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 Post subject: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 1:50 pm 
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While the Smollett case is a loss for everyone, esp. the LGBT community, it's provided an interesting moment for commentators to be able to criticize progressives without the bigot-spigot being turned on.

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Quote:
Hate-Crime Hoaxes Reflect America’s Sickness
By Andy Ngo
February 18, 2019 3:26 PM

On January 29, tabloid news site TMZ broke the shocking story that Jussie Smollett, a gay black entertainer and progressive activist, had been viciously attacked in Chicago. Two racist white men had fractured his rib, poured bleach on him, and tied a noose around his neck. As they were leaving, they shouted the ominous words: “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s campaign slogan. MSNBC reported the rumor that they were even wearing MAGA hats.

Leaks from the Chicago police over the weekend, however, indicate that Smollett likely paid two Nigerian-American brothers he knew to orchestrate the attack. Smollett denied any wrongdoing through a statement released to the media by his lawyers.

That the original story broke days just after the Covington narrative fell apart last month didn’t stop it from spreading quicker than a wildfire. Within hours of TMZ’s report, some of America’s most influential politicians and celebrities amplified the story — and the belief that America is a dangerous place for minorities — to millions across the world.

2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Cory Booker described the attack as “an attempted modern-day lynching.” He used the incident to press for more hate-crime legislation. California senator Kamala Harris, who is leading the polls for the 2020 race, repeated Booker’s words. Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the attack as “an affront to our humanity.” Freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez castigated media for describing the incident as a “possible” hate crime. Her colleague Rashida Tlaib wrote that “the right wing is killing and hurting our people.”

Jussie Smollett is the lead actor on the Fox drama Empire and has deep roots in Hollywood and the Democratic party. Celebrities, many of them friends with Smollett, pounced on the story. Pansexual pop star Janelle Monae shared a (now-deleted) photo of her and Smollett on social media, writing that “it is still a risk daily to be a black, out and proud human being.” Smollett’s co-star Grace Byers wrote that “hatred, inequality, racism and discrimination continue to course through our country’s veins.” Rapper T.I. condemned the attack on “OUR PEOPLE” and said “the hits won’t stop until we hit back!” He warned that a “revolution is imminent.”

Numerous media outlets exploited the incident. GQ published an essay by Joshua Rivera arguing that the racist, homophobic attack on Smollett is white America’s “endgame.” The Bay Area’s Mercury News ran a report implying that those who voiced skepticism were peddling a “conspiracy theory.”

When news leaks from the Chicago police painted an image of Smollett being generally uncooperative, a second phase of reactions were weaponized against doubters. Black Lives Matter activist Deray McKesson tweeted to his million followers that Fox 32 Chicago reporter Rafer Weigel was “responsible for much of the misinformation disseminated by Chicago PD ‘sources.’” Weigel was one of the local journalists who reported leaks that turned out to be accurate. McKesson did not respond to me when I asked if the source of his accusation was Smollett. The president of the Human Rights Campaign, Chad Griffin, echoed McKesson, saying that “this is exactly the treatment that victims of hate crimes fear and why they often stay silent.” Griffin also did not respond when I asked if he was in contact with Smollett.

On February 14, Smollett gave his first sit-down interview about the alleged attack on Good Morning America. A credulous Robin Roberts gave a softball interview that highlighted his emotions rather than evidence. “It feels like if I had said [the suspect] was a Muslim, or a Mexican, or someone black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me much more,” Smollett said.

The strategy was clear: If you doubt him, you are motivated by racism.

Now that Smollett’s story has all but fallen apart, some of the loudest voices two weeks ago are suddenly quiet. Yesterday Senator Booker wouldn’t respond to the recent developments in Smollett’s story despite having been one of the first to express outrage. Instead, he pivoted to talking about right-wing terrorism and white supremacy.

Now many are asking, “Why would Jussie do this?” To me it’s all but clear.

Jussie Smollett’s hoax is symptomatic of America’s illness. Because of the mainstreaming of academia’s victimhood culture, we are now in a place where we place more value on being a victim than on being heroic, charitable, or even kind. Victims or victim groups high on intersectionality points are supposed to be coveted, treated with child gloves, and believed unreservedly. Their “lived experience” gives them infinite wisdom. Those who urge caution are treated as bigots.

Outside of the rare prosecution for faking a hate crime, the incentives for being a victim — real or imagined — are endless.

Anyone not blinded by bias or panic should have been skeptical of Smollett’s story from the beginning. He openly harbors an intense hatred for Donald Trump and his supporters, going so far as comparing them to Klansmen. That his alleged attackers perfectly fit this description should have raised eyebrows across the political spectrum. The cartoony, screenplay-villain portrayal of white Trump supporters was outrageously comical. But to insulated urban progressives who have little to no experience interacting with conservatives, a Trump supporter may as well be synonymous with evil.

