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It's worth noting how much soft power the political left in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, academia, and the news m

It's worth noting how much soft power the political left in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, academia, and the news media all lean left. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to do anything in these areas that might counter their preferences. I think all this soft power actually hurts the left in America, because our country's default state is a bit of an echo-chamber. It's possible to go to university, watch movies, read the news everyday, and have no idea what the other half of the country is thinking or saying.

triceratops 6y ago
It's worth noting how much actual political power the right in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. The Senate and electoral college favor them massively. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to change any laws that might counter their preferences.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  A business that is heavily involved with local government has to sweat Republican politics, a business that is heavily involved with technology, the media, or other forms of nonstate power has to sweat Democrat politics. I guess it would be nice if companies could simply focus on getting their job done and not have to sweat anyone's politics at all.
  - hellotomyrars 6y ago
    It would be nice if it were possible to be apolitical but in many respects it isn't depending on the nature of your business and that's a reality I think some people are reticent to accept. Corporations exist to make money and there isn't an industry out there that doesn't actively lobby in their interest. Turns out being `apolitical` is kind of a myth.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    Politics is the the practice of how to organize society. There's no such thing as an apolitical entity. At the most basic level, just the fact that corporations exist is itself a political decision.
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      Sure, with a sufficiently expansive definition of political everything is, but in the comment above, "politics" meant "dealing with the preferences of." So the local Republican politician would want stuff if you wanted to build your chemical plant, maybe a new baseball field, maybe campaign contributions. Your Democrat-aligned hosting provider would want you to not run the center of operations of their enemies. You are using politics in the academic sense, where two kids playing tag are engaging in politics, but that is not the only thing that "politics" can be used to describe. Companies should follow the law, not politics.
      - 8note 6y ago
        Companies should do what their owners want per capitalism. If that's politics, the company should do politics.
        whatshisface 6y ago
        Sure, but the political system should not be such that the owners of the companies have anything to gain by wanting their companies to do politics.
        xxpor 6y ago
        The only way that could ever be the case is if taxes ceased to exist. Until that point, there will always be lobbying for lower taxes. Your objection really seems to be engagement in culture wars.
  - esoterica 6y ago
    Companies have to obey laws and laws are written by politicians. Unless you think companies should be above the law they cannot, and should not be expected to, avoid thinking about politics.
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      Thinking about the law is a world away from thinking about politics. Companies should think about how to comply with regulations, but they should not be biting their nails over whether the candidate who's backing their chemical plant will give a speech about Marijuana decrimininalization that's convincing enough to secure him the position necessary to force the local regulatory body to change the acceptable limits on effluents so that it becomes possible to continue running a process on an old line.
      - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        It sounds like you are suggesting that regulations should never change. Is that what you mean?
        stale2002 6y ago
        No. That is not what the other person said. Did you accidently respond to the wrong comment? What the person said was that a chemical manufacturing company should not be "biting their nails" over some random Marijuana decrimininalization speech, that a random candidate is making.
        amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        At the end he was talking about changing the rules on effluents. I guess I just doing understand what he is trying to say.
        whatshisface 6y ago
        Why should the rules on effluents be related to marijuana policy? They shouldn't be. Why are the rules on effluents related to marijuana policy? Because politics works according to public sentiment attached to individual leaders and their parties, and the leaders and parties bundle together large packages of unrelated policies. Hence a chemical plant owner becomes interested in issues that have absolutely nothing to do with his businesses, or even his business' externalities.
- mc32 6y ago
  One set of influencers is elected and held to account, the other is largely unaccountable.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > One set of influencers is elected and held to account Are they, though? > the other is largely unaccountable No the market will hold them to account.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    First, the first set isn't a set of influencers. They directly legislate law. Second, the other is accountable to the same laws as anyone else.
- fjabre 6y ago
  This is false. The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The electoral college does not matter. They go the way their states go as was made quite clear in the last election. EDIT: Of course it matters how the voting system was designed. The EC votes the way their State votes. The forefathers intended for states to have some say in the matter. We are a representative democracy. That is how the system was designed.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The key term is "now". After getting about 40m more votes. Be honest. Is that balanced?
