Wednesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, July 20, 2022
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70 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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It’s a real bill, with no real chance of passing. At this time. (and any time in the future I would hope) But this is how far gone some of these folks are.
@OzarkHillbilly: Are you quite sure someone is not trolling the save-the-fetus first crowd?
@OzarkHillbilly: @Joe:
Uh, if you murder the woman, you’ll kill the fetus as well.
No surprise, right? They asked a lot of other questions as well, including,
The cognitive dissonance is strong here.
So, yeah.
@Joe: Pittman has introduced this bill many times over the years. He’s a true believer.
@CSK: “Oh, I know what you’re going to say. “If you kill the mother, the fetus dies, too.” But the fetus is going to be aborted anyway, so why not let it go down with the ship?” (from The Bird Cage)
@CSK:
In the words of John Malkovich, “I never think that far ahead.”
@OzarkHillbilly:
To get pedantic…
That’s technically true. But I don’t see that as a bad thing–quite the opposite! We need more immigrants to sustain our population (native born Americans are below replacement rate), bring in more diversity (including yummy food), and keep us a thriving nation.
[emphasis added]
I’m all for opening up our borders to let in far more immigrants, and to make it much easier for them to become citizens.
@Mu Yixiao:
No it isn’t. A shift in relative demographics isn’t a “replacement.” Nothing is being taken away.
@Kylopod:
It’s a matter of semantics & connotation but there’s not really a better English word to use. The percentage of one group in a total population is going down and one is going up. How do you accurately describe that to someone correctly pointing out that the wording won’t change the truth that there are less of them?
Think of it like a child who has lost a parent but now gains another due to their parent’s remarriage. You now have a new parent, bringing the total back to two. However, they’re not really a replacement (unless you’re being a brat screaming you’re not my mom); the person isn’t being replaced but the role is being refilled. It’s being dishonest to pretend a substitution has not occurred. Someone new now stands in as “Mom” or “Dad”, acting in their stead. Emphasized instead what is being substituted and why since it’s not inherently a bad thing. Minimizing the kid’s feelings isn’t going to help them accept the change that will happen whether they like it or not; while some kids never come to accept the new step-parent there’s several ways to help the adjustment process and remove that negative stigma. We need something this on a national level for embittered white folks to help come to terms with their new step-family.
Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources say
with an extended finger.
Because the first, the absolute first, thing I do when committing a crime is have myself photographed committing it and then send the pics to all my friends!
http://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2657703031/
@OzarkHillbilly:
@CSK:
It just needs a little tweak to make it a nightmare: make it legal to kill any person who is going to perform an abortion or assist in one. Doctors, nurses, taxi drivers, bus drivers, bank tellers, family members, etc. become instant targets.
@CSK:
Sorry. Make that:
http://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2657701031/
Twitter wins first legal battle with Elon Musk as trial to go ahead in October
@Kylopod:
US Census 1940-2020
Non-Hispanic White 88.3% 87.5% 85.4% 83.5% 79.6% 75.6% 69.1% 63.7% 57.8%
30.5% of the US population (as percentage of total at each census) has shifted from NHW to something else. If the trend continues, at some point, NHW will cease to be the majority demographic in the US. That sounds a lot like “replacement” in common parlance.
And, again, I see this as a good thing. But you can understand (without agreeing) how some can be afraid of it, can’t you?
To use a different metaphor from @KM:
If I have a bucket with some white paint in it, and I start pouring in brown paint, eventually it’s going to be brown. While the white paint is still there, the color of the overall has been “replaced” with a different color.
That’s what some (uneducated) people are afraid of. It’s a bullshit fear, but it’s there.
@KM:
Bullshit. There are literally dozens of words to more accurately describe what’s happening than “replacement.” If not for the white-supremacist theory, nobody in their right mind would ever have described it as “replacement.” That’s obvious, because it’s a fact that no one ever did until the initially fringe far-right claim began gaining mainstream traction in the past few years. Everybody knew about the increase in immigration, but nobody but white supremacists called it replacement. And now you’re telling me there’s no better way to describe it? Have you lost your marbles?!
