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It's amazing. My friends on the left think the only reason for voting trump is racism, and friends on the right think the only reason for voting biden is social
by bfieidhbrjr 6y ago
It's amazing. My friends on the left think the only reason for voting trump is racism, and friends on the right think the only reason for voting biden is socialism.
Where did all the intellect go?
The social dilemma documentary I think is very useful. It feels like social media bubbles are a large component, although of course there have been many contentious elections in the past.
Being centrist I can relate to parts of both sides but my experience is they both dislike centrists.
- bra-ket 6y agoTrump has been blatantly slandered by the mainstream media as racist evil orange man, it was 4 years of '1984' style brainwashing by the left. One of the big reasons for voting Trump was standing up against this propaganda machine.
- augustt 6y agoWould that slander look something like this? https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/06/18/nyregion/18nytrump1/18nytrump1-superJumbo.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/06/18/nyregion/18nytrum...
- bra-ket 6y agoAre you familiar with 1994 crime bill Biden signed? "We need more prisons" he said, watch his old speech on youtube. Kamala put tens of thousands of black people in prison for minor marijuana offenses. The hypocrisy of the liberals is mind-boggling.
- augustt 6y agoUh huh, because Republicans have a great track record when it comes to the war on drugs. We can whatabout all day
- arkis22 6y agorepublicans are hypocrites, democrats are not. got it
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- m0llusk 6y agoBiden should be held accountable for excesses of the Drug War which he supported, but Kamala Harris was Attorney General for California and as such it was her job to enforce the law. Kamala Harris did strictly enforce the law, but also provided many with options to avoid punishment by staying employed and not reoffending. At this point hypocrisy in politics is pervasive so it is important to be specific about what people did or did not say or do.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chillacy 6y agoMost progressives are actually not too happy about these things but voting in a two party system is a compromise for most people, not a purity test..
- Fuzzwah 6y ago"Slandered"..... When he didn't immediately condemn protestors marching under the damn Nazi flag he sort of positioned him self didn't he?
- bra-ket 6y agolabeling everyone protecting Robert E. Lee statue as 'neo-nazi' is a reach, same as labeling all BLM protesters thugs and looters.
- pjc50 6y agoQuite right. The correct label for those protecting the slaver statue is Klan. No other country has statues to the traitors in its civil war.
- gspetr 6y agoThe Nazi concentration camps still stand. Furthermore, when people vandalized Auschwitz's notorious "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work sets you free) sign[0] it was restored. If even Jews wish to preserve the concentration camps for the significance of historical mistakes for humanity that they represent, what does it say about those who wish to destroy history elsewhere? "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei#Thefts_of_Arbeit_Macht_Frei_signs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei#Thefts_of_Ar...
- kybernetikos 6y agoIs it your contention that the people defending the statue of Lee would have given similar reasons for their behaviour as those who restored Auschwitz's sign? I ask, because that seems very unlikely to me. Context is important. Few are arguing that there shouldn't be remembrances of those people and events and the reasons for them, it's how those things are remembered that is in question.
- 6y ago
- ChrisClark 6y agoTake a close look at yourself and who you've been listening to.
- bra-ket 6y agoI've been listening primarily to the liberal mainstream news propaganda. Their lies are obvious if you dig a bit deeper, look at the facts and think for yourself. Apparently critical thinking is what college-educated people lack this days after years of indoctrination into groupthink and compliance. Deresiewicz called them 'excellent sheep' for a good reason.
- pron 6y agoI find this kind epistemology fascinating. Suppose I were to not believe any institutional message, and lend it no credence whatsoever. "Thinking for myself" is not enough. Ultimately, I need information that I can't gather myself, and, often enough, some expert who can put it into context, because there are too many things and too little time, and learning anything in depth requires years. So, in the end, you have to trust someone, and it seems to me that the people who say "think for yourself" or "do your own research" might be skeptical of institutional sources, but are quicker to trust other sources than your "excellent sheep," but why they trust the particular sources they trust is pretty mysterious. I tried, as a "magical mystery tour" exercise of sort, to see if I could get into the conspiracy theories that permeate the Trump world, but found that I was too skeptical and couldn't truly bring myself to believe what they believe, even as an experiment, because their entire epistemological system, the philosophy of how they come to "know" something, is something I couldn't follow the rules of. How someone's reputation is determined was a mystery to me. There are no documented methodologies, no agreed-upon "scientific method", no peer review. I once asked someone how he knew something, and he said that he'd done his own research. I asked him which databases and archives they had access to, but then realized that what he meant by "research" was that he'd read some posts on Facebook by people he didn't know and watched some videos on YouTube, also by people he didn't know, and he'd judged their reputation based on the opinions of others, but those others had had just the same corpus of knowledge, and nobody actually had any access to primary data, and no one even thought this should make them skeptical. So how do you know that this conspiracy theory is something you should believe but not that other one? I assumed there was some internal logic, but I just couldn't find a pattern. I think it has to do with the aesthetics of the story; how dramatic it is, how good-vs-evil, and whether it fits with an overarching meta-conspiracy-theory of hidden powers. If the story is dramatic, they believe it. In other words, the truth is whatever makes for a good story, where I am played as a pawn of some hidden cabal. But perhaps you can shed some more light on that epistemological process.
