My Take on 2016 Election Takes

This has been an absolute garbage fire of an election year. Let’s take a minute to appreciate some of the internet opinion pieces that have been fanning the flames.

The Worst

This take is what inspired me to make this list. The level of self-delusion is just amazing here. Donald Trump would never voluntarily cede power, Trump doesn’t care about the good of the Republican party, most of Trump’s supporters wouldn’t want him to step down, etc. Good luck have fun tho.

This take is riding a wave of “blame millenials for X” bullshit, but in this case the framing is entirely backwards. Trump’s support is actually strongest amongst older voters. Meanwhile millenials, the age group statistically least likely to vote for Trump, are shamed for not voting for Clinton enough. Blame Trump’s supporters for Trump, if you must place blame.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150979891156/trumps-african-american-reframing

It’s impossible to choose the worst Scott Adams’ piece. I chose this one because it features Scott Adams really identifying with Trump, game recognizing game. The term he uses for Trump is “Master Persuader” and in one of the best self-owns I have ever seen it’s clear that Scott Adams considers himself to be in the same category, a “trained persuader”.

The Best

As if to refocus the punditry on the unrepentantly arrogant elephant in the room, Trump presented yet another master class in the privileged politics of personal insult. He bragged about fanning the flames of Birtherism, took cheap shots at Rosie O’Donnell, and mocked the overweight/obese. He spent the entire week after the debate hurling slurs and salacious innuendo at former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. He is now struggling to defend an audio-tape of himself touting the “privilege” of sexual harassment and assault. In essence, he’s removed all doubt that his campaign and the GOP policy it puts forth are about anything other than othering and oppressing people.

All of these rants are overtly didactic; in the political universe they inhabit, liberals are liberals because they are in possession of all the facts, while people who disagree are not. The notion of politics as a sphere of competing interests has vanished. Instead, political differences are arranged by degrees of knowledge and ignorance. You don’t need to actually offer people anything to induce them to vote the right way; they just need information. And those who persist in making the wrong choice can only be stupid.

The practice of determining who is racist and who is not, who are the “real’ racists and who are the racists by happenstance, is only useful for white people who wish to assuage their consciences, absolve themselves of the fact that they live in a country that is tilted in their favor. It is an exercise for liberals who would like to limit their contribution to dismantling white supremacy to voting every year for a candidate with a (D) next to their names. It is useful as a virtue-signaling exercise, and to performatively disassociate one’s self from the wicked and ignorant.