That is not remotely a comparable analogy. A native-born American doesn’t leave the population every time an immigrant arrives, the way a remarriage only happens after the death or divorce of an earlier spouse (not unless we’re talking polygamy or some multiple-partners arrangement, which is hardly a standard situation). The percentages simply change. If you want to use a family analogy, it’s far more like if a family has two boys and one girl, and then a new girl is born. The percentages change–going from 66% boys and 33% girls to 50% boys, 50% girls–but nobody has gotten “replaced.”
Also, the phrase “great replacement” comes with a strong connotation that it’s part of some grand scheme, not just a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and that is unquestionably what the people who coined this phrase and continue to promote it believe.
The notion that the native-born are being “replaced” by immigrants is neither true in a technical nor essential sense. It’s got no truth to it whatsoever, beyond an attempt to make a mundane and unremarkable phenomenon sound like a conspiracy.
@Mu Yixiao:
I like to joke around with over-literal interpretations, too. But you’re taking it too far and being disingenuous in the process.
Replacement theory doesn’t mean what you portray, but the deliberate action to push out one group, in this case white people, and replacing them in jobs, benefits, representation, etc. with “inferior” groups like Jews or people of color.
Since RBG’s death, public approval of SCOTUS has fallen from 66% to 38%:
https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2022/07/20/mlspsc09-court-press-release/
Okay folks, I sincerely do not believe that Mu is a fan of the idea that Whites (aka, people like me…a white boy) are being pushed out in America as an excuse to be violent, but isn’t this around the time MR should chime in to lecture us that our side sucks at messaging, and we are getting bogged down in correctly defining something being used against us when as Mu and others point out, the Average Joe is likely to tell themselves that it looks like “whites” are being pushed out/replaced by others.
If we work on how to reach out to these folks to explain that no, they are not going to be pushed out of their homes or jobs by immigrants, that would be best, instead of sitting someone down who brings up the idea that they are being replaced in a conversation with you and you end up spending the next 15m lecturing them about the correct definition of replacement theory, and is that really what they mean or believe? Ugh…please don’t do that.
Maybe I should not have jumped in and will try to do an Irish goodbye and slowly step away from this subject and move on with the rest of my day. Lol. Happy Wednesday folks, and I hope everyone’s day goes as best as it can.
@inhumans99:
Before you go, what’s an “Irish goodbye”?
@CSK:
Leaving a party without specifically announcing your departure and the elaborate saying goodbye to everyone routine, so at some point everyone just notices you’re no longer there.
@Stormy Dragon:
Thank you. Are the Irish renowned for doing this?
@CSK:
I think it’s more the Irish are renowned for throwing the sorts of parties where someone could leave without it being immediately noticed.
@KM:
OK, super pedantic but I think it is actually germane: there aren’t less white people in this country than 50 years ago. There are actually more. But the non white population has grown dramatically faster.
Contrary to your example, no individual is being replaced. There is no dead parent. What is happening is that dark skinned people are moving into the new development or the new packing plant seems to only be hiring Vietnamese.
@CSK:
No goodbye at all. Just leaving the party when no one happens to be looking. No idea why it’s called an Irish goodbye
@Stormy Dragon: yeah, those Irish! Buncha drunks, right?
@CSK: I am Irish and I do it all the time. It’s pretty common in my family.
@Mu Yixiao:
“native-born white people” – importantly the second generation is always “native born” so that’s not really the issue.
@MarkedMan: @Joe:
Interesting. I can’t recall any of my relatives of Irish descent doing this.
Well, you learn something new every day at OTB.
@CSK: Another “we had to destroy the village to save it” example? Or maybe in vitro gestation is a thing now, so the baby can be moved to a more impartial (?)/receptive host?
@MarkedMan:
I know that. You know that. In the back of their minds, they might know that. That’s not the point – they feel like it’s true and that’s what they are acting on. @inhumans99 had a point (no sneaking out of the party on my watch!) in that liberals keep explaining facts to people who are running on feelings and thus the messaging problem arises. Feelings aren’t facts and you really can’t reason away unreasonable thoughts, only help provide new ones.