    - fjabre 6y ago
      Was just pointing out it's quite clear that the nation itself is left leaning. That's honest by the numbers. To say the Republicans have any kind of advantage right now except for maybe the courts is incorrect.
      - takeda 6y ago
        They had to lose by 7 million votes to actually lose, I would say they have quite advantage. As another user said: "The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans"
        fjabre 6y ago
        We are a representative democracy for a reason. It was designed that way. You can't change the rules of the game because you're losing. The United States was designed as a representative democracy on purpose by the forefathers. That is fact.
        sjwright 6y ago
        Just because something was designed for a specific purpose a few hundred years ago doesn't mean it serves that same purpose today. Situations change. The Constitution was designed to be amended.
- minikites 6y ago
  The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans: https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1352293847385124864 https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1352293847385124864 If voting in this country wasn't suppressed at the local level by Republican state governments, the federal government would look very different. It would be much more diverse and representative of real Americans, not just white male Americans.
- cairoshikobon 6y ago
  Banning speech by half the population is not "soft power" anymore in the world we live in.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    That'd be true, if it happened. Plenty of conservatives left on Twitter.
  - ssully 6y ago
    When did half the population have their speech banned?
    - takeda 6y ago
      The whole argument is so silly. Trump could snap a finger and have cameras ready to air on national TV whatever he wanted to say. If Valve bans me from Steam for my language is that also violation of my free speech or is it their right to protect their platform?
      - someguydave 6y ago
        It depends - is Valve also claiming liability protection under section 230 as a information service provider?
        triceratops 6y ago
        Being an information service provider with Section 230 protection doesn't obligate that provider to allow anyone to post anything.
        someguydave 6y ago
        No, but it should make the platform similar to a public square. Taking a government grant of liability protection should come with obligations to the public.
- jki275 6y ago
  50 Senators are Democrats or caucus with them, and the Electoral college just put a Democrat in the White House -- so you can't really make such a claim with a straight face.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    I said "favors". The 50 Democratic Senators represent 40m more people than the 50 Republican Senators. It's far easier for the balance to tip right than left. The electoral college was decided by about 40k votes this time, and about 80k votes last time. The popular vote margin was in the millions. That should tell you something about how far the EC is from reality.
    - jki275 6y ago
      "popular vote" has absolutely no bearing on anything in this discussion. The US is not a direct democracy, it is a representative republic. The 50 senators who represent semi-conservative states represent the same number of states as the 50 who represent more liberal states.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        > The US is not a direct democracy, it is a representative republic. I'm aware of that. And that structure favors one side more than another. This is not a controversial statement - the numbers (y'know, facts and logic) back that up. States are lines on a map. In the current setup they have more influence than the actual people living in those states. Do you seriously not see how that can lead to disproportionate representation of some views?
        newfriend 6y ago
        > States are lines on a map. Saying this doesn't make them less important, it just shows a childish attitude. Local and State governments and representation are important parts of the Republic. Dollars are just numbers in a database. Will you give me all your money? Or is it only certain "made-up" things that are important to you? > Do you seriously not see how that can lead to disproportionate representation of some views? Yes, and straight up popular vote leads to the same thing. That's why we have a system that is a combination of popular vote and state vote. * The People are represented by the House. * The States are represented by the Senate. * Both are represented by the President. Seems like a well-balanced system to me.
- modriano 6y ago
  The Democratic Presidential candidate has won the popular vote in the last 7 of 8 Presidential elections[0], with the Dems having, on average, about 5 million more votes for those 8 elections. It's empirically fair to say the right represents about 45% of voters (which makes their power even more noteworthy). [0] year,dem_candidate,dem_votes,gop_candidate,gop_votes 1992,Bill Clinton,44909806,George H. W. Bush,39104550 1996,Bill Clinton,47401185,Bob Dole,39197469 2000,Al Gore,50999897,George W. Bush,50456002 2004,John Kerry,59028444,George W. Bush,62040610 2008,Barack Obama,69498516,John McCain,59948323 2012,Barack Obama,65915795,Mitt Romney,60933504 2016,Hillary Clinton,65853514,Donald Trump,62984828 2020,Joe Biden,81268867,Donald Trump,74216747
- nostromo 6y ago
  The electoral college actually favored Biden this time. He got 57% of EC votes, which is much higher than his share of the popular vote. This is all pointless anyway for a union of states. Germany is underpowered compared to Luxembourg in the EU by design -- the same is true in the US. Should California ever go back to being conservative, as it was until Clinton, it will disadvantage Republicans just the same.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > The electoral college actually favored Biden this time I think we're operating on different definitions of "favored". The definition I'm using (and which most of the English-speaking world uses) is "have a fundamental advantage". He won the electoral college narrowly. He won the popular vote handsomely. That's a sign of a thumb on the scale in a pretty fundamental way.