- arkis22 6y agoI think it's sad you've been downvoted. Trump is deeply flawed, but I think people are being ignorant of themselves if they haven't looked around at popular culture and realized that it has been 4 years of "ORANGE MAN BAD" nepotism with his children is bad, but nepotism with the democrats children is fine. joke downvotes by people smart enough to know that defending trump is bad, but not smart enough to come up with a comment
- pavlov 6y ago> "nepotism with his children is bad, but nepotism with the democrats children is fine." Do you seriously believe that Biden as president will appoint his children as senior advisers and put his son-in-law in charge of everything from Middle East to Covid-19 response? If not, then you can't argue that it's the same nepotism on both sides. It's clearly been much worse with the Trumps.
- arkis22 6y agono, I don't. But I'm so glad that you'll suddenly being paying attention to nepotism appointments, like Lisa and Mike Madigan in Illinois. I'm just saying that you won't complain about them, and you didn't. Just those mean old republicans matter. I can't imagine what ridiculous credit democrats would take if the middle east countries kept normalizing relations with israel like they did in the past 6 months.
- pavlov 6y agoWas either of these Madigans the President of the United States, and the other a close relative in charge of half of the administration's portfolio? If not, then it's not the same. I'll probably start caring about Madigans when they're nationally relevant.
- arkis22 6y ago"manipulative democrats didnt effect me and therefore are not relevant" enjoy your bubble, especially if you think the family actually made a single important decision and weren't just there for useless stature.
- sosborn 6y agoSimilarly, it was 8 years of "Kenyan man bad" by the right.
- arkis22 6y agolol probably less than 5% of people actually gave a crap or thought he was from Kenya. it was more like, "liberal president who wants to do more, pushes through mass healthcare and finance reform without bipartisan support bad" the narrative that all republicans are racist is way more convenient though, go for that.
- sosborn 6y agoIt’s very telling you assume that I think all republicans are rascist.
- arkis22 6y agodemocrats routinely accuse republicans of being racist. especially more than the opposite, so I'm not sure why you thought that would help.
- scrollaway 6y agoThe comment you are replying to does not say nor imply that. What is telling, is that you think it does.
- akhilcacharya 6y agoOne of the 5% is the current and soon to be former president.
- watwut 6y agoLiterally Trump who later became president made a big deal about birth certificate.
- arkis22 6y ago"trump says something dumb" more news at 11 the presidency is not "not saying dumb things" it's signing or rejecting bills.
- cortesoft 6y agoI heard him on tape (and he never denied it was him) say he could grab women by the pussy. That is enough to mean you are not qualified to hold any office, ever.
- faceless33 6y agoMany man desire is to grab woman by the pussy. It is biology.
- kybernetikos 6y ago> One of the big reasons for voting Trump was standing up against this propaganda machine. This is a horrible reason to vote. You should vote for the person you will think would do the best job of running the country out of the available choices. Voting out of pettiness or personal offence is corrosive to the signal your vote should be carrying.
- bra-ket 6y agoTrump is a great President, with a track record of being true to his word in the matters of policy, that was another big reason to vote for him. But dems are trying to shove their agenda down people throats. If you don't stand up against lies, bullying and manipulation how different are you from people who conceded to Nazi thugs in Germany when they were grabbing political power through blatant propaganda and violence.
- kybernetikos 6y agoThe way you stand up against lies, manipulation and propaganda is through truth, not just a mindless allergic reaction. It doesn't matter what partisans have been shouting at you about their preferred candidate, you need to make a decision based on how the real candidates will behave in office. If I took what you said at face value, I could change your vote through simply bombarding you with enough lies and propaganda against Biden. That is clearly illogical, and so much so that I don't think you really mean it that way.