Sticking with the family analogy, do you sit the 4 year old down and tell them they are not really being replaced/diminished in the family and they’re being silly for their concerns? Or do you address their feelings and concerns as valid even if misplaced or just plain wrong? We’re dealing with people operating on the emotional level of 4yr olds anyways who view the world as a zero sum game they’re losing. We’re missing the forest for the trees when we get mad at someone complaining about replacement; they’re complaining about change and loss of power for their in-group, not percentages of the population. They are being racist and throwing a tantrum. Telling them that technically there’s more white people then 50 years ago but not enough to keep minority status won’t appease them as that’s not the source of their problem. Their specific in-group is dying out: racist, sexist overly religious WASPy rural white folks. More white liberals in blue states doesn’t increase their in-group, nor does an increase in native-born white atheists, LBGT or urban dwellers. They feel deep down they are being replaced because they are; an increase in the overall white population isn’t necessarily a gain for them anymore then an increase in the Hispanic population means more Cuban-Americans.
@CSK: She clearly needs new friends. What with the old ones taking her vacation photos of her tour of the capitol and making it look like she committed a crime or something. Some people have no boundaries; it’s so sad. 🙁
@Stormy Dragon: And members of the Supremes are weeping bitterly over this information, moaning “what must we do to restore our reputations in the eyes of the public?” Not seeing it. But it is a sort of interesting factoid.
@MarkedMan:
Currently, the under-20 population is less than half white.
Currently, the peak population of whites is 62 years old–and declines significantly after that.
As older white people retire, a greater number of non-whites are moving up to replace them in the work force (good!). As new jobs open up, and existing job holders move up the chain, the replacement pool is approaching 50% (or greater) non-white. Whites are being “replaced” in the workforce–as they retire and are promoted–because the pool of replacements is significantly less white (again, good!)
Currently, the replacement birth rate is 1.64 for the country–3.2 for Hispanics.
While the white population is growing (much slower than previously, it should be pointed out**), it’s going to drop quite rapidly as the boomers reach the end of their lives. And, it should be noted, that life expectancy is slowly decreasing.
So 48% of US population growth is from immigration. Of the top ten countries of origin for immigration, zero are considered “white”*.
Of the 52% that is US-born under 20 years of age, 62% are “non-white”.
The huge white population that is starting to die is being replaced, primarily, by non-whites (born in the US or immigrating) Which, once again, is a good thing.
Look at the trend*** (Pew Research).
There is no conspiracy. There’s nothing nefarious about it. There’s no coordinated push to oust white people. It’s just the simple nature of aging, death, birth, and immigration: We, as a nation, are becoming less white.
(If I really wanted to, I could dig into the stats and find deaths by race and compare them to births by race plus immigration by race and make up a fancy graph. I’m not that dedicated to this debate.) 🙂
==========
* Mexico, India, China, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Philippines, El Salvador, Brazil, Cuba, South Korea.
** The under-18 group actually decreased by 1.4% from 2010 to 2020, and replacement births are twice as likely to be Hispanic than they are white.
*** Note: That graph is from 2018, so shift everything 4 years to the right.
@inhumans99:
Thank you.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” -LBJ
@MarkedMan: “dark skinned people are moving into the new development or the new packing plant seems to only be hiring Vietnamese.”
Which means that those houses/jobs are not available to white buyers/workers. The fact of white buyers/workers not being interested in the houses/jobs is immaterial to the argument. It’s all about perceived “denial of opportunity” to white folks.
About Picard season 2 thus far (up to ep 6):
Jurati cannot be trusted. Whatever she says, check it, then double check it. If someone died, triple check it.
Jurati surprisingly does a fair rendition of “Shadows of the Night.” I didn’t think that was possible.
Whatever is really going on, I hope there will be an explanation about the “anomaly” in ep one.
Overall, the Borg are obsessed with green light.
@Joe: I always say goodbye to the host, I just don’t concern myself with whether anyone else notices. But I’m only half Irish (Italian on my father’s side, and my mom is a Belfast Protestant, at that), so I may be doing it wrong.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Given the amount of time the Republican justices have recently been spending whining about how no one respects them anymore, some of them are weeping bitterly over this information.