    - nostromo 6y ago
      > He won the electoral college narrowly. He won the popular vote handsomely. He didn't though. He won 57% of the electoral vote and 51% of the popular vote.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        Another way of looking at it though, is he won the electoral college by a margin of 40k votes (the margin of victory in the states that mattered). He won the popular vote by a margin of 7m votes.
      - gowld 6y ago
        You're a pretty famous person, so we know you are smart enough to know that nothing above 50% matters. "Favor" only matters to extent it helps a candidate get over 270 EV.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    Sorry, you're saying the US should be more like the EU?
deleted 6y ago
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bredren 6y ago
If it were a dichotomy as you suggest, it might also be worth looking at why “conservative” or “right” leaning groups have not made inroads in these areas. I believe it is because to be break out successful in any medium that demands an array of skill you must not discriminate against people: The company must not have or create a forum for a culture of exclusion. That is to say, it should not matter if a person is gay if they are skilled in acting, coding or teaching. They are welcomed for their talent. However, these “right leaning” groups typically are at best on the back foot of accepting the reality of diversity. And are often financially backed by people who seek to make laws that restrict the freedom of others to protect some existing homogeneous power structure. So lack of traction in these industries is because you can’t constrict the talent pool to fit a narrow idea of what a completely equally protected human is and expect to get enough talent to be very successful.
- bredren 6y ago
  Down voters might find my comment above as not a new idea: The Economist began advocating for Gay Marriage in 1996. This 2004 article includes discussion of the benefits of acceptance: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2004/02/26/the-case-for-gay-marriage https://www.economist.com/leaders/2004/02/26/the-case-for-ga...
Tokkemon 6y ago
I'd love to live in your reality, but it ain't true. The left isn't the ones storming the Capitol.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
xxpor 6y ago
When you have polarization along educational and age lines with the left on the higher education and younger side, it's inevitable they'll have cultural power.
Barrin92 6y ago
I'm not American but having browsed Parler for say half an hour, if that is supposed to represent 'the other half', then I pray for the country. I don't think American news media or academia or Silicon Valley skews left. It skews ... urban and educated? Silicon Valley seems libertarian-ish, news and media seems like they do in every other country. From here it doesn't even look like the US has organised, left-wing political actors.
standeven 6y ago
Do they lean left, or is it that reality has a well known liberal bias?
decebalus1 6y ago
> Hollywood, Silicon Valley, academia, and the news media all lean left. citation needed. Silicon Valley is a monument to capitalism and most if not all entrepreneurs lean libertarian. As for the news media, as an example, Fox News has the highest viewership in the US. And for the others, ever thought about why you're not seeing a lot of coverage about unions/worker rights/worker strikes? Don't mistake anti-Trump rhetoric with 'left leaning'.. So I'm not sure we're you're getting your 'data' from.
- newfriend 6y ago
  So capitalism is right-wing now? Oh let me guess, this is the old "Democrats are actually right-wing", right? > As for the news media, as an example, Fox News has the highest viewership in the US. Yes one channel is different than every other, of course viewership is concentrated there -- all the lefty viewers are spread out over the remaining channels. If the other news channels aren't "left-wing" then Fox isn't "right-wing", and everything is meaningless. There isn't a large population of commies or nazis in the US, despite what the media would have you believe. Both parties are pretty near the center, with some individual outliers.
  - blueline 6y ago
    In what universe is capitalism not an emphatically right wing economic system?
    - filleduchaos 6y ago
      In the universe where way too many Americans think left vs right wing is whether you support reproductive rights or not.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  Fox News has the biggest viewership of a single outlet, and it's right-wing, sure (93+% of viewers self-identify as Republican). But MSNBC viewers self-identify as Democrat at the rate of 95%, NYT as 91%, NPR at 87%, CNN at 79%. You need to compare aggregate numbers if you're trying to be fair. The source for the above is Pew Research Center, Sept 12, 2020, published in this Tweet: https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1304908656543178752 https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1304908656543178752
NathanKP 6y ago
My personal opinion: I don't think Parler is about political left vs political right. There are plenty of folks on the political right who also don't want to be associated with QAnon, insurrection, death threats, and the other stuff that went on in the Parler posts. Don't fall into the trap of boxing this just into 50% vs 50%. The reality of the US is: 33.7% of Americans didn't even vote in 2020, 34% voted "left", 31% voted "right" (the rest of the votes went to third party candidates). Those who voted on the right are further subdivided into even smaller groups. One of those smaller groups on the political right side includes extremists who attacked the capitol. Distaste for Parler, due to the actions of some of those extremists who were using it actually crossed political boundaries: folks who didn't vote, folks on the "left" and even folks on the "right". The shunning of Parler isn't about "soft power" on the left its about the fact that a small group of people managed to do something so reprehensible that a LOT more than just 50% of people felt that association with them was tainting.
