Holland’s election are today. It is the first of three national elections in key EU member states in 2017. France is next with an April first round and May second round elections and Germany finishes out the cycle in September.
Voters are going to the polls in the Netherlands in the first of three crucial eurozone elections this year.
The race is dominated by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s centre-right party and that of Geert Wilders, running on an anti-immigration platform.
Mr Rutte has said the election is an opportunity for voters to “beat the wrong sort of populism”.
Mr Wilders has pledged to take the Netherlands out of the EU, close all mosques and ban the Koran.
His Freedom Party had been leading in opinion polls but they have since suggested his support may be slipping.
Voter turnout so far has been high, with turnout at 12:45 GMT at 33%, compared to 27% at the last election in 2012, Reuters reports.
France goes to the polls next month to elect a new president while Germany is due to hold a general election in September.
High turnout at #DutchElections: 43% have voted until 15.45 CET. Up from 37% in 2012 elections. Polls close at 21.00 (via @IpsosNL) #tk2017 pic.twitter.com/Jn4Gxwlp5M
— DW | Europe (@dw_europe) March 15, 2017
Here is Duetsche Welle’s rundown:
The Dutch will head to the polls on March 15 for a general election that is widely viewed as a baromoter of populist strength in Europe ahead of votes in France and Germany later this year.
The vote comes after the UK’s Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, raising concerns for some that the Netherlands could be next domino to fall to an anti-establishment movement.
THE BACKGROUND
Historically an open trading nation, the Netherlands has long been known for liberalism and multiculturalism. But as elsewhere in Europe, a refugee influx since 2015, combined with anti-EU sentiment, has fueled the rise of an anti-immigrant movement: the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by firebrand nationalist Geert Wilders.
After enjoying a healthy lead for two years, the PVV is now polling neck and neck at about 16 percent with Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which is in a governing coalition with the Labor Party (PvdA). But even if the PVV comes out as the top party, none of the mainstream parties will enter a coalition with Wilders.
Wilders has nonetheless framed current and future political debates around his anti-Islam, anti-immigrant and euroskeptic rhetoric. He has drawn support from disgruntled voters concerned about crime, Dutch identity and what is viewed as overreach by bureaucrats in Brussels, especially with regard to immigration policy and austerity.
A full rundown on the candidates at the link.
And here’s the link to Duetsche Welle‘s live updates.
Welcome to our rolling coverage of the Dutch election, with the latest news, views and reactions to the divisive race.
- Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right VVD party is attempting to fend off populist leader Geert Wilders in parliamentary elections that have garnered international attention.
- In a diplomatic spat Turkey has accused Netherlands of Nazi practices and of being responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, reportedly playing into the popularity of VVD.
- Six main parties are predicted to enter parliament: the ruling VVD, Wilder’s Party for Freedom, the centrist D66, Green-Left, the Socialist Party and the social democrat Labor Party (PvdA).
All updates in Central European Time (CET)
16.00 Reseach bureau Ipsos, which is gathering polling data, reports that turnout reached 43 percent by 3:45 pm local time, up from 37 percent in 2012.
Today is an important and crucial test to see if the Dutch can hold off Wilders and his ethnic neo-Nationalist movement. The Dutch have a multi-party system that almost always requires the formation of a coalition government. Reporting indicates that none of the major parties will join any coalition with Wilders. So even if his PVV wins the most seats he can still be locked out of governing.
Elections in the Netherlands are contested by a patchwork of parties, but a few traditional contenders usually top the bill to form a moderate coalition. This year will be different: eight parties are projected to gain 10 or more seats of an available 150, meaning a narrower lead for the largest parties. It is this more uniform distribution of votes, rather than a dramatic increase in support, that could lead to the PVV gaining the most seats on March 15.
Even if it becomes the largest party however, the PVV’s path to power could be blocked. Many parties, including the conservative VVD, have refused to join a coalition involving Mr Wilders.
Populist parties in the Netherlands have won significant numbers of seats in elections since the early 2000s, suggesting the social issues driving Mr Wilders’ success are longstanding. But these charts show that the landscape of Dutch politics is shifting even farther away from traditional parties than before, and that the country could struggle to form a ruling coalition after election day.
Lots more and some excellent charts at FT.
As the FT report indicated, even if the mainstream Dutch parties can lock Wilders out, they are still going to need to address the issues that Wilders inflames and manipulates. If they do not, eventually they will not be able to keep him form attaining real power within the the Dutch government. Doing so protects the Dutch Grey Zone, the civil space, that Wilders seeks to poison in service of his own ambition and that Putin seeks to manipulate in service of his strategic interests of fragmenting the EU and NATO.
None of the people I've talked to in Venlo so far say they support #GeertWilders. But nearly everyone mentioned immigration as a main issue.
— Rebecca Staudenmaier (@restaudenmaier) March 15, 2017
Miss Bianca
Greetings, Adam! Thanks for the update on the situation in Europe. Meanwhile…has this come to your attention yet?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-voted-off-un-human-rights-council-amid-mounting-allegations-of-syria-war-crimes-a7385766.html
The Other Bob
I wonder if the election of Republican Trump will damage the chances of similar idiots elsewhere around the world.
amk
and wikileaks does it part – enabling racists.
tobie
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Europeans have learned from our horrible mistake.
Hildebrand
@The Other Bob: I imagine people are starting to realize that the Donald Trumps and Nigel Farages of the world aren’t all that competent. Wilders strikes me as a similar kind of hack. Somewhere along the line the fascists of old realized that they needed to get the trains to run on time. This new crop, not so much. Which is not going to endear them to the people for long. Bigots want to wash down their hatred with a society that functions, if even just for them.
smintheus
It’s spelled “Deutsche Welle”.
Mike in DC
If Europe can fend off the neo nationalists, then I think that the focus should be on how to deal with the Russia problem. It seems to me absolutely necessary for Putin to go, but I’m not entirely sure how to best effect such a change.
rikyrah
The Fear Sweeps Over the Trump Administration
by Martin Longman March 15, 2017 10:05 AM
The Department of Energy spends about $10 billion annually on research and development. Over the years, much of this R&D has had commercial applications. The DOE takes credit for spurring advances in “medical devices, manufacturing processes, water purification and digital recording,” as well as the development of “solid-state lighting, vehicle batteries and solar panels.” This is why in 2015, under the leadership of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, the DOE announced the launch of a new venture called the Office of Technology Transitions.
……………………………
We’re not talking about a huge budget here. The Office of Technology Transitions controls about $20 million that is earmarked to the Energy Technology Commercialization Fund. It amounts to “0.9 percent of the funding for the Department’s applied energy research, development, demonstration, and commercial application budget for each fiscal year.”
If you’re a new administration looking to reward folks who worked on your campaign, it’s a logical place to put someone with absolutely no background in applied science or energy-related issues. That’s why the Trump transition team hired Sid Bowdidge for the job.
They felt they owed Bowdidge some kind of job because he was an early supporter in New Hampshire. Bowdidge’s professional background, however, is less relevant than usual. He is reportedly a massage therapist. Obviously, the world needs massage therapists, but it should be self-evident that the same doesn’t apply to this office within the Department of Energy, which is focused on the commercial applications of cutting edge research at universities and national laboratories.
Mr. Bowdidge didn’t exactly fit in at his new job. An annoyed coworker decided to do a little investigation of him, probably to decide how in the hell he wound up working there. What they discovered was discouraging.
………………….
