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It's like how the 2008 election didn't count, because Obama is actually a Kenyan. People can't just lose an election anymore.

ixtli 9y ago
I like to talk about social issues and politics and stuff but the more I do it in public the more I run into what feels like "politics-as-basketball." It's really begun to feel like team sports as opposed to a critical analysis of conditions and power analysis.
- mieseratte 9y ago
  As someone in their mid-twenties, I have to ask the older HNers: has it always been this "stupid," so vitriolic and hateful? If not, when did it become this way?
  - adventured 9y ago
    The Revolutionary War era was as bad or worse than it is today. [1] They spit about as much venom at each other as you possibly could. They said arguably far worse things about each other than have been said about Trump or Obama. There was a bit of comparative calm that settled in, from the immediate time after the Civil War, until the late 1960s. The level of ugliness of ideological attacks that Franklin Roosevelt saw, for example, were nowhere near what Obama & Trump have seen. That century was a far calmer era for political vitriol, than the 1780-1860 time frame, or since the late 1960s. A not amusing Civil War era example: "In 1856, U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a speech criticizing pro-slavery southerners. Three days later, he was beaten so badly - on the Senate floor - by U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina that he didn’t return to the Senate for three years." [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-origins-of-todays-bitter-partisanship-the-founding-fathers/244839/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-ori...
  - ams6110 9y ago
    It has, but it's never been so easy to spout off to the world before, or be instantly informed about what other people are thinking. In the 1980s the media hated Reagan about as much as they hated Bush or Trump. Before that it was Nixon. But you really only heard about it if you watched the evening news, and that was 30 minutes of the day. It wasn't being fed to you continuously like an intravenous drip on your phone. It's the speed and pervasiveness that have increased, not so much the partisanship.
    - tim333 9y ago
      I'd disagree and say through the Bush Clinton Bush Obama period it wasn't as bad. I guess the levels of stupid vitriolic and hateful come and go. The world has definitely gone through worse phases as well, see the 1930s for example.
      - creaghpatr 9y ago
        They probably would have been worse to Bush up front had 9/11 not happened. Blasting the President in the year(s) after 9/11 would have probably been in poor taste through the eyes of the public.
    - Slansitartop 9y ago
      > In the 1980s the media hated Reagan about as much as they hated Bush or Trump. Before that it was Nixon. But you really only heard about it if you watched the evening news, and that was 30 minutes of the day. It wasn't being fed to you continuously like an intravenous drip on your phone. While I wasn't mature enough then to form my own opinion about it, I'm under the impression that the media was also more restrained and professional back then. Now it seems a lot more tabloid, generally. There also seems to be a burring between "opinion/editorial" and reporting, especially online, which fuels the polarization.
  - zeveb 9y ago
    I think maybe it has, and each of us doesn't notice it when we're younger and we think that we're really arguing about principles. Before Trump Derangement Syndrome (Russia!) there was Obama Derangement Syndrome (Kenya!); before that there was Bush Derangement Syndrome; before that there was Clinton Derangement Syndrome; before that Reagan Derangement Syndrome (Oliver Sacks even included a bit in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat which alleged that there are people with a neurological condition which causes them to detect lies, who couldn't watch Mr. Reagan speak because everything he said was a lie; if true this would have been quite an amazing discovery …), and so on & so forth. And of course a lot of this wasn't entirely unfounded. Mr. Obama really was the first anti-American president; Mr. Bush really was incompetent; Mr. Clinton really was a perjurer, philanderer, power-abuser & possible rapist; Mr. Reagan really did lie a lot (e.g. Iran-Contra); Mr. Carter really was incompetent; Mr. Nixon really was a crook; Mr. Johnson really was a crook &c. &c. &c. The fact that we keep on electing compromised, power-hungry people to a position of extreme power is no doubt part of the problem, but even back when the presidency was far weaker you had the partisans of Jefferson & Adams maligning one another with language we would be shocked at today. The only recent American president I can think of who was mostly decent was probably Gerald Ford, who never ran for the position. Maybe that's the secret.
  - paulsutter 9y ago
    No it was never this vitriolic or hateful