- taharvey 6y agoYour statement is de-latched from facts. What are you smoking.. seriously? Who is following in the footsteps of strong-man totalitarian practices? Trump. You can not name any democrat that would fit this description. Who uses propaganda incessantly. Trump. 25,000 provably false statement in 4 years. Fox news, owned by a Trump ally , maintained a stead stream of provably false pro-Trump right-wing propaganda. Does any democrat or other politician in US history is have such a record? None. Who is trying on undermining government and shove an agenda down our throats. Trump and the Republicans, who despite have little popular support for many of their policies (by independent polling) use gerrymandering to twist the vote, actively obstruct the government from governing, jamb right-wing extremist justices into court positions. Do democrats ever do this? Almost never. I grew up in the New York area, like other new yorker's who voted 90% for Biden, we all know something you don't. We've seen his ridiculous antics for decades. He has been a perpetual lier, tax-evader, serial failed business man, narcissistic self-promoter, and con-man. Heck he's been a democrat... but I guess that was back when he needed all those abortions for his mistresses. In the end, he like much of his elections team, will be put in jail for his crimes. But because he knows he's done a lot of illegal shit, he will first pardon himself... just watch.
- jahbrewski 6y agoI appreciate your centrist views! I think the loss of nuance to our political discussions is a disaster ...and I only see it getting worse. I believe there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle, but often feel like the only one with that viewpoint. How can we fix this?
- eecc 6y agoWell, nuance is not an exclusively centrist quality. There’s nuance in radical thinking as well
- jfim 6y agoI'm not sure that has changed that much. There's always been a component of politics that's tribal in nature, and it takes a lot to overcome that inertia. It's not unlike sports, where people will root for the local team, even though there's not much that's local about the team other than the name. You can see that behavior for example around the ACA. It's obviously inspired by Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care reform, so you'd think the Republicans would be all in favor of it. Yet at the federal level, since it was pitched by the Democrats, the Republicans are against it.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoThe thing is: your friends aren’t completely wrong, in that their are loud racists that support Trump, and loud socialists that support Biden. But they aren’t the majority of either party. It’s just our media that amplifies their voices.
- pjc50 6y agoThe socialists that support Biden do so with noses held and muttering about "liberals".
- globular-toast 6y agoEven your view of left/right being a spectrum is a woefully inadequate model. In reality political parties sit on at least two dimensions, as shown by the political compass. People who can only think in terms of left/right, red/blue, etc simply shouldn't be voting.
- Akababa 6y agoYeah, but left/right is a big part of what differentiates political parties. It's like the first factor in a PCA decomposition.
- kybernetikos 6y agoI would love to see a decent PCA decomposition if you've got one. The way Left/Right is defined seems pretty arbitrary and varies a lot between cultures.
- globular-toast 6y agoIt changes over time too. I learnt that it was about economic policy, but today it's some weird mixture of economic policy, progressive vs conservative, liberal vs totalitarian etc. For example, in the US right now it would be totally normal to label someone who doesn't support gay rights as "right wing". Left/right have essentially become buckets where certain arbitrary issues end up residing.
- globular-toast 6y agoIf you want to bring in rigorous analysis you have to first define what left/right even is. Is it economic policy? You really think the biggest thing that differentiates red/blue is economic policy? They both sit firmly on the right.
- nobodyandproud 6y agoAny nuance is met with vitriol. Explaining why taxes, redistribution of wealth, and allowing government to oversee certain services is actually beneficial to a market is a sure fire way to get called out as a communist and radical leftist. Pointing out why historically, conservatives were deadset against abortion —in order to have a more productive discussion using pure history, not Bannon-style nonsense—is met with a absolute refusal to acknowledge the evidence. Having a nuanced view makes no friends and just generates suspicion by all sides. Secretly, I like it.
- hornd 6y agoWhy have conservatives been historically against abortion?
- camel_Snake 6y agoThey haven't. It's a political alliance with the anti-abortion crowd. The 1976 Republican party platform was the first to include a stance on abortion.
- defen 6y agoThey haven't been, in the long view. Historically abortion was a Catholic issue, and sometimes liberal Protestant[1]. It generally wasn't an issue for Evangelicals, who were also mainly on the political left. Then in the late 60s the teenage son of a popular Evangelical pastor/author[2] became concerned for the rights of the unborn, convinced his father to take that message to the masses, it worked, and Republicans figured out that it would be a way to build a new coalition. If you look at the extreme countercultures of the 60s, you see one side who hated "the system" that produced mass affluence, but loved the fruits of it. The other side loved the system, but hated the fruits. So one way to look at it is as a sort of political shibboleth indicating that you were definitely on one side and not the other. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=cf5RFWIMJugC&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=cf5RFWIMJugC&pg=PA42&lpg=P... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer
- 6y ago
- tshaddox 6y agoWhat is the (or your) intellectual analysis?