“Hate-crime hoaxes are found in collective conflicts,” Jason Manning tells me. Manning is a sociologist at West Virginia University and a co-author of the 2018 book The Rise of Victimhood Culture. “Perpetrators might not even think of them as [false] accusations since in many cases they see it as an attempt to draw attention to a real problem. To the extent that modern society increasingly valorizes victimhood, claiming victim status through outright lies will become more attractive.”
Comments

While I can only speculate as to Smollett’s motives, perhaps a clue can be found in his bioline on Twitter. Smollett writes: “I am simply here to help save the world.”

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 3:04 pm 
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White Progressives Are Polarizing America
By David French
February 19, 2019 5:41 PM


A big part of angry white activism is conducted on behalf of a minority population that is more moderate and more religious than their woke white champions.

To understand how far left (and how quickly) the Democratic party has moved, let’s cycle back a very short 20 years. If 1998 Bill Clinton ran in the Democratic primary today, he’d be instantaneously labeled a far-right bigot. His support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, and “don’t ask, don’t tell” alone would label him as a conservative culture warrior. His crime bill and his views on illegal immigration would render him a racist bigot, and his balanced budget would block the dramatic expansion of the welfare state contained in Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

In fact, given the GOP move towards populism — aside from the significant issue of abortion — Clinton’s social and economic policies (and his interventionist foreign policy) would make him right-leaning even within the modern Republican party.

Let’s keep moving. 2008 Barack Obama would be a moderate and a bigot in the contemporary Democratic party. Obamacare is but an incremental change compared to Medicare for All, and his comments about gay marriage would be completely disqualifying. 2016 Hillary Clinton would firmly anchor the far-right edge of the 2020 Democratic primary. She didn’t support single-payer health care, her climate policies were modest compared to the Green New Deal, her plan for comprehensive immigration reform actually included (along with a path to citizenship) a pledge to “protect our borders,” and she was one of the most interventionist politicians of the modern era.

Any study of the political polarization in the 21st century has to account for the fact that it is extraordinarily difficult to achieve any kind of national consensus when one side is rapidly and constantly changing its demands.

Moreover, when you look at the data, the people who are primarily moving the goalposts — the folks in charge of the change — are white progressives. Today, Gallup released a fascinating study examining the shifts in Democratic ideology from 2001 to 2018. To no one’s surprise, Gallup found that the party has moved substantially to the left over the last 17 years. In 2001, 42 percent of Democrats identified as moderate, 32 percent identified as liberal, and a surprising 23 percent identified as conservative. By 2018, there was a whopping 21 percent shift. Now, 46 percent of Democrats identify as liberal and 35 percent as moderate. Conservatives were down to 17 percent.

The change, however, isn’t uniform across Democratic constituencies. Whites jumped from 34 percent liberal to 54 percent. Only a minority of black and Hispanic Democrats call themselves liberal. Moreover, the liberal surge is driven primarily by college-educated white progressives — the exact people who occupy the commanding heights of American media, the academy, and pop culture.

This white-liberal surge dovetails with other data, including the comprehensive “Hidden Tribes” study identifying left-wing polarization as being primarily driven by a “progressive activist” class that is disproportionately white, disproportionately college-educated, and disproportionately secular. The secularization of white Democrats is obvious from other sources as well. Pew Research Center data indicates that only 32 percent of white Democrats believe in the God of the Bible, compared to 61 percent of nonwhite Democrats and 72 percent of Republicans. White Americans are to the left of black Americans even on racial issues.

And, again, white progressives aren’t just any American constituency. They’re the most culturally powerful people on the planet.

This increasingly rapid secularization and liberalization makes national unity far more difficult. There are times when progressives can win and yet get more angry. Take, for example, same-sex marriage. If you had told American culture warriors ten years ago that the gay marriage issue would be so settled that no serious GOP candidate would attempt to overturn it and that a prominent gay American would address the GOP convention, they might have been tempted to conclude that the culture wars were on the wane, that Americans were coming together on the most important issues of faith and family.

But no. The terms of the debate changed. The goalposts shifted. Now, there’s a live debate as to whether Christian schools can keep tax exemptions if they hold to traditional Christian teaching. It’s a national scandal when the vice president’s wife, a Christian woman, teaches at a Christian ministry — a ministry that again holds to the historic teachings of the Christian faith. It’s even a Supreme Court question whether a private citizen can be compelled to use his or her artistic talents to celebrate events — like a gay wedding — that he finds immoral.

But it’s not just the rapid policy changes that are antithetical to national consensus, it’s the spirit behind them. Change is fast, and there is no toleration for those left behind. Opposed to the latest attitudes about religious liberty? Well, all too many people will quite literally compare you to slaveowners or supporters of Jim Crow. “Deadnaming” — a term still unknown to the wider public — will get you expelled from Twitter, a social-media platform that has long billed itself as a bastion of free speech. Forget Trump’s wall, if you even dare advocate for enhanced border security or modest immigration, then you risk being labeled as a bigot.

And ironically enough, a large part of this angry white activism is conducted on behalf of a black and brown population that is more moderate and more religious than their woke white champions. At a time when being a “white savior” is seen as a mark of insensitivity — denying the power and autonomy of nonwhite Americans — white savioring is practically the mission statement of woke Twitter.