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    It goes in cycles, but anyone who imagines that e.g. the Civil War wasn't preceded by strong feelings has no sense of history. Keep in mind that decorum and conduct are different things. Since the 1950s, USA has done some awful things, with inconsistent discussion, heated or otherwise. As someone who regrets that history and takes Orwell seriously, I'm glad there are now some cracks in the consensus.
- adventured 9y ago
  As I've gotten older and have seen enough side switches, I've found it increasingly astounding to watch how predictably the partisans memory wipe themselves about XYZ terrible thing that their side did. Now that the bad side - the side they're not on - is in power, they must protest that same XYZ thing. It's said that Trump is terrible with journalists (he is). And there's Obama's quiet, terrifying war on journalists with the Espionage Act, that the partisans on that side almost entirely ignored. Assisting in the destruction of Syria and Libya is a fine thing to ignore (one should perhaps get a nobel peace prize for it). Destroying Iraq is genocide and a war crime. Or vice versa, depending on which side you're on. The sides just flip flop, memory wipe past misdeeds, and then resume the perpetual partisan war. I think it works to assist them in staying in power, maintaining the always conflict. Oceania is always at war with Eastasia.
  - the-dude 9y ago
    > Assisting in the destruction of Syria and Libya is a fine thing to ignore Will the US agression ever end? It is sickening.
  - germinalphrase 9y ago
    This is not a defense of the behavior - but it's been strongly asserted that Obama's crackdown on whistleblowers and journalists has more to do with improved abilities to track document access and sharing than it does the explicit desire to confront whistleblowers and journalists. All presidents have wanted to minimize whistleblowing and critical journalism, we just have better tools to understand just who, exactly, accessed that version of the 'secret prison memo' on Feb. 23. The investigations are more successful so more leakers and whistleblowers get caught.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      Yeah that sounds like everything else we've heard from NSA: "We can, so we will."
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Dialectic Materialism has been Weaponised. People think that because they are capable of pitching an anti-synthesis against a synthesis, they are intelligent - whereas nothing could be further from the truth. If you can't get out of the pro-vs-con mindset you are stuck in a trap designed to ensure you don't think beyond the curve, outside the event horizon of 'generally approved thought-process' society. People need to be given uncomfortable positions to evaluate. Just maybe, its important to not discount the conspiracies and realise that in fact truth is stranger than fiction ..
  - ixtli 9y ago
    This is interesting. Right now I'm of the mind that the best I can do is to continue to press on the inherent contradictions.
rdiddly 9y ago
...which is ironic, since due to that same polarization, Presidents in general seem to have less ability (or maybe it's inclination) than ever, to effect any meaningful change about anything that matters. It doesn't matter who's President.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Arguably that's how the U.S. government was designed to function. The new (well, the recurring thing) is that Congress, White House, and even the judiciary get more political capital from inaction and blame than they get from cooperation.
- macintux 9y ago
  > It doesn't matter who's President. It absolutely matters when something goes wrong outside our borders. If, hypothetically speaking, a small NATO country on Russia's border devolves into chaos thanks to, say, a massive power grid failure combined with agitation from Russian nationalists, and Russia then intervenes to "stabilize" the situation, the temperament of the president and coherence of the White House as a whole would make a great deal of difference in how the crisis evolves. Purely hypothetical, of course.
  - equalunique 9y ago
    Why does this sound like Ukraine
    - macintux 9y ago
      Ukraine is neither small nor NATO, but...yeah.
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        Estonia are cool, but they know they need to stay on good terms with their neighbors. John McCain doesn't run things anymore.
apotheothesomai 9y ago
Sure, it's just like that, because all that hacking of Democratic databases didn't happen. I think the assumption that the wrongdoing was a conspiracy to get Trump elected gets far too much attention and is a secondary issue, but unlike the birther issue, there was quite a bit of funny business in general. The birther issue was just made up a priori. The funny business, regardless of whether it benefited anyone, needs to be investigated. Once we understand what happened, then we can worry about whether it was an effort to swing the election or just a tactic for creating chaos.