- dayofthedaleks 6y agoThis is a false equivalency because voting for Trump in 2020 is a demonstration of complicity with a years-long record of racist rhetoric and policies while it’s simply laughable that a Biden administration would implement anything as redistributive as the New Deal, much less hiring true socialists in the administration. I blame Fox News for getting away with a decade of bad-faith claims of socialism towards things like mortgage assistance or Pre-K education.
- paulddraper 6y ago> a years-long record of racist policies Trump gained significant ground among racial minorities. So...IDK how to square that with your characterization of his 4 years of policies. PS. Lest you think the right has a monopoly on racism, I point you no further than California's attempted repeal of discrimination law (Prop 209). This is the same sort of inflated rhetoric/tribalism the grandparent was speaking of.
- CameronNemo 6y agoTrump received 8% of the votes of black people.
- paulddraper 6y ago12% according to NY Times [1], double what he got in 2016 [2]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examinati...
- taharvey 6y agoProves only gullibility has no racial boundaries.
- refurb 6y ago
- jancsika 6y agoBeing a centrist doesn't magically save you from being in an information bubble.
- FDSGSG 6y ago>Being centrist I can relate to parts of both sides but my experience is they both dislike centrists. Is Biden not a centrist? He seems to be a right-of-center christian democrat like Merkel for example.
- scrollaway 6y agoHe is, in European terms. The US is on a completely different scale.
- FDSGSG 6y agoIs it even meaningful to speak of centrism in a US context?
- scrollaway 6y agoNot really. The US has turned "centrism" into a swear word. But that's kind of the point and why calling Biden centre-right is, eh. He's a Democrat; most Democrats are centre-right and most progressives are centre-left. Such is the left wing of the USA.
- traceddd 6y agoI’ll add one doesn’t have to be a centrist by any means to choose intellect over tribalism. The “left”, the “right”, and the “none of the above” can all achieve it too if they spend less time on media driven depictions and more on deeply exploring the issues. Centrists have it easier because they naturally see positive aspects of both sides, and that is exactly what is needed. If one can’t put themselves in the shoes of the other side and find a few strong legitimate and logical reasons they can connect with, then they really don’t understand what they are even fighting. You should be able to argue the other side. The reasons are there, and emotion only serves to blind us to them.
- vvanders 6y agoI think when there is common set of facts that could be agreed upon that might be possible. The rejection of basic facts, outright lies and contempt of science. I don't know how you can have a discourse in that environment.
- throw0101a 6y ago> My friends on the left think the only reason for voting trump is racism […] While saying the "only" reason is too strong, there have a number of studies showing it was a key factor: * https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096518000367 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096518000367 * https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0002716218811309 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0002716218811309 * https://doi.org/10.1086/700001 https://doi.org/10.1086/700001 * https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2018.1441844 https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2018.1441844 * https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2017.1378296 https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2017.1378296 * https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfx048 https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfx048 * PDF: http://acme.highpoint.edu/~msetzler/Why_Did_Women_Vote_for_Donald_.pdf http://acme.highpoint.edu/~msetzler/Why_Did_Women_Vote_for_D...
- tick_tock_tick 6y agoThat's clearly why he did so much better with minorities this time then 2016 right?
- iheartnetwork 6y agoVoters vote against their own self-interests all the time. It does not invalidate the OP's point.
- kombucha111 6y agoAnd people can't vote against their interests, be mislead or be straight up wrong. Isn't that just falling for demagoguery in the end? It's not like the electorate is truly informed in the US.
- throw0101a 6y agoThe people who voted for Trump are not all racists. But the racists probably did vote for Trump.
- ernst_klim 6y ago> CN was measured in Wave 4 using a five-item version of the Collective Narcissism Scale (Golec de Zavala et al. 2009; Golec de Zavala, Cichocka, and Bilewicz 2013). The items were: “If the United States had a major say in the world, the world would be a much better place,” “The United States deserves special treatment,” “It really makes me angry when others criticize the United States,” “Not many people seem to fully understand the importance of the United States,” and “I will never be satisfied until the United States gets the recognition it deserves.” All items used a seven-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). I dunno, that doesn't sound sound to me, and people tend to draw bold conclusions from such matters. I've seen quite a lot of such papers, proving that "conservatives are knowing liberals better than vice versa" or similar, but diving into methodology it seems like people are trying to exacerbate what the data says. People voting for Trump are regular blue collar workers loosing from globalization. Hence they want walls. I don't think there is any good in demonizing them.
