Current Affairs The Far Left

[dholliday]

I was responding to your post because I believed you to be doing the thing that you have multiple times lectured was wrong and ineffective - I personally do find “brainwashed” is an insult and is attacking a persons character rather the point they are making which is why I rarely use it.

How does repeatedly saying that we are all “brainwashed”, even if you believe it to be true, make us more likely to listen to what you say are reasoned arguments to stop us being brainwashed? Why not just let the reasoned arguments, if that is what they are and you have faith in them, speak for themselves rather than repeatedly insult? If you truly want us to discuss the articles why not reference a particular section of the text that you found was effective and expand on its points?

In that vein there was a section of the 2nd article that really jumped out at me.



I don’t think it was “feminist doctrine” to assume that Trump would be hurt by his comments, even the author admits they were “vulgar” and “arrogant” which are attitudes that typically impact every candidates support regardless of gender. Several members of his own campaign team thought it was “game over” and suggested he resign - is the author suggesting they too were the liberal elite infected by feminist doctrine or just people understandably concerned that “grab them by the [Poor language removed]” might not be a persuasive message to evangelicals? I saw nobody, elite or otherwise, claim that “all women would vote against Trump”, that is a ridiculous strawman.

But my real issue comes in the last section “ordinary women took a different view. A majority of white women voted for Trump”. This is clearly an example of the author doing what he complained that the dastardly elite did earlier in the article “ distort the facts or omit them.” Here were the exit polls ,

The author almost certainly knew that only 41% of women voted for Trump but that doesn’t fit his predetermined argument so he distorts it by imposing a definition of “ordinary women” that includes only white women (which is weird all by itself).

Even then he fails to state it was 52% of white women presumably hoping that the phrase majority would be inferred as a much higher percentage - most people who were being objective yet avoiding too many stats would typically refer to that aa a “bare” or “small” majority to avoid misinterpretation.

If a Clinton supporter had referenced her clearer majorities among non-white men (65% Hispanic men, 85% black men according to analysis by Pew based on voter files http://www.people-press.org/2018/08...he-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/) to make some wider claim that she did well with male voters you would have rightfully ridiculed it as sophistry yet are holding this up as part of an argument that should make us shed our supposed tribal brainwashing?

Overall I felt the author provides very little data or evidence to back up any of his conclusions or provoke debate. Take another statment “They have been taught that capitalism is inherently bad” - do you believe this to be true and if so why? I’m sitting slap bang in the middle of the Bay Area chock full of people I guess the author would call “liberal elite” and capitalism seems widely supported in terms of a desire for independent, profit making companies allowed to conduct free trade. There is support to move to “Medicare for all” but that still has a lot of private industry involvement, just that the health insurance is provided by the government rather than private industry - is that so anti capitalist that you would prefer an entirely privatized healthcare system in Germany? The anti capitalist moves - tarriffs on trade and support for uncompetitive industries like coal mining or the outdated steel plants come from Trump and are a significant reason why a lot of business minded friends don’t support Trump irrespective of some of his other views.

FWIW, I agree with the author that education was the primary factor in who supported/opposed Trump, especially comared to previous candidates. I found this article far more persuasive https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/ and it also includes so e possible reasons why that your article doesn’t discuss that I think worth considering.

i liked your post for sheer effort...will look at it more closely and respond at another time, there's thoughtful points in your post to chew on so thanks for giving it a proper go

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Interesting piece - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/45900544

 

[dead_soft]

i liked your post for sheer effort...will look at it more closely and respond at another time, there's thoughtful points in your post to chew on so thanks for giving it a proper go

Nice little pat on the head from the ever so smart heavyweight @dholliday

 

[dholliday]

Nice little pat on the head from the ever so smart heavyweight @dholliday

I don't think @LinekersLegs took it that way. She made a detailed thoughtful reply, which I wanted to first acknowledge and then properly reply to when the time & inclinination are around.

 

[dholliday]

when the time & inclinination are around.

that's an actual word, it's like inclination only it's doubly so.

 

[verreauxi]

[I meant to post this here, not in general politics...]

Enough! Enough! For months, the so-called liberal elite has been writing articles, having radio and TV discussions, giving sermons (literally) and making speeches in which it has struggled to understand those strange creatures: ordinary people.


Ah! There is a clue. That word ‘educated’. What does ‘educated’ mean today? It doesn’t mean they know a lot about the world. It means they have been injected with the views and assumptions of their teachers. They have been taught by people who themselves have little experience of the real world. They have been indoctrinated with certain ideas. Here are some key ones.