ixtli 9y ago

I like to talk about social issues and politics and stuff but the more I do it in public the more I run into what feels like "politics-as-basketball." It's really begun to feel like team sports as opposed to a critical analysis of conditions and power analysis.

mieseratte 9y ago
As someone in their mid-twenties, I have to ask the older HNers: has it always been this "stupid," so vitriolic and hateful? If not, when did it become this way?
- adventured 9y ago
  The Revolutionary War era was as bad or worse than it is today. [1] They spit about as much venom at each other as you possibly could. They said arguably far worse things about each other than have been said about Trump or Obama. There was a bit of comparative calm that settled in, from the immediate time after the Civil War, until the late 1960s. The level of ugliness of ideological attacks that Franklin Roosevelt saw, for example, were nowhere near what Obama & Trump have seen. That century was a far calmer era for political vitriol, than the 1780-1860 time frame, or since the late 1960s. A not amusing Civil War era example: "In 1856, U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a speech criticizing pro-slavery southerners. Three days later, he was beaten so badly - on the Senate floor - by U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina that he didn’t return to the Senate for three years." [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-origins-of-todays-bitter-partisanship-the-founding-fathers/244839/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-ori...
- ams6110 9y ago
  It has, but it's never been so easy to spout off to the world before, or be instantly informed about what other people are thinking. In the 1980s the media hated Reagan about as much as they hated Bush or Trump. Before that it was Nixon. But you really only heard about it if you watched the evening news, and that was 30 minutes of the day. It wasn't being fed to you continuously like an intravenous drip on your phone. It's the speed and pervasiveness that have increased, not so much the partisanship.
  - tim333 9y ago
    I'd disagree and say through the Bush Clinton Bush Obama period it wasn't as bad. I guess the levels of stupid vitriolic and hateful come and go. The world has definitely gone through worse phases as well, see the 1930s for example.
    - creaghpatr 9y ago
      They probably would have been worse to Bush up front had 9/11 not happened. Blasting the President in the year(s) after 9/11 would have probably been in poor taste through the eyes of the public.
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    > In the 1980s the media hated Reagan about as much as they hated Bush or Trump. Before that it was Nixon. But you really only heard about it if you watched the evening news, and that was 30 minutes of the day. It wasn't being fed to you continuously like an intravenous drip on your phone. While I wasn't mature enough then to form my own opinion about it, I'm under the impression that the media was also more restrained and professional back then. Now it seems a lot more tabloid, generally. There also seems to be a burring between "opinion/editorial" and reporting, especially online, which fuels the polarization.
- zeveb 9y ago
  I think maybe it has, and each of us doesn't notice it when we're younger and we think that we're really arguing about principles. Before Trump Derangement Syndrome (Russia!) there was Obama Derangement Syndrome (Kenya!); before that there was Bush Derangement Syndrome; before that there was Clinton Derangement Syndrome; before that Reagan Derangement Syndrome (Oliver Sacks even included a bit in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat which alleged that there are people with a neurological condition which causes them to detect lies, who couldn't watch Mr. Reagan speak because everything he said was a lie; if true this would have been quite an amazing discovery …), and so on & so forth. And of course a lot of this wasn't entirely unfounded. Mr. Obama really was the first anti-American president; Mr. Bush really was incompetent; Mr. Clinton really was a perjurer, philanderer, power-abuser & possible rapist; Mr. Reagan really did lie a lot (e.g. Iran-Contra); Mr. Carter really was incompetent; Mr. Nixon really was a crook; Mr. Johnson really was a crook &c. &c. &c. The fact that we keep on electing compromised, power-hungry people to a position of extreme power is no doubt part of the problem, but even back when the presidency was far weaker you had the partisans of Jefferson & Adams maligning one another with language we would be shocked at today. The only recent American president I can think of who was mostly decent was probably Gerald Ford, who never ran for the position. Maybe that's the secret.
- paulsutter 9y ago
  No it was never this vitriolic or hateful
- jessaustin 9y ago
  It goes in cycles, but anyone who imagines that e.g. the Civil War wasn't preceded by strong feelings has no sense of history. Keep in mind that decorum and conduct are different things. Since the 1950s, USA has done some awful things, with inconsistent discussion, heated or otherwise. As someone who regrets that history and takes Orwell seriously, I'm glad there are now some cracks in the consensus.
adventured 9y ago
As I've gotten older and have seen enough side switches, I've found it increasingly astounding to watch how predictably the partisans memory wipe themselves about XYZ terrible thing that their side did. Now that the bad side - the side they're not on - is in power, they must protest that same XYZ thing. It's said that Trump is terrible with journalists (he is). And there's Obama's quiet, terrifying war on journalists with the Espionage Act, that the partisans on that side almost entirely ignored. Assisting in the destruction of Syria and Libya is a fine thing to ignore (one should perhaps get a nobel peace prize for it). Destroying Iraq is genocide and a war crime. Or vice versa, depending on which side you're on. The sides just flip flop, memory wipe past misdeeds, and then resume the perpetual partisan war. I think it works to assist them in staying in power, maintaining the always conflict. Oceania is always at war with Eastasia.
- the-dude 9y ago
  > Assisting in the destruction of Syria and Libya is a fine thing to ignore Will the US agression ever end? It is sickening.
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  This is not a defense of the behavior - but it's been strongly asserted that Obama's crackdown on whistleblowers and journalists has more to do with improved abilities to track document access and sharing than it does the explicit desire to confront whistleblowers and journalists. All presidents have wanted to minimize whistleblowing and critical journalism, we just have better tools to understand just who, exactly, accessed that version of the 'secret prison memo' on Feb. 23. The investigations are more successful so more leakers and whistleblowers get caught.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Yeah that sounds like everything else we've heard from NSA: "We can, so we will."
mmjaa 9y ago
Dialectic Materialism has been Weaponised. People think that because they are capable of pitching an anti-synthesis against a synthesis, they are intelligent - whereas nothing could be further from the truth. If you can't get out of the pro-vs-con mindset you are stuck in a trap designed to ensure you don't think beyond the curve, outside the event horizon of 'generally approved thought-process' society. People need to be given uncomfortable positions to evaluate. Just maybe, its important to not discount the conspiracies and realise that in fact truth is stranger than fiction ..
- ixtli 9y ago
  This is interesting. Right now I'm of the mind that the best I can do is to continue to press on the inherent contradictions.

