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Partisanship has leaked into this thread.. What if the tables were turned? As a non-American, it disappoints me to read some of these comments. Defending your s

Partisanship has leaked into this thread.. What if the tables were turned? As a non-American, it disappoints me to read some of these comments. Defending your side at all costs. I wish there was more balanced comments, acknowledging points on each side. The inability to concede to anything makes for ugly discussion. Whatever side you are on, stubbornness and hostility is not a good strategy to convince the other side. "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence." -Richard Feynman

MGGJFU 6y ago
As a Canadian, the republican "side" of politics in the US has made it so that debating with them is no longer necessary. When the moment arrived that facts were no longer on their side, they chose to alter the perception of reality of their voters instead of changing their behavior. They band together and adopt a narrative which they then spread through the networks which are aligned with them and in other public tools like youtube and twitter. This is so incredibly successful that the only thing guiding their behavior is a change in polling with their base, rather than any philosophy based on values, convictions or general sense of morality. Hell yes their outright lies should be banned from places like Youtube. They have no basis in reality and contrary to other types of false information, their information has the single goal of maintaining or increasing their power and delegitimizing democracy in the US. Now from the point of view of the brainwashed conservatives, people like me are the brainwashed ones. There's pretty much nothing we can say to them to convince them otherwise. We can try and prevent the bad actors from saying the things which lead them down the path to dismissing reality.
SavageBeast 6y ago
You make a fine point about partisan hostility leaking into every crack and crevice these days. It really does get tiring. Its as if we in the US are all Sports Fans rooting for The Home Team without regard to inconvenient facts or anything that challenges the outcome desired. America is in a sad state for sure. "What if the tables were turned?" - Is it really a "What If" kind of question? Maybe the tables have in fact turned? YouTube certainly has no problem hosting videos that purport the idea of a rigged 2016 election. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Russian+collusion+election https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Russian+collusi... For a solid 4 years one party accused the other of rigging an election and it was considered news and reported on nearly non-stop. Now the tables are turned and the formerly accused party is claiming the other one rigged the election. 4 years ago one party went with a Boogey Man kind of narrative where a nebulous and hostile foreign power used untold influences and means to change the course of the election. Today one party is going with the narrative that laws were broken regarding the conduct of elections. These 2 things are similar but I put forth the idea they are not exactly the same. The TX vs. PA suit presents evidence and makes specific claims. Maybe I missed something along the way but I never saw anything but innuendo regarding what specific crimes were committed in the "Russian Rigging" of the 2016 election. Im open to reading up if anyone cares to drop a relevant link or two.
- epakai 6y ago
  > For a solid 4 years one party accused the other of rigging an election and it was considered news and reported on nearly non-stop. Now the tables are turned and the formerly accused party is claiming the other one rigged the election. Except that's not what the Russian collusion accusations were about. I still find it hard to believe when I see polls that actively suggest people believe votes or voting machines were directly manipulated in 2016. This is not the narrative I experienced while following the election and subsequent Mueller investigation. The information I consumed made it clear that there were questionable staffing, unusual meetings, and a foreign disinformation campaign associated mostly with benefiting Trump's campaign. In any case the current admin knew the stakes, and knew the issues but failed to safeguard against it. Still they claim there is widespread fraud, but fail to provide convincing evidence. Now they have pivoted to suggesting changes made during a pandemic could invalidate votes. The specific crimes are laid out in the Mueller report [0]. A bipartisan Senate committee confirmed the intelligence findings that lead to the Mueller report even while Senators were publicly denying it [1]. Again I don't understand the claim of "rigging". This wasn't pushed in the circles I frequent or I considered it hyperbole at the time. There was a clear disinformation campaign, hacking attempts, and questionable contacts with the Trump campaign. [0] https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf (the 6-page executive summary is an adequate reading if you want the gist of it) [1] https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/493889-bipartisan-senate-report-reaffirms-intelligence-community-findings-that https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/493889-bipartisan-s...
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Given how perilous the balance of power in the United States is and that the popular vote is not respected it isn't all that strange a thought that someone would do to the United States what the United States has done to untold other countries in the past: attempt to install a friendly regime. Who knows, it may have succeeded. At best, an election was influenced without results. At worst the attempt worked. I'm not sure if we will ever know what exactly transpired, for me the off-the-books attempt to set up a direct line of communication between Kushner and the Kremlin looked extremely bad and is one of the strongest bits of outward visible proof that there really was something extremely dirty going on. Besides all the circumstantial evidence the direct evidence by itself is telling and I can not imagine any previous - and hopefully future - US administration caught with their pants down to that extent.
uoaei 6y ago
If Dems were making claims in courts and getting shot down at a rate close to 99%, a lot of people would feel exactly the same way they feel now. Stop with your straw-mans.
jacquesm 6y ago
Partisanship has nothing to do with destroying your country in order to get ahead. Any time the importance of a party is placed above the importance to the country everybody loses. Unfortunately, we are witnessing one of the parties in the US doing this, repeatedly I might add. If the democrats were doing this sort of thing I would be just as much against it. The point is: there actually is a party that is doing this, it is not 'some party' but a specific one.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
This is such an empty comment. All it does is whine about "partistanship" without addressing the fact that we have an ideology that has firmly become detached from reality.
- UnFleshedOne 6y ago
  Looking from outside, it is both parties, in different areas and to different degrees, but firmly both.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
    Not even close.