They think that because they studied English literature at Durham they understand the world better than a plumber in Croydon.


The above paragraphs are full of strawmen. There are no data showing that educators have "little experience of the real world" and it also leaves undefined "experience" and "real world." It also perpetuates the baffling logic that a plumber is more "ordinary" than a former university student (not to mention, it seems to presume plumbers don't go to Uni). There are no data suggesting that someone who studies English Lit would understand the world better than a plumber, and it is an untestable and silly statement to make anyways. But apparently a conservative London-based writer for the Spectator, who spends a lot of time traveling to Italy, and former banker has his finger on the pulse of the "ordinary people."


They have been taught that capitalism is inherently bad. It is something to be controlled at every turn by an altruistic government or else reduced to a minimum. Meanwhile the pursuit of equality is good. These are truly astonishing things for educated people to believe when the past 100 years have been a brutal lesson instructing us that the opposite is the case. The pursuit of equality brought the world terror and tens of millions of deaths along with terrible economic failure. In the past 30 years, by contrast, since China and India adopted more pro-capitalist policies, capitalism has caused the biggest reduction in poverty the world has ever known. You may know that, but it is not taught in schools. Schools actually teach that Stalin’s five-year plans were a qualified success! The academic world is overwhelmingly left-wing and the textbooks spin to the left. They distort the facts or omit them.


The five-year plan bit comes from a BBC website and nothing more. Bartholomew would be hard-pressed to point to any "liberal elite" teacher who would teach that Stalinism was a success, qualified or otherwise. He has no data that this is taught in schools, or if he does, he should say so. In fact, from the same BBC website that Bartholomew is referring to, he conveniently fails to note that the website also said, "Workers had to work very hard to meet targets. Managers and workers who failed to meet targets could be arrested and executed." This doesn't sound like a pro-five-year-plan speak. There are so many other problems with that paragraph, it is difficult to know where to begin, which I suspect is the point of the whole article--it's obfuscation by inundation of ill-formed whinges. Bartholomew is a casuist, nothing more.


I could go on and on, but it seems the general thrust of the whole essay is that schools--even primary schools and their "liberal elite" teachers--are indoctrination factories where no critical thinking is taught. This is not true and a quick look at any lesson plan or course assignments across any Western educational institution will show that critical thinking is encouraged. [Parenthetically, referring to a primary/secondary school teacher as a "liberal elite" is what one would expect from a conservative former banker--laughably out of touch.]

This entire article is full-on speciousness, but apparently I'm brainwashed (or "unwittingly defending" it) if I dare to criticize it.

 

[dholliday]

I was responding to your post because I believed you to be doing the thing that you have multiple times lectured was wrong and ineffective - I personally do find “brainwashed” is an insult and is attacking a persons character rather the point they are making which is why I rarely use it.

How does repeatedly saying that we are all “brainwashed”, even if you believe it to be true, make us more likely to listen to what you say are reasoned arguments to stop us being brainwashed? Why not just let the reasoned arguments, if that is what they are and you have faith in them, speak for themselves rather than repeatedly insult? If you truly want us to discuss the articles why not reference a particular section of the text that you found was effective and expand on its points?

"brainwashed", depending on context, is one of those borderline attacks: it could be attacking the thinking, or it could be attacking the thinker. Considering the name-calling that comes my way, I judge brainwashed to be a relatively mild yet accurate rebuke. I've demonstrated why it's accurate numerous times, whereas the name-calling that comes my way has objectively zero logic to it.

As to how I expect to persuade people...I do and I don't. I don't expect to persuade the folk I'm often actively writing with, not the tribalist ones anway. It's clear no one from that camp is changing their minds, despite the detail I sometimes go into. I do aim to make sense to non-posting readers, but then again this isn't The Guardian's CiF, so maybe there aren't any non-posting readers and I'm just waffling into a void. Is that more or less worthless than waffling into the same echo chamber about how bad Trump is? I guess it's debateable.

It's interesting you choose me as being the one who "repeatedly insults"...it does betray your own bias, your membership of the groupthink.

You're genuinely one of our best posters, Legs, not for nothing have you heard this from a few on here. But that Trump thread isn't healthy, at least not in the way you're using it. It feeds on ones' bias, makes one a little more unbalanced with how they see things. That thread is actually Trump incarnate: his ridiculousness is poisoning the Left by making them obsessed with that very ridiculousness. It's addictive, hypnotic even.

