I personally do not think so. Even peaceful protests have served their purpose. Now it is time to sit back and relax.

There are 3 types of voters. Those that were always going to vote for Trump and those who were always going to vote for Democrats and then there are those who are undecided. Protest or no protest, the first two are not going to change. So that leaves it to the undecided to move the needle. There are those who are going to believe Trump is fanning the flames of violence and who will vote against him or decide not to vote and those who are going to ignore everything and believe whatever news station they believe is honest. Then there are those who are not going to care about the riots because it’s not happening in their neighborhoods and are going to let other things persuade how they vote. Like Covid, or employment or taxes, or social security, or child care , or what have you. Issue voters. So I think its hard to say before hand how the protests have effected the race. You would have to poll people to find out if that is the determining factor on how they are going to vote.

@Pandora: My reason for asking is that in my college days I was a protester, and was shocked when the election results came in. Our candidate had taken a shellacking, the likes of which have rarely occurred.

@crazyguy It could be that it had nothing to do with the protest and you guy just wasn’t popular enough. Like I said. Protest are never going to change everyone’s mind on who they are going to vote for. Most people make up their minds way before elections and debates. The few that are always undecided may be persuaded by protest or they may be persuaded by a personal issue. Usually a personal issue. Who is going to get me what I need. Of course the personal issue may sometimes be the protests. So lets take BLM. Say you are black and you are undecided but you agree with the protestors and you feel this is a subject that may effect your life. Then the protestors may be successful in getting you to vote Dem. But say you are a black business owner who had you business destroyed and looted during a protest. Then you may vote Republican because your lively hood is more important to you than the possibility of being targetted and killed by a cop because you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Millions of people with different ideas of what changes need to happen in our nation. So hard to predict what effect do the protest have on the election. I for one care about a lot of different issues. But I believe we can’t have a progressive and safe nation without sanity and experience at the Helm. Trump has proven to me that he is not what the nation needs.

@Pandora If you look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the basic need is, as you might expect, food and shelter. The next one is Personal Safety. And that is what the protests threaten. Even the liberal mayor of Portland is being hounded from his home. How do you think that plays with the undecided voters?

Basic needs can all be lumped together into employment. I think if you live in the United States you realize there is no safe place to live. As for the liberal mayor being hounded by protestors, I think those are probably paid antagonists. Who already know how they are going to vote, they just want to cause hate and division but that doesn’t mean they are a part of the undecided voter. I still don’t think the protest will change many minds. I think the Covid response will have a bigger effect on how people vote. Right now, even among Trumpers, they believe he has mismanaged the whole thing for politics. Which will turn off the Trumpers who voted for him because they thought he wouldn’t play politics for personal gain.

I think the rioters and looters help scare some of the undecided voters into voting for Trump, but most voters have decided their vote based on fear of Trump getting four more years.

On a separate Q I asked a conservative jelly if he wasn’t afraid of BLM. A liberal jelly chimed in and asked why would anyone be afraid of BLM? Then a different conservative jelly answered back why BLM is scary to conservatives. A lot of conservatives think the looting and rioting is being done by BLM supporters, a lot of liberals think it’s all alt-right groups. All along I’ve thought the looting and rioting is done by both extremes and some who aren’t political but just thieves and vandals, and they should all be arrested and put in jail.

Media from both political sides has given the public different ways to interpret the rioting to suit their political leanings.

@Pandora EVERYBODY plays politics. EVERY decision made by a politician is suspect.

Starting with those basic premises, let us examine Trump’s actions on immigration, China and BLM. Easiest one first:

China: If Trump wanted to play China for political gain, would he not just remove the tariffs and announce a “deal” whose particulars are still being worked out?

Immigration: In order to score more Latin votes, would he not just announce that he is reinstating DACA and DAPA, and unilaterally stop construction of the wall subject to some agreements which will be spelled out after November?

BLM: In order to increase his approval rating among the black voters, would he not just announce a deal with BLM to be detailed later?

@JLeslie If you really believe that BLM does not encourage looting (it is just reparations, man!) , I would like to sell you this bridge I own…

@crazyguy I believe most Black people just want equality. I believe the protests are about equality/ As far as BLM as an organization, if it even is an organization, that is a different thing, and I would have to look into it. The two things should not be conflated. ANTIFA is a whole separate things also. Antifa and White Nationalist take advantage of the protests.

@JLeslie Equality is wonderful, I am all for it. However, please don’t pass any other laws trying to mandate equality; they will not work. Just ask yourself if you are more comfortable socially and in the workplace with people who look, think, and behave like you do.

@crazyguy I don’t think about race or “look like me” at all. Not at work or socially. Work is about skills and being part of a team. I would agree a certain amount of cultural similarity usually is there between friends, but that is usually socio-economic related, and certainly some differences are expected, interesting, and very normal. Even two white Americans with families from the same countries can have their own uniqueness and different norms and mores.

I grew up in an extremely diverse city. I worked retail for many years with a diverse staff. My friends are from various parts of the country and the world. Currently, I am a business manager, I work from home, but I mostly interact online with people in Europe, Asia (primarily West Asia) and parts of Africa.

My America is diverse, Many recent immigrants, full of foreign languages, celebrating many different religious holidays and nationality holidays, and everyone is welcome.

My husband was not born and raised in America and we are very similar on most things. Little cultural things come up, but I know 5th generation Americans who think similar to him too.

The first time I was in a very “white” city it felt weird. That was college, Michigan State University.

I would argue the way to get more similar culture, more assimilation, is education for everyone, opportunity for everyone, a reasonable minimum wage, safe neighborhoods, and encourage social interaction among diverse groups. America has been pretty good at assimilating people overall, I hope we don’t screw it up now. Some communities have been much better than others.

