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Alina Kabaeva, former deputy of the Russian State Duma (legislature) from 2007-2014, presently Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the National Media Group, one of Russia's largest television conglomerates.
(Yes, I know this person IRL. In addition to being extremely hot, she's actually a pretty level-headed and successful professional. But man, don't get her started on politics...)
(Yes, I know this person IRL. In addition to being extremely hot, she's actually a pretty level-headed and successful professional. But man, don't get her started on politics...)
(Yes, I know this person IRL. In addition to being extremely hot, she's actually a pretty level-headed and successful professional. But man, don't get her started on politics...)
And I have no idea why Ryhann always looks stocky and old in pictures. Literally every single photo of her is like that. I think she's one of those people who has a bad camera-face (eg: they always make a squinty face when a camera is pointed at them.)
Ordering Vindaloo or Hunting for Venison:
How Cosmopolitanism Shapes the Vote Lynn Vavreck FEB. 28, 2017
Enjoying hunting is correlated with being likely to have voted for Donald J. Trump.
Who are you? It sounds like a simple question, but your answer depends on how you read the question. Are you being asked just for your name? The request seems to pose something deeper: Where are you from? What kind of person have you become?
It’s a question about identity, but not about descriptive traits, like being a daughter, father, friend or brother, or about the church or political party with which you associate. The question goes straight to how you see yourself in the world, and the answer has a lot to do with the state of politics in America right now.
Part of how you see yourself is wrapped up in how you view and react to others. As a political scientist, I’ve been asking people about their experiences with people who are different from them. In 2008, I wrote a series of questions to measure cosmopolitanism. I asked seven questions about travel, sports and food to tap into behaviors that expose people to varying levels of social and cultural differences.
Drawing on work in sociology, I tried to measure whether people thought their most powerful connections were to those in their local circles or to those in a broader orbit. For example, I asked people whether they had played softball on an organized team in the last decade, because this is usually done with members of a community. I also asked about hunting, an activity often done with family or close friends.
I asked people about the places to which they had traveled in the last 10 years: Canada, Mexico, Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and South America, and whether they had eaten a meal at an Indian or Japanese restaurant in the last decade.
The questions helped differentiate white voters who chose Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary from those who chose Hillary Clinton. The more likely people were to experience other cultures — through travel or food — the more likely they were to vote for Mr. Obama, even controlling for things like income, education, personality, racial attitudes and city living. As J.D. Vance recalls in his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” comments about voters in parts of the country “clinging to their guns and their religion” didn’t help Appalachian residents warm to Mr. Obama. He was different from them, and he reminded them of it all the time.
As the 2016 campaign unfolded, Donald J. Trump drew on this tendency to mistrust those who are different by saying he would keep various outsiders away. To see whether this had appeal, I asked 3,000 people the cosmopolitanism questions and found a pattern. White Republican primary voters were more likely to vote for one of the other 16 candidates in the race instead of Mr. Trump if they had traveled abroad or gone to an Indian or Japanese restaurant in the last 10 years. In some cases, the differences were quite large.
Mr. Trump fared worst among white G.O.P. primary voters who had been to Asia, Africa or South America. These voters were 23 points more likely to choose one of the other candidates in the race. Those who had been to Europe, Australia, Canada or Mexico or had eaten at an Indian restaurant were also less likely to choose Mr. Trump by 10 to 12 points. The differences for eating at a Japanese restaurant and hunting were smaller, and there were no differences among those who had played softball on a team.
In the general election, there were also wide divergences among white voters. People who had been hunting in the last decade favored Mr. Trump by 22 points, while those had played softball favored him by nine points. People who had eaten Indian food favored Mrs. Clinton by 15 points, and those who had been to Europe or Australia favored her by 13 points. These relationships persist after accounting for things like partisanship, income, education and geography.
A willingness to try foods that might be unfamiliar, like Japanese ramen with pork belly, can open up a person to new ways of thinking.
Who we are and how we see ourselves in the world — fundamental questions about our identity — relate to our political choices. This is nothing new. A willingness to come into contact with others may drive both travel and vote choice, but actually experiencing differences has been shown to have effects on behavior.
The philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah confronted this identity question head-on in his 2007 book “Cosmopolitanism” by asking readers to entertain the idea that in an increasingly connected world we have obligations that stretch “beyond those to whom we are related by the ties of kith and kind.” Some of these people may be different in one way or another, but Mr. Appiah urged us to consider the possibility that these differences are worth exploring because they help us learn about one another and thus make it easier to live together and respect one another.
He’s not alone.
In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance writes about the views his family passed on to him about those who were different. According to his Mamaw, that is, his grandmother, people who were outsiders, whether socially or culturally, could never understand the needs, hopes or experiences of Mr. Vance’s kin. The Appalachian natives in Mr. Vance’s memoir were not interested in the kind of exploration of differences that Mr. Appiah envisions.