I actually learned about Mr. Bowdidge’s sad job loss in a different Politico article that focuses primarily on the absurd level of paranoia that is roiling the Trump administration. Apparently, when the news got out about Bowdidge and his Twitter account, it only made The Fear grow.
smintheus
@amk: It’s just laughably obvious where Wikileaks stands. I bet Assange smells of cat p!ss.
Villago Delenda Est
Geert Wilders. Another shining example of the “Master Race”.
The Moar You Know
High turnout has me concerned. Europeans are, in general, pretty pissed about the uncontrolled immigration they’re having to deal with. If Wilders wins I think that’s the sign that we’re in for a bad time globally for a while, and I don’t mean just a bad time for immigrants.
Villago Delenda Est
@smintheus: WIN
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah:
Well, that’s true of most people with more than two synapses to rub together.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Moar You Know: High turnout could also mean lots of people showing to vote against Wilders’s party.
schrodingers_cat
@Villago Delenda Est: What’s with the oompa loompa hair?
Gin & Tonic
@smintheus: I remember my father listening to their broadcasts on short wave, on a Telefunken radio, long ago.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: They may have learned something from us idjits across the Pond.
Another Scott
@smintheus: He might, just might, be playing with our OCD. But, man, looking at that butchery hurts my head!!
Cheers,
Scott.
otmar
@The Moar You Know: I consider a high turnout to be a good sign.
Think mid-term elections in the us.
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
I’m sure this is just a big coincidence.
Move along people, nothing to see here. All is definitely well.
schrodingers_cat
Dutch played the colonial game too. South Africa, Dutch East Indies, not that liberal actually.
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: In Soviet America Putin is the king.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Yes, when it happened last October.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: It’s probably to make his seemingly giant head look even bigger.
Or something. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
NobodySpecial
@Hildebrand: No, they were terrible at getting the trains running on time, actually. What they were good at was fear stoking, military and security buildup, and personal enrichment.
Alesis
Pluralism is both the essential lesson of the enlightenment and a difficult pill for people used to cultural dominance to swallow. Holland’s history of relgious conflict and the shared trauma of Naziism hold out hope for a politcal consensus that difference must be allowed to exist but unless that lesson is constantly reinforced it will be drowned out by the age old remember against “others”
Adam L Silverman
@The Other Bob: There has been both polling and polling driven analysis that it has had some effect. But we won’t really know until the votes are counted.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: Pretty damn brutal, in fact. They didn’t play softball with the Brits, either.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Yep, they’ve been all over this and the upcoming French and German elections. When you take the Czar’s rubles, you do the Czar’s bidding.
schrodingers_cat
Explain this please. If we take Steve King at his word and agree that everyone with pale skin and with an ancestral origin in Europe share a cultural identity. What accounts for the bloody history of Europe and the wars between countries that make up the so called master race, for say the last 500 years.
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: Good catch. I remembered the “s” and missed the “e”s on the end. I’ll fix it. Thanks.
Jeffro
With the dual endorsements of Steve King and David Duke, how could Geert W. possibly lose?
Jesus, can you imagine THAT little get-together? They’d have more toes than brain cells in the room.
AnderJ
@Omnes Omnibus: Dutch local here. Recent (averaged) polls point to Wilders not becoming the biggest, but well… polls.
Plus no one knows the effect of last week’s diplomatic incident when Turkey decided now would be a good time to campaign in the Netherlands about a Turkish referendum. It ended with the landing rights of the plane one Turkish minister (secretary) being revoked shortly before landing and another minister being escorted back to the German border. It gave our prime minister a chance to (potentially undercut the Wilders’ wing.
At this point no-one knows what tonight will bring.
That is except for mocking this one candidate:
link. He’ll probably get into parliament though…
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Do I get to plead decreased brain activity due to coffee deprivation? Do I get to do that? Or am I condemned to Terminal Doofusness?
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
That last line may or may not be true, but what’s definitely true is they hate people who haven’t got a fucking clue being foisted on them. If they want respect, how about knowing something about the departments they are working in, believing in science, these are the things that have their dander up, not love of Obama or hatred of Twitler. Reality based thinking would go a long way to gaining acceptance. Just sayin’.
smintheus
@Gin & Tonic: I listened to Deutsche Welle as a kid. In the ’70s shortwave seemed the only good way to hear serious world news. Anyway, I was prepping to see the world by learning languages. Got a (still) fantastic SW receiver as a high school graduation gift.
Xenos
I work for a Dutch company in the EU. One is quickly reminded how much of NY business culture comes from the Dutch. And not necessarily in a bad way – I would much rather work for the Dutch than for the Germans or the French.
smintheus
@Adam L Silverman: Ah. I thought it was autocorrect wreaking havoc.
schrodingers_cat
@Xenos: Lots of names of towns in NY state too, very Dutch!
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Don’t forget the 19 year old high school graduate that worked on the NH campaign who also now has a political appointment. And LTG McMaster got rolled in a personnel matter at the end of last week/over the weekend and is now stuck with a 30 year old former junior analyst from DIA who was close to LTG Flynn as the NSC’s Senior Director (runs the section) of Intelligence.
Alesis
@schrodingers_cat:
The key to white nationalism is and always has been forgetting . Historical perspective is the death of the notion of racial supremacy . I maintain that the battle against the alt right will be won in this nation’s schools.
hovercraft
@AnderJ:
The Netherlands has found their Scott Brown. Take consolation that he at least kept his clothes on, and I’m doubtful that he’s as dumb as good old Scotty.
Thru the Looking Glass...
OT but interesting…
This is from a Politico article about Trump’s wiretapping tweets and the breaking news that Nunes & Schiff have come out publicly and said there’s no proof…
Trump tweeted on March 4, 11 days ago… and 11 days is not ‘several weeks ago’… w/ Trump it only seems like several weeks, the same way less than 2 months seems like a year…
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: All your senior military brass don’t seem to be having any kind of positive effect on the Reality Show that is the current admin.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
Wish me luck–the office is closing and I get to go find out just how messed up the bus routes are, given that they’ve been relocated to the parking garage at the downtown convention center for their lineup.
Maybe I’ll be home by dark.
hovercraft
@Xenos:
New Amsterdam doesn’t have them same cachet as New York, but the cool vibe stuck so win win.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est:
zhena gogolia
@AnderJ:
Is he related to Scott Brown, by any chance? They seem to have similar modeling portfolios.
TriassicSands
@The Other Bob:
Or help their chances. There is nothing like electoral success to help other crazies emerge.
schrodingers_cat
@hovercraft: Amsterdam is way cooler than York, though!
zhena gogolia
@hovercraft:
Should have read the rest of the thread!
hovercraft
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet):
Good luck, just take your time.
Coming in this morning it was funny looking out the window of the bus at all the people outside with pick axes trying to break through the ice to dig out.
Be careful.
Major Major Major Major
@Hildebrand:
Except they didn’t. Even that’s a myth. The trains either already ran on time or the leaders just made people think they did.
Adam L Silverman
@The Moar You Know: More participation is always better than less. Its a sign of a healthy polity. Also, there’s almost no one any party will win an outright majority in the Dutch election. The system is set up for multi-parties and the result is always plurality driven coalitions. Even if Wilders wins the biggest plurality, or one of the larger ones, he can, and likely will, be locked out by the other parties forming a coalition to lock him out. Together those parties represent far more Dutch than Wilders does.
