***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[brian8598]

Why do approximately 80% of people wearing t-shirts to make a statement look like they've never worn a t-shirt before?

 

[rexanglorum]

I know of code switching but I wasn’t really aware that it’s not widespread amongst white Americans either.

Over here in Flemish Belgium, pretty much every town and region has its own dialect. Even my town of 2000 people.
Some dialects like the regional dialect from the West-Flanders province is damn near unintelligible if they don’t heavily tone it down.

Our dialects aren’t merely differing in pronunciation but many dialects also have their exclusive terminology. That previously referenced West-Flanders dialect is particularly egregious when it comes to replacing words or entire expressions that are only understood by people familiar with said dialect.

I don’t really have a strong dialect but I do tone it down for work.

To further emphasise the impact of dialect, the Dutch we learn in school is referred to as “algemeen beschaafd Nederlands (ABN)”, which translates to “general civilized Dutch.”

My Office Manager is literally the only person I know who regularly speaks ABN, and I know from personal experience she’s hiding a pretty strong Ghent dialect. I can’t think of anyone else who even bothers trying, they just tone down their dialect depending on the circumstances.

Belgium and the Netherlands (to a lesser extent) are a bit unique when it comes to the sheer numbers and variety of dialects but I assumed code switching was a pretty natural occurrence in most countries.

Very interesting post, I love any and all insights into the socio-linguistic situations that exist around the world. The more localized and/or class stratified the dialects and the more politically charged the minority languages, the more it interests me.

Obviously, Belgium is in an elite status by those metrics.


In the US, probably a slight majority of whites spend their whole life in a monolingual, monodialectical milieu.

If you’ve lived in different regions of the US, lived in a big city, been to college, and/or do business nationally or internationally, you become knowledgeable about code switching.

The group of white people I just described, leans heavily Democratic. But if you are a white, local elite or a worker unable or unwilling to relocate or go to college, you may not know about code switching and those groups are the backbone of the GOP. The purple parts of America, the suburbs, had been less cosmopolitan in the past. More recently, they’ve become a mix of cosmopolitan as well as parochial.

Many of the fiercest, nastiest fights in local politics are over whether or not local government, especially school districts, will uphold newer the newer cosmopolitan values or will they uphold the older more parochial world view that used to dominate the area.

In the suburbs, you can have someone who went to college 1,000 miles away, moved back home, and now commutes into the city and works for a multinational corporation, has a dialectically diverse workplace, and is on phone calls all day with people from different dialectical zones. So you have neighbors in very different epistemological silos.


All this is a long way to say that Republicans tend to be the whites who do not know about code switching and most white Democrats do know about code switching.

But of course, the white Republicans on Twitter absolutely DO know about code switching so their reaction to Harris was in bad faith.

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[rexanglorum]

I’ve been obsessed with Richard Hanania’s substack article where he theorized that the GOP has become the low human capital Party.

I’d add the caveat that the Party’s base are people who are economically comfortable but they have low human capital.

It’s cops, car dealership owners, Medicare cheating doctors, crooked nursing home owners, mining and timber capital, owners of marginal businesses, and boomers who bought a house in the 70’s. They thrive off of government subsidies, rent seeking, keeping wages low, frustrating new housing construction, tariffs, and keeping their employees’ wages low.

Even the Republicans who do have high human capital, tend to lack emotional intelligence and have low social capital.


The low human capital theory would explain their present obsession with women’s bodies.

Economically, women enjoy rough parity now, and that means they have more options than they did 30, 50, 70 years ago. Why would a women sidetrack her career for a husband with low human capital and few prospects?

Moreover, this would explain conservative hatred of cities, universities, and LGBTQ acceptance. Every woman who moves to a city, goes to college, or who lives their truth is one more potential wife that these loser young men cannot obtain.


Meanwhile, the Democratic coalition is made of high human capital people, especially high human capital people who aren’t very well paid. The multitudes of bright and talented young people live in relative poverty and precarity in order to subsidize older, low human capital MAGA types.


This is a fundamental contradiction in US politics. The people who praise free markets and competition, would be reduced to penury in many cases; if they had to compete in genuinely free markets.

Meanwhile, those who are skeptical of markets are often times just demanding an even chance in the market, an even chance denied by affluent but low capital actors on the political and economic stage.


It’ll be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out and I’m curious to see when the GOP stops to even officially pretend to care about competition and markets and formally declares itself a harrenvolkist Party.

 

[biggie62]

Very interesting post, I love any and all insights into the socio-linguistic situations that exist around the world. The more localized and/or class stratified the dialects and the more politically charged the minority languages, the more it interests me.

Obviously, Belgium is in an elite status by those metrics.


In the US, probably a slight majority of whites spend their whole life in a monolingual, monodialectical milieu.

