10 ms·

I'm a moderate, not a Democrat and not a Republican. I think people on the left have a blind spot here, that the more suppression they use, the more division t

by Dig1t 4y ago

I'm a moderate, not a Democrat and not a Republican. I think people on the left have a blind spot here, that the more suppression they use, the more division they create, and the more moderates and people on the right grow to resent them. I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely. At this point both sides suck and I want nothing to do with either.

whateveracct 4y ago
If this issue is the sticking point given the other differences in platform (many that involve fundamental rights and freedoms), then it sounds like Republicans have managed to find a good new wedge issue (you not voting is a known part of their playbook).
folkrav 4y ago
The whole idea that there are "sides" to be had is IMHO extremely sad in the first place. This whole bipartisan system bullshit is causing so much damage, and its been going on since at least the 70s.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” -John Adams in letter to Johnathan Jackson, 1780.
- pulvinar 4y ago
  That's an odd take on US history-- it certainly wasn't all roses before the 70s, what with political sides getting people blacklisted, killed, or even starting a civil war.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
paulgb 4y ago
Is there a smoking gun here that points the blame to any officials representing the party, as opposed to bad decisions made by twitter employees on their own bias? I find the tweetstorm format to be not particularly coherent, and I haven’t followed the story closely enough to know who the actors are, but Ro Khanna (a Democrat) is one of the names I recognize and he seems to be against the censoring.
- mpweiher 4y ago
  > as opposed to bad decisions made by twitter employees on their own bias I thought that was the smoking gun.
  - paulgb 4y ago
    A smoking gun for twitter maybe, but GP is talking about writing off “the left” because of this.
- Dig1t 4y ago
  This one is pretty bad in my opinion: https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 The government is not supposed to be censoring people's speech, however they are effectively doing just that using a layer of indirection.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulgb 4y ago
    Joe Biden wasn’t “the government” yet, look at the date. I wish we knew what these tweets actually were. If it was suppressing a news story, that’s bad. If it’s asking for death threats to be removed, that’s not bad. (Matt himself acknowledges that both parties had tweets taken down, his evidence for bias is apparently that Twitter employees donated more to democrats https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752?s=46&t=edhjSccEuxK5jecEXtW1dg https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752?s=46&...) Surely Twitter still has the data in an archive somewhere, but it’s not clear from the thread that Matt knows what the content of these tweets was.
Waterluvian 4y ago
From a country with five viable parties: this picking sides thing, or even being a “moderate” is just weird and kind of horrifying how normal the populace thinks it is. It’s not normal. People should be FREAKING OUT that their governmental system is in such bad shape. They’re too busy cheering for whichever tribe they’re in. All of politics being one dimensional is one of the biggest lies ever.
- anonu 4y ago
  A two party system works. I'm from a country with a 20+ party system and it's dysfunctional. In addition, you can't lump Democrats or Republicans in the USA in their respective boats. There's a hundred shades of grey within each party. But rallying behind one candidate versus a hundred in a primary makes for a better setup than anything else I've seen in other countries.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    I don't really agree with you but you shouldn't be grayed out. The idea of a dysfunctional government sounds bad, but ironically that is precisely what the Founding Fathers endeavored to create. And it sounds absurd for all the reasons you're certainly aware of. Yet is the opposite desirable? In modern US politics, parties have become capable of enacting pretty substantial change on very narrow margins. This can be good in one manner of thought because "good" change can happen at an accelerated rate. The problem is "good" is subjective. It was big news when the 2016 election was decided by as few as 78,000 votes, yet the 2020 election was now decided by as few as 45,000 votes [1]. The one thing everybody would agree on is that the country (and world) would look radically different today had the US election in 2020 gone differently. And so we're living in a boat that keeps getting increasingly violently rocked back and forth, all based on who wins a coin flip. A bit of dysfunction to cool things (and people) down doesn't seem so bad. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/18/how-2020-election-was-closer-than-2016/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/18/how-2020-...
    - mpweiher 4y ago
throwawaylinux 4y ago
"people on the left" have no better than than people on the right or anybody else in this regard. When it suits them, when they believe it will advantage them, they are all for suppression of peoples' rights.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
