circles, all kinds of people are climbing on the bandwagon. I think the most legitimate criticism is Ben Shapiro's: popular voices associated with the alt-Right need to slow the bandwagon down every so often and push off some of the more unsavory riders.

At its best, the alt-Right is characterized by www.RefinedRight.com and similar platforms. At its worst, it's co-opted by David Duke and 4chan-dwelling trolls.

Fox

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 12:47 pm

Amarante wrote:

You misunderstand as it wasn't discussed in the usual way because it was so morally correct that any discussion of it in the normal way would deem those discussing it. That is my analogy to altright as anyone who attempts to defend a neo nazi group is in an alternative moral universe to the one I choose to inhabit.

I guess that works out well, then. I'm not necessarily a defender of the alt-Right, which is impossible given the amorphous nature of the label, and I don't recall having ever defended neo-Nazis, except with regard to their right to think and say stupid things.

However, I definitely don't choose to inhabit a moral universe in which people feel free to express opinions but consistently refuse to offer evidence to support their conclusions.

Amarante wrote:

I am intellectually and fully fully aware of the arguments you make but I don't agree with them as my judicial philosophy and how I view the constitution is different. I studied your arguments in law school and made my own choices. And gasp my law school professors were for the most part conservative Republicans. My con law prof first year clerked for Justice Powell and was appointed to the federal court of appeals by a Republican president.

Huh? What are you talking about? I offered no arguments regarding Brown v Board of Education. My point was that legal scholars have spent decades dissecting this decision and discussing its ramifications. Rejecting the need for rigorous analysis of any subject simply because a moral element is present seems to me to fly in the face of the legal tradition, the Torah, and the entirety of Western Civilization.

Oops, that sounds like something the alt-Right would say!

ora_43

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 1:05 pm

Amarante wrote:

Whoever is aligned with David Duke is not someone who I want to be aligned with or defend in any way.

The only Americans I've met who supported David Duke in any way were on the Left. They thought his articles on how Israel-supporting American Jews were behind the Iraq war were very well reasoned Rolling Eyes

.

But I would never say the American Left is "aligned with David Duke." Just - there are racist morons everywhere. The important question is how many racist morons, and how much influence they have. If you can't forgive a party for having even a small number of racist nutjob supporters, you won't have anyone to vote for ever.

Amarante

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 1:17 pm

ora_43 wrote:

I don't know who you know in the left or how you define it but no one in the left identifies with David Dukes.

Dukes is anathema to the left.

You might not agree with the left but at least don't make up who their cultural icons are.

If you want to discuss despicable left wing cultural icons, Feel free. But your posts should bear some resemblance to realty and not be from cloudcuckookand. 😀

The left is not the altright and Dukes is an icon of the altRIGHT. 😀😀

ora_43

Mon, Aug 22 2016, 1:33 pm

Amarante wrote:

So just to be sure I understood you right, you're going to go with "Ora is clearly making things up"?

If so, just - wow.

I never said David Duke is a "cultural icon." I said I met people on the far left who agree with him. They don't agree with everything he says, of course - only with most of the things he has said about Jews and Israel. Are you going to seriously argue that that doesn't count because overall they see him as racist and terrible?

The important part of identifying with a racist is the agreeing with their racist positions part. It doesn't matter if after that, the agrees-with-racist person shows everyone what a good person they are by publicly rejecting racism as super bad and stuff.

Fox

Wed, Aug 31 2016, 11:12 am

cbsp wrote:

In denouncing alt-right, Hillary treads where GOP will not

Jonah Goldberg
By Jonah Goldberg

http://www.jewishworldreview.c.....Q6.99

Interesting

When it comes to responding to the alt-Right, Trump and the GOP are off by a mile while Clinton and the Democrats are off by 1.61 kilometers.

Goldberg is 100 percent correct that the GOP needs to take ownership of the alt-Right. Whatever the election outcome, Trump's candidacy offers a unique opportunity to embrace conservative young people whose views are motivated by culture rather than politics. But the analogy with Buckley is apt -- allowing the craziest fringe elements to define this group can only hurt the GOP and will ultimately alienate non-racists who more-or-less identify with the alt-Right.

The Democrats, though, seem focused on never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Clinton's speech last Thursday had the potential to not only call out the alt-Right but hold Trump to the fire for not denouncing racism, etc., among his supporters.

Unfortunately, it was an embarrassing exercise in not getting it. Her speech fell back on the language of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that the Clintons have relied on for years, and in a particularly bad move, she simply read satirical Breitbart headlines as if they were serious. In a piece of bad timing, the speech coincided with a largely complimentary analysis by The Guardian.

Instead of calling out legitimately bad people and insisting that the GOP do so as well, Clinton sounded like a crotchety old lady who peers out from behind her curtains and yells at you to get off her grass when you're still 15 feet away. Even conservatives who distance themselves from the alt-Right were groaning and rolling their eyes.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the GOP isn't quite sure who or what the alt-Right really is, and they're reluctant to denounce even the most loathesome voters in a tight election. Hardly the moral high ground. The Democrats are willing to take a moral stance, but they pick the wrong targets, making themselves look like the humorless harridans the alt-Right accuses them of being.

Were I advising Trump, I would suggest that, win or lose the general election, he appoint Diamond & Silk to go out and whup anybody with racist tendencies among the alt-Right. That oughta fix the problem!