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Conservative perceptions of their opponents have very little basis in reality as most of what conservatives perceive regarding their opponents is projection int

Conservative perceptions of their opponents have very little basis in reality as most of what conservatives perceive regarding their opponents is projection intended to deflect from their own misbehavior. Conservative messaging is driven almost exclusively by fabricated outrage for which there is no non-conservative equivalent; non-conservative messaging is driven by outrage over actual conservative behavior. Non-conservative media spreads outrage at factual abuses of power by conservative elites (such as the dismantling democratic norms, or police brutality) while conservative media creates outrage by giving voice to fabricated controversies created over trivialities, such as over tan suits and arugula, or by amplifying non-genuine controversies manufactured by astroturf groups. There's no more of an equivalency between conservative and non-conservative media any more than there's an equivalency between actual public health experts and the kind of people who think injecting bleach cures COVID-19. There is such a thing as objective reality and the history of the past forty years of conservative politics is a history of conservatives abandoning objective reality in favor of delusions they find comforting.

throwaways885 6y ago
> There is such a thing as objective reality and the history of the past forty years of conservative politics is a history of conservatives abandoning objective reality in favor of delusions they find comforting. Again, "the other side" has the exact same concerns about your tribe.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Again, just because conservatives (or anyone else) strongly believes something does not make it true. Take the conservative position on climate change, for instance, which over the past forty years has degenerated from 'there's not enough of a consensus to act' through 'it's happening but it's not human caused' to 'the science is a Chinese conspiracy theory to destroy America.' Also note the increasing fondness of senior Republican figures, from Trump downwards, for Q-anon and it's associated conspiracy theories. Notably, there's no Democratic Q-anon equivalent of any statute. Finally, while in office, Trump has told upwards of 20,000 lies regarding objective facts[0]. There's no equivalent lie count for Obama, Biden, or any other prominent non-conservative in very large part because they, unlike prominent conservatives, accept that objective reality exists and see their duty as finding a way to cope with it. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president...
AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
At first I downvoted you. Then I realized that this is a stupid way to have a discussion, so here's my reply instead. I would love to see a specific example of "conservative fabricated outrage". Not because I haven't seen any in my life, but to align our understandings of the fabricated outage. The most recent one is probably that with a new supreme court judge nomination. Here's what I managed to find out: - according to [1] rejecting a supreme court nominee from the opposite party is a relatively rare, but not completely outstanding event. Last time (ignoring current senate) it happened when Reagan nominated Bork in 1987. - in "good olde times" senate minority could use filibuster to block the unacceptable nominee. This option has been eliminated by Harry Reid in 2013. All McConnell did was to keep the status quo. - current situation is in no way unique: over the history of USA 29 times supreme court judges were nominated in election year. In case of aligned senate 17 nominations out of 19 were confirmed. In case of a misaligned senate 2 out of 10 nominations were confirmed. - in 2016 dems have brought up some very good arguments to why having just 8 judges is problematic and why the president should nominate a judge as soon as possible (even in election year). I personally think these arguments were exceptionally reasonable and they still hold in 2020: the president should indeed nominate a judge as soon as possible Your turn? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nominations_to_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nominations_to_the_Sup...
- bb611 6y ago
  I'll leave GP to answer the outrage comments, but I think the rest reasonably calls out for perspective. Merrick Garland wasn't just not confirmed, his nomination was ignored for 9.5 months. As you point out, it's not uncommon for opposition party senates to turn down supreme court nominees, as is their due. It is, however, extremely rare for them not to hear those nominations at all, and Garland's nomination timeline stands out for its longevity. Out of 163 nominations, only 11 have lapsed (from your wiki link, which lists an incorrect count in the summary). Reverse chronological order of the most recent 5: - Garland (2016): 293 days. Opposition senate. - John Marshall Harlan II (1954): 27 days in lapsed nomination + 49 days for confirmation. Ally senate, confirmed by opposition senate. - Pierce Butler (1922): 14 days lapsed nomination + 16 days for confirmation. Ally senate. - William Hornblower (1893): 45 days lapsed + 41 days to reject confirmation. Ally senate. - Stanley Matthers (1881): 36 days lapsed + 59 days to confirm. Opposition senate, confirmed by split senate. The point being that there is essentially no historical precedent for this behavior, to the point that we need to look 135 years in the past simply to find any example of an opposition senate delaying a candidate's nomination. Even then, Garland is the supreme court nominee with the most time under nomination in US congressional history by a factor of more than 2. > over the history of USA 29 times supreme court judges were nominated in election year This doesn't really do justice to the history here, 1/4 of those nominations happened in a single year due to conflict between President Tyler and the Whig party, and an overlapping 1/4 were withdrawals. The last ~170 years of supreme court nominees have been pretty uninteresting and undramatic. - Garland (2016): lapsed. Ally senate. - Fortas (1968): confirmed. Ally senate. - Thornberry (1968) withdrawn because the seat was no longer available, due to some musical chairs replacing Chief Justice Earl Warren. Ally Senate. - Murphy (1940): confirmed. Ally senate. - Cardozo (1932): confirmed. Ally senate. - Clarke (1916): confirmed. Ally senate. - Brandeis (1916): confirmed. Ally senate. - Pitney (1912): confirmed. Ally senate. - Shiras (1892): confirmed. Ally senate. - Fuller (1888): confimed. Opposition senate. - Woods (1880): confirmed. Opposition senate. - Hunt (1872): confirmed. Ally senate. - Chase (1864): confirmed. Ally senate. - Bradford (1852): lapsed. Opposition senate. - 7 various nominations (1844): none confirmed. Opposition senate. - Crittenden (1828): postponed i.e. rejected. Opposition senate. - Johnson (1804): confirmed. Ally senate. - Ellsworth (1796): confirmed. Washington was president and rejected party politics, but the Federalists were friendly with him, so ally senate. - Chase (1796): confirmed. Ally senate. - Cushing (1796): confirmed. Ally senate. I think there's plenty of evidence that Garland's nomination fight radically rocked the boat in US national politics, and we're likely to see similar boat rocking over the next few years as Democrats are pushed harder to abuse the limits of their power in order to improve their leverage on Republicans.