Look at how Trump got into Liz Warren's mind: this is a seasoned intelligent woman. Trump's getting into your minds, even the best of yous, fed by the Left eating itself...brainwashing is an apt description. It's not an insult, it's an observation.

In that vein there was a section of the 2nd article that really jumped out at me.

“ Feminist doctrine has so permeated the elite that its members assumed that all women in the USA would vote against Trump after his vulgar, arrogant remarks about touching women were leaked. The elite thought that was ‘game over’ for Trump. Ordinary women took a different view. A majority of white women voted for Trump.”

I don’t think it was “feminist doctrine” to assume that Trump would be hurt by his comments, even the author admits they were “vulgar” and “arrogant” which are attitudes that typically impact every candidates support regardless of gender. Several members of his own campaign team thought it was “game over” and suggested he resign - is the author suggesting they too were the liberal elite infected by feminist doctrine or just people understandably concerned that “grab them by the [Poor language removed]” might not be a persuasive message to evangelicals? I saw nobody, elite or otherwise, claim that “all women would vote against Trump”, that is a ridiculous strawman.

I also found his wording there a little cheap. The point stands tho' that the hard sell being attempted was something like how could any woman vote for him now? Implying if you're female and you still voted Trump, you were betraying all women or insulting victims of actual sexual assaults. This was a hard & fast anti-Trump media campaign from all angles.

It backfired, or rather it didn't have the explosive effect the anti-Trump commentariat were hoping for.

But my real issue comes in the last section “ordinary women took a different view. A majority of white women voted for Trump”. This is clearly an example of the author doing what he complained that the dastardly elite did earlier in the article “ distort the facts or omit them.” Here were the exit polls ,

The author almost certainly knew that only 41% of women voted for Trump but that doesn’t fit his predetermined argument so he distorts it by imposing a definition of “ordinary women” that includes only white women (which is weird all by itself).

Even then he fails to state it was 52% of white women presumably hoping that the phrase majority would be inferred as a much higher percentage - most people who were being objective yet avoiding too many stats would typically refer to that aa a “bare” or “small” majority to avoid misinterpretation.

If a Clinton supporter had referenced her clearer majorities among non-white men (65% Hispanic men, 85% black men according to analysis by Pew based on voter files http://www.people-press.org/2018/08...he-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/) to make some wider claim that she did well with male voters you would have rightfully ridiculed it as sophistry yet are holding this up as part of an argument that should make us shed our supposed tribal brainwashing?

The Clinton analogy doesn't work, statistically, as non-white males are in the minority over white males.

The author is broadly correct when he states "a majority of white women voted for Trump”. Personally I find it a shame to reduce people to colour in that way, it's a sign of unhealthy identity politics. So I agree the author was using identity politics to game the statistics to back up his argument, but his general point is still sound. that women weren't significantly put off by Trump to not vote for him in numbers.

Overall I felt the author provides very little data or evidence to back up any of his conclusions or provoke debate. Take another statment “They have been taught that capitalism is inherently bad” - do you believe this to be true and if so why? I’m sitting slap bang in the middle of the Bay Area chock full of people I guess the author would call “liberal elite” and capitalism seems widely supported in terms of a desire for independent, profit making companies allowed to conduct free trade. There is support to move to “Medicare for all” but that still has a lot of private industry involvement, just that the health insurance is provided by the government rather than private industry - is that so anti capitalist that you would prefer an entirely privatized healthcare system in Germany? The anti capitalist moves - tarriffs on trade and support for uncompetitive industries like coal mining or the outdated steel plants come from Trump and are a significant reason why a lot of business minded friends don’t support Trump irrespective of some of his other views.

I also support social capitalism. I voted FDP in the German elections, and support Corbyn in the UK ones. If I was american, I would've supported Sanders and then either abstained or given my vote to Stein. I've said this numerous times that my vote & support doesn't go to the Right, yet if I criticise contemporary Leftist doctrine it's automatically assumed I lean to the Right.

The Right themselves have similar simplistic polarised thinking, even the author, as I think he was trying to feed into anti-communist/socialist sentiment...it wasn't his most glorious paragraph, I grant you.

FWIW, I agree with the author that education was the primary factor in who supported/opposed Trump, especially comared to previous candidates. I found this article far more persuasive https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/ and it also includes so e possible reasons why that your article doesn’t discuss that I think worth considering.

Aye, that's also a good piece.