Nothing I say should be construed to minimize the polarization inherent particularly in Republican populism and a Trumpian political strategy that so often depends on demonizing his opposition and doing his best to inflame his base (I’ve written about the perils of Trumpism at exhaustive length). But those who care about the health of the American republic cannot and must not ignore the fact that our most powerful cultural cohort just keeps radicalizing. And they’re radicalizing in the least tolerant way. American politics are dangerously polarized, and white progressives share a large part of the blame.

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 4:27 pm 
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Curious why a TV actor faking an attack has anything to do with the progressive movement at large or its policies. Am I missing something?

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 4:29 pm 
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many progressives were quick to believe smollett so therefor we shouldn't have single payer health care


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 4:38 pm 
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cutuphalfdead wrote:
many progressives were quick to believe smollett so therefor we shouldn't have single payer health care


LOL that’s what I thought.

For the record, I support progressive policies and could smell the bullshit from Smollet’s story a mile away.

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 5:04 pm 
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From reading headlines only I believed him until it was clear some shit was going on. So...a couple days? Like most people who do stupid shit like that, I hope he twists in the wind for what he did. It angers me when people in these kind of positions, people who are supposed to be 'better' because they're in a position to be an example, do something stupid like that.

Honestly this is a big blow to him as a person and he's never going to get his credibility back so if he kills himself over it I wouldn't be surprised.


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 5:18 pm 
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lol what a stupid thread

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Take that post and push it off a bridge.


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 5:22 pm 
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LoathedVermin72 wrote:
lol what a stupid thread

I dunno. I’m excitedly watching it from afar, dreaming of the places it can go.

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 5:27 pm 
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Good one Chud. :D


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 5:30 pm 
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meatwad wrote:
Curious why a TV actor faking an attack has anything to do with the progressive movement at large or its policies. Am I missing something?


The Identity Politics that dominates progressive thought was what drove the unquestioning media response, setting orange man and his Neanderthal followers up for gloating and disbelieving real victims in the future.

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 5:49 pm 
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bada wrote:
Good one Chud. :D


Yup, a textbook example.

Image

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 5:56 pm 
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Bi_3 wrote:
bada wrote:
Good one Chud. :D


Yup, a textbook example.

Image

Pretty much the entire premise of this thread

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Take that post and push it off a bridge.


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 6:03 pm 
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Bi_3 wrote:
meatwad wrote:
Curious why a TV actor faking an attack has anything to do with the progressive movement at large or its policies. Am I missing something?


The Identity Politics that dominates progressive thought was what drove the unquestioning media response, setting orange man and his Neanderthal followers up for gloating and disbelieving real victims in the future.


So you believe everything the media tells you then?

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 6:05 pm 
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to even consider that Identity politics is exclusive to that of the progressive wing only makes me think you're just being a dick for fun and i can't take this thread seriously.


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 6:17 pm 
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LoathedVermin72 wrote:
Bi_3 wrote:
bada wrote:
Good one Chud. :D


Yup, a textbook example.

Image

Pretty much the entire premise of this thread



I tried to post articles that used specific examples to avoid such an accusation.


Strat wrote:
to even consider that Identity politics is exclusive to that of the progressive wing only makes me think you're just being a dick for fun and i can't take this thread seriously.



I said nothing of the sort nor do either of the posted articles suggest that.

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 6:22 pm 
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meatwad wrote:
Bi_3 wrote:
meatwad wrote:
Curious why a TV actor faking an attack has anything to do with the progressive movement at large or its policies. Am I missing something?


The Identity Politics that dominates progressive thought was what drove the unquestioning media response, setting orange man and his Neanderthal followers up for gloating and disbelieving real victims in the future.


So you believe everything the media tells you then?



Of course not, which is why I get accused of supporting Trump when I don't jump to condemnation on every piece of news about him. Maybe instead of debating my motives, we talk about the issues raised in first two posts?

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 6:55 pm 
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You’re trying to posit that a TV actor faking an attack on himself with racist and anti-LGBTQ motives and the resulting responses to it are somehow linked to the progressive movement as a whole. I’m not seeing the link here, other than somehow trying to paint people who support progressive ideas as reactionary drones who are chomping at the bit to point the finger at Trump supporters and say “SEE I TOLD YOU THEY WERE ALL RACISTS!!” Sorry, but every group has its assholes and its idiots.

Other people may want to play that game with you, but I don’t. I am a complex person with many different beliefs that sometimes are at odds with each other. I try to take everything with a grain of salt, especially what the media is selling regardless of the source. They would have us believe that we’re all the sort of polarized, partisan hacks that dominate the Twittersphere and MSM. We’re not, and I’m not about to entertain this kind of ridiculousness.

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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 7:04 pm 
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I too am complex

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Hehe


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 7:12 pm 
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I’m willing to entertain all kinds of ridiculousness.


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 Post subject: Re: ITT: We hate on Progressives
PostPosted: Wed February 20, 2019 7:16 pm 
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theplatypus wrote:
I too am complex


You’re also wealthy and handsome

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