But more seriously, if the plunge continues, at some point states and other parts of the government are going to start just ignoring SCOTUS.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
This sounds like the fantasy of reimplanting the embryo from and ectopic pregnancy in the uterus.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Oh, definitely they photoshopped the pics and sent them to the FBI just to get her into trouble, the scoundrels.
@CSK: I was raised around Irish Immigrants since literally the day I was born and it has never come up as a thing. But who knows?
@KM:
Agree with you 100% which is why I prefaced my comment by saying I was being super pedantic.
@Mu Yixiao: You are using “replaced” in a way I don’t understand. What you are describes a demographic shift. Replacement would imply that white people are getting fired because they are white and being replaced with people of color. In my understanding, that’s what the racists are saying is actually happening in their Great Replacement theory, (and by the way, it’s a Jewish plot!)
The reason I’m making a point of this is that you are using “replacement” in a non-standard way, so your statement that whites actually are being replaced could easily be read by someone who didn’t know you as endorsement of the racist Great Replacement theory.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Absolutely. Perfect example is the price of crab cakes in Baltimore. Every year for decades Mexican migrant workers have come to shell crabs during the season. During COVID they couldn’t come. The processors tried to hire locals but there was very little interest and if the few that tried most quit within a few days. I don’t know if he followed through but one of the biggest processors was planning on permanently moving his factory to Mexico and flying the crabs down there.
Despite this reality, the average person in the Eastern Shore is likely to be railing against all the Mexican’s stealing our jobs because “they work all hours for nothing and they are lazy too boot!”
In Britain the tremendous heat of the last few days has receded, thankfully.
Peaked about 25C here, 30 in London.
But combined with a month of drought in the south east (1% of normal rainfall) it led to wildfires and the busiest day for the fire service in London since the War.
Nowhere near as bad as the situation in Spain and France though.
Southern and south west Europe have seen very high temperatures quite early in the year for the past five years or so.
The UK has previously dodged the bullet by not getting a strong airflow from the south while the Iberian heat was at max. This year the bullet hit.
@MarkedMan:
See also problems in the UK post-Brexit (and covid)
European seasonal workers no longer available.
Causing major problems in highly seasonal labour markets: crop picking and processing, airport staff, leisure sector, etc.
Hooda thunked? (Except all of us who did tell them so…)
16 lawmakers arrested in protest
@MarkedMan:
Really?
re·place | \ ri-ˈplās \
replaced; replacing; replaces
Definition of replace
transitive verb
1: to restore to a former place or position
2: to take the place of especially as a substitute or successor
3: to put something new in the place of
If I quit my job and the company hires someone new for my position, what do you call that person?
If my car breaks down, and I buy a new one, what am I doing?
@CSK:
Irish Goodbye:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyjeE7rmO2k
Careful, uh, salty comments…
@MarkedMan:
Not really??? I followed @Mu’s explanation easily and I suspect the average American would as well. Perhaps it’s a regional thing?
Replace here is being used in the sense of replenish the vacancy ie a person is gone and here’s the new one. When a worker leaves for whatever reason, they get replaced and the new role gets filled. It’s a transactional view and honestly somewhat of a dehumanized one – the person might as well be a part of a machine that once broke you get a replacement part for. No inherent value judgement, just interchangeability.
The way you are using the term (and I think the haters as well) seems to suggest substitution or perhaps supersede. The idea that one is taking the place of another unfairly or someone of lesser value usurping a position is baked into the racist conspiracy theory. They are absolutely using the word to mean usurpation when someone like @Mu speaking about demographics is using it to mean A is now B.
I should note that replace has long been used for these kinds of discussions of shifts. Millennials replacing Boomers, working poor replacing middle class as the economic norm, etc. It’s only because this particular conspiracy theory is co-opting the word that it’s suddenly a no-no to use.
@MarkedMan:
Yes. And while racists have long suggested (even well before “great replacement” rhetoric became popular) that white people are losing their jobs to less qualified minorities, replacement theory is somewhat broader in its scope. To me, the word conjures up one of those old sci-fi scenarios like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Stepford Wives, where people are literally being killed and someone or something else is being put in their place.