- FooBarBizBazz 6y agoYeah, there's a lot of really dumb straw-manning going on. A good phrase I ran into is "strategic empathy". Like Sun Tzu teaches: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Sadly, humans seem allergic to this kind of thinking. As Orwell writes in "Notes on Nationalism": "The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also – since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself – unshakeably certain of being in the right." The smart (if mistaken) reasons to vote Trump were always trade and the Democratic Party's abandonment of Labor. And Republicans, on the other hand, who think Biden is a socialist are delusional. It's possible, though, that people aren't as dumb as they seem. For an individual, pretending not to empathize with the opposition is probably safer in a tribalized society. So perhaps that's what we're really witnessing.
- thingsgoup 6y agoIt’s not Biden who is considered the socialist, it’s Kamala, and the concern by the right is that Biden - on his way in - is already on his way out.
- js2 6y agoThe term socialist had no meaning in the US. It's just slander from the right and has been for over a century. In any case, Biden was called a socialist before he picked his VP. e.g. https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1241717700839247873 https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1241717700...
- js2 6y ago> the Democratic Party's abandonment of Labor. The Democratic Party didn't abandon labor. Labor and the electorate abandoned the Democratic Party. Starved for funding and votes, the Democratic Party moved right and embraced neoliberalism. Mondale was pro-labor. He was crushed by Reagan in 1984. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Democratic_Party#Presidency_of_Ronald_Reagan_(1981%E2%80%931989) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States... https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/22/magazine/labor-s-gamble-on-mondale.html https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/22/magazine/labor-s-gamble-o... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
- Ataraxy 6y agoIt's probably because so called centrists don't stand for much of anything beyond trying to gain a social edge by pretending they're above it all when they aren't. It's an excuse to attempt to distill belief systems into a very narrow point of view precisely like you've described with the whole "only reason" nonsense. I'd really appreciate it if one could describe why they consider themselves one since it's totally meaningless to me when someone self identifies as a centrist. Just like in marketing it's all about how you frame a question to a person. Realistically most people share common beliefs at the fundamental level in what they want to see out of the power structures in our society. In other words, the vast majority of people in this country want to improve upon their material conditions. The rest of the circlejerk is just grifting.
- FpUser 6y ago>"...I'd really appreciate it if one could describe why they consider themselves one since it's totally meaningless to me when someone self identifies as a centrist." Why would they care whether it has a meaning to you. They care about their own beliefs.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rm445 6y agoA couple of ideas: (1) Centrism is situational. One might think that the status quo is objectively reasonably close to the ideal, in terms of the general way society is arranged even if there are many imperfections. (2) Centrism is technocratic. If you don't favour a lurch to the left or right, it would make sense to want efficient improvements to how things are run - accepting good ideas regardless of which area of the political compass they come from, bipartisan support for policies on their merits. Based on the above, centrism (and indeed, being centre-left or centre-right) seems viable as a real belief that people can hold, not some strategy to appear above it all for social benefit, or as a stratagem used by someone actually highly partisan. A centrist's goals could be directly met by encouraging trial of different ideas across the political spectrum, and consistent meta-level rules rather than tribalist thinking. Trying to rise above the bunfighting isn't the benefit of centrist views, it's a necessity to enable the things they want to achieve.
- davesque 6y agoDo you live in SV? That might have something to do with it. I have plenty of friends on the right and left who don't think in absolutes.
- thatwasunusual 6y ago> My friends on the left think the only reason for voting trump is racism, and friends on the right think the only reason for voting biden is socialism. Where did all the intellect go? Why don't you ask them?
- bfieidhbrjr 6y agoBecause they go insane and get very angry. I've learnt not to ask.
- ahartmetz 6y agoA good technique for that is to encourage people to follow their own logic (by asking some simple questions if necessary) until they notice themselves that they arrive at absurdities.
- kirubakaran 6y agoIt didn't end well for the guy who famously did that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates#Death
- ahartmetz 6y agoIt's going alright for Sacha Baron Cohen, though I'm not sure how much he is still using it ;)
- throwaway63456 6y agoI don't believe that Trump is a racist. I believe that Trump is a Trumpist. I believe that he lacks the capacity to hold any real beliefs outside of his own self-interest, even twisted and depraved ones. He panders to racists, along with other segments like Evangelicals, not because he believes in their cause but because they give him what he wants: praise and power. But to think that Trumpism is about race is deeply, tragically, missing the point. If we want to understand and get to the root of what just happened for the past 4 years, the left needs to step back and seriously reconsider its assumptions.