Re: the oldie-bit-goodie article...there are quite a few good juicy bits which do hit nerves about how the Left is eating itself. I may go into them later, I just wanted to reply to your specific points for now.

 

[BlueToff]

Far left - weirdos

 

[BlueToff]

This got to me the other day.

Saw several people on Twitter who I don't know, but who my friend does from uni. They were in her politics class.

It came on my timeline as my friend had liked something one of these people had tweeted (nothing to do with politics). I scrolled over the profile as I was scrolling down and the cover photo was basically a big banner about communism.

I was pretty intrigued so I had a further look and basically most of the tweets were all about how this girl/woman loved communism. She proudly boasted about being a communist.

Now, I'm not sure whether she actually knows what that implies, but I text my mate and she basically said that this lass was part of a group in her politics class who all identified as communists.

That, to me, is dangerous. Because it's actually encouraged. And I've spoken to my friends about this, who are a bit more left leaning than me (I am a labour supporter btw), and they too say that 'communism is a good idea'.

It scares me. These have all gone to uni, and yet they come out thinking that an ideology that is just as twisted as fascism is how we should go?

Somewhere, something has gone drastically wrong. And it's only on places like this that you can now have a reasoned debate. Try to do it on Twitter, or in public, and you're shouted down - by both sides on whatever issue. It's not right.

 

[BlueToff]

Just read the chat between @LinekersLegs and @dholliday

Surely, this is what it should be all about?

 

[verreauxi]

Re: the oldie-bit-goodie article...there are quite a few good juicy bits which do hit nerves about how the Left is eating itself. I may go into them later, I just wanted to reply to your specific points for now.

Please go into these "few good juicy bits" in Bartholomew's article...I'd honestly be interested to know your feelings on what they are. I have my own opinions on the left eating itself, which does include the poorly-reasoned censoring of certain academic speakers, such as Yiannopolis and Murray--I strongly disagree with their messages, but feel equally strongly that they should be allowed to speak rather then banned or shouted-down. However, I also think the notion that schools are bastions of communism/socialism, indoctrination factories, and don't teach critical thinking is far more a right-wing hyperbole than reality. And to be sure, there are definitely some censorious and agenda-driven left-wing academics out there.

 

[dholliday]

This got to me the other day.

Saw several people on Twitter who I don't know, but who my friend does from uni. They were in her politics class.

It came on my timeline as my friend had liked something one of these people had tweeted (nothing to do with politics). I scrolled over the profile as I was scrolling down and the cover photo was basically a big banner about communism.

I was pretty intrigued so I had a further look and basically most of the tweets were all about how this girl/woman loved communism. She proudly boasted about being a communist.

Now, I'm not sure whether she actually knows what that implies, but I text my mate and she basically said that this lass was part of a group in her politics class who all identified as communists.

That, to me, is dangerous. Because it's actually encouraged. And I've spoken to my friends about this, who are a bit more left leaning than me (I am a labour supporter btw), and they too say that 'communism is a good idea'.

It scares me. These have all gone to uni, and yet they come out thinking that an ideology that is just as twisted as fascism is how we should go?

Somewhere, something has gone drastically wrong. And it's only on places like this that you can now have a reasoned debate. Try to do it on Twitter, or in public, and you're shouted down - by both sides on whatever issue. It's not right.

Interesting post, toff.

You're right about this humble Everton forum being arguably the best place to debate politics right now. I guess it's a combination of us being blues (so there's an already an automatic respect for each other despite the odd poking & catfighting) and the mods here allowing a lot of hearty disagreement without stepping in, banning or locking threads.

re: communism-interest amongst youth, why do you think it's dangerous? Are they showing signs of wanting to control speech? Then i can understand your point. But it can be a positive thing if not abused: I used to be involved in London squat party scenes...we had our own communistic ideals (communism doesn't always have to equal fascism ala Soviets, the Kims or DDR)...it worked fine within the confines of an underground all-cooks-no-chiefs movement. It's mostly a youthful idealism which fades a little as most of us end up leaving these scenes to make our way in mainstream capitalist society. But I've still kept some of those ideals, so i will sometimes have conversations with homeless people (to help them feel i regard them as equal members of society to myself), and i'll support fair socialist policies where i see them.

Capitalism, also when not abused...when used moderately, is however a fine fair system which encourages growth and learning.