That said, Dutch parties and officials are going to have to come up with something that deals with the issues that Wilders demagogues on. Otherwise the issues, and a better demagogue than Wilders, will eventually eat up Dutch civil society.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Oompa Loompas are people too!
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Congressman King, like most white supremacists in the US, don’t understand that European is a geographic designator, not an ethno-national or ethno-linguistic one. They’re determined. They’re not necessarily well read.
Adam L Silverman
@AnderJ: You know you’re having your signature issued curtailed when the Mayor of Rotterdam, who is of Arab descent and is Muslim, has the Turkish envoy’s guards disarmed and then goes on TV and makes a statement about it.
We’re rooting for you all. Don’t let us down. No pressure!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Sure… I find stuff from month’s ago all the time. Usually they wind up in a Floriduh Man post, but it happens. No harm, no foul.
Adam L Silverman
@smintheus: Nope. Combination of Operator Headspace Timing Error and Fat Finger Typo.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: Exactly. “Trains running on time” is a matter of culture, not politics. To this day the trains running on time is just not a priority in Italy. In Germany, when they say 1100, they mean 1055.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Another reminder of my days in the Infantry. /sigh
DBaker
Having lived in that fair country for 20 years, I can tell you that while this may seem the same as in the US, it is quite different in a number of ways. The first and foremost issue is that, due to the fact that constitutionally there is no threshold for a party gaining a seat in the lower house of parliament, there is wild variety of various parties – if your party gets .67% (1/150th) of the vote or more, you get a seat in parliament – there are, I believe, 10 different parties in Dutch parliament, including 3 seats representing Reformed Protestants – let’s just say the Rich DeVos/Holland, Michigan, descendants. Therefore, a party like PVV, which only has 15-16% of support actually becomes more prominent than they would in other Western Democracies where there are voter floor thresholds, such as in Germany (5%), or in the UK, where you have Districts like you have in the US House of Representatives.
Second of all, in the Netherlands, if you are a legal resident, not just a citizen, you can vote. I actually voted in 2 elections as an American citizen. This also means that Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese and Serbs alike can vote in any election just like any Dutchmen. In fact, only 56 people are banned from voting in the Netherlands in toto. Even the guy that shot filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, Mohammed B. (criminals remain anonymous even after they have been convicted) is eligible to vote after a judge denied the request of the prosecution to revoke his right to vote. Voter Fraud is obviously not an issue (/jk – /s).
Part the Third, as Mr. Pierce used to say, the Netherlands is extremely densely populated. 16-17 million people live in an area the size of Rhode Island and 65% of them live on the West Coast. Moreover, the Muslim population is much more inclined to hold on to their heritage, which includes their homophobic and misogynist ways. A not insignificant support of the PVV involves people who disagree with Muslims who impose those cultural views in such a manner that it affects society at large; that is that Muslims are not tolerant enough of the way the Dutch do things – like having soft porn on the public airwaves.
Fourth – the immigrants do represent a poorer subculture in the inner cities, akin to the parts of the inner-city African American and Hispanic populations in the US – for various reasons, including the cultural reason listed in 3, above, they have fully not integrated into Dutch society. Crime rates are higher in the inner cities just like they are in the inner cities of the United States.
In summary, while there are elements of RW populism involved here, it certainly is not a Trump = Wilders situation. In fact, Wilders is not having a post-election party because his party cannot afford it. Wilders’ party did split off from the conservative VVD so there is that.
Mike E
@schrodingers_cat: cooler than a York peppermint patty tho?
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman:
We weren’t really using transnational utopian liberal democracy anyway.
Hildebrand
@Major Major Major Major: I shall strike that part of my comment from the record. Nonetheless, competence does matter. People do start to get pissy when basic things don’t work.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: LTG McMaster is in a difficult position. He had been informed that there was neither a suitable 3 star billet for him to move to from Deputy Commanding General TRADOC/Director ARCIC nor a 4 star billet for him to be promoted into and to prepare for retirement after his assignment at TRADOC/ARCIC was over. This gave him a chance to stay in – a waiver can be granted to give him an extra year or two in his current rank/grade. But because he’s in uniform he doesn’t have the flexibility to just tell the President to shove it. As long as he’s in uniform and the order is lawful, he has to click his heels, salute, and move out sharply.
That said I have no idea how long he’ll tolerate this. He is, for all intents and purposes, the subject matter expert on when and why senior uniformed personnel not only need to push back against the President and his appointed officials, but be prepared to resign as a result. However, he is very, very smart and may have decided that he can maneuver around this type of stuff. Young Mr. Cohen-Watnick can be isolated and worked around. As can the rest of the Flynn-stones.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Sorry, didn’t mean to dredge up old memories. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
Major Major Major Major
@DBaker: These cultural issues are certainly relevant. As Adam said above, if non-evil people don’t address them, evil people will. We ignore or deny them at our peril.
Doug R
@The Moar You Know: In canada we had high turnout and we got rid of our fascist-lites.
Mike J
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, those were good memories! “Operator headspace and timing” was used as a catchall for just about everything. It implied that there was hope of correcting it and driving on (with pride!).
(that last part was the salute/return greeting in my first battalion…which was a Signal battalion.)
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: I’m shocked, shocked. Fetch me Ms. Lindsey’s fainting couch.
mai naem mobile
Why do all these right wingers look like they haven’t had a shower in months?
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: Ya think?
mak
@schrodingers_cat: Read somewhere that Assange dyes his hair because he is or was part of some cult. Doubt that’s true, but when you consider that Wilders, Assange, Boris Johnson and Trump all have dyed white or yellow hair, it makes one start to wonder if there isn’t something in the dye that makes them stupid, venal or both. Or possibly stupid venal types like to dye their hair piss yellow or white. Kind of a chicken/egg thing.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Tracking.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Never been to York but I love Amsterdam, used to love to go for weekends back in my college days, (London), haven’t been since then, lots of hazy memories. Ahh youth.
Alesis
@DBaker:
I think the very universality of the analogy between concreted poverty and crime suggest that “integration” is a flawed lense for addressing these issues.
Concentrated relative poverty, crime, and “social dysfunction” pretty much always go hand in hand. The trouble is that the liberal impulse to ameliorate these conditions is always pitted against the consrvive impulse to declare they are the result of irreconcilable “cultural/racial” differences. The fact that this issue has paluged immgrants from the Irish to the Chinese in history and non immgrants like African Americans suggests that moral panics over foreign cultures are not well targeted.
That said “anything = Trump” is necessarily a limited analogy. He should be taken as a recurring archetype in modern history. The “yellow peril” man who warns of the overbreeding foreigner with his strange orientalist ways and plots for domination.
sigaba
@hovercraft:
Believing your own senses over the word of Donald Trump is Objective Obamism.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Shorter Trump staffers: how dare anyone try to vet Trump’s appointees!
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: They will always have President Obama in their dang heads. He’s the Black ogre watching them from microwaves and following them around like a ghost. It’s amazing how a Black man winning the Presidency could drive some people out of their minds. LOL.
chopper
@mak:
maybe they all wish to be blonde to fit the whole ‘master race’ bit.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: Great question. I guess Europeans are one when it’s against us Brown/Black people but not so unified amongst themselves when race is not an issue.
Patricia Kayden
@mak: Wonder if they know that there are people of color with naturally blond/yellow hair (and blue/green eyes). Blondeness doesn’t equal European or White.
