4 ms·

I've moved from "he's a total idiot who is unwilling to distance himself from the most backwards views of some of his supporters" to "he's a total idiot who's a

by lhnz 9y ago

I've moved from "he's a total idiot who is unwilling to distance himself from the most backwards views of some of his supporters" to "he's a total idiot who's actually causing even deeper polarization since people on the Left aren't able to acknowledge that there are moderates that see him or the 'context' differently to them without implicating themselves as Nazis, and nobody on the Right wants to admit that he's creating an even more unhealthy political situation which is going to hurt everybody". > [...] then you're part of the problem. [...] > If you want 'healthy dialogue' you're going to have > to come to terms with inherent biases first. I honestly do not think you are having a healthy dialogue or coming to terms with your own inherent biases yourself. You just said that somebody was 'purposefully skewing' as if they did not really believe what they said. This is textbook bad faith arguing. You could do with reading what everybody is saying and imagining that they actually honestly believe these things and then go from there. My own two-cents are that left-wing violence and anger is partly to blame for both his rise and the deeper polarisation we are now seeing since it enabled the alt-right to play the victim and fight a war of optics [0]. However, it's not the only cause: a large component of what we're seeing is that Trump coming to power has emboldened the worst of the Right [1]. [0] Look at how they manage their image with propaganda, and their attempts to use the Left against itself: https://mobile.twitter.com/sebinsua/status/897164022440701952 https://mobile.twitter.com/sebinsua/status/89716402244070195... [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/bswud/status/747790921190744064 https://mobile.twitter.com/bswud/status/747790921190744064

specialist 9y ago
Left wing violence? Such as? Reminds me of the time someone cited the Rodney King riots as examples of left-wing hate speech. Or when the protestors at the WTO summit had to physically prevent some testosterone filled teenage agitators from Oregon, self-described "anarchists", from breaking crap because the police wouldn't act. (Almost as if allowing some violence to make the evening news served their purpose. Hmmmm.)
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Anarchists in Oregon are as left wing as racists in Charlotte are right wing. The standard there would be how they (probably) vote, right? Or are there other criteria you would prefer?
  - specialist 9y ago
    Have you read Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism? Did you like it? Agree? Disagree? I ask because I'm hoping someone can explain the mental gymnastics required to believe such nonsense.
jacquesm 9y ago
> I honestly do not think you are having a healthy dialogue or coming to terms with your own inherent biases yourself. Since you so clearly perceive those would you mind exposing them? > My own two-cents are that left-wing violence and anger is partly to blame for both his rise and the deeper polarisation we are now seeing since it enabled the alt-right to play the victim and fight a war of optics [0]. That does not mesh with my reading of the facts as presently available at all. > However, it's not the only cause: a large component of what we're seeing is that Trump coming to power has emboldened the worst of the Right [1]. That we can agree on, and this is in large part due to the use of various 'dog whistles'. And frankly, I have a hard time coming to terms with people self describing as 'moderates' who voted for Trump, that is some kind of cognitive dissonance. Trump is about as far away from moderate as it gets.
- lhnz 9y ago
  > frankly, I have a hard time coming to terms with > people self describing as 'moderates' who voted > for Trump, that is some kind of cognitive dissonance. > Trump is about as far away from moderate as it gets. That's not what I'm arguing so I don't expect you to come to terms with that. You cannot be moderate and vote for Trump. I do think you can be moderate and point out that there are certain tactics used by the Left which have been weaponised against them, and that this has been a key driver in support for the alt-right. > That does not mesh with my reading of the facts > as presently available at all. I do not agree that the same set of facts are presently available to all. Even if they were, I believe that most people filter them out due to not wanting to look at the alt-right parts of Twitter. In any case I did link you to a tweet referencing two instances as an attempt to substantiate what I said. The first demonstrates that alt-right supporters from /pol/ are trying to "get normies onto [their] side" by trying to appear 'peaceful' and 'good' in comparison to their attackers ("and if antifa attack the white families, they're going to look like monsters"). The second demonstrates a time in which @SwiftOnSecurity received a message from a white nationalist trying to incite an offended quote-tweet as a way of maximising the audience of one of their memes. I can't source it because it was a long while back, but during the election and immediately after it, I also saw various accounts attempting to use instances of left-wing violence at protests to persuade others that they were unfairly threatened or attacked for their beliefs and to try to present antifa as violent thugs. I saw stories about families of Trump supporters trapped at protests and 'fearing for the lives of their children'. I saw photos of Trump supporters violently wounded. Frequently I see the photo of Richard Spencer being punched doubled against a tweet by some out-there radleft implying that anybody righter than them is a Nazi. I think it's really important to realise that anything you do or say can be turned into propaganda against you. Edit: The term "concern troll" could be used against me here, so all I ask is for people to evaluate what I've pointed out and decide for themselves whether it's useful or not. My opinion of course is that the alt-right substantially grew in popularity through the techniques I described and that if you care about this you should avoid being part of it.