I hope this polarised internet-driven identity-obsessed outrage culture soon retreats to the shadows...we can refocus on learning about the best bits from communism, socialism and capitalism and grow into something which is fair-minded, is anchored in sober reality and encourages development...we need to refocus soon i think, before the poison gets too out of hand. First step i reckon is to change tactic on Trump: starve the troll of oxygen, focus on strong 2020 candidates, and hopefully return to sanity without civil war breaking out. Like it or not, the US is often a cultural trendsetter for a lot of the world.

The mainstream Left has to do its bit for sanity just as much as the mainstream Right...as both their Far counterparts are no longer fringe.

 

[LinekersLegs]

"brainwashed", depending on context, is one of those borderline attacks: it could be attacking the thinking, or it could be attacking the thinker. Considering the name-calling that comes my way, I judge brainwashed to be a relatively mild yet accurate rebuke. I've demonstrated why it's accurate numerous times, whereas the name-calling that comes my way has objectively zero logic to it.

As to how I expect to persuade people...I do and I don't. I don't expect to persuade the folk I'm often actively writing with, not the tribalist ones anway. It's clear no one from that camp is changing their minds, despite the detail I sometimes go into. I do aim to make sense to non-posting readers, but then again this isn't The Guardian's CiF, so maybe there aren't any non-posting readers and I'm just waffling into a void. Is that more or less worthless than waffling into the same echo chamber about how bad Trump is? I guess it's debateable.

It's interesting you choose me as being the one who "repeatedly insults"...it does betray your own bias, your membership of the groupthink.

You're genuinely one of our best posters, Legs, not for nothing have you heard this from a few on here. But that Trump thread isn't healthy, at least not in the way you're using it. It feeds on ones' bias, makes one a little more unbalanced with how they see things. That thread is actually Trump incarnate: his ridiculousness is poisoning the Left by making them obsessed with that very ridiculousness. It's addictive, hypnotic even.

Look at how Trump got into Liz Warren's mind: this is a seasoned intelligent woman. Trump's getting into your minds, even the best of yous, fed by the Left eating itself...brainwashing is an apt description. It's not an insult, it's an observation..

See that I find a far more persuasive argument than simply accusing me of already being "brainwashed" which I don't feel is particularly constructive for an honest debate, especially I have said I regard it as an insult and even you admit it can be viewed as a borderline attack.

I believe that I come to my views from rational, evidence based thought including reading opposing opinions/analysis, as I am sure you do, rather than brainlessly parroting a groupthink. I may be entirely delusional in that, as may you, but how about we concentrate on the views each of us expresses and debate the strengths/weaknesses of the data/reasoning we present rather than ascribing a pejorative source or reason for those views?

I also found his wording there a little cheap. The point stands tho' that the hard sell being attempted was something like how could any woman vote for him now? Implying if you're female and you still voted Trump, you were betraying all women or insulting victims of actual sexual assaults. This was a hard & fast anti-Trump media campaign from all angles.

It backfired, or rather it didn't have the explosive effect the anti-Trump commentariat were hoping for.

Which was the exact same message being sold by Trump re Hillary when he brought Bill Clinton's accusers to the third debate "she was an enabler" and has been used by Republicans throughout Bill Clinton's political career. On a somewhat less emotive issue both campaigns used a "don't vote for this crook as otherwise you are supporting lawlessness" theme as well - campaigns use the tools at hand.

The Clinton analogy doesn't work, statistically, as non-white males are in the minority over white males.

The author is broadly correct when he states "a majority of white women voted for Trump”. Personally I find it a shame to reduce people to colour in that way, it's a sign of unhealthy identity politics. So I agree the author was using identity politics to game the statistics to back up his argument, but his general point is still sound. that women weren't significantly put off by Trump to not vote for him in numbers.

I think it a fair analogy as although there are fewer non-white males than white males a much higher % than 52% voted for Clinton - we'd have to use numbers rather than percentages to be sure but I was more using it to illustrate the point about cherry picking data to suit a pre-determined result.

The bizarre thing was the author didn't need to use identity politics or "lies, damn lies and statistics" if his point was women weren't significantly put off by Trump - he could have just used the exit polls for number of female voters who voted for Romney (44%), McCain (43), Bush (44 in 2000 and 48% in 2004) for comparison (data from https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/) and Trump's figures aren't wildly different although slightly down and he could have also used Clintons numbers vs her predecessors (54% vs 55, 56, 51, 54). There was absolutely no need for ridiculous strawman arguments or distorted data.