andrekandre 6y ago
not to take away from your point and be too pedantic, but i think maybe left and liberal are being conflated? actual bonafide leftists have very little real political power in ths u.s afaik...
- maxsilver 6y ago
  Yeah, as far as I can tell, America doesn't have any meaningful left-wing politics of any kind. There's not a single left politician elected to any federal office anywhere in the nation, for example. Hollywood (the industry funded by the US Military to put pro-military-industrial-state advertisements into movies) is not "left leaning" in any meaningful way. "News Media" all lean either slight-right (MSNBC, NPR) to hard-right (Fox News, NYT, WSJ). Silicon Valley is primarily driven by right-leaning "libertarian" conservative types (at both big corps and small startups). Democrats are largely all conservative (in that, Democrats of 2021 mostly all hold identical views to what Republicans used to hold in the year 1998) We do have a few centrist politicians and groups (Bernie Sanders / AOC+Squad, etc), and a few centrist movements (rights for LGBTQ+, or "Defund the Police", for example, is largely politically-centrist initiatives). But I'm not aware of even a single left-leaning politician in any federal elected office. For example, no elected federal politician is advocating for the nationalization of all private corporations, or elimination of all for-profit entities, or for a complete cap on individual wealth, or for giving Hawaii back to the aboriginal Hawaiians, or anything like that, that could be considered a full-left position. (But meanwhile, on the right, there is a meaningful ultra-far-right political movement arguing that we should ignore replace democratically-elected officials with dicatorships, for example. And that group has elected members sitting in the House + Senate today)
  - gowld 6y ago
    This is silly. Sanders is left. AOC is left. Many are left-leaning. No one advocates a monarchy either, but that doesn't mean no one is "right-leaning".
    - mancerayder 6y ago
      AOC is a media figure with a big following, and Sanders has had a cultural influence, but I would hardly say that they're part of the DNC establishment. They're at the fringes. For evidence, Medicare For All is a keystone platform point for them both, and not for the mainstream DNC.
mbesto 6y ago
> It's worth noting how much soft power the political left in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. This is not technically true. (1) politics is a spectrum (2) the US is generally left leaning as a whole, but the largest demographic designation of people in the US is generally considered moderate. > This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to do anything in these areas that might counter their preferences. The population of the US leans left - those outlets are simply a reflection of that. It's absurd to think that all of these elite people who run those companies get together and conspire to keep left ideas alive. If you know anything about the Democratic party you would know they are horrible at creating a coordinated strategy. To think that same party is somehow regurgitating a coordinated theme through commercial means while at the same time having an uncoordinated government strategy is absurd. > It's possible to go to university, watch movies, read the news everyday, and have no idea what the other half of the country is thinking or saying. I agree with this but not for your aforementioned reasons. Those echo-chambers exist because communication is no longer at the town square but on social media and messaging apps.
mancerayder 6y ago
Hold on, they lean Democrat, not "Left." I know it sounds pedantic, even subjective, but it's very important to point out that the Democrats are pro-business, not particularly pro union, they are pro Wall Street, and they generally are pro Defense spending and engaged in wars abroad in every term going back thirty years. The fact that they talk about race and gender could arguably make them "culturally left" which very much makes them feel left-wing, even radical to some. A European, or almost anyone else in the world would call them centrists or center-right. Silicon Valley is right-wing on economics and defense of monopoly, and left when you talk about race and gender equity in the board room. You can see echoes of this on HN where many people support restrictions of speech if they come from a private platform ("laissez-faire" approach to private property), but still call for a shut down of hate speech and a correction of "misinformation". The Democrats' cultural mores center around postmodernist principles of "language makes reality" "there are power imbalances" "the power imbalances intersect around race and gender" and finally "correcting how we talk about these topics will help the marginalized." ... But, we're reminded, Twitter and AWS and Facebook are private property, and you should read and follow the TOS ("laissez-faire").
jhpriestley 6y ago
If you read the news every day then you will certainly hear from the other half of the country. I just checked CNN's front page, and while most coverage focuses on the new President, these three articles all feature right-wing viewpoints: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/2024-republican-primary/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/2024-republican-prim... https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/fact-check-marjorie-taylor-greene-twitter-election-capitol/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/fact-check-marjorie-... https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/01/21/conspiracy-theories-qanon-inauguration-trump-biden-orig.cnn-business https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/01/21/conspiracy-th...