- longtimegoogler 6y agoTotally agree.
- codydh 6y agoI disagree wholeheartedly. You’ve described Trumpism in terms of “what goes on in Donald Trump’s head.” I think very few people ultimately care about this. Instead, most people interpret “Trumpism” as what his followers believe. And I can see little argument that there’s a much stronger thread of white primacy in his statements and followers than anyone else.
- de_Selby 6y agoIt seems to be everywhere (even on the top rated comment here). Biden himself is dismissed as being not left enough by a lot the online population from what I can see. Because he wasn't the the fashionable choice for Democratic nomination (Sanders) he's reduced to being just an old guy who isn't Trump but is in the right party without anyone even bothering to even read his Wikipedia page or look up some of his speeches on youtube. He's a passionate politician and an empathic speaker who has the experience to be a realist and appeal to republican voters too. He's exactly what is needed right now. Sanders wouldn't have had a chance to get in, but even if he did he would just polarise things even further.
- heavyset_go 6y ago> Sanders wouldn't have had a chance to get in, but even if he did he would just polarise things even further. According to this Fox News poll[1], much of Bernie Sanders' platform would resonate with voters more so than Biden's platform. [1] https://imgur.com/a/YxxnynP https://imgur.com/a/YxxnynP
- throwaway201103 6y ago> Where did all the intellect go? It's hard to have an intellectual debate in 120-character snippets on platforms that promote outrage over reason.
- ehsankia 6y agoWas 140, now is 280. The bigger issue is retweet culture which pushes clickbait and anger inducing content.
- entire-name 6y ago> Where did all the intellect go? I think that's the key point. Decades of undermining the education system, plus many other problems such as "big money lobbying" is likely what led to such extremisms. You know... the key metric of "education" used to be "what percentage of your population can read and write". By that measure, the US is fairly "educated". However, just like the value of each dollar goes down as the economy grows (i.e. inflation), I think it's important to apply a similar idea to education; just as the access to information increases, the value of _only_ being able to read and write is no longer enough to be considered as "educated".
- jimbob45 6y agoYou can’t seriously be arguing that everyone has been made so stupid by the education system as evidenced by the fact that they don’t agree with you. This is akin to categorically sweeping away the wisdom of the last generation because of leaded gasoline. New rule: if you’re going to disparage the other side and call them stupid, you have to find two nice things to say about their side.
- scrollaway 6y agoThe US education system is failing, pretty badly. This is not a new grievance. Whether that causes or contributes to is probably unproven, but it's hard to think it doesn't. It doesn't mean that all trump supporters are uneducated. But they do have a tendency to be uneducated. All the trump supporters I know are in that camp either for their extremist/nazi views, or due to misinformation, or for financial reasons. Those first two groups highly favor the uneducated.
- entire-name 6y agoLet me rephrase. One attribute the education system should provide students is the ability to think critically. By being able to think critically, a person should be able to have the capacity to see and understand the arguments on both sides. From there, a healthy debate can commence on which policy is better. Keep in mind my previous comment is in response to the original post, which talks about people on both sides having the "extreme mindset", i.e.: > It's amazing. My friends on the left think the only reason for voting trump is racism, and friends on the right think the only reason for voting biden is socialism. Indeed, maybe I was wrong in suggesting that the poor education system is what caused this issue. But regardless, the ability to think critically is an important attribute, and I do believe extremisms are caused, in part, by the lack of it.
- punnerud 6y agoStarting to feel that the only way out of it is to remove the «Winner takes it all», to let more political parties participate. And the one with majority, by uniting them, get the president.
- rorykoehler 6y agoThe thing with the racism and Trump is it's part of his platform. You have to think it's ok to vote for him. There is no half measure of racism.
- TheCondor 6y agoWas there ever intellect? Or we more generally selected gentlemen as politicians and we stepped out of that with Trump?
- Karrot_Kream 6y agoThere absolutely was. I highly recommend watching the Gore Vidal vs William Buckley Jr debates. Both Vidal and Buckley were extremely well spoken and reasoned in their arguments. I wonder if Buckley and Goldwater are weeping over Trump as their political successor.
- TheCondor 6y agoI'm not talking about the political actors, I'm talking about the electorate. To some degree, the politicians will do what resonates. The difference is that for most of our history you pretty much had to be a gentleman to even consider the senate or presidency. (I mean that classically, not in the misogynistic sense.) It was probably Bill Clinton and then Trump that have demonstrated that the masses will gladly elect a non-gentleman and Trump has really leaned in to the lowest common denominator politics. That combined with self-selecting media. It's potent. You basically can distill the different tribal voices down to a vote for socialism or a vote for racism and it's sad to say but it worked pretty damn well and we had one of the biggest turnouts ever.