alchemist1e9 4y ago
What if enough of us could join the Libertarian party but “moderate” the Libertarian platform to make it more mainstream and … moderate. Really we probably need to fix all censorship issues first somehow.
- shitlord 4y ago
  At that point, we are just hijacking the libertarian party and turning it into something it isn't, which its adherents today would oppose. Most of the disenchanted voters from the Democratic/Republican parties can agree on policies that the libertarians abhor. For example, many of us would support foreign aid to Ukraine, but the LP takes an isolationist stance.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Or https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republicans-democrats-form-new-third-us-political-party-2022-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republican...
acjohnson55 4y ago
The irony of that statement is that we're talking about a private company deciding what is or isn't appropriate on its platform, not de jure censorship. It is not Twitter's responsibility to facilitate the Republicans' attempted October Surprise. On the other hand, where Republicans have political power, they are using it restrict speech and rights, by law. "Both sides" are not the same.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  This grants that Twitter is partisan though.
  - nickthegreek 4y ago
    Twitter also removed posts at the behest of Trump’s team. But I will say they definitely lean left, which everyone knew.
  - acjohnson55 4y ago
    No, because "partisan" would imply they work on behalf of a political party. The so-called Twitter Files themselves demonstrate that this is not true. I'm not here to claim that people working at Twitter are unbiased. Everyone has bias. But also, there's extrinsic bias in what they're dealing with, in the sense that "both sides" aren't doing the same things. One trick is to behave egregiously and then when called out for it, claim bias.
- ehsankia 4y ago
  It's also ridiculous to me that they think removing a couple naked pictures of Hunter is "censorship". As if you can truly "censor" information on the internet. You can maybe slow its spread, but if anything, the hardest thing is get things off the internet, not on. These people keep blaming some vague magical power for the reason Hunter stories never went anywhere, but the real reason no one talks about them isn't censorship, it's because they're literally non-stories. It's just revenge porn videos of a known drug abuser. To call this "authoritarian censorship" is honestly mind boggling.
Terretta 4y ago
> but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely So as a moderate you prefer DeSantis approach to Disney, his forbidding of speech in schools, etc.? He's not passing literal anti press and anti speech laws to piss off the MAGA base. It's remarkable to me he so badly wanted props for punishing Disney for exercising free speech he forgot he's supposed to be pro business and anti big government regulation. Suppression of speech has to push you away from far left and far right, so that should cancel out. Then, if you're really prefering all the other policies as you say, you could vote center left ... Or -- vote Forward: "Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America's dysfunctional two-party system." "The new party, called Forward and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters." -- https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republicans-democrats-form-new-third-us-political-party-2022-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republican...
- xdennis 4y ago
  > So as a moderate you prefer DeSantis approach to Disney It's amazing how things change. In the past the left would have been happy to see the removal of subsidies to mega corporations.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Just to set the record straight, it was not a subsidy. When Orlando papers did the math, they showed it will cost the tax jurisdictions more to provide the services than it cost to waive the taxes and let Disney provide them to itself. Further, Disney is far from the only private town with the same arrangement; it's how Florida does it all over the state any time there's a big enough planned development, because that saves the government money. Republicans should love this, because it proves government services privatized can cost the tax payer less. That narrative was inconvenient to "the right" so didn't get talked about much because then the entire thing would just look astonishingly petty. And "the left" didn't really want to have to talk about how it saves towns money to privatize services. So that whole angle, swept under the rug by 'both sides'. UPDATE After posting this, I just saw this in Financial Times: > Florida prepares U-turn on Disney's 'Don't Say Gay' punishment -- Lawmakers seek compromise preserving theme park operator's right to run private government > By Christopher Grimes in Orlando, Florida (yesterday) Since FT is paywall, found a Reason link: https://reason.com/2022/12/02/is-florida-giving-up-its-fight-against-woke-disney/ https://reason.com/2022/12/02/is-florida-giving-up-its-fight... > In other words, this looks like it was never much more than a pissing match between DeSantis and Chapek, who