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I opened TheHill.com this morning and see that the Michigan Democratic Senate primary is too close to call and high drama as far as summer politics go.
On one side we have Abdul, a progressive Democrat middle Eastern man. On the other hand, we have Stevens a white liberal affluent woman - described as a “centrist Democrat”, mentored by Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. A real “battle for the Democratic Party”.
My politics have be quite odd for a while now. Historically I voted republiclan and came of age in the George W years. About 10 years ago I switched registration to non affliliated and would describe my politics as MAGA (until MAGA was redefined to being pro-Israel movement). My tongue in check response on politics would be to sometimes describe myself as a Francoist or Facist fellow traveler.
Back to Michigan, I was thinking to myself “gun to my head” who would I prefer? The middle eastern Muslim progressive or white woman establishment Dem. I reviewed their Wiki policy positions and quite easily decided I’d prefer Abdul. Stevens is so odious to me that it wasn’t even close. What’s a bigger threat? A dem that publicly calls their regular trips to Israel transformative? Or a Muslim that wants to abolish ICE? Both are big problems. Stevens is a big “public health” nut so that’s pretty much puts two enormous Xs next to her name for me. Abdul is anti monopoly and these days it’s hard for me to disagree that there are some major problems with the corporate class (despite me being a part of it).
It was a fun little thought experiment. What do you all make of it? For those that are generally against the progressive project, what’s the lesser evil? For those that are for it, who do you trust?
Edit:Abdul won.
You want my thoughts?
My thoughts are that allying yourself with the enemies of western civilization to gain a marginal advantage in an intra-tribal squabble isn't the brilliant flex that you and @hydroacetylene seem to think it is and that anyone remotely familiar with the last decade of US political history ought to recognize the obvious failure mode.
Kolomogrov complicity is still complicity.
Does it seem to you that Muslim immigrants are more an enemy of western civilization than Blue Tribe progressives?
Obviously. "Blue tribe progressives" are white people, which is to say they are part of Western civilization. Muslim immigrants aren't. This idea that they are somehow equal amounts to gaslighting. I don't want to live around Muslim immigrants (a few countries excepted), I'm fine if my neighbor is a Democrat.
It is said that the difference between Extremist and Moderate Muslims is that the extremist Muslim wants to kill you, while the moderate Muslim wants the Extremist to kill you. I observe that a similar distinction obtains for Blues. Not all Blues, certainly, but likewise not all Muslims, and the two are close-enough allies that accepting one is going to mean you get the other in any case.
It does not seem to me that Progressives consider themselves part of Western Civilization in any way I recognize. Given that their project has from its inception exhibited a radical hostility toward every part of Western Civilization they do not own and cannot seize, which has only grown more vicious over time, I do not understand why you think they are part of something they fervently declare their desire to destroy, nor why you should want them to be. I can understand that they emerged from western civilization; parasitic wasp larva emerge from caterpillars, but this does not mean they will develop into butterflies.
I am fine with living around Muslims, right up to the point where they start doing Muslim shit. I am likewise fine living among Democrats, right up to the point where they start doing Democrat shit. Past that point, I do not think living near either of them is a good idea. I reconciled myself long ago that Blue-controlled territory is not a place I am willing to live, nor even to visit if it can be reasonably avoided.
I have long noted that a fault-line within the right runs between those who would prefer to ally with blacks (or other non-white populations) against blues, and those who would prefer to ally with blues against blacks (and other non-white populations). Perhaps it might come down to an assessment of which alliance seems more plausible to you. An alliance with blacks seems quite unlikely to me, and getting less likely by the year, but it nonetheless seems profoundly more likely to me than any alliance with Blues. Many of the perceived grievances between Reds and Blacks are illusory, and much common ground exists even if it remains stubbornly unrecognized. But the grievances between Reds and Blues are very real and growing by the day, and the common ground appears to me to be non-existent; our values are far too incoherent and antagonistic for mutual coexistence.