throwaways885 6y ago

> There is such a thing as objective reality and the history of the past forty years of conservative politics is a history of conservatives abandoning objective reality in favor of delusions they find comforting. Again, "the other side" has the exact same concerns about your tribe.

bleepblorp 6y ago
Again, just because conservatives (or anyone else) strongly believes something does not make it true. Take the conservative position on climate change, for instance, which over the past forty years has degenerated from 'there's not enough of a consensus to act' through 'it's happening but it's not human caused' to 'the science is a Chinese conspiracy theory to destroy America.' Also note the increasing fondness of senior Republican figures, from Trump downwards, for Q-anon and it's associated conspiracy theories. Notably, there's no Democratic Q-anon equivalent of any statute. Finally, while in office, Trump has told upwards of 20,000 lies regarding objective facts[0]. There's no equivalent lie count for Obama, Biden, or any other prominent non-conservative in very large part because they, unlike prominent conservatives, accept that objective reality exists and see their duty as finding a way to cope with it. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president...

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago

At first I downvoted you. Then I realized that this is a stupid way to have a discussion, so here's my reply instead. I would love to see a specific example of "conservative fabricated outrage". Not because I haven't seen any in my life, but to align our understandings of the fabricated outage. The most recent one is probably that with a new supreme court judge nomination. Here's what I managed to find out: - according to [1] rejecting a supreme court nominee from the opposite party is a relatively rare, but not completely outstanding event. Last time (ignoring current senate) it happened when Reagan nominated Bork in 1987. - in "good olde times" senate minority could use filibuster to block the unacceptable nominee. This option has been eliminated by Harry Reid in 2013. All McConnell did was to keep the status quo. - current situation is in no way unique: over the history of USA 29 times supreme court judges were nominated in election year. In case of aligned senate 17 nominations out of 19 were confirmed. In case of a misaligned senate 2 out of 10 nominations were confirmed. - in 2016 dems have brought up some very good arguments to why having just 8 judges is problematic and why the president should nominate a judge as soon as possible (even in election year). I personally think these arguments were exceptionally reasonable and they still hold in 2020: the president should indeed nominate a judge as soon as possible Your turn? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nominations_to_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nominations_to_the_Sup...

bb611 6y ago
I'll leave GP to answer the outrage comments, but I think the rest reasonably calls out for perspective. Merrick Garland wasn't just not confirmed, his nomination was ignored for 9.5 months. As you point out, it's not uncommon for opposition party senates to turn down supreme court nominees, as is their due. It is, however, extremely rare for them not to hear those nominations at all, and Garland's nomination timeline stands out for its longevity. Out of 163 nominations, only 11 have lapsed (from your wiki link, which lists an incorrect count in the summary). Reverse chronological order of the most recent 5: - Garland (2016): 293 days. Opposition senate. - John Marshall Harlan II (1954): 27 days in lapsed nomination + 49 days for confirmation. Ally senate, confirmed by opposition senate. - Pierce Butler (1922): 14 days lapsed nomination + 16 days for confirmation. Ally senate. - William Hornblower (1893): 45 days lapsed + 41 days to reject confirmation. Ally senate. - Stanley Matthers (1881): 36 days lapsed + 59 days to confirm. Opposition senate, confirmed by split senate. The point being that there is essentially no historical precedent for this behavior, to the point that we need to look 135 years in the past simply to find any example of an opposition senate delaying a candidate's nomination. Even then, Garland is the supreme court nominee with the most time under nomination in US congressional history by a factor of more than 2. > over the history of USA 29 times supreme court judges were nominated in election year This doesn't really do justice to the history here, 1/4 of those nominations happened in a single year due to conflict between President Tyler and the Whig party, and an overlapping 1/4 were withdrawals. The last ~170 years of supreme court nominees have been pretty uninteresting and undramatic. - Garland (2016): lapsed. Ally senate. - Fortas (1968): confirmed. Ally senate. - Thornberry (1968) withdrawn because the seat was no longer available, due to some musical chairs replacing Chief Justice Earl Warren. Ally Senate. - Murphy (1940): confirmed. Ally senate. - Cardozo (1932): confirmed. Ally senate. - Clarke (1916): confirmed. Ally senate. - Brandeis (1916): confirmed. Ally senate. - Pitney (1912): confirmed. Ally senate. - Shiras (1892): confirmed. Ally senate. - Fuller (1888): confimed. Opposition senate. - Woods (1880): confirmed. Opposition senate. - Hunt (1872): confirmed. Ally senate. - Chase (1864): confirmed. Ally senate. - Bradford (1852): lapsed. Opposition senate. - 7 various nominations (1844): none confirmed. Opposition senate. - Crittenden (1828): postponed i.e. rejected. Opposition senate. - Johnson (1804): confirmed. Ally senate. - Ellsworth (1796): confirmed. Washington was president and rejected party politics, but the Federalists were friendly with him, so ally senate. - Chase (1796): confirmed. Ally senate. - Cushing (1796): confirmed. Ally senate. I think there's plenty of evidence that Garland's nomination fight radically rocked the boat in US national politics, and we're likely to see similar boat rocking over the next few years as Democrats are pushed harder to abuse the limits of their power in order to improve their leverage on Republicans.