Is that what replacement theorists are saying? Not exactly. I don’t think they’re imagining that a group of men with dark glasses and tailored suits with Stars of David on the lapel are stopping by the house of Carl Martin, shooting him with a silencer, placing his body in the trunk of their limo, driving off, and the next morning someone of a much swarthier countenance named Carlos Martinez is found living at that residence.
But they are definitely saying more than simply that immigrants are becoming more numerous as a percentage of the population. For one thing, “replacement” implies that whoever or whatever is being replaced is actually disappearing from the population. If you said “I’ve replaced my older clothes with newer clothes,” most people would be baffled if they then discovered you hadn’t actually gotten rid of any of your clothes.
Also, “replacement” usually (though not always) implies a conscious act by someone, not to a change in demographics that just happens to occur. The US population has been getting taller over time, but nobody claims men over 5’10” are “replacing” shorter men. Would a scientist say that omicron has “replaced” the original Covid variant? Possibly. But I’d bet your bottom dollar the vast majority of articles covering that development haven’t used that word at all. It’s just not the most natural word people reach for when talking about something that isn’t part of an orchestrated plan.
My last comment seems to have been trapped by the anti-spam moderation, for some reason.
Reposting without links:
In the Conservative leadership contest, the last round of MP votes sees Mordaunt in last place; so Sunak and Truss go forward to the party membership vote.
I’m torn between two point of view on this.
That of Roland Smith:
And Ian Dunt:
@CSK: I hadn’t noticed, but yeah. [thumbs up emoji]
@Mu Yixiao:
Those are certainly replacements. However, if your company hires two new workers in addition to you, you are not being replaced. If you buy a second car and keep the first one, you are not replacing it.
@Beth: Letterkenny is brilliant! Love the fact that the woman who plays McMurray’s wife remained with the series and actually increased her participation even after she became the star of a multi season show.
@JohnSF:
Dammit! I need Mock the Week to start the new series so I can catch up on UK politics.
In Europe, after pressing Canada to (arguably) ignore sanctions rules (it’s a bit fuzzy legally, apparently) and supply Germany with a repaired turbine pump for the Nordstream 1 gas pipeline, Germany is shocked when Gazprom states it still cannot guarantee gas supplies because of “extraordinary” circumstances.
It’s difficult to decide whether to laugh, weep, or swear in rage at the naivete of Germans and the “sanctity of contracts”
“Oh, sweet summer children…”
At least Brussels is not so foolish.
In response to threat of Russia halting gas supply, EU President Von der Leyen announces Comission proposal to Council:
All EU countries to reduce gas demand by minimum 15% from August to April 2023.
Assign Commission power to declare emergency requiring additional mandatory gas reduction.
Basically, to prevent Russia being able to break the Union by offering gas deals to individual countries.
VdL:
And meanwhile the UK government is sulkily refusing to work with the EU, Johnson is holding parties at Chequers or sniping at Sunak, and the majority party is fixated by its internal power struggles. Again.
🙁
EU Commission proposal will be submitted to the EU Council Permanent Representatives meeting on Friday.
@KM:
“As the norm” makes sense to me, and I think that is what people are upset by. But replacing a norm isn’t the same as replacing a person.
So your example isn’t quite apt. Millennials replace Boomers only in the sense that as older people retire or die, it is generally younger people that are hired as replacements. But people of color are not replacing white people in their jobs as a societal trend. In fact, white unemployment is at the lowest it’s ever been in my lifetime. The pie got bigger, creating more jobs. To look at that and somehow see “replacement” just doesn’t compute for me.
And the Russian government continues to be the charming and conciliatory bunch of lovable guys we know so well:
Sergei Lavrov declares that Russia must occupy (and annex?) a larger area than it previously intended (check your back catalogue of Russian objectives and justifications, v.243.2 b, I think)
And now see what you’re making us do, you villainous Westerners!
EU response?
Josep Borrell Fontelles, EU head Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of
the Commission:
Refers to US Secretary of Defence; indicating that was coordinated.