Omnes Omnibus
@mak: Boris Johnson has had white blond hair forever.
hovercraft
@Doug R:
What I would give to have the evil Stephen Harper right now instead of Twitler. Harper was loathsome, but not insane. So SAD ! that it’s come to that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Alesis: Any time you pack a lot of people in a small space there’s going to be some friction, of some sort. Make them desperate for their next meal, and uncomfortable in their own skin because they don’t “fit in” to the nice round pegs, and you’re going to have issues. The test is how you deal with the issues, not that the issues are there.
Spanky
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well I am shocked, a bit. By the fact that the Mr. Session’s DOJ released this.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: A hundred years ago, “race” as a descriptive term was used almost interchangeably with “nationality” or “ethnicity”. This is why guys like Arpaio and King need to be a bit less noisy about these things.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
True Christians and dirty fecking heretics.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Adam L Silverman: on the other hand he retires like a normal person and enjoys the literal benefits of retiring as a three star general? He has a government pension and benefits that are good, why is it a crime for him to have to retire?
TenguPhule
@mai naem mobile:
They repulse even water.
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: That’s not true either, when India was up for grabs, the French, the Dutch etc sided with the local rulers in some cases as mercenaries in their armies to keep the British from conquering all of India. Steve King is full of shit. As is anyone spouting about a unified white cultural identity. It makes as much historical sense as lumping the Chinese and the Indians together as some shared eastern/Asian identity.
hovercraft
@sigaba: @Patricia Kayden:
Who knew Obama was so all powerful, I thought he merely drove them over the edge, turns out he burrowed out the sentient part of their brains and took up residence there. I’ve never understood their obsession with Jimmy Carter and their refusal to let him go, I fear that Obama will be with them for decades to come. I can see them in the back bedroom of their kids homes as the cling to life just laying there muttering about Obama, I mean Obummer, and how he destroyed everything, it’s all his fault. Thanks Obama!!
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: By your theory then Britain and Germany should have never fought with each other given that they are both Protestant?
Peale
@DBaker: For awhile now, I’ve thought that if I needed to be put in charge of forging a multi-ethnic, well integrated, multi-cultural democracy, I’d rather have the US immigration problem than the European one. No one really has come up with the solution of dealing with lower class and poor immigrants and refugees, and how to balance family migration, economic migration and political migration. Do you say “no, your brother or your nephew can’t immigrate in the name of family reunification because you yourself are too poor?” Because I think that is part of the EU immigration policy problem. There are immigrant-ghetto areas where unemployment is already quite high that they keep adding population to. But if jobs are scarce there, why are they adding more people who will have the same problem finding scarce jobs?
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft:
There were sentient parts of their brains before Obama?
TenguPhule
Today’s Evil is Petty Edition
It hasn’t even been two months since we last had a real government. Sigh.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: Well, Germany is a bit of a split personality on the major Christian sect front. Parts of it are quite Catholic, thank you, and parts of it are very Lutheran. However, after some, um, unpleasantness in the 16th and 17th centuries, they learned to not be so touchy about it.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: As I recall there were actually internal religious disagreements over which country’s faith was actually more authentic.
AnderJ
@Adam L Silverman: Were rooting as well, for not following in the US’ footsteps
AnderJ
@DBaker: Although you are awesomely up to date about the Netherlands, I do have a minor quibble: foreign residents (i.e. foreigners living in the Netherlands not having received the Dutch nationality) can only vote in municipality elections. They cannot vote in national elections.
e.a. foster
it is truly frightening that the Dutch might turn to a fascist. They must have very short memories or don’t they remember what their parents and grandparents told them what life was like with the last bunch of fascist.
With Trump/Bannon carrying on like lunitics about Muslims and Mexicans what has happened is Canada and the U.S.A. has seen a huge rise in attacks/threats towards Jews. There are more threats towards Jewish organizations than ever before. Perhaps that is the intent of the fascist. the hate for Jews is never far below the radar.
Given the Netherlands has always been a trading nation, pulling out of the E.U. would result in wide spread unemployment, so perhaps the Dutch might want to think about that. Lots of unemployment and still no changes regarding much of anything. Look at the U.S.A. its pretty clear Trump and his bigots have not been able to govern in any meaningful manner. They can’t get their act together to repeal the ACA or to “ban muslims”. Either they within their own party can’t agree or the courts strike down what “Trump orders.
All the U.S.A. is seeing is disorder and no gains. American isn’t being made “great again”. Its going down the toilet. With an increase in racism we in Canada expect more Americans or those living in America to head north and apply for refugee status in Canada, where we will welcome them.
Roger Moore
@mak:
I think they’re trying to prove their true Northern European character by having bright blonde hair, and they’re the kind of assholes who think that’s important.
hovercraft
@schrodingers_cat:
Exactly, as you said above “Europeans” have been fighting each other for a thousand years, it’s about resources not ethnicity, the “problem” that’s causing these historically divided white people to want to pull together now, is that for centuries they were fighting each other in far away places for our resources, but now the fight is at home against the very people they conquered, who followed them home. They are now feeling invaded, and irony of ironies they feel that these “invaders” are taking away things they’ve always taken for granted. After spending centuries telling us that they were bringing western values to us, and that acceptance of their values was the only way forward to a peaceful prosperous coexistence, turns out that they don’t appreciate the fruits of their labors. We aren’t invaders, we followed your rules, and now we’re here, good luck getting rid of us.
Alesis
@Peale:
So this is rank neoliberalism but it turns out that by any measure immgration expands the net number of jobs. Economics is solidly on the side of freer movement.
Miss Bianca
This article seemed apropos… (and Adam, I checked the date on it, it’s quite current!)…given how many people here like to think that more “leftist economic populism” would appeal to Trump voters.
Spoiler: according to the author, and the studies the author cites, no, it won’t. When true “economic anxiety” is taken out of the picture, the appeal of right-wing populism is straight-up racism. What a shocker, eh?
http://www.vox.com/world/2017/3/13/14698812/bernie-trump-corbyn-left-wing-populism
From the article: “The problem is that a lot of data suggests that countries with more robust welfare states tend to have stronger far-right movements. Providing white voters with higher levels of economic security does not tamp down their anxieties about race and immigration — or, more precisely, it doesn’t do it powerfully enough. For some, it frees them to worry less about what it’s in their wallet and more about who may be moving into their neighborhoods or competing with them for jobs.” (My emphasis)
This is why, if you think white voters in WV can be persuaded to vote for Democrats because of real “economic anxiety”, all I can say is, well…good luck with that. Really.
Because racism is a hell of an addiction. Worse than opioids.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
Perhaps sentient is too strong word, maybe I should say functioning, it used to be that a conversation with a winger was coherent, insane but coherent. Now it’s shit like Obama has a super secret weather machine that he uses to sic tornados red America, and the Obama’s stole someones kids because everyone knows that two men can’t reproduce. It used to be that Alex Jones and Info Wars were the domain of the insane people on the right, but now they are mainstream.
The Moar You Know
@Peale: Anyone would. We only have two uncontrolled land borders, one with a nation that’s mostly indistinguishable from ours save for their superior health care and manners, and one that’s completely indistinguishable from ours save that they’re somewhat poorer, have far better food, and tan well.
So you can dictate the terms of the game here. Europe does not have that option.
Most importantly, we don’t have the religious issue. And that’s a BFD in Europe (it would be here too, but our “illegal immigrants” simply don’t have that problem).