triceratops 6y ago

It's worth noting how much actual political power the right in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. The Senate and electoral college favor them massively. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to change any laws that might counter their preferences.

whatshisface 6y ago
A business that is heavily involved with local government has to sweat Republican politics, a business that is heavily involved with technology, the media, or other forms of nonstate power has to sweat Democrat politics. I guess it would be nice if companies could simply focus on getting their job done and not have to sweat anyone's politics at all.
- hellotomyrars 6y ago
  It would be nice if it were possible to be apolitical but in many respects it isn't depending on the nature of your business and that's a reality I think some people are reticent to accept. Corporations exist to make money and there isn't an industry out there that doesn't actively lobby in their interest. Turns out being `apolitical` is kind of a myth.
- xxpor 6y ago
  Politics is the the practice of how to organize society. There's no such thing as an apolitical entity. At the most basic level, just the fact that corporations exist is itself a political decision.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    Sure, with a sufficiently expansive definition of political everything is, but in the comment above, "politics" meant "dealing with the preferences of." So the local Republican politician would want stuff if you wanted to build your chemical plant, maybe a new baseball field, maybe campaign contributions. Your Democrat-aligned hosting provider would want you to not run the center of operations of their enemies. You are using politics in the academic sense, where two kids playing tag are engaging in politics, but that is not the only thing that "politics" can be used to describe. Companies should follow the law, not politics.
    - 8note 6y ago
      Companies should do what their owners want per capitalism. If that's politics, the company should do politics.
      - whatshisface 6y ago
        Sure, but the political system should not be such that the owners of the companies have anything to gain by wanting their companies to do politics.
        xxpor 6y ago
        The only way that could ever be the case is if taxes ceased to exist. Until that point, there will always be lobbying for lower taxes. Your objection really seems to be engagement in culture wars.
- esoterica 6y ago
  Companies have to obey laws and laws are written by politicians. Unless you think companies should be above the law they cannot, and should not be expected to, avoid thinking about politics.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    Thinking about the law is a world away from thinking about politics. Companies should think about how to comply with regulations, but they should not be biting their nails over whether the candidate who's backing their chemical plant will give a speech about Marijuana decrimininalization that's convincing enough to secure him the position necessary to force the local regulatory body to change the acceptable limits on effluents so that it becomes possible to continue running a process on an old line.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      It sounds like you are suggesting that regulations should never change. Is that what you mean?
      - stale2002 6y ago
        No. That is not what the other person said. Did you accidently respond to the wrong comment? What the person said was that a chemical manufacturing company should not be "biting their nails" over some random Marijuana decrimininalization speech, that a random candidate is making.
        amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        At the end he was talking about changing the rules on effluents. I guess I just doing understand what he is trying to say.
        whatshisface 6y ago
        Why should the rules on effluents be related to marijuana policy? They shouldn't be. Why are the rules on effluents related to marijuana policy? Because politics works according to public sentiment attached to individual leaders and their parties, and the leaders and parties bundle together large packages of unrelated policies. Hence a chemical plant owner becomes interested in issues that have absolutely nothing to do with his businesses, or even his business' externalities.
mc32 6y ago
One set of influencers is elected and held to account, the other is largely unaccountable.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > One set of influencers is elected and held to account Are they, though? > the other is largely unaccountable No the market will hold them to account.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  First, the first set isn't a set of influencers. They directly legislate law. Second, the other is accountable to the same laws as anyone else.
fjabre 6y ago
This is false. The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The electoral college does not matter. They go the way their states go as was made quite clear in the last election. EDIT: Of course it matters how the voting system was designed. The EC votes the way their State votes. The forefathers intended for states to have some say in the matter. We are a representative democracy. That is how the system was designed.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The key term is "now". After getting about 40m more votes. Be honest. Is that balanced?
  - fjabre 6y ago
    Was just pointing out it's quite clear that the nation itself is left leaning. That's honest by the numbers. To say the Republicans have any kind of advantage right now except for maybe the courts is incorrect.
    - takeda 6y ago
      They had to lose by 7 million votes to actually lose, I would say they have quite advantage. As another user said: "The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans"
      - fjabre 6y ago
        We are a representative democracy for a reason. It was designed that way. You can't change the rules of the game because you're losing. The United States was designed as a representative democracy on purpose by the forefathers. That is fact.
        sjwright 6y ago