rdiddly 9y ago

...which is ironic, since due to that same polarization, Presidents in general seem to have less ability (or maybe it's inclination) than ever, to effect any meaningful change about anything that matters. It doesn't matter who's President.

humanrebar 9y ago
Arguably that's how the U.S. government was designed to function. The new (well, the recurring thing) is that Congress, White House, and even the judiciary get more political capital from inaction and blame than they get from cooperation.
macintux 9y ago
> It doesn't matter who's President. It absolutely matters when something goes wrong outside our borders. If, hypothetically speaking, a small NATO country on Russia's border devolves into chaos thanks to, say, a massive power grid failure combined with agitation from Russian nationalists, and Russia then intervenes to "stabilize" the situation, the temperament of the president and coherence of the White House as a whole would make a great deal of difference in how the crisis evolves. Purely hypothetical, of course.
- equalunique 9y ago
  Why does this sound like Ukraine
  - macintux 9y ago
    Ukraine is neither small nor NATO, but...yeah.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      Estonia are cool, but they know they need to stay on good terms with their neighbors. John McCain doesn't run things anymore.

apotheothesomai 9y ago

Sure, it's just like that, because all that hacking of Democratic databases didn't happen. I think the assumption that the wrongdoing was a conspiracy to get Trump elected gets far too much attention and is a secondary issue, but unlike the birther issue, there was quite a bit of funny business in general. The birther issue was just made up a priori. The funny business, regardless of whether it benefited anyone, needs to be investigated. Once we understand what happened, then we can worry about whether it was an effort to swing the election or just a tactic for creating chaos.