Lyrebird
@Alesis:
(mutters a quick prayer of protection for our schools…)
I certainly agree re: historical perspective. The Dutch have even more claim than the Irish (by which I mean NONE) to so-called racial so-called purity. The Romans, the Danes, the Angles, the Saxons, all the really good artists from Spain that could get out, bunches of Joos from Spain, some of whom converted… even some weird ol’ Calvinists from the British Isles, not all of whom skipped town on the Mayflower.
DBaker
@Peale: @AnderJ: To be fair, this was 25 years ago while I was in college, but I did have a “yellow” insert in my passport (think green card in the US) – I know I voted twice, once, I believe, for European parliament and once for local municipal government; perhaps it has changed since then or my recollection is faulty. I also voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984 because he was good for all my military friends, so my judgment was certainly not the best back then either.
Alesis
@Miss Bianca:
I think this means the left must do that which we most fear. Make a direct case against racism. I’m my opinion that is a battle that will take place in our schools.
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
All the author had to do was cite the 2012 democratic primary where 40% of WV democrats voted for a convicted felon rather than vote for Obama. Or the morons in Indiana who acknowledged that Obama helped save the RV industry and saved their jobs but they were ready to go back to RMoney.
If anything the truth is that when people have real economic anxiety that is when they push aside their prejudices and vote their economic interests, racism or any “ism” is a luxury they just can’t afford. That’s when you get classics like “we’re voting for the ni**er”.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
This shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Just look at the past few American elections. When the economy is in the tank, more whites are willing to vote for Democrats because they think they’ll help out people who are struggling- or maybe just because it was the Republicans who fucked up the economy in the first place. As soon as the economy is going well again, they feel free to indulge their “economic anxiety” by voting for the Republicans.
Roger Moore
@hovercraft:
It’s not that they ever stopped being for the insane people on the right; it’s just that insanity has been mainstreamed.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: Or how they voted for Hillary because she wasn’t Obama in 2008, and then voted for Sanders in 2016 because Hillary had become the Obama stand-in.
mak
@Roger Moore: That could be it, though it seems a bit on the nose. On the other hand, none of these guys are known for their subtlety. Wilders, for one, apparently goes blonde to mask his Indo Jewish heritage.
@Omnes Yeah, I see Boris was a tow-headed youth, but more recent pics include colors that do not occur in nature, a la Trump’s piss yellow. He appears to be trying way too hard to retain his signature look, but that mess on his head is the opposite of nonchalance.
Barbara
@hovercraft:
Yes, X1000. Because I am a data freak I responded to someone claiming I didn’t know what I was talking about regarding youth voting patterns by going and finding the data, and one thing jumped out at me — the degree to which people born before 1928 voted Democrat. Of course, there aren’t many of these people around now, but going back to 1980 and forward, they consistently voted more Democratic than any other demographic group until people born around 1975 started voting. Part of this is a relic of Southern Democrats, I feel sure, but it almost surely shows that when the Depression swept the country, earlier for farming communities, and later for cities, people stopped worrying about whether Hunkie steelworkers and Irish laborers were diluting the character of America. People who are really looking the wolf at the door are not worried about repainting the walls of their house. That’s why Obama won as convincingly as he did in 2008. And then he made things better so people now feel safe again to vote their aesthetic preferences.
Thru the Looking Glass...
Amazing… such an important election and only FORTY THREE PERCENT are bothering to vote… so far… less than half…
Ain’t much better here… according to the figures I just found using the magic Google machine, over NINETY MILLION eligible voters did not vote in this country last fall… yeah, 60% is better than 43% but 90 MM? That I don’t get… how can you be that apathetic?
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
I think there’s a lot more to it than that. The US has spent the past couple hundred years developing a culture of accepting immigrants into our society. We have a well-developed societal toolkit for how we do it, and it’s not just how we get immigrants to start behaving “like Americans” but also how we get “regular Americans” to accept and adapt to new immigrant communities. Obviously we’re far from perfect, but everyone but the extreme fringes will at least publicly acknowledge that some immigration is a good thing and that the immigrants we let in should assimilate. Most of Europe doesn’t have that same attitude or practice at accepting and integrating immigrants, and it shows.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft:
@Barbara:
Yep. This is not an argument -or a truth – that most of the rural white progressives I know – or, hell, even urban white progressives – want to hear, however. They *want* to think it’s all about “economic anxiety”. Talk about what a disaster Jeremy Corbyn has proven to be for Labour and they’re all like “la la la Brexit vote = blow against the neoliberal Empire!” Some of the most pro-Brexit areas of Britain – like Wales – were receiving millions of pounds’ worth of economic development from the EU. So, clearly “being screwed by the European Man, man” was pretty much all in the eye of the beholder.
Lyrebird
@Barbara: Cool number.
Yeah and part of this is,
and I quote,
“I remember when they said they’d put the mountaintops back! HARRUMPH!”
This particular nonagenarian (that I’m quoting) was pretty disappointed she didn’t get to vote in the first woman president, and she’s aware that she’s unlikely to reach the next pres. election.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: I agree with most of what you said but then how do you explain T? He ran on an explicit platform of demonizing immigrants, one consistent theme throughout his campaign.
Citizen_X
Well, good idea, because when has a nationalist European country ever harmed the Netherlands? (Eyeroll.)
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca:
I loathe and am surrounded by these people.
DBaker
@Alesis:
I concur – a blog comment post is of course not nearly enough space to address all of the issues properly and with the attention they deserve; they have a tendency to come off as flip and that is certainly not my intent.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore:
62 million people voted for someone who acknowledges no such thing.
DBaker
@Thru the Looking Glass…: The percentage at 7pm local time is now 70% and is expected to reach close to 80 once the polls close at 9pm. On average, turnout has averaged 75% since voting was made non-mandatory in 1970, which is the best benchmark.
I am always amazed at the low turnout numbers in the US – even in Presidential elections.
TenguPhule
@Alesis:
Well then we’re all doomed because that battle has been fought and lost.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: Doomed? Lost? Fuck it, might as well off myself.
--bd
Reposted and edited from dead thread below:
Okay. I’m a CPA and can tell you the likely story behind the numbers, and the reason that John Barron leaked this.
The reason he is leaking THIS tax return is as follows:
1. Line 21 Statement 1 will be the final utilization of a net operating loss (NOL), at least for ordinary income tax purposes. Perhaps it was the 1995 loss and no tax was paid for 10 years, or he could have roller-coastered between income and losses and the NOL could have been generated in ,say, 2002 after the 9/11 economy dip.
2. It shows the effect of the “evil” Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). This tax is usually generated on middle to high wage earners ($200,000 – $400,000) with itemized deductions for state income and real estate taxes, which are not allowed for AMT. After that threshold, enough ordinary taxable income is taxed at 33% and 35% (in 2005, add a 39.6 bracket to today’s rates) to “cover” the AMT. With $17,000,000 of itemized deductions, the part that is real estate and state income taxes will get added back for AMT. However in Trump’s case, most of the AMT would have been caused by the differences in the rules for regular NOL and AMT NOL. The main difference is that you are only allowed to utilize 90% of your AMT NOL in any given year. Therefore, his AMT NOL deduction for 2005 would be more like $92,000,000. Adding that difference of 10 million dollars to the perhaps $15,000,000 of state and local taxes on Schedule A, turns line 43 taxable income of 31.5 Million into AMT income of $56.5 million.