It’s worth pointing out: The feeling was mutual. Until the success of “Hillbilly Elegy” and the election of Mr. Trump, nonhillbillies showed equally little interest in exploring the differences between their cultures and Mr. Vance’s. But explore we must, Mr. Vance implores. Getting out into the world is what helped him finally go to college and eventually end up at Yale Law School. Similarly, he suggests that understanding the culture in today’s rural America may help urban-dwellers and coastal elites appreciate Mr. Trump’s appeal.
Both Mr. Appiah and Mr. Vance offer the same suggestion to break though contemporary barriers: get people to interact with those who are not like them.
It’s a strategy that has recently been borne out empirically. A team of economists led by Stanford University’s Raj Chetty reanalyzed a decades-old experiment called the Moving to Opportunity project, in which families living in public housing were randomly selected for a housing voucher that came with a requirement to move to a lower-poverty neighborhood. Other families stayed put. The differences between the two groups were substantial on one particular group: the youngest children in the families.
Those children whose families left the high-poverty areas were more likely to go to college, have higher incomes in their 20s and live in wealthier neighborhoods as adults. They were also less likely to become single parents.
Mr. Appiah suggests that conversations between people who find one another unfamiliar and anxiety-provoking are the first steps toward respect. Talking about anything at all — or even imagining what it might be like to be somewhere different and meet different people — can lead to understanding. In this way, reading a book, seeing a movie or television show, or traveling to a new place can fuel new consideration for others. Something as simple as conversation can change behavior.
It may be naïve to think that politics could one day proceed without consideration of whether someone looks or sounds different — substituting instead the quality of a candidate’s ideas or of a neighbor’s actions. But there is reason to draw heavily on this hope.
“Conversation,” Mr. Appiah writes, “doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values; it’s enough that it helps people get used to one another.”
Based on his assumptions, I should have been campaigning for Hillary. And my wife, another avid Trump supporter (and Spanish of Peruvian descent) would have been helping me.
Based on his assumptions, I should have been campaigning for Hillary. And my wife, another avid Trump supporter (and Spanish of Peruvian descent) would have been helping me.
Same here. I've eaten Indian, Japanese, Thai, etc. in the last month and been to Europe several times in the last few years. I commonly eat in places where people don't speak but a couple of words of English and I have to order in Spanish (even though I don't know but a few words and must point at things).
I think it's important to note that even people in shitty cities generally look down upon those living in more bucolic surroundings.
As the universe expands over hundreds of billions of years, Reynolds explained, there will be a point, in the very far future, at which all galaxies will be so far apart that they will no longer be visible from one another.
Upon reaching that moment, it will no longer be possible to understand the universe’s history—or perhaps even that it had one—as all evidence of a broader cosmos outside of one’s own galaxy will have forever disappeared. Cosmology itself will be impossible.
In such a radically expanded future universe, Reynolds continued, some of the most basic insights offered by today’s astronomy will be unavailable. After all, he points out, “you can’t measure the redshift of galaxies if you can’t see galaxies. And if you can’t see galaxies, how do you even know that the universe is expanding? How would you ever determine that the universe had had an origin?”
Wouldn't we think that technology would advance enough to let us see further away? I mean, unless there are black holes at the end of everything and we wouldn't see evidence of galaxies being eaten for millions of years anyway.
What is funny is Senator McCaskill's comments about having never met with the Russian ambassador but yet there are pics of that exact thing happening in 2013, along with a tweet about her meeting him.
What is funny is Senator McCaskill's comments about having never met with the Russian ambassador but yet there are pics of that exact thing happening in 2013,
Give it some time- the Ministry has quite a backlog of unnews to revise.
Wasn't he a senator when this alledged contact with the Russian ambassador happened?
Allegedly.
He was also allegedly already on the Trump campaign trail at that point and also said under oath that he didn't have any contact.
Seems like a weird thing to not mention given that he was on the senate armed forces committee. Like... doesn't that mean that he's allowed to have such contact in an official capacity?
So what are everyone's thoughts on the alleged perjury committed by Jeff Sessions?
I'm ready to move on and focus on real policy matters and legislation. He already said today he'd recuse himself anyway.
Originally Posted by ridethecliche
Allegedly.
He was also allegedly already on the Trump campaign trail at that point and also said under oath that he didn't have any contact.
Seems like a weird thing to not mention given that he was on the senate armed forces committee. Like... doesn't that mean that he's allowed to have such contact in an official capacity?
How can it be alleged?? He basically said he did. As a senator he had reasons too but for sure should've at least "remembered" he did. I guess that's the real story is this administration just seems to be in "cover up" mode and only grudgingly admits to anything. Kind of like 1974ish... I was watching TV in the crew quarters on Ft Bragg when Tricky Dick boarded that chopper for the last time.
02-28-2017, 09:54 PM
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