        Just because something was designed for a specific purpose a few hundred years ago doesn't mean it serves that same purpose today. Situations change. The Constitution was designed to be amended.
minikites 6y ago
The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans: https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1352293847385124864 https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1352293847385124864 If voting in this country wasn't suppressed at the local level by Republican state governments, the federal government would look very different. It would be much more diverse and representative of real Americans, not just white male Americans.
cairoshikobon 6y ago
Banning speech by half the population is not "soft power" anymore in the world we live in.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  That'd be true, if it happened. Plenty of conservatives left on Twitter.
- ssully 6y ago
  When did half the population have their speech banned?
  - takeda 6y ago
    The whole argument is so silly. Trump could snap a finger and have cameras ready to air on national TV whatever he wanted to say. If Valve bans me from Steam for my language is that also violation of my free speech or is it their right to protect their platform?
    - someguydave 6y ago
      It depends - is Valve also claiming liability protection under section 230 as a information service provider?
      - triceratops 6y ago
        Being an information service provider with Section 230 protection doesn't obligate that provider to allow anyone to post anything.
        someguydave 6y ago
        No, but it should make the platform similar to a public square. Taking a government grant of liability protection should come with obligations to the public.
jki275 6y ago
50 Senators are Democrats or caucus with them, and the Electoral college just put a Democrat in the White House -- so you can't really make such a claim with a straight face.
- triceratops 6y ago
  I said "favors". The 50 Democratic Senators represent 40m more people than the 50 Republican Senators. It's far easier for the balance to tip right than left. The electoral college was decided by about 40k votes this time, and about 80k votes last time. The popular vote margin was in the millions. That should tell you something about how far the EC is from reality.
  - jki275 6y ago
    "popular vote" has absolutely no bearing on anything in this discussion. The US is not a direct democracy, it is a representative republic. The 50 senators who represent semi-conservative states represent the same number of states as the 50 who represent more liberal states.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > The US is not a direct democracy, it is a representative republic. I'm aware of that. And that structure favors one side more than another. This is not a controversial statement - the numbers (y'know, facts and logic) back that up. States are lines on a map. In the current setup they have more influence than the actual people living in those states. Do you seriously not see how that can lead to disproportionate representation of some views?
      - newfriend 6y ago
        > States are lines on a map. Saying this doesn't make them less important, it just shows a childish attitude. Local and State governments and representation are important parts of the Republic. Dollars are just numbers in a database. Will you give me all your money? Or is it only certain "made-up" things that are important to you? > Do you seriously not see how that can lead to disproportionate representation of some views? Yes, and straight up popular vote leads to the same thing. That's why we have a system that is a combination of popular vote and state vote. * The People are represented by the House. * The States are represented by the Senate. * Both are represented by the President. Seems like a well-balanced system to me.
modriano 6y ago
The Democratic Presidential candidate has won the popular vote in the last 7 of 8 Presidential elections[0], with the Dems having, on average, about 5 million more votes for those 8 elections. It's empirically fair to say the right represents about 45% of voters (which makes their power even more noteworthy). [0] year,dem_candidate,dem_votes,gop_candidate,gop_votes 1992,Bill Clinton,44909806,George H. W. Bush,39104550 1996,Bill Clinton,47401185,Bob Dole,39197469 2000,Al Gore,50999897,George W. Bush,50456002 2004,John Kerry,59028444,George W. Bush,62040610 2008,Barack Obama,69498516,John McCain,59948323 2012,Barack Obama,65915795,Mitt Romney,60933504 2016,Hillary Clinton,65853514,Donald Trump,62984828 2020,Joe Biden,81268867,Donald Trump,74216747
nostromo 6y ago
The electoral college actually favored Biden this time. He got 57% of EC votes, which is much higher than his share of the popular vote. This is all pointless anyway for a union of states. Germany is underpowered compared to Luxembourg in the EU by design -- the same is true in the US. Should California ever go back to being conservative, as it was until Clinton, it will disadvantage Republicans just the same.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > The electoral college actually favored Biden this time I think we're operating on different definitions of "favored". The definition I'm using (and which most of the English-speaking world uses) is "have a fundamental advantage". He won the electoral college narrowly. He won the popular vote handsomely. That's a sign of a thumb on the scale in a pretty fundamental way.
  - nostromo 6y ago
    > He won the electoral college narrowly. He won the popular vote handsomely. He didn't though. He won 57% of the electoral vote and 51% of the popular vote.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      Another way of looking at it though, is he won the electoral college by a margin of 40k votes (the margin of victory in the states that mattered). He won the popular vote by a margin of 7m votes.
    - gowld 6y ago
      You're a pretty famous person, so we know you are smart enough to know that nothing above 50% matters. "Favor" only matters to extent it helps a candidate get over 270 EV.
- triceratops 6y ago
  Sorry, you're saying the US should be more like the EU?