3. That is not enough to explain the AMT of $36,571,795. (Line 46 tax is calculated based on AMT rules. The difference between that and Line 44 “ordinary” income tax is the amount you see in line 45.) A simple, stupid flat rate 28 tax there (since the AMT exemption and benefit of the lower 26% rate are phased out at that point) would give us an estimated AMT income of about $130,000,000. Possible explanations would be other years’ differences in net utilization of regular and AMT net operating losses, leading to a lower AMT NOL even before only being allowed to use 90%. [Later edit: Long term capital gains (LTCG) are taxed at generally 20% for both ordinary and AMT purposes. If we had a look at schedule D, we’d be able to tell this amount. It would explain a lot of the remaining difference, when you throw in a chunk of 20% money into the calculation instead of 28%.(edit to the edit: Actually this would mean that AMT income would be even GREATER than $130,000,000 since a good chunk of the tax would be divided by 20% to determine the amount of LTCG subject to AMT. Excuse my meandering.)]
4. He gets props for paying a significant portion of self-employment tax. Let’s assume he has FICA maxed wages as part of the line 7 wages, (very likely, since there is an application of over-withheld FICA on line 67, which occurs when you have multiple W-2s, each withholding FICA). $1,887.556 of self employment tax divided by the 2.9% employer/employee portions of Medicare gets us about $65,000,000 of reported self-employment income, which would be all of the Schedule C income, Line 13, and about half of the Schedule E income. This makes sense. Personal real estate activities owned directly and through partnerships and LLCs would probably be subject to self-employment taxes. Earnings from Subchapter S corporations would not be.
5. Hardly any of the Line 9a dividends were considered to be qualified (eligible for the lower long-term capital gains tax rate). This usually comes from interest type money market funds reported as dividends, or also real estate investment trusts (REITs), whose dividends are not qualifying.
6. I need to get back to my real work now. Luckily, all my 3/15s are already extended (and I’m here until 10pm no matter what).
Origuy
@mak: Boris Johnson is one eighth Turkish. His great-grandfather was in the Ottoman government and was assassinated by the Young Turks. I don’t know if Wilders would think he is pure European enough.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
But Trump didn’t run against immigration in general; he ran specifically against illegal immigration. That was part of the point I was trying to make about how all but the extreme fringe have to support some kind of immigration and talk about the importance of assimilation.
Just about anyone who didn’t grow up on a Reservation knows their own ancestors were immigrants. That means people who do want to shut down immigration completely have to talk around it to avoid looking like complete hypocrites. There are several well-established ways of doing this. One is to focus on illegal immigration, and you’ll hear standard lines about how “it’s about obeying the law” and “my ancestors came here legally”. Another is to claim that some groups of immigrants are just too culturally dissimilar and are either too disruptive as immigrants or are incapable of assimilating properly. People who oppose immigration almost always have to cloak their arguments in the language of accepting immigration to avoid becoming pariahs.
hovercraft
@Origuy:
Young Turks, I knew I hated that Cenk and his friends, so not only assholes full of shit, but assassins too.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Did you hear or read his immigration speech that he gave in September. He has dogwhistled about going back to Johnson-Reed act* and wanting to get rid of the birthright citizenship. He did demonize the so called “anchor babies”.
* Curtail legal immigration unless its from northern Europe.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore:
Please provide a reference to any public statement by candidate Trump accentuating the benefit of *any* immigration to the US.
hovercraft
@Roger Moore:
I think that when they say they are running against illegal immigration they mean what Steve King is saying outright. The emphasis on the wall and Mexico is the tell, there is no mention of the northern border or of visa overstays. His base knows what they are talking about is ridding us of all these brown people who are suddenly everywhere. They want us to go back where we came from, as a black woman you’d think the assumption would be that my family has been here for generations, but I’ve gotten go back where you came from a number of times in my life, how many white people ever encounter that if they don’t have an audible accent.
The wall illegal immigration are step 1, birthright citizenship is step 2, there is a reason Sessions was an early supporter and sent people like Stephen Miller to work on the campaign.
XTPD
@hovercraft: The Young Turks were also the primary drivers behind the Armenian/Assyrian/Pontic Greek genocide program.
PJ
@Roger Moore: A question that more and more immigrants raise, particularly in Europe, but also here, is why they should assimilate if the values or customs of the country they have emigrated to are opposed to theirs or would result in some dilution of their values or customs. They want to avail themselves of the political and economic benefits of the country they have moved to, but do not wish to assimilate culturally. This produces real conflict, not the least because it’s easier for citizens to point and say, “well, they are different from us and don’t share our values.” If these immigrant groups are relatively small and keep to themselves, like the Amish or Hasidim, most people don’t mind that much, but when they grow and exercise political power, then conflicts grow (viz the Kiryas Joel community in New York).
schrodingers_cat
@PJ:
Explain what exactly do you mean by cultural assimilation? Also, your comment assumes that the immigrants contribute nothing.
ericblair
@Miss Bianca:
The wogs start at Calais.
And yes, some of the more perceptive types in the boonies of Wales and England have started to wonder about what the Conservative government is going to do about replacing that sweet EU cash. You know, after they cut taxes to make Britain into a tax haven to keep the financial and manufacturing sectors. After finding out that the extra 350 million quid a WEEK! for the National Health Service, was a statement that was no longer operative. I’m sure everything will work out just fine, because conservatives always keep their promises to poor folk in the sticks.
Gin & Tonic
@PJ: Yeah, I’ll go up to Southie this Sunday for the parade and tell those assholes they need to assimilate.
PJ
@schrodingers_cat: There is a whole gamut of these, and the particulars are all different, and of course the context matters greatly. In the context of, say, France, this can be the right to wear “religious” garb in public, or, in the case mentioned, I think, somewhere above in this thread, some Muslim immigrants to Holland objecting to soft porn on free television. In the Kiryas Joel example, a lawsuit was filed (and won) objecting to the creation of a school district on the basis of religious affiliation, and there have been other conflicts stemming from the Hasidic community controlling the village and using their power against the non-Orthodox. In Brooklyn prior to about 5 years ago, there was a tacit agreement between the Orthodox community and the DA Charlie Hynes that the state would not investigate sex abuse crimes in the community, as these would be handled by the local rabbis. A lot of these disputes arise from religious groups which are “less progressive” regarding women’s and gay rights, and, frankly, have very restrictive mores re sexuality and which do not want these rights extended to members of their community.
hovercraft
@Gin & Tonic:
Don’t have to, they speak English and they have the right look. Hell Bannon is one of them, proof that they are a desired group, their “culture” is all American. What’s that you say about “No Irish”, that’s all water under the bridge, it was a misunderstanding before they realized that they would e needed to fight the real threats.
PJ
@schrodingers_cat: I do not believe that immigrants contribute nothing (and, as the child of an immigrant, it would be ironic if I did), just pointing out that sometimes these conflicts between existing residents and immigrants are not simply that “those people” are others who should not have the same rights or privileges that we do.
schrodingers_cat
@PJ: So immigrants need to give up
1. Their religion
2. Their language
What else?
ETA: What rights did the murdered Indian immigrant Srinavas K infringe upon? He was just having an after work drink for crying out loud.
Alesis
@PJ:
One of the rights that “we” have though is to be different. We have the right to be Amish we have the right to be anti vax.
In a sense therefore pluralism and multiculturalism is a right in addition to simply an “approach”
Barbara
@Citizen_X: That seems like a form of national suicide, unless they plan on joining some other collective, like becoming an honorary member of Scandinavia.
dww44
@Alesis: Great comment. Thanks.
rikyrah
phucking scam, because those who looked to see who his advisers were, told you how it would shake out. This is the one area where he DID use dogwhistles, all the while cozying up to the racist muthaphuckas at the heart of the anti-immigrant movement in this country.