This is a totally bizarre way to think. An Iraqi Arab doesn't cease to be a part of Islamic civilization if he becomes an atheist. A Chinese person doesn't stop being part of Chinese civilization if he spies for the US. It's no different for a white American or British or French progressive and Western civilization.
Let's compare Muslim shit to Democrat shit. Muslims (more accurately, Arabs and Pakistanis) cause terrorist attacks, political chaos, bring crime, rape, Democrats vote for awful politicians and put cringey rainbow signs in their front yards (Muslims vote for the same politicians btw). These things are not equivalent.
I genuinely do not feel very strongly about blacks and am a little confused why you brought them up. Moderately more aggressive law enforcement would be enough to solve most of the issues associated with that demographic. They are neither a growing demographic nor one that is displacing whites from the most important institutions in our society. Do I want to live in a black neighborhood? No, but no one is trying to make me and there is no chance that my neighborhood is going to become one. These things aren't true of immigrant demographics.
I'm also confused why you are talking about an alliance with either group. Neither of them are political allies and I didn't claim this. But I have genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with "Blues" that I don't with some "refugee" from "Lebanon". This is true for you too, whether or not you want to admit it. Shared civilization, culture, blood, these things are a lot more important than whatever ephemeral culture war issue you are worked up about right now.
The same back at you. You say a white American or British or French progressive is still part of Western civilization. What does that mean? What predictions does this statement make?
Democrats will murder people like me, and will publicly cheer for the murder of people like me, and will discuss among themselves the fervent conviction that the murder of people like me is a good thing and they want more of it. Democrats also commit terror attacks. Democrats also bring political chaos, crime, and rape, and also enable those who do with a zeal such that the distinction becomes meaningless. Democrats will allow masked men to kick my teeth in or burn my house down, and they will ensure the police look the other way when this happens. Democrats will allow other masked men with guns to declare themselves my immediate rulers, and will likewise ensure the police look the other way when this happens. Democrats will deliberately foment nation-wide riots, protect the rioters, and harshly punish anyone who attempts to defend themselves. Democrats will preclude the possibility of broad social coordination toward net-positive cooperation, as they invariably infiltrate any institution so developed, destroy any pro-social function it achieved, and repurpose it as a war-engine for their ideology, or simply divert the money to the material support of their partisans.
And when I say Democrats will do these things, I mean that they have done these things and are, in many cases, still doing them at this moment. And if this were not bad enough, the only reason Muslims are a problem at all is because Blues have dedicated themselves, ceaselessly, to importing as many of them as possible, explicitly because they deeply prefer Muslims to people like me.
Because they are a non-white demographic for which many of your criticisms likewise apply: long-term failure of integration, massive crime, social decay, etc, etc, and because I have seen many similar arguments about how red-blue differences are really not that important, and how it's really the blacks that are the problem, and I disagree with them for the same reasons I disagree with your argument here.
Indeed. And how would this not likewise be true for Muslims? Cut off the massive, community-wide, trivially-detectable fraud explicitly enabled by Democrats, enforce the laws Democrats explicitly refuse to enforce, and why are they more of a problem than Blacks?
Affirmative action? Reparations? In fairness, the former would not have happened, and the latter will not happen, without the explicit support of Progressives, who continue to enthusiastically broadcasting that support in the clearest possible terms. It is true that Blacks are not, on the whole, displacing whites from the most important institutions; there simply aren't enough of them. But Blues have quite thoroughly displaced Reds from those institutions! The thing you identify as a potential concern has already happened, but you don't seem to notice it because both sides are "white". Which should I be more concerned about: the potential future institutional capture of hostile Muslims, or the actual, current, entirely cemented institutional capture of hostile Blues that has been steadily ratcheting up its hostility toward my tribe my entire life?
This has literally been done in the past! Multiple major cities were outright destroyed, All major cities were seriously blighted for decades and most have never actually recovered! The people who metastasized these harms learned nothing from the horrors they inflicted on the innocent, are constantly looking for new ways to inflict further such harms, and absolutely will try even the worst of the old methods again if given the opportunity.