deleted 6y ago

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bredren 6y ago

If it were a dichotomy as you suggest, it might also be worth looking at why “conservative” or “right” leaning groups have not made inroads in these areas. I believe it is because to be break out successful in any medium that demands an array of skill you must not discriminate against people: The company must not have or create a forum for a culture of exclusion. That is to say, it should not matter if a person is gay if they are skilled in acting, coding or teaching. They are welcomed for their talent. However, these “right leaning” groups typically are at best on the back foot of accepting the reality of diversity. And are often financially backed by people who seek to make laws that restrict the freedom of others to protect some existing homogeneous power structure. So lack of traction in these industries is because you can’t constrict the talent pool to fit a narrow idea of what a completely equally protected human is and expect to get enough talent to be very successful.

bredren 6y ago
Down voters might find my comment above as not a new idea: The Economist began advocating for Gay Marriage in 1996. This 2004 article includes discussion of the benefits of acceptance: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2004/02/26/the-case-for-gay-marriage https://www.economist.com/leaders/2004/02/26/the-case-for-ga...

Tokkemon 6y ago

I'd love to live in your reality, but it ain't true. The left isn't the ones storming the Capitol.

deleted 6y ago
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xxpor 6y ago

When you have polarization along educational and age lines with the left on the higher education and younger side, it's inevitable they'll have cultural power.

Barrin92 6y ago

I'm not American but having browsed Parler for say half an hour, if that is supposed to represent 'the other half', then I pray for the country. I don't think American news media or academia or Silicon Valley skews left. It skews ... urban and educated? Silicon Valley seems libertarian-ish, news and media seems like they do in every other country. From here it doesn't even look like the US has organised, left-wing political actors.

standeven 6y ago

Do they lean left, or is it that reality has a well known liberal bias?

decebalus1 6y ago

> Hollywood, Silicon Valley, academia, and the news media all lean left. citation needed. Silicon Valley is a monument to capitalism and most if not all entrepreneurs lean libertarian. As for the news media, as an example, Fox News has the highest viewership in the US. And for the others, ever thought about why you're not seeing a lot of coverage about unions/worker rights/worker strikes? Don't mistake anti-Trump rhetoric with 'left leaning'.. So I'm not sure we're you're getting your 'data' from.

newfriend 6y ago
So capitalism is right-wing now? Oh let me guess, this is the old "Democrats are actually right-wing", right? > As for the news media, as an example, Fox News has the highest viewership in the US. Yes one channel is different than every other, of course viewership is concentrated there -- all the lefty viewers are spread out over the remaining channels. If the other news channels aren't "left-wing" then Fox isn't "right-wing", and everything is meaningless. There isn't a large population of commies or nazis in the US, despite what the media would have you believe. Both parties are pretty near the center, with some individual outliers.
- blueline 6y ago
  In what universe is capitalism not an emphatically right wing economic system?
  - filleduchaos 6y ago
    In the universe where way too many Americans think left vs right wing is whether you support reproductive rights or not.
mancerayder 6y ago
Fox News has the biggest viewership of a single outlet, and it's right-wing, sure (93+% of viewers self-identify as Republican). But MSNBC viewers self-identify as Democrat at the rate of 95%, NYT as 91%, NPR at 87%, CNN at 79%. You need to compare aggregate numbers if you're trying to be fair. The source for the above is Pew Research Center, Sept 12, 2020, published in this Tweet: https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1304908656543178752 https://twitter.com/pewresearch/status/1304908656543178752

NathanKP 6y ago

My personal opinion: I don't think Parler is about political left vs political right. There are plenty of folks on the political right who also don't want to be associated with QAnon, insurrection, death threats, and the other stuff that went on in the Parler posts. Don't fall into the trap of boxing this just into 50% vs 50%. The reality of the US is: 33.7% of Americans didn't even vote in 2020, 34% voted "left", 31% voted "right" (the rest of the votes went to third party candidates). Those who voted on the right are further subdivided into even smaller groups. One of those smaller groups on the political right side includes extremists who attacked the capitol. Distaste for Parler, due to the actions of some of those extremists who were using it actually crossed political boundaries: folks who didn't vote, folks on the "left" and even folks on the "right". The shunning of Parler isn't about "soft power" on the left its about the fact that a small group of people managed to do something so reprehensible that a LOT more than just 50% of people felt that association with them was tainting.