drew the governor's ire when he sharply criticized Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" law that censored discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. DeSantis signed the bill into law in March. > Florida has hundreds of special tax districts like Reedy Creek, but DeSantis seized on Chapek's criticism and framed the whole thing as a culture war fight against a corporation that had received special privileges from the state. Chapek's criticism of the new law amounted to "provocation, and we're going to fight back," DeSantis said in April as he signed the law undoing Disney's special status. > But most of that was a wild exaggeration. As Reason's Scott Shackford wrote in April, the special tax and governing status granted to Disney in 1967 aren't so much privileges for the corporation as they are gifts to the local governments surrounding the Walt Disney World resort. If the special status were revoked, Orange and Osceola counties would become responsible for providing mandatory public services—including basic infrastructure like water supplies and emergency services like fire departments, all of which Disney currently self-operates and self-funds within Reedy Creek—to the massive resort. It would effectively put local taxpayers on the hook for essential services that Disney used to pay for itself. > "Any contention that DeSantis is eliminating some sort of 'special treatment' for Disney comes with it the perhaps mistaken assumption that the two counties suddenly in charge of all of this infrastructure will somehow make the park better and not worse. In reality, putting Disney parks at the mercy of two different counties with different laws will be a huge mess for everybody involved, and that's the point," Shackford wrote. "It's not about what's fair or what's best for the citizens in the area. It's about punishing political foes and centralizing government power (a very nonconservative approach) to do so." > Friday's report that lawmakers are preparing to back down from those proposals only seems to confirm that conclusion.
afavour 4y ago
> the more division they create, and the more moderates and people on the [opposite side] grow to resent them This feels like a universal to me that applies to both parties. And I’m sorry, “authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas” is pure propaganda. No mainstream left leaning politician is actually perusing such an idea, it’s a boogeyman created by the right and by the looks of things it’s working great.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  It's very common on the left to demand suppression of "hate speech". Of course, that commonly ends up mostly meaning "speech I hate".
  - afavour 4y ago
    You’ve made a very vague statement there. There are extremes in every political movement, no doubt. I don’t deny that there are people on the left out there protesting against “hate speech”. There are also people on the right that are out and out racist. I think choosing whether to vote Democrat or Republican based on either of those extremes is a poor choice. OP said: > I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression So we’re not talking about vague “leftists” here, we’re specifically talking about the Democratic Party. You’re going to have a rough time arguing they are campaigning on authoritarianism.
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    So in this specific case, for one example, we're talking about Biden's team requesting the removal of revenge porn. Do you think it's acceptable to make that request? Should Twitter be obligated to leave revenge porn up? Is this an example of the 'suppression of "hate speech"' you're referring to with scare quotes? Because it doesn't seem like one to me.
  - ruszki 4y ago
    There are several countries in Western Europe where there are such laws, and it never means that.
- 4y ago
roenxi 4y ago
One of the curses of democracy is you have to form coalitions with other humans instead of ideals. At least in the US it is out in the open. Many countries have worse problems and bigger, more friendly smiles. This is a good time to plug 3rd parties and candidates. Organised pressure to make the situation better is more important than winning elections - even if they don't get voted in they may force change for the better. At some point the best options amongst two evils is still too evil to tolerate.
- rpmisms 4y ago
  Pedantic reminder that the US is not a democracy, and representing it as one is missing the point of the US. We are a constitutional republic, because democratic decisions need reigning in.
jmyeet 4y ago