I do not. How are those ties of kinship and "cultural commonality" supposed to help when Blues decide that my religion needs to be illegal, or that I shouldn't be allowed to have police protection, or that a mob should burn my church down, or that I should be charged with serious felonies for attempting to defend myself or even for owning the means with which to effect such a defense? How will they help when Blues flood my nation with hostile foreigners for the explicitly stated purpose of disenfranchising me and my progeny? How will they help when Blues steal my taxes and repurpose them to lock me out of political power, or, having accomplished this, to abuse me in every legible facet of my life?
I share no genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with a "refugee" from "Lebanon", unless they are a Christian. But I likewise recognize no genuine, long-standing ties of kinship and cultural commonality with someone who literally grins at the thought of my children being murdered. What the fuck is "Shared civilization, culture, blood" supposed to actually mean in the face of that level of evident hostility? Rittenhouse was white; did that prevent Grosskruetz from attempting to murder him? I'd guess the prosecutor was white, so show me where the "shared civilization, culture and blood" kicked in when he tried to bury Rittenhouse under a jail. Where did it help Fields, or Keltner, or Gardner, or Finicum, or Danielson, or Perry, or Malinowski? I'd add Baca, but does he count in your book given that he's Hispanic? I'd bet money his attackers were white, should that increase my sympathy for them?
You are summarizing protracted, murderous tribal hatred as some "ephemeral culture war issue you are worked up about right now", but I am pointing to real cases with real consequences. It's true that Muslim immigrants perpetrated the rape gangs in England. Who brought them in? Who covered for them, out of fear of appearing "racist"? Who has been dedicated to importing more of them, and who has instituted naked two-tier policing to keep a lid on any possible backlash? White progressives did these things, and are still doing them. Please tell me exactly where and how the "shared civilization, culture and blood" entered the equation when those white progressives were turning a blind eye to rape and torture and slavery of white children, en masse. Be specific. Let's really dig into the details here, because goddamn would I not want to get distracted by "ephemeral culture war issues", that would be just awful.
That they are white people from those countries, descended from other white people also from those countries, who speak white people languages, and are members of European-descent cultures.
How many people have "Democrats" murdered in deliberate political violence since 2000 and how many people have Muslims murdered as deliberate political violence since 2000? Now consider the size of the denominator in each. Muslims are far worse.
Your neighborhood has far higher chance of being taken over by immigrants. Blacks are a declining demographic, there are billions of potential immigrants.
You don't share any ties with Lebanese Christians either. In Australia, the reason they have a problem with Lebanese Muslims was from the ZOMG BASED Lebanese Christians lobbying to let them in, not from white progressives. Bilal Skaf living in Australia is the fault of Maronites and Orthodox Christian Arabs, not of Australia's "Blues."
The fact is, "Blues" and blacks generally have long-standing ties to our country and thus belong here, and immigrants don't. I don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say liberals want to murder you. I spend a lot of time in a deep blue city and honestly I often say stuff like what I do here and people are generally pretty nice to me. Yes, the political situation in the country is terrible. I wouldn't deny that. It would also be a lot better if there were no immigrants here given that it would disempower the political faction you hate so much. It kind of sounds like you're trying to make up a fake ethnicity of white people to hate so you can blame them without looking in the mirror at your own "tribe" or being "racist".
You edited your post so I will respond a little further:
The English people who enabled the rape gangs are just that: English people. The Pakistanis in the rape gangs are not. It's as simple as that. English people belong in England (or in their colonies), Pakistani rapists don't. And sorry but your kvetching about guns or Rittenhouse is exactly the kind of thing I am calling an ephemeral culture war issue. You and all of the other gun owners in America haven't done shit to stop immigration or advance literally any other right-wing cause besides gun ownership itself. That's fine, I like guns, but come on.
That's not a prediction, that's a backward-looking reiteration of the original statement. What follows from this? For example, are they likely to have loyalty to European-descent people and affinity towards European culture, or are they more likely to side with the foreigners, and deconstruct and denigrate the culture? Or is there something tangible I'm not seeing that would indicate that they're invested in the well being of European people and culture?
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