If you’ve lived in different regions of the US, lived in a big city, been to college, and/or do business nationally or internationally, you become knowledgeable about code switching.

The group of white people I just described, leans heavily Democratic. But if you are a white, local elite or a worker unable or unwilling to relocate or go to college, you may not know about code switching and those groups are the backbone of the GOP. The purple parts of America, the suburbs, had been less cosmopolitan in the past. More recently, they’ve become a mix of cosmopolitan as well as parochial.

Many of the fiercest, nastiest fights in local politics are over whether or not local government, especially school districts, will uphold newer the newer cosmopolitan values or will they uphold the older more parochial world view that used to dominate the area.

In the suburbs, you can have someone who went to college 1,000 miles away, moved back home, and now commutes into the city and works for a multinational corporation, has a dialectically diverse workplace, and is on phone calls all day with people from different dialectical zones. So you have neighbors in very different epistemological silos.


All this is a long way to say that Republicans tend to be the whites who do not know about code switching and most white Democrats do know about code switching.

But of course, the white Republicans on Twitter absolutely DO know about code switching so their reaction to Harris was in bad faith.

I agree with much of this. I’m from Poland and we have our own regional dialects as well. Like I can’t understand the dialect and some of the terms of people from southern Poland near the Czech border. I’m from central Poland so ours is closest to original Polish but we have some German words for certain things as the old border of Poland was more East of where the western border is today.

but I agree that it works the same with English and how many white communities are very homogeneous. I see it with my friends wife who grew up in an Uber white neighborhood on Long Island. She is so sheltered. Petrified of taking public transportation, thinking it’s all dangerous outside, and her dad is a closet racist who hides it really well. I caught him slipping during the last time we talked twice. And he was a pretty high up guy at Phillip Morris years ago. It annoys the **** out of me but my friend admits that she’s sheltered. Problem is sometimes her and I get I to bad arguments since I’m stubborn and fact check/correct the BS she tries to spew


I really need to stop picking these fights.

 

[1995]

"We're other things perhaps"

 

[IATT]

 

[dmbrhs]

Well, knock me over with an e-ffing feather.

 

[wavycrocket]

It's amazing that everything conservatives accuse the media of doing,
They are doing the same thing but like 100000x worse.


They freaked out for years about progressive partisan influence over social media moderation.
...Elon buys twitter that and explitley spits out and promotes conservative propaganda.

They accuse the media of being "the enemy of the people"
...meanwhile prominent conservative commentators are just straight up being paid by the russian government to destabilize American society.

I remember having this convo with you years ago on this board…..and you thought I was a crazed conspiracy theorist , and you bought hook line and sinker the clear “censorship from the left line”. While it’s been obvious these are grifting liars, and Russian propagandists.

You’ll eventually come to the conclusion that Joe Rogan is in on it too.

clearly he likes to have right wing kooks and weirdos on,

Im just saying that even if you want to have left wing people on,
when have this censorious attitude on the left it will skew the show even further right

Censoring….like bringing on Gov Abbot, who’s banning books about racism or Black Authors. Literal “censorship”

It’s sad you buy into this framing. You should know better, but you’re being intentionally obtuse to what’s obvious in front of you

Listen to him for Snoop dogg, or whatever apolitical entertaining guest he has on his show.

But don’t pretend like what he does isn’t intentional.

 

[wavycrocket]

Glad certain Nters are on da come up

John Wick & Zainjal26 right now

 

[IATT]

 

[dmbrhs]

Then what, pray tell, is that day?

 

[IATT]

 

[dmbrhs]

Alaska, the state where if the Feds decided to do random raids, they'd corral a quarter of the population.

 

[05fordgt]

In a normal society, his would basically be the "death sentence" for one's ambitious political career. With today's MAGA lunatics, they'll just cheer her on. As a society we're so ******!

I sure hope her opponent gets a hold of this. The commercial produces itself. Especially with what happened yesterday

 

[05fordgt]

G

Take your useless thoughts and prayers, you worthless spineless bag of **** and shove the up your ******* ***!!

 

[IATT]

 

[Cashflow]

 

[dmbrhs]

Did anyone ever care enough about her to spread any lies worth rebutting?

 

[Public Enemy]

That's crazy

 

[IATT]

Tiger going tiger

 

[Mark Antony]

Can't wait to read about her childhood in Chicago.

 

[1995]

John Wick & Zainjal26 right now

teamjordan79

 

[elpablo21]

Tim Scott gotta be sick watching someone campaign without a spouse next to them

 

[essential1]

Why do approximately 80% of people wearing t-shirts to make a statement look like they've never worn a t-shirt before?

Hell I’m surprised that Trump voters don’t put their heads through the arm holes every day when they put on shirts.