PJ
@schrodingers_cat: I never said these things, nor do I believe them. You make these things up because you’d rather spread bullshit than listen, or think about what someone else has said.
I have no idea where you’re getting the language thing from. None of the conflicts I mentioned was based on language.
With regard to religion, in the US, it is the law that everyone be treated equally before the law and have equal protection under the law (even if it is not always respected in practice). It is also the law that the state shall not establish a religion or favor one religion over another. Applying these principles to religious groups does not mean that one is opposed to religion or any particular religion.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: It fooled RM because it doesn’t effect him directly, and he is one of the more thoughtful and smarter commenters here.
--bd
Also, Trump was in AMT for 2004 as well since the line for taxable refunds of state and local income taxes specifically showed -0- and referenced a couple of statements. The rule is that when you itemize and receive a deduction for any item and receive a refund related to that item in a future year, the refund received is income. Known as the “Tax Benefit Rule”, most of the time it applies to state and local tax refunds received.
If you are subject to the AMT however, you received no tax deduction benefit for your state and local income taxes on your return in the prior year (2004), so you do not have to pick up income (2005). However you report refunds received and reported on Forms 1099-G to avoid an IRS computer matching notice, then back them off to the extent that they were no help in the prior year, either due to AMT or not itemizing in the prior year.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t think anyone here is arguing that immigrants have to give up every cultural signifier when they come to a different country, no. But does that mean that the host country has no say in regulating their behavior? For example, should immigrants have the right, in the name of “freedom of religion”, to continue practices that conflict with the laws of the land they have emigrated to, such as child marriage and female circumcision?
PJ
@Alesis: Sure. But does there come a point where, say, being anti-vax starts to threaten the larger population? If someone insists on no vaccinations for their child, can the state prevent them from attending public school if there is a danger they will spread disease to other people? Sometimes these conflicts have real world effects that the state might need to address.
Mike in DC
Exit polls suggest that Wilders party will come in second, and likely be shut out of governing coalition.
schrodingers_cat
@PJ: You did not say anything about language. Mexican and Latino immigrants speaking Spanish is the pet peeve of anti-immigrants. That’s what I was referring to, not accusing you of anything.
You did blame immigrants for not assimilating enough by sticking to their religious practices. Your example was wearing hijab in France.
I also gave you a counter example, which you ignored.
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca:
No they don’t. They are wrong no matter where they are practiced.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: The place to start drawing the line is where a practice is being forced onto a third party, even if a member of the group, or limits the rights of others. However, I no longer have a lot of confidence in how religious coercion is going to be contained by our judiciary. In that light, perhaps one of the worst decisions in the last 50 years is Yoder v. Wisconsin, in which the Amish were given basically an unfettered right to become exempt from compulsory education laws. As Justice Douglas (I think) noted, this decision was the result of basically benign view of the Amish, as a community that made no claims on and generally did not bother mainstream society. What if that case had been brought by a Muslim (or Christian or Orthodox Jewish) family that did not want their daughters to attend school on the basis that education only corrupted women?
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: I agree with you. I am not a particularly religious person, so this is not a matter I have given a lot of thought.
PJ
@schrodingers_cat: Why are you going on your anti-immigrant tirade then? I am not anti-immigrant (quite the contrary), and I didn’t say anything that was anti-immigrant. (BTW, you didn’t provide a counter-example of anything.)
I also didn’t blame anyone for not assimilating enough. I wasn’t taking sides on these conflicts, just pointing out that they exist, and they are about how people are expected to live their everyday lives.
I brought up France because “Laicite” has been the law there for over a century, and was originally designed to ensure separation between church and state in a country where the state, for centuries, had taken the side of the Catholic Church. In recent times, it has been used to prevent the wearing of religious symbols in public (whether this means government spaces or any public spaces is, I believe, still unsettled). Is this just a way for the French, who are still, at least nominally, majority Catholic, to harass Muslims? Even if the intent is not harassment, if the effect is that it just drives Muslims, who would otherwise be participating in public life, to retreat to all-Muslim enclaves, is this the desired effect from this interpretation of the law? If laicite is about reducing the influence of religion in public life, should the banning of religious symbols persist when the end result is to increase the influence of religion? This is a real issue in France. To pretend that these conflicts do not exist is to ensure that they likely resolved in thoughtless and repressive ways.
PJ
@schrodingers_cat: Then why pretend that these cultural conflicts do not exist?
Alesis
@PJ:
The trick to pluralism is that you can’t just decide which communities get to be different and which don’t. To the extent difference has externalities these must be regulated directly. “Your culture is correlated with this social thing we don’t like” isn’t a basis for policy in a “free” country.
The Moar You Know
@schrodingers_cat: Devil’s advocate argument here: they are not. They are legal and overwhelmingly approved of by the societies in which these horrible practices take place. Given those criteria, you cannot say they are wrong “no matter where they are practiced”. You certainly CAN say “do this in MY country and someone will be feeding what’s left of your testicles to carnivorous fish”.
Some really interesting arguments on this thread. Here’s a couple of questions with no right answers: does a minority (as in population size) group of recent immigrants have the right to ask their new host society to change long-standing practices that the minority group find against their beliefs?
Even if they have the right, is it in their best long-term interests to do so?
Barbara
@PJ: The comment about porn made me want to roll my eyes. Watching porn is apparently a widespread habit in a lot of Muslim countries (by men). So on the one hand, I can understand not wanting society to publicly endorse it, but on the other hand, a lot of these complaints seem to be a plea for society to save people from themselves. No one has to watch porn, and if your son or husband likes it, well, it’s not really my problem. I can’t make them be better than they want to be.
Barbara
@Alesis: That is exactly my point about the Amish education case. We like the Amish isn’t an acceptable basis for public policy.
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know:
They should be. That’s what I meant.
But ultimately this is changing the subject and framing it in terms of what the likes of Wilders and King want. Eeww immigrants and their icky practices, tar and feather ( or in Srinivas K’s case, kill) the immigrant. Burn the witch.
Anderj
@Mike in DC: exit from polls predict a three way split for second place including Wilders nowhere near the biggest party (that would be a conventional right wing party). Not my preference at all, but still a relief.
Wilders will definitely be shut out of government. Too many parties that have said that they will never govern with him and no reason to come back to that.
PJ
@Alesis: Right, the government should exercise the right to restrict illegal behavior, but legislating, or enforcing laws, against a particular religion or culture is de facto discrimination. The question then becomes whether a behavior, otherwise illegal, is considered central to a religion or culture. In a case involving Native American ingestion of restricted substances in religious ceremonies, the Supreme Court decided that the state could still enforce the law re ingestion of the substances.
schrodingers_cat
@Anderj: Hopefully the exit polls will hold up. Congratulations on dodging the bullet.
Alesis
@PJ:
I think we are in agreement. People who care about violence against women craft policy to reduce violence against women.
People who don’t just blame Muslims.
cranky
@schrodingers_cat:
In India, right now there is a crusade against eating beef. There are quite a lot of Hindus and Muslims (& Xtians too) who eat beef in India. But the Hindu right wants to criminalize cow slaughter and eating beef.
What should Hindus in US do? If they can live with cow-slaughter in US, what makes India different?