My experience the more diverse the more acceptance. The more it is just 2 or 3 big groups in a community (I don’t consider that diverse at all) the more tension.

My high school was 40% “minorities” it’s probably more now. That’s Black, Asian, Latin American, and many “whites” were first or second generation Americans. To me my Euro-white friends were diverse too. Families from Italy, Poland, Germany, Ireland, and Jewish from many parts of Eastern Europe, when you live in a diverse place you are just one of the many.

No one is just like me, everyone is unique in the end.

@JLeslie: Most of us do not make a conscious decision to associate or to not associate with certain individuals. However, subconsciously we do gravitate towards people who are similar to us. The most importnat similarity is socio-economic status, followed closely by race, and background. I am not, for a minute, saying that is the preferred way; I am just saying that is the way it is.

@crazyguy The only time I’ve seen a divide like that was when I lived in the South.

I live in a city now that has a very high percentage of “whites” and yet my closest friends here include a Black Puerto Rican woman (Pentecostal) white Puerto Rican woman (Catholic) a woman from the UK who is Pakistani (Muslim) and then the rest are Euro-white Americans 1st generation or more (Italian, German, etc, some Catholic, some Jewish).

My husband is Mexican (born and raised in Mexico) raised Catholic. I’m Jewish from the northeast.

His brother (also born and raised in Mexico lives in America now) is married to someone born and raised in Scotland, then he lived in France a short time, and now America the last 20 years).

I really don’t identify with caring about race or religion, but I know some people do. I meet each person as an individual.

I do agree that sometimes some jobs and professions get occupied by certain groups and that changes over time, but that happens for many different reasons. Sometimes it is racism. Sometimes it’s availability of workers. Sometimes it’s workers stop applying for jobs that they don’t identify with the people currently in the jobs or feel ostracized.

Where do you live?

@JLeslie

I live in California. I have been exposed to racism in its ugliest forms and can recognize a racist comment, or person from a mile away. Preferring your own kind as a friend or a colleague is not necessarily racist. The beauty of the capitalistic system is that it encourages the hiring and promotion of a person who will bring in the most business and/or efficiency, regardless of a person’s color. Check your private message for more about me.

@crazyguy I don’t think I called you racist.

@JLeslie No you did not.

By the way, my wife and I, have a lot of friends who don’t speak our language. However, we are more comfortable around people who share our language, and values. It is a little different for you because it is obvious that most of your friends speak English as a first language, and you probably speak Spanish. I think ethnic first-generation immigrants do prefer their own, NO MATTER WHAT they claim!

@crazyguy When you say first generation do you mean the person who immigrated to the US or first generation born in America? I didn’t realize you were talking about the people new to America might prefer their own group. I can understand why they might, especially if English is a second language and not fully bilingual. It can be exhausting being in another language all day.

A lot of my friends over the years speak English as a second language, but are fully bilingual. The variety of languages is vast. Italian, Vietnamese, Korean, Urdu, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, French, German, the list goes on. More than a few are twice migrated to countries. My FIL was born in Mexico, but his first languages were Hebrew and Arabic, both spoken in the house. Close friends of ours are Italian-Venezuelan and use Italian in the nuclear family more than Spanish. I have a friend whose mom is Chinese-Peruvian who grew up speaking both. All these people I mention live in America, that’s how I’m friends with them.

My Spanish is good not great. Most of my friends are first language English, but many also have parents or grandparents who speak a foreign language so I heard foreign languages all of the time if I was in their house, even if my friends didn’t speak the language.

@JLeslie I LOVE chatting with you! Primarily because we really communicate, not just post!

What I meant by first generation are the people who actually immigrated here. Their children born and brought up here are much more American. they speak English without an accent, as a first language. Most of our friends have been here for decades and speak good but accented English. Our parties probably have as much English spoken as our language(s), but a local would very quickly lose his/her way.

@crazyguy First generation can mean either definition, just so you know, so if you are in a conversation with someone you two might be talking about two different groups of people. My dad is a sociologist and we always used the term to mean the first generation born here, but some people use it the way you do.

@JLeslie Thanks. I really did not know that.

@crazyguy Interesting, there is actually a Wikipedia page about it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant_generations

I think a lot of people use the term the way you do. To me that’s the generation that immigrated. I realize many of them become Americans though, so I guess that’s why they are classified as first generation Americans, but they sometimes never become Americans.

Very interesting! As for the immigrants who never become American citizens, I think they can still be referred to as first generation immigrants or just immigrants.

@crazyguy Many people who never become Americans it’s really just a technicality of paperwork in my mind. I know so many people who have had green cards for 30 plus years, and they basically are as American as if they became citizens. Some people are afraid of the test and put it off for years. Especially people who never learned English well stall or wait until they can do it in their language. Although, I have a Canadian friend (English speaking) who has been here 25 years when I met her and I pushed her to get her citizenship. She finally did it after I had moved away from the city where I had met her. I’m not sure why she finally decided to do it. Her excuse was the test also. They make the test very easy usually.

JL: The test was a breeze when I took it back in the 70s. I am sure it is not too hard now. My incentive for taking it was that I had never voted and was anxious to. Once I became a citizen, my wife had to follow suit to make our travel planning somewhat easier.

Still a breeze. What colors are the flag, who is the president, maybe a few thrown in that are a little harder.

@JLeslie So if anybody uses the test as an excuse for not taking up US citizenship, would you be wrong in suspecting unstated ulterior motives?

@crazyguy. No. Everyone I know who has lived here a long time wants citizenship at minimum to feel safe.

So what stops them?