I also support social capitalism. I voted FDP in the German elections, and support Corbyn in the UK ones. If I was american, I would've supported Sanders and then either abstained or given my vote to Stein. I've said this numerous times that my vote & support doesn't go to the Right, yet if I criticise contemporary Leftist doctrine it's automatically assumed I lean to the Right.

I don't believe I have ever made that assumption, I generally try to address people's arguments as they present them without getting into broad brush categorizations.

The Right themselves have similar simplistic polarised thinking, even the author, as I think he was trying to feed into anti-communist/socialist sentiment...it wasn't his most glorious paragraph, I grant you.

We agree on something at last and on that happy note I am going off to do some work lol

 

[dholliday]

See that I find a far more persuasive argument than simply accusing me of already being "brainwashed" which I don't feel is particularly constructive for an honest debate, especially I have said I regard it as an insult and even you admit it can be viewed as a borderline attack.

I believe that I come to my views from rational, evidence based thought including reading opposing opinions/analysis, as I am sure you do, rather than brainlessly parroting a groupthink. I may be entirely delusional in that, as may you, but how about we concentrate on the views each of us expresses and debate the strengths/weaknesses of the data/reasoning we present rather than ascribing a pejorative source or reason for those views?

Which was the exact same message being sold by Trump re Hillary when he brought Bill Clinton's accusers to the third debate "she was an enabler" and has been used by Republicans throughout Bill Clinton's political career. On a somewhat less emotive issue both campaigns used a "don't vote for this crook as otherwise you are supporting lawlessness" theme as well - campaigns use the tools at hand.

I think it a fair analogy as although there are fewer non-white males than white males a much higher % than 52% voted for Clinton - we'd have to use numbers rather than percentages to be sure but I was more using it to illustrate the point about cherry picking data to suit a pre-determined result.

The bizarre thing was the author didn't need to use identity politics or "lies, damn lies and statistics" if his point was women weren't significantly put off by Trump - he could have just used the exit polls for number of female voters who voted for Romney (44%), McCain (43), Bush (44 in 2000 and 48% in 2004) for comparison (data from https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/) and Trump's figures aren't wildly different although slightly down and he could have also used Clintons numbers vs her predecessors (54% vs 55, 56, 51, 54). There was absolutely no need for ridiculous strawman arguments or distorted data.

I don't believe I have ever made that assumption, I generally try to address people's arguments as they present them without getting into broad brush categorizations.

We agree on something at last and on that happy note I am going off to do some work lol

i think we agree on a lot of fundamental things, just that we tend to bump into each other in US politics threads where we have somewhat different thinking.

i concede tho' as you actually live there

 

[Kiwi]

See that I find a far more persuasive argument than simply accusing me of already being "brainwashed" which I don't feel is particularly constructive for an honest debate, especially I have said I regard it as an insult and even you admit it can be viewed as a borderline attack.

I believe that I come to my views from rational, evidence based thought including reading opposing opinions/analysis, as I am sure you do, rather than brainlessly parroting a groupthink. I may be entirely delusional in that, as may you, but how about we concentrate on the views each of us expresses and debate the strengths/weaknesses of the data/reasoning we present rather than ascribing a pejorative source or reason for those views?

Which was the exact same message being sold by Trump re Hillary when he brought Bill Clinton's accusers to the third debate "she was an enabler" and has been used by Republicans throughout Bill Clinton's political career. On a somewhat less emotive issue both campaigns used a "don't vote for this crook as otherwise you are supporting lawlessness" theme as well - campaigns use the tools at hand.

I think it a fair analogy as although there are fewer non-white males than white males a much higher % than 52% voted for Clinton - we'd have to use numbers rather than percentages to be sure but I was more using it to illustrate the point about cherry picking data to suit a pre-determined result.

The bizarre thing was the author didn't need to use identity politics or "lies, damn lies and statistics" if his point was women weren't significantly put off by Trump - he could have just used the exit polls for number of female voters who voted for Romney (44%), McCain (43), Bush (44 in 2000 and 48% in 2004) for comparison (data from https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/) and Trump's figures aren't wildly different although slightly down and he could have also used Clintons numbers vs her predecessors (54% vs 55, 56, 51, 54). There was absolutely no need for ridiculous strawman arguments or distorted data.

I don't believe I have ever made that assumption, I generally try to address people's arguments as they present them without getting into broad brush categorizations.

We agree on something at last and on that happy note I am going off to do some work lol

Unsure why you waste valuable time typing up a response to someone who will willfully misrepresent and cherry pick your words and argument at best, whilst likely underhandedly insulting you while doing so.