These are not easy issues, they can be solved with goodwill. But it is not some magical pill that you can buy off the market.
(P.S. I am a Hindu immigrant from India, I am up to date on this subject)
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: Retrograde traditions that keep women subservient are not endemic to immigrant communities alone.
Barbara
@PJ: Thus leading to one of the all-time worst pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress — RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act).
schrodingers_cat
@cranky: The cow slaughter issue in India is a stupid one. Its a Sanghi pet project. People should eat what they want and not impose their beliefs on others.
ETA: It is a stick to beat the Muslims with, nothing else. If some bhakts want to try that BS here, it will go nowhere and they know it.
PJ
@Alesis: The easiest, and mentally laziest, way to view any problem is that it’s the fault of “those people”. Ergo, get rid of “those people” and the problem is solved. If only we got rid of those so-and-so’s, this country would be great again . . .
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: No, they aren’t, but I think that restrictions on women are more likely to be de jure in certain countries, which are also less likely to have enacted legislation to protect against or ameliorate inegalitarian conditions. But there is a very wide spectrum and it does no good to generalize. Just for instance, Japan places social burdens on women, who still struggle with employment related discrimination as well, but overall, women are well-educated and have the wherewithal to refuse to marry (they cannot be forced into marriage), which they have been doing in droves.
Barbara
Just FYI, the Guardian has a live update that seems to be more informative than other U.S. sources. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/mar/15/dutch-election-voters-go-to-the-polls-in-the-netherlands-live
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: The crusade against abortion and birth control in this country is not lead by immigrants is it? What about the whole Christian homeschooling movement? How do girls and women fare in the Quiverfull movement? Or is this faux concern for women’s rights in immigrant communities by some on the right, just another stick to beat minorities with?
PJ
@The Moar You Know: Changing long standing cultural (and legal) practices is the slow arc-bending that democracies engage in – sometimes the people advocating for these changes are initially minorities (abolitionists, blacks), sometimes they are actual majorities but legally powerless (suffragettes), but if they can persuade enough people, their values will become the law of the land.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: No, it’s not led by immigrants, but with respect to abortion, it’s also not necessarily led by men (although I would argue that it is led by people — male and female — with a goal of reinforcing patriarchal norms). Home schooling and Quiverfull are tiny movements, and women who are part of them can leave and have left. It’s not easy, but if they do then there are other social institutions that will help them. And, you know, as someone who has been banging the drum for women’s rights before anyone thought to blame discrimination on immigrants, your accusatory tone is tiresome. No doubt there are some people who became concerned about women’s rights only because it’s another way to lambaste immigrants generally, but there are some people who are genuinely concerned about women’s rights who are also concerned about the particular vulnerability of immigrant women, who face financial and language barriers to getting help. These people can be tagged as “anti-immigrant” when they are nothing of the kind.
Alesis
@Barbara:
Sure but I’m not sure how one links concern for immigration women to policy choices that restrict immigration. If anything the rational choice for those who care about women’s well being is to make sure as many as possible are in a context with actionable rights, yes?
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: I did not accuse you of anything, unless you identify with the religious right. The religious right has the Republican party in thrall and its principles are not all that different from any retrograde religious fundamentalist anywhere in the world. When these people express concern about minority/immigrant women’s rights it smacks of hypocrisy.
Barbara
@Alesis: No, I don’t think so. I take a neutral position. I certainly do not assume that women are incapable of expanding rights where they live.
gorram
@schrodingers_cat: Easy, that’s what they blame on ~The Jews~
gorram
@schrodingers_cat: Besides a good chunk of those wars were conquests of White people seen as not-so-master-race: the subjugation of Basque people under Rome and later Spanish rule, the colonization of Ireland and celtic nations more generally under medieval English rule, the mass killings of Saami people in Scandanavia, the occupation and “management” of Slavic people and others in central Europe leading up to the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and to loop it all back around, Franco’s bombing of Basque villages. Left to their own devices, a lot of those same world powers played the same games inside of Europe as they did outside of it.
gorram
@schrodingers_cat: And that’s leaving out the Rroma and Moorish people, but then, they’re pretty much always held at a complete arm’s length, as not ever being White.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: @PJ: I have been a bit more abrasive and grumpy off late. Sorry.
XTPD
@gorram: I look forward to Steve King’s contention that the “swarthiness” of Spain’s masses confirms the ultimate futility of the Reconquista.
pseudonymous in nc
Rutte III, then, with no reason even to talk to PVV. Either GL will be in with CDA and D66, and gamble on not suffering the fate of PvdA in government, or the smaller Christian parties will provide support.
gorram
@hovercraft: I mean, they did organize a genocide, which Cenk and Co don’t like to talk about, while donning them as a moniker!
gorram
@ericblair: Cymru is complicated. It’s worth noting that a good chunk of the north coast – rural as all hell – went for Bremain, unlike most rural areas in England. Caerdydd, better known as Cardiff yn y saesneg, followed the suit of the major cities throughout the country and also voted so.
There’s a whole lot of middleground there though, which put it just barely into the Brexit camp. There’s three major areas of that sort, however – the southern coast, the coal mining southern inland, and Powys + Sir y Fflint + Abertawe and other border areas. That last section is still administratively Wales, but it’s seen an influx of English immigration for arguably millennia, that’s especially heated up in the past decade or two, so of course it voted like the rest of England. A lot of the local politics are fundamentally about these issues – as the few remaining Welsh towns are largely destroyed for acquifers (obligatory shout out to Treweryn) or otherwise destabilized to make way for
English settlementsI mean, retirement cottages.The southern coast have seen that to a lesser extent as well (think seaside cottages for the saeson), and the local economy has largely been structured around that – catering to upper middle class English people who want cheap foreign labor but without moving to Spain or Portugal (and having to learn a foreign language, the horror). There’s far less immigration from English into the once industrious coal region, but it’s a similar story of the local economy being completely structured around appealing to the colonial betters. Plaid Cymru, try as they might, hasn’t been very good at hitting the cord that, say, SNP has, with pointing out that people should ask for better. They’ve recently trying to pivot from the aim of retaining Welsh cultural and values (and devolution) to making the economic case, but they’re rather behind the curve.
There’s a way that Wales is voting similarly to Scotland in the 1980s when a good chunk of their vote went to Thatcher of all demons, while the coal valleys still stuck with Labor. Scotland turned that around by marrying anti-Union and pro-labor politics. Union is a more insidious thing in Wales, so it’s been trickier, and there’s been less demand for that sort of left-labor politics until recently. We’ll see where the cymry go in the coming years, I suppose!
J R in WV
@NobodySpecial:
They were good at keeping people from talking about trains running late ! Or any other criticism of any decisions made at the top…
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Don’t forget we got them to take a break from nearly constant war starting about 1945, and lasting the past. 70 years nearly. Twice as long as the usual break!
Little thing called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, closely followed by another treaty resulting in the EU… and the end of border stations all over every little road in every country on Europe.
J R in WV
@AnderJ:
Those boots – did he get those from Little Marco Rubio? Or just the same shop in Miami?
MoxieM
Not for nuthin’ but the Dutch VOC, or Dutch East India Trading Company was the second largest, um, purveyor of human people as property, aka enslaved persons, coming in close on the heels of the British. You didn’t think the highly vaunted Dutch Golden Age (Rembrandt et al.) funded itself, did you??? But you’ll rarely find a Dutch person who will tell you that, alas.
MoxieM
@Gin & Tonic: geeze, you must really love green puke…