- Karrot_Kream 6y agoPerhaps. I'm not sure because I haven't seen enough research on this point, but I do find it plausible that as the barrier to entry has lowered, the gentility of the candidates has decreased. Thanks for the food for thought.
- dang 6y ago(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25017543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25017543. There's nothing wrong with it - the thread is just too top heavy)
- AlisdairO 6y agodisclaimer: I'm not American, but I'm from the UK which has similar issues on a smaller scale. The thing is, as a leftist I used to be able to have conversations with conservatives. We had different values, but a largely shared understanding of reality. That gave a common basis for contrast and discussion. Now, that's gone. My biased perception is that the worst of it started on the right: a ways back Fox started creating a bubble of alternative reality, and that's been hugely amplified with the arrival of social media. I started struggling to communicate in meaningful ways. More recently I've found myself fact checking my own community more often than I used to - I wonder if Trump has sent leftists crazy in the same way that Obama did the right ;-).
- heavyset_go 6y ago> Now, that's gone Check out r/Libertarian sometime. After it was radicalized by self-professed fascist moderators and turned into a pro-Trump meme board, the admin stepped in and installed a moderation team that spent time coming up with rules to prevent the subreddit from being overrun by authoritarians again. They added legitimate left-libertarian[1] moderators, and there are left-libertarians users that post there. I bring it up because it is the only conservative space I've seen that doesn't end up posting helicopter ride[2] memes at people they perceive to be even slightly to the left of them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_flights
- AlisdairO 6y agoThanks, I'll give it a look!
- kzrdude 6y agoIt seems the "windows of acceptable opinions" have gotten narrower (acceptable in a given social clique); I think the reason is that our social medias are so open - we talk not directly to a few people we trust, but our outbursts are visible to a wide circle or even public. This leads to self-censorship.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoWhat do you mean by centrist? America doesn’t really have a left-wing political group, certainly not in any mainstream way. Obama referred to himself as a Reagan Republican and Biden is even more right-leaning. Even figures like AOC and Bernie Sanders are extremely anodyne, not at all “left wing” just barely more liberal than American centrists. The “centrist” view in America is extremely far to the right, which then allows factions like Trump’s to be far right to deeply fascist, racist extremes (this is not hyperbole, Trump is dangerously fascist) and yet still act like he’s just “on the right” because “centrist” positions in the US are themselves so deeply far right already. The US really urgently needs more mainstream far left politicians, instead of nearly-Republican examples like Harris, Warren, Biden, Buttigieg, etc. AOC & Sanders are the closest, but by no means do they represent views that are anywhere near being a healthy “far left” ideology to help draw a compromise from the far right and towards a healthier centrist position. “Centrist” in the US would at least be on the fence of letting individual own assault rifles, withdrawing federal funds for abortion, reducing the EPA and decommitting from international agreements on climate change, granting large tax breaks to corporations, eliminating social welfare programs for oppressed classes of people (in ways that overtly hurt the poor, minorities and women), and creating a legal chasm blocking any road to universal medical care, all while buying into jingoistic ideas about America being the best and dehumanizing other groups like immigrants and foreigners. That’s the centrist position in the US. When anything further left is even suggested, the socialism boogeyman is drummed up and huge populations of people will vote against it for no other reason than “socialism bad.” Any sense of acting like there’s a benign Republican core of ideas around states’ rights or lower taxes to be discussed in good faith is just gobsmackingly wrong about the US. That is just simply a falsehood. What passes for middle of the road, “good faith” centrist discussion is deeply far right already, and “both-sides-ism” where “liberals claiming all Trump voters are racist” is disingenuously used to act like it’s “the same as” the behavior of the American far right is both completely wrong and contributing to the problem.
- manigandham 6y agoUsing what "left" and "center" mean in other countries to compare to American politics is pointless. There are clear left and right viewpoints in the US with centrist usually being a fiscally conservative and socially liberal mix of policies.
- tetrometal 6y agoI empathize more with your right-leaning friends. The extremes of the right (racists, nazis, white supremacists, etc) are kept very much in check by taboo. The extremes of the left (socialism, communism, collectivism, and the new Woke cult) are not. Anecdotally, I not only do not work with any of the former, but can't imagine a workplace that would suffer them. At the same time, I work with multiple people that are proud, self-proclaimed members of the latter group.