MGGJFU 6y ago

As a Canadian, the republican "side" of politics in the US has made it so that debating with them is no longer necessary. When the moment arrived that facts were no longer on their side, they chose to alter the perception of reality of their voters instead of changing their behavior. They band together and adopt a narrative which they then spread through the networks which are aligned with them and in other public tools like youtube and twitter. This is so incredibly successful that the only thing guiding their behavior is a change in polling with their base, rather than any philosophy based on values, convictions or general sense of morality. Hell yes their outright lies should be banned from places like Youtube. They have no basis in reality and contrary to other types of false information, their information has the single goal of maintaining or increasing their power and delegitimizing democracy in the US. Now from the point of view of the brainwashed conservatives, people like me are the brainwashed ones. There's pretty much nothing we can say to them to convince them otherwise. We can try and prevent the bad actors from saying the things which lead them down the path to dismissing reality.

SavageBeast 6y ago

You make a fine point about partisan hostility leaking into every crack and crevice these days. It really does get tiring. Its as if we in the US are all Sports Fans rooting for The Home Team without regard to inconvenient facts or anything that challenges the outcome desired. America is in a sad state for sure. "What if the tables were turned?" - Is it really a "What If" kind of question? Maybe the tables have in fact turned? YouTube certainly has no problem hosting videos that purport the idea of a rigged 2016 election. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Russian+collusion+election https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Russian+collusi... For a solid 4 years one party accused the other of rigging an election and it was considered news and reported on nearly non-stop. Now the tables are turned and the formerly accused party is claiming the other one rigged the election. 4 years ago one party went with a Boogey Man kind of narrative where a nebulous and hostile foreign power used untold influences and means to change the course of the election. Today one party is going with the narrative that laws were broken regarding the conduct of elections. These 2 things are similar but I put forth the idea they are not exactly the same. The TX vs. PA suit presents evidence and makes specific claims. Maybe I missed something along the way but I never saw anything but innuendo regarding what specific crimes were committed in the "Russian Rigging" of the 2016 election. Im open to reading up if anyone cares to drop a relevant link or two.

epakai 6y ago
> For a solid 4 years one party accused the other of rigging an election and it was considered news and reported on nearly non-stop. Now the tables are turned and the formerly accused party is claiming the other one rigged the election. Except that's not what the Russian collusion accusations were about. I still find it hard to believe when I see polls that actively suggest people believe votes or voting machines were directly manipulated in 2016. This is not the narrative I experienced while following the election and subsequent Mueller investigation. The information I consumed made it clear that there were questionable staffing, unusual meetings, and a foreign disinformation campaign associated mostly with benefiting Trump's campaign. In any case the current admin knew the stakes, and knew the issues but failed to safeguard against it. Still they claim there is widespread fraud, but fail to provide convincing evidence. Now they have pivoted to suggesting changes made during a pandemic could invalidate votes. The specific crimes are laid out in the Mueller report [0]. A bipartisan Senate committee confirmed the intelligence findings that lead to the Mueller report even while Senators were publicly denying it [1]. Again I don't understand the claim of "rigging". This wasn't pushed in the circles I frequent or I considered it hyperbole at the time. There was a clear disinformation campaign, hacking attempts, and questionable contacts with the Trump campaign. [0] https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf (the 6-page executive summary is an adequate reading if you want the gist of it) [1] https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/493889-bipartisan-senate-report-reaffirms-intelligence-community-findings-that https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/493889-bipartisan-s...
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Given how perilous the balance of power in the United States is and that the popular vote is not respected it isn't all that strange a thought that someone would do to the United States what the United States has done to untold other countries in the past: attempt to install a friendly regime. Who knows, it may have succeeded. At best, an election was influenced without results. At worst the attempt worked. I'm not sure if we will ever know what exactly transpired, for me the off-the-books attempt to set up a direct line of communication between Kushner and the Kremlin looked extremely bad and is one of the strongest bits of outward visible proof that there really was something extremely dirty going on. Besides all the circumstantial evidence the direct evidence by itself is telling and I can not imagine any previous - and hopefully future - US administration caught with their pants down to that extent.

uoaei 6y ago

If Dems were making claims in courts and getting shot down at a rate close to 99%, a lot of people would feel exactly the same way they feel now. Stop with your straw-mans.

jacquesm 6y ago

Partisanship has nothing to do with destroying your country in order to get ahead. Any time the importance of a party is placed above the importance to the country everybody loses. Unfortunately, we are witnessing one of the parties in the US doing this, repeatedly I might add. If the democrats were doing this sort of thing I would be just as much against it. The point is: there actually is a party that is doing this, it is not 'some party' but a specific one.

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

This is such an empty comment. All it does is whine about "partistanship" without addressing the fact that we have an ideology that has firmly become detached from reality.

UnFleshedOne 6y ago
Looking from outside, it is both parties, in different areas and to different degrees, but firmly both.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  Not even close.