SecDef Lloyd J. Austin III:
Plus further deliveries from European states including, and these are just the most recent known updates (NB a lot of Euro NATO supplies and timings are secret, for good reasons of operational security):
– c. 20 RM-70 (an upgraded Czechoslovak version of the BM-21 ‘Grad’)
– unknown number of RM-70 ‘Vampire’ MRLS. Upgrade of the Czech RM-70, modern system, dating from 2015.
– unknown number of BM-21 “Grad” MLRS from Poland
– promised 3 MARS II ‘Mittleres Artillerie Raketen System’ from Germany
– at least 10 FH70 155mm howitzers from Estonia
– unknown number FH70 from Italy
– promised “around fifty” L119 105mm light gun/howitzer from UK
Plus the Polish and Romanian railways are apparently seeing a steady stream of artillery shells and other consumables heading east.
In short: screw you, Lavrov.
@MarkedMan: Because they use zero-sum economic thinking, they see the pie as not getting bigger. Additionally, even if the pie were getting bigger, the fact that “their slice” isn’t larger means they’re losing ground in that worldview. It really is a demented worldview–in order for “me” to see myself and holding my ground or gaining, I have to see “you” losing ground. If you‘re okay, I‘m behind/losing.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
The irony is that conservatives used to argue (and I guess the Chamber of Commerce types still do) that the pie does get bigger for everyone–isn’t that the entire basis of the trickle-down idea, that if you make the rich richer, then the economy grows and everybody reaps the benefits? It’s bullshit, but conflicts starkly with the logic behind Great Replacement.
Small irrelevancy of the day.
I got Amazon Prime again last weekend to watch Picard. I found they have the 80s movie version of Dune available. I thought: “Since I saw the Villeneuve version recently, how about watching this one to compare?”
I may still do so. For now, the bare beginning left me laughing so hard, I was no longer in the mood to continue. See, it starts with a tight closeup of a woman’s head, who begins to narrate the setup.
Nothing funny about that. But then she dissolves and returns. Then she appears to finish and the head dissolves again, only to return with some additional info.
That I found hilarious.
I could have kept watching, but I’d be in my snarkiest mocking mood. I thought ti best to leave it for next weekend.
@Kylopod: My take, even when I was still drinking the Koolaid, was that conservatives believed that a bigger pie was important not because it benefitted everybody but because it meant that our kind would all have bigger pieces than everybody else. Yeah, they tried to sell that “a rising tide raises all the boats,” but even that was in the context of setting up systems that provided for Jeff Bezos’ super yacht rising better than Mariel boatlift rafts–some of which would undoubtedly be swamped rather than lifted. But such is the price of progress, and conservatives have always been willing to swamp the boat next to theirs in return for a better berthing.
@Kathy: [SPOILER ALERT!!!]
I don’t recall that the 80s Dune gets more watchable the farther you progress through the movie. Think of it as a play time for your inner snarky person.
@Kylopod: If the average person in Louisiana/Mississippi/Alabama cared even 1% more about themselves doing better rather than making sure the “lessers” never gain an inch, well, those states wouldn’t be ranked 48/49/50 in just about every measure.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I have exactly two memories of the original Dune: One, the disgust I felt every time the face and hands of the bad guy (Baron Harkonnen?) appeared, covered with oozing pustules. We get the point! Bad Guy! And the second had me simply stunned by the stupidity. If I remember correctly, the hero and his genius general ride a psychedelic see-saw around and around and up and down, while gigantic phallic symbols burst in and out of the sand all around.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I think I watched it in theaters with someone snarkier than I. He made a lot of comments as the movie played.
@KM: I think Kylopod and MarkedMan addressed the faulty reasoning behind the Great Replacement theory very well, but I have to address your assertion that white people who ascribe to it are emotionally 4 years old, and therefore we need to appease them as though they were.
To put it simply: fuck that. They’re not 4-year-olds, and even if they were, good parents know that you don’t give into a toddler’s tantrums or they’ll never stop. The media and far too many other people have treated Trump supporters and the like as people with delicate feelings who need to be catered to; hence, all the small town diner interviews to get their feelings about whatever news of the day.
In fact, thank you for proposing the toddler analogy. I hope the general public begins to treat them like tantruming children, by either disciplining them or ignoring them.