- scrollaway 6y agoIf you think about why the former are taboo and the latter aren't (at least in your mind), something obvious should happen. And as a european, I can tell you with high degree of certainty that absolutely zero of your friends or workmates are actually socialists or communists. It's possible they embrace socialist ideals, as Sanders does, but Sanders is at best a moderate left-wing here in europe. You folks in the US developed a weird hatred of the word "socialism", equating it with the ridiculous dictatorial ideals of Stalin, Castro etc. But although socialism has a hard time working, that doesn't mean some of its ideas don't work in a democracy. Here in europe, "free health care" is not socialism. It's a human right. Human rights are fun, you should try them.
- tetrometal 6y agoI don't think something that requires others to labor can ever be a right. I would call that slavery.
- scrollaway 6y agoWhat exactly is your impression of how socialized healthcare works, here in Europe? Are you under the hallucination that I'm required to offer my services to the government so others can receive their surgery? This is your problem, you have associated "socialism" with slavery, ergo you refuse to hear any arguments that has the word "social" in it because it's automatically bad by association. Maybe start to accept that your fellow Americans don't actually want slavery, but maybe are instead unhappy with the completely fucking absurd and insane private health insurance system? It is truly mind boggling, the mental jumps some of you folks are ready to make, to arrive at the conclusion that your life would be made worse were you to take example from countries that have it better than you. Because God forbid the US isn't number 1 in everything.
- redisman 6y agoIt's truly scary watching how viral the conspiracies in this election go in minutes on Twitter/FB. One side wants to find "fraud" so any clip someone posts out of context becomes proof and spreads like wildfire.
- kace91 6y agoAs a complete outsider,I watched the politics and conservative subreddits respectively as the election unfolded. It's of course anecdotal, but after watching that with my own eyes I would find it very hard to believe that those links, threads and comments were developing organically. For example, the conservative subreddit went from following the election to having the front page fully filled with claims of election fraud in matter of literal minutes, with sources coming from a million places at the same time. Just like magic, suddenly the election being rigged went from a crazy idea to incontestable fact, and now for many people that's what happened, clear as day. It was extremely scary to see,I still don't know what to make of it.
- chris11 6y agoSocial media is now a primary target for foreign election interference, I'm sure that's a major cause. In 2016 Russia targeted Clinton and supported Trump. But they also generally tried to increase division. One ugly thing about that is disinformation campaigns would actually get support from some Americans. The House is Democratically controlled, but Republicans control the senate, so there's bipartisan agreement on this. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/technology/indictment-russian-tech-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/technology/indictment-rus... https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/ https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/
- redisman 6y agoMy main worry is that this is in the US and it's being handled poorly already. A country with great resources where these companies are based and somewhat governed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elections_in_2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elections_in_2020 How many Cameroonian experts do the US based tech giants have to combat misinformation there?
- mseidl 6y agoWell if you vote for Trump you like what he says or it doesn't bother you enough, then that speaks volumes. Like when he called Mexicans rapists/murderers/drug dealers, or when he made fun of a disabled reporter, or said a women was too ugly to rape. Trump is just a horrible person. I'm German, a and left wing European.(I used to live in the US also). I don't like democrats politically. But if I could have, I would've voted for them as I view them not as destructive as republicans. But, even if Trump was as left as Sanders, one of the few American politicians I actually like, I wouldn't vote for him.
- throwmehaweh 6y ago> Like when he called Mexicans rapists/murderers/drug dealer I think this validates OP's point. He never said all Mexicans are rapists etc, he was speaking about border security and describing the people illegally entering the country through the Southern Border. One of many soundbites spun into a scandal by the media and used to dehumanize him. His supporters understood what he meant, his detractors took the media spin hook, line, and sinker.
- Rapzid 6y ago"They aren't sending their best". Yes, your description of this is accurate. News does this all the time to generate outrage, both left and right leaning, and I absolutely HATE it. Particularly in the Trump and "fake news" era because it leaves them incredibly vulnerable to the criticism. "See! The fake-news, always lying!". Makes it easy to discredit their larger, more serious reporting by picking on these smaller transgressions.
- thomastjeffery 6y ago> He never said all Mexicans are rapists etc, he was speaking about border security and describing the people illegally entering the country through the Southern Border. He didn't say it, he insinuated it. Is that really so different?
- baobabKoodaa 6y ago
- tbwriting 6y agoNo. It’s that each side lets these things slide. Many countries let a little socialism slide, with great results. A little racism should never be allowed to slide. Racism is disgusting.