by lhnz 9y ago

specialist 9y ago

Left wing violence? Such as? Reminds me of the time someone cited the Rodney King riots as examples of left-wing hate speech. Or when the protestors at the WTO summit had to physically prevent some testosterone filled teenage agitators from Oregon, self-described "anarchists", from breaking crap because the police wouldn't act. (Almost as if allowing some violence to make the evening news served their purpose. Hmmmm.)

humanrebar 9y ago
Anarchists in Oregon are as left wing as racists in Charlotte are right wing. The standard there would be how they (probably) vote, right? Or are there other criteria you would prefer?
- specialist 9y ago
  Have you read Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism? Did you like it? Agree? Disagree? I ask because I'm hoping someone can explain the mental gymnastics required to believe such nonsense.

jacquesm 9y ago

> I honestly do not think you are having a healthy dialogue or coming to terms with your own inherent biases yourself. Since you so clearly perceive those would you mind exposing them? > My own two-cents are that left-wing violence and anger is partly to blame for both his rise and the deeper polarisation we are now seeing since it enabled the alt-right to play the victim and fight a war of optics [0]. That does not mesh with my reading of the facts as presently available at all. > However, it's not the only cause: a large component of what we're seeing is that Trump coming to power has emboldened the worst of the Right [1]. That we can agree on, and this is in large part due to the use of various 'dog whistles'. And frankly, I have a hard time coming to terms with people self describing as 'moderates' who voted for Trump, that is some kind of cognitive dissonance. Trump is about as far away from moderate as it gets.

lhnz 9y ago
> frankly, I have a hard time coming to terms with > people self describing as 'moderates' who voted > for Trump, that is some kind of cognitive dissonance. > Trump is about as far away from moderate as it gets. That's not what I'm arguing so I don't expect you to come to terms with that. You cannot be moderate and vote for Trump. I do think you can be moderate and point out that there are certain tactics used by the Left which have been weaponised against them, and that this has been a key driver in support for the alt-right. > That does not mesh with my reading of the facts > as presently available at all. I do not agree that the same set of facts are presently available to all. Even if they were, I believe that most people filter them out due to not wanting to look at the alt-right parts of Twitter. In any case I did link you to a tweet referencing two instances as an attempt to substantiate what I said. The first demonstrates that alt-right supporters from /pol/ are trying to "get normies onto [their] side" by trying to appear 'peaceful' and 'good' in comparison to their attackers ("and if antifa attack the white families, they're going to look like monsters"). The second demonstrates a time in which @SwiftOnSecurity received a message from a white nationalist trying to incite an offended quote-tweet as a way of maximising the audience of one of their memes. I can't source it because it was a long while back, but during the election and immediately after it, I also saw various accounts attempting to use instances of left-wing violence at protests to persuade others that they were unfairly threatened or attacked for their beliefs and to try to present antifa as violent thugs. I saw stories about families of Trump supporters trapped at protests and 'fearing for the lives of their children'. I saw photos of Trump supporters violently wounded. Frequently I see the photo of Richard Spencer being punched doubled against a tweet by some out-there radleft implying that anybody righter than them is a Nazi. I think it's really important to realise that anything you do or say can be turned into propaganda against you. Edit: The term "concern troll" could be used against me here, so all I ask is for people to evaluate what I've pointed out and decide for themselves whether it's useful or not. My opinion of course is that the alt-right substantially grew in popularity through the techniques I described and that if you care about this you should avoid being part of it.