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Ever since the Bush II years I've felt like the right and the left have been engaged in a competition over who can be the most irrational and insane. It's a gam

by api 7y ago

Ever since the Bush II years I've felt like the right and the left have been engaged in a competition over who can be the most irrational and insane. It's a game of reacting to reaction to reaction ... all the way down. If we have this on the left and the "alt-right" on the right, I'm a bit afraid of what the next round will bring. How much crazier can it get? I'm sure top minds on both sides are working tirelessly on things even dumber, meaner, and crazier than anything we've seen so far.

tuesdayrain 7y ago
I think worrying about the alt right is similar to worrying about antifa. Both seem to be fringe minority groups that get disproportionate amount of media attention. I've never met anyone in real life who claimed to be alt right, or repeated alt right talking points.
- api 7y ago
  I've met a few and I run into them online a lot. It depends on your circles and where you live, but it's not nearly as small as you think.
- luckydata 7y ago
  You're lucky. There's a LOT of crypto fascists in this country.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    Are we talking a lot in relative terms or absolute terms? How many is a lot and how did we get these estimations?
    - lobotryas 7y ago
      That’s a good question, but a bit pointless. Usually when people say “crypto fascist” it’s just shorthand for “people whose opinions I find inconvenient or with whom I don’t agree”.
      - luckydata 7y ago
        I mean "people that can be bonafide described as fascists by any reasonable standard but are smart enough not to broadcast their horrifying beliefs in polite society" but sure, be cute with words, it's the right moment for that historically.
        darkpuma 7y ago
        I am sure a fascist can hide in plain sight. But my currently unanswered question is how can you measure that? Is there any objective data here, or are we talking about our subjective perceptions of society?
- wincy 7y ago
  I live in Kansas City and the alt-right people definitely exist and I’ve had a long chat in person with at least one. It was even more bizarre because he was half Jewish and seemed really excited about an approaching race war, it was really shocking and scary to hear. It was also strange because he was convinced this coming race war would be fine for him because he “wasn’t raised Jewish”. For some reason I was convinced I could dissuade him, he stopped talking to me though. The vast majority of people I know, even the conservatives, are nothing like that though.
CapricornNoble 7y ago
>>Ever since the Bush II years I've felt like the right and the left have been engaged in a competition over who can be the most irrational and insane. Look at this article from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunda... Firstly I take some issue with the scope of the study being limited only to North America and Western Europe.....and completely ignoring the Asian democracies which largely skew more to the right. But scroll down to the third graphic (the line graph). The Republicans are slightly more-right-wing than they were 2000-2008. The Democrat's platform, however, has sharply gone off the deep end of the Left since 2008. But most PEOPLE are fairly centrist. Even if they are slightly-left-of-center, the Democratic party's extremism is pushing normal to abandon them. But they long-standing Democrat power structures have an outsized influence on media and information channels, hence the non-stop bombardment of outrage culture at how everyone is a "Nazi". Ever notice that almost no-one uses "Communist" as an epithet anymore, despite the world's two major historical Communist governments having by FAR the largest domestic bodycounts of the modern age?

by api 7y ago

tuesdayrain 7y ago

I think worrying about the alt right is similar to worrying about antifa. Both seem to be fringe minority groups that get disproportionate amount of media attention. I've never met anyone in real life who claimed to be alt right, or repeated alt right talking points.

api 7y ago
I've met a few and I run into them online a lot. It depends on your circles and where you live, but it's not nearly as small as you think.
luckydata 7y ago
You're lucky. There's a LOT of crypto fascists in this country.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  Are we talking a lot in relative terms or absolute terms? How many is a lot and how did we get these estimations?
  - lobotryas 7y ago
    That’s a good question, but a bit pointless. Usually when people say “crypto fascist” it’s just shorthand for “people whose opinions I find inconvenient or with whom I don’t agree”.
    - luckydata 7y ago
      I mean "people that can be bonafide described as fascists by any reasonable standard but are smart enough not to broadcast their horrifying beliefs in polite society" but sure, be cute with words, it's the right moment for that historically.
      - darkpuma 7y ago
        I am sure a fascist can hide in plain sight. But my currently unanswered question is how can you measure that? Is there any objective data here, or are we talking about our subjective perceptions of society?
wincy 7y ago
I live in Kansas City and the alt-right people definitely exist and I’ve had a long chat in person with at least one. It was even more bizarre because he was half Jewish and seemed really excited about an approaching race war, it was really shocking and scary to hear. It was also strange because he was convinced this coming race war would be fine for him because he “wasn’t raised Jewish”. For some reason I was convinced I could dissuade him, he stopped talking to me though. The vast majority of people I know, even the conservatives, are nothing like that though.

CapricornNoble 7y ago

>>Ever since the Bush II years I've felt like the right and the left have been engaged in a competition over who can be the most irrational and insane. Look at this article from the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunda... Firstly I take some issue with the scope of the study being limited only to North America and Western Europe.....and completely ignoring the Asian democracies which largely skew more to the right. But scroll down to the third graphic (the line graph). The Republicans are slightly more-right-wing than they were 2000-2008. The Democrat's platform, however, has sharply gone off the deep end of the Left since 2008. But most PEOPLE are fairly centrist. Even if they are slightly-left-of-center, the Democratic party's extremism is pushing normal to abandon them. But they long-standing Democrat power structures have an outsized influence on media and information channels, hence the non-stop bombardment of outrage culture at how everyone is a "Nazi". Ever notice that almost no-one uses "Communist" as an epithet anymore, despite the world's two major historical Communist governments having by FAR the largest domestic bodycounts of the modern age?