andrekandre 6y ago

not to take away from your point and be too pedantic, but i think maybe left and liberal are being conflated? actual bonafide leftists have very little real political power in ths u.s afaik...

maxsilver 6y ago
Yeah, as far as I can tell, America doesn't have any meaningful left-wing politics of any kind. There's not a single left politician elected to any federal office anywhere in the nation, for example. Hollywood (the industry funded by the US Military to put pro-military-industrial-state advertisements into movies) is not "left leaning" in any meaningful way. "News Media" all lean either slight-right (MSNBC, NPR) to hard-right (Fox News, NYT, WSJ). Silicon Valley is primarily driven by right-leaning "libertarian" conservative types (at both big corps and small startups). Democrats are largely all conservative (in that, Democrats of 2021 mostly all hold identical views to what Republicans used to hold in the year 1998) We do have a few centrist politicians and groups (Bernie Sanders / AOC+Squad, etc), and a few centrist movements (rights for LGBTQ+, or "Defund the Police", for example, is largely politically-centrist initiatives). But I'm not aware of even a single left-leaning politician in any federal elected office. For example, no elected federal politician is advocating for the nationalization of all private corporations, or elimination of all for-profit entities, or for a complete cap on individual wealth, or for giving Hawaii back to the aboriginal Hawaiians, or anything like that, that could be considered a full-left position. (But meanwhile, on the right, there is a meaningful ultra-far-right political movement arguing that we should ignore replace democratically-elected officials with dicatorships, for example. And that group has elected members sitting in the House + Senate today)
- gowld 6y ago
  This is silly. Sanders is left. AOC is left. Many are left-leaning. No one advocates a monarchy either, but that doesn't mean no one is "right-leaning".
  - mancerayder 6y ago
    AOC is a media figure with a big following, and Sanders has had a cultural influence, but I would hardly say that they're part of the DNC establishment. They're at the fringes. For evidence, Medicare For All is a keystone platform point for them both, and not for the mainstream DNC.

mbesto 6y ago

> It's worth noting how much soft power the political left in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. This is not technically true. (1) politics is a spectrum (2) the US is generally left leaning as a whole, but the largest demographic designation of people in the US is generally considered moderate. > This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to do anything in these areas that might counter their preferences. The population of the US leans left - those outlets are simply a reflection of that. It's absurd to think that all of these elite people who run those companies get together and conspire to keep left ideas alive. If you know anything about the Democratic party you would know they are horrible at creating a coordinated strategy. To think that same party is somehow regurgitating a coordinated theme through commercial means while at the same time having an uncoordinated government strategy is absurd. > It's possible to go to university, watch movies, read the news everyday, and have no idea what the other half of the country is thinking or saying. I agree with this but not for your aforementioned reasons. Those echo-chambers exist because communication is no longer at the town square but on social media and messaging apps.

mancerayder 6y ago

Hold on, they lean Democrat, not "Left." I know it sounds pedantic, even subjective, but it's very important to point out that the Democrats are pro-business, not particularly pro union, they are pro Wall Street, and they generally are pro Defense spending and engaged in wars abroad in every term going back thirty years. The fact that they talk about race and gender could arguably make them "culturally left" which very much makes them feel left-wing, even radical to some. A European, or almost anyone else in the world would call them centrists or center-right. Silicon Valley is right-wing on economics and defense of monopoly, and left when you talk about race and gender equity in the board room. You can see echoes of this on HN where many people support restrictions of speech if they come from a private platform ("laissez-faire" approach to private property), but still call for a shut down of hate speech and a correction of "misinformation". The Democrats' cultural mores center around postmodernist principles of "language makes reality" "there are power imbalances" "the power imbalances intersect around race and gender" and finally "correcting how we talk about these topics will help the marginalized." ... But, we're reminded, Twitter and AWS and Facebook are private property, and you should read and follow the TOS ("laissez-faire").

jhpriestley 6y ago

If you read the news every day then you will certainly hear from the other half of the country. I just checked CNN's front page, and while most coverage focuses on the new President, these three articles all feature right-wing viewpoints: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/2024-republican-primary/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/2024-republican-prim... https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/fact-check-marjorie-taylor-greene-twitter-election-capitol/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/fact-check-marjorie-... https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/01/21/conspiracy-theories-qanon-inauguration-trump-biden-orig.cnn-business https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/01/21/conspiracy-th...