> I'm a moderate The Overton window in the US stems from center-right (Democrats) to extreme-right (Republicans) so if you're in the middle of that you're firmly a conservative. Don't believe me? Example: we've got the ongoing threat of a strike tby rail workers who want paid sick leave. They currently have no paid sick leave. Calling in sick will come off their vacation days. It may even get them disciplined and fired. They asked for 15 paid sick days. Some in Congress wanted to compromise and give them 7 days. Over the last few years the rail companies have furloughed ~30% of their staff to the point where covering sick staff is a real problem. They've so far made $20 billion on profits this year. The excess profits have routinely been used in share buybacks and dividends. Biden, who claims to be pro-labor, has sided with the rail companies in directing Congress to use an old law to rob these workers of their right to industrial action and mandate a contract. With no paid sick leave. How can anyone with a straight face in good faith argue there is any leftist power in politics when Democrats side with capital and routinely go out of their way to eviscerate labor and the progressive elements of their party? > I think people on the left have a blind spot here So you've made two false premises here: 1. There are peeople on the left in politics. As I noted above, this is a falsehood; and 2. The "left" is a monolith and wanted to suppress the Hunter Biden story. This is right-wing propaganda because conservatives treat Trump like a cult leader who is above the law. Speaking as a leftist (FWIW), I don't care about Hunter Biden. Throw in jail. Hilary too. I don't think Twitter should've blocked the NY Post story but ultimately it's a nothing burger because there's nothing of substance on this laptop. If there was it would've been passed on to law enforcement instead of being passed raround right-wing operatives (to the point of destroying any chain of custody) in an effort to smear the administration and nothing came of it, which is why they just fell back to the old playbook of pedo allegations. > ... people on the right grow to resent them People on the right already call people on the left groomers, pedos and criminals. > ... this authoritarian suppression of speech What suppression? Everyone knows about this story. The only "suppression" (which, again, I personally disagree with) is you couldn't share a link to one post on one site (Twitter). to believe this is "authoritarian suppression" belies successful right-wing propaganda. > ... both sides ... Bothsidesing American politics does nothing more than show how normalized right-wing ideas have become (and how far right the Overton window has swung). You have the former president espousing QAnon conspiracies, election denialism at every level of government and white supremacy (which is a core tenet of the Republican Party and America's founding and history) spilling over to where the likes of Kanye are saying the quiet part out loud, Elon Musk tweeted (then retracted) a conspiracy about Paul Pelosi and his attacker and the #1 "news" program in US openly pushing Nazi propaganda (ie Tucker Carlson and the Great Replacement Theory). Bothsidesing this doesn't make one enlightened or "above the fray".
lamontcg 4y ago
dehrmann 4y ago
It doesn't look good that a lot of credible media outlets had to walk back their stances on the Hnuter Biden laptop and lab-origin covid. Both proved to be plausible enough that they never should have been censored or suppressed.
- acdha 4y ago
  It’s useful to read what the media actually wrote at the time rather than how Republicans portray it. I’ve included a number of links below but the main thing which is obvious is that coverage was dominated by the questions of authenticity and especially the challenges of not having a forensic trail which wasn’t tainted by Giuliani, who was so unreliable that even Fox News warned reporters not go trust him. A lot of that coverage also focused on how Fox and the WSJ passed on the story because they couldn’t verify key details, or how the Post’s own journalists had reservations because they couldn’t verify details such as whether an email ever got a reply or particular meetings actually happened. Years later, the story remains the same: some relatively boring details have been confirmed but nothing explosive has been found and evidence of tampering likely means that if something was buried in there Giuliani would have helped Hunter Biden by tainting the evidence to the point that it wouldn’t stand up in court. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-post-hunter-biden.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-p... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-biden-laptop.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-biden-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bidens-alleged-laptop-an-explainer/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bi... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/ratcliffe-says-no-proof-foreign-actors-tied-biden-laptop-officials-n1243874 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/ratcliffe... https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-twitter-limit-sharing-of-new-york-post-articles-that-biden-disputes-11602736535 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-twitter-limit-sharing-... https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924506867/analysis-questionable-n-y-post-scoop-driven-by-ex-hannity-producer-giuliani https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924506867/analysis-questionab... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hunter-joe-biden-emails/2020/10/14/2740c702-0e4c-11eb-8074-0e943a91bf08_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hunter-joe-biden-ema...
  - 4y ago
mdasen 4y ago
I find these kinds of comments hard to respond to. I want to respond in a way that's constructive, but it's hard. It's hard because many Republicans are pushing the US in a direction that will harm millions of Americans in very significant ways. Tucker Carlson and Libs of TikTok all but encourage violence against LGBT people. Republicans are trying to prevent Black people from voting. Many Republicans tried to overturn the 2020 election and are actively working to be able to overturn future elections. Republicans have gerrymandered many states so that Democrats don't have a chance. Women have lost access to abortion which is medically necessary in many cases and has left them in situations where they don't get treatment until sepsis or other serious complications have set in even if they survive, it can have a huge recovery time (and they may never fully recover) and it can end up costing a lot of money due to lost wages and healthcare costs. Yea, Democrats are annoying sometimes, but the situation we're in has consequences for a lot of people. > At this point both sides suck and I want nothing to do with either. I wish I could say that. For a lot of us, we can't say that. The Democratic party might be pissing you off, but the Republican party is truly harming millions of Americans. The Republican party is no longer John McCain and Mitt Romney. I have my issues with them, but both seem to genuinely care for people and want to make America a better place. Today, so many seem to want to weaponize hate. I guess I'd ask you what you think the Democrats should do differently while protecting women, Black people, LGBT people, and other minorities. I guess I don't completely know what you mean by the Democrats having an "authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas". In most of my experience, it's been pushing for more inclusive language and not being mean to people while Republicans are forcefully trying to censor a lot of topics as they ban books and pass "don't say gay" bills. Is it that Democrats think Ye (Kanye West) shouldn't be given a massive platform to hate on Jews? Is it that Democrats think places like Netflix and SNL shouldn't pay Dave Chapelle millions to hate on Jews and trans people? I'd note about this is that the instant anyone says something bad about White people or men, Republicans all line up to say that they shouldn't have a platform to say that. Republicans try to "cancel" people just as much as Democrats do. I think it's also important to note that there are differences between government restriction on speech and social condemnation of speech. People use speech to organize. Sometimes that's great and other times you get Nazis. There is a pretty big concern in many communities over the increase in violent attacks from right-wing groups. These are groups that are pushed forward by many main-stream Republican commentators and many Republican politicians. Sure, they'll say it should stop just short of violence, but it's an effective strategy. I'm not arguing that the government should control speech, but any respectable person or organization should probably not promote Nazis. Would you hire a Nazi to give a speech at your company about their ideology? If you owned a newspaper, would you hire a Nazi to do your editorials? If you didn't, are you suppressing their speech? If you published a letter from a Nazi and put a big warning alongside it that your newspaper condemned the views expressed by the letter, are you suppressing that speech? I'd also note that speech has real-world consequences. People used speech to create the political will to suppress Italian and Irish immigrants. People used speech to build coalitions to keep Black people enslaved. Nazis used speech to get the power to murder two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. Bad ideas should be fought against. Not all ideas are equal or equally good. Some ideas are evil and we need to make it known that they're evil ideas. Again, I'm not saying that the government should control speech, but I do expect good politicians to speak out against evil ideas and to call the people promoting those ideas bad. Hitler was a very bad person and Ye is a bad person for promoting Hitler as good. That's not suppression of speech. That's noting that Ye is supporting evil that should be opposed. I genuinely understand that it's difficult to know where the line should be, but I'd also note that the past was never a bastion of free speech. You needed to be wealthy to publish things in the past. Most people didn't have free speech beyond who could hear them at the pub. In the 21st century where our communication is often less in-person, what does that mean for platforms like Facebook or Twitter which are kinda like newspapers, but also kinda masquerade as a personal communication device (or a common carrier as some people argue they should be)? What did it mean when newspapers controlled information and only some ideas were pushed by the newspapers with the biggest circulation? What does it mean if the in-person communication of yore is replaced by the Facebook of today? I'd also note that speech always had consequences. People have always been "canceled" when a powerful person or their community decided that their speech was wrong - Senator Sumner argued against slavery and was beaten half to death on the Senate floor by pro-slavery Senators. During the American Revolution, lots of people faced dire consequences if they said something that might have sounded too loyalist. People have always lost jobs because they said something a higher-up didn't like - or something a third party didn't like who had power with one of their higher-ups. People have been fired for coming out as gay. Are we talking about the same consequences that have always existed and have often been wielded (and continue to be wielded) by the right? If you have constructive ways the Democrats could be better, I'm open to hearing them. I guess I'll close with hoping that you'll think of the LGBT people, women, Black people, and others in your life that will be harmed by today's Republican party. I hope you'll value us more than you're pissed off by Democrats. I want my life to be worth more than your resentment. I don't mean that as any kind of slight against you or anyone else - I understand how hard it is to vote for someone who genuinely pisses you off. I just truly hope that you'll choose me. I don't really know how else to say it. I like my life, I want to continue living it, I want to be protected by my government with the same rights as everyone else and not persecuted by it. Please choose me.
colordrops 4y ago
Good, don't ever choose a "side". "Sides" are for corralling people into manipulable herds. Every issue should be considered individually using logic and data, rather than following the blind recommendations of a "side" down the line.
dan-robertson 4y ago
I think a story one could tell about more recent events is that Twitter banning various extreme right wing views was good for the Republican Party because they could make arguments about free speech or whatever and not need to deal with those extreme views being associated with the Republican Party. If such views aren’t hidden, maybe it will force Republicans to work harder to separate themselves from such views, similarly to the way that Democrats expend much effort trying to show that they aren’t secretly communists or whatever.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Hunter biden laptop story isnt really a right wing view and clearly benefits Biden. There is a performative aspect to banning "extreme" views that certainly domt help Republicans.
preseinger 4y ago
I'm a moderate Democrat ... authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas both sides suck This is a great expression of what is commonly described as a South Park republican. That is, someone who believes they live in a political space between republicans and democrats which does not actually exist. The fundamental emotion is cynicism, which manifests as active hostility towards any notion of empathy for any other dimension of society, and ultimately distills down to status-quo-ism. Of course cynicism is non-falsifiable, and there is no coherent notion of a moderate or independent in American politics, because there exists no coherent political position between democratic and republican policy. Anyone claiming to exist in this middle space is in practice a republican, just without the conviction that's typical to that party's base.
- imran0 4y ago
  > Anyone claiming to exist in this middle space is in practice a republican, just without the conviction that's typical to that party's base. So it's basically, "If you're not with us, you're against us?"
  - Manjuuu 4y ago
    Maybe you missed this part in the parent message: "I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely." It's so absurd as a statement, no one does a 180 "because free speech". Both parties are so clearly distinct that if you claim to be something in the middle you'd better explain what you mean. But I'm not an american, I could be wrong, I just watch the show from the outside and sometimes it's sad.
    - yucky 4y ago
      > But I'm not an american, I could be wrong Yes, this is the case here. There are a number of issues that matter enough to make people switch parties, particularly the more moderate people in each party. In fact you can see entire swathes of voter blocks having changed parties over the last 20 years as party platforms have changed focus on some core issues. They won't necessarily switch from D -> R or R -> D. They will often switch to a 3rd party or Independent. Over time they may eventually find their way into supporting the opposite major party. Occasionally they will switch directly from one major party to the other. Just depends on the issues and where people are at in their lives.
iinnPP 4y ago
Both sides suck teammember here too. I've almost completely detached from all news because none of it passes even the stuffiest nose in a sniff test. My two favorite realizations: - Data is the best liar. - You can get -one- expert to say literally anything. You can always find one expert with an opinion that matches what you want to say.
joxel 4y ago
This is such a ridiculous political narrative. The Democrats are not for policing speech, Twitter can police whatever it wants. Imagine being a conservative and thinking government regulation of corporations is wrong and simultaneously thinking you have a right to post stuff on twitter.
philjohn 4y ago
The tweets the Biden campaign asked Twitter to take down (you can verify this yourself) were all non consentual intimate images of Hunter. That is both against the Twitter ToS, hence flagging to them, and illegal in 48 states + DC, including California, where Twitter is based.
DoubleDerper 4y ago
ranked choice voting can chip away at polarization.

by Dig1t 4y ago

whateveracct 4y ago

If this issue is the sticking point given the other differences in platform (many that involve fundamental rights and freedoms), then it sounds like Republicans have managed to find a good new wedge issue (you not voting is a known part of their playbook).

folkrav 4y ago

The whole idea that there are "sides" to be had is IMHO extremely sad in the first place. This whole bipartisan system bullshit is causing so much damage, and its been going on since at least the 70s.

andrew_ 4y ago
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” -John Adams in letter to Johnathan Jackson, 1780.
pulvinar 4y ago
That's an odd take on US history-- it certainly wasn't all roses before the 70s, what with political sides getting people blacklisted, killed, or even starting a civil war.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

paulgb 4y ago

Is there a smoking gun here that points the blame to any officials representing the party, as opposed to bad decisions made by twitter employees on their own bias? I find the tweetstorm format to be not particularly coherent, and I haven’t followed the story closely enough to know who the actors are, but Ro Khanna (a Democrat) is one of the names I recognize and he seems to be against the censoring.

mpweiher 4y ago
> as opposed to bad decisions made by twitter employees on their own bias I thought that was the smoking gun.
- paulgb 4y ago
  A smoking gun for twitter maybe, but GP is talking about writing off “the left” because of this.
Dig1t 4y ago
This one is pretty bad in my opinion: https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598827602403160064 The government is not supposed to be censoring people's speech, however they are effectively doing just that using a layer of indirection.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paulgb 4y ago
  Joe Biden wasn’t “the government” yet, look at the date. I wish we knew what these tweets actually were. If it was suppressing a news story, that’s bad. If it’s asking for death threats to be removed, that’s not bad. (Matt himself acknowledges that both parties had tweets taken down, his evidence for bias is apparently that Twitter employees donated more to democrats https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752?s=46&t=edhjSccEuxK5jecEXtW1dg https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752?s=46&...) Surely Twitter still has the data in an archive somewhere, but it’s not clear from the thread that Matt knows what the content of these tweets was.

Waterluvian 4y ago

From a country with five viable parties: this picking sides thing, or even being a “moderate” is just weird and kind of horrifying how normal the populace thinks it is. It’s not normal. People should be FREAKING OUT that their governmental system is in such bad shape. They’re too busy cheering for whichever tribe they’re in. All of politics being one dimensional is one of the biggest lies ever.

anonu 4y ago
A two party system works. I'm from a country with a 20+ party system and it's dysfunctional. In addition, you can't lump Democrats or Republicans in the USA in their respective boats. There's a hundred shades of grey within each party. But rallying behind one candidate versus a hundred in a primary makes for a better setup than anything else I've seen in other countries.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  I don't really agree with you but you shouldn't be grayed out. The idea of a dysfunctional government sounds bad, but ironically that is precisely what the Founding Fathers endeavored to create. And it sounds absurd for all the reasons you're certainly aware of. Yet is the opposite desirable? In modern US politics, parties have become capable of enacting pretty substantial change on very narrow margins. This can be good in one manner of thought because "good" change can happen at an accelerated rate. The problem is "good" is subjective. It was big news when the 2016 election was decided by as few as 78,000 votes, yet the 2020 election was now decided by as few as 45,000 votes [1]. The one thing everybody would agree on is that the country (and world) would look radically different today had the US election in 2020 gone differently. And so we're living in a boat that keeps getting increasingly violently rocked back and forth, all based on who wins a coin flip. A bit of dysfunction to cool things (and people) down doesn't seem so bad. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/18/how-2020-election-was-closer-than-2016/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/18/how-2020-...
  - mpweiher 4y ago

throwawaylinux 4y ago

"people on the left" have no better than than people on the right or anybody else in this regard. When it suits them, when they believe it will advantage them, they are all for suppression of peoples' rights.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alchemist1e9 4y ago

What if enough of us could join the Libertarian party but “moderate” the Libertarian platform to make it more mainstream and … moderate. Really we probably need to fix all censorship issues first somehow.

shitlord 4y ago
At that point, we are just hijacking the libertarian party and turning it into something it isn't, which its adherents today would oppose. Most of the disenchanted voters from the Democratic/Republican parties can agree on policies that the libertarians abhor. For example, many of us would support foreign aid to Ukraine, but the LP takes an isolationist stance.
Terretta 4y ago
Or https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republicans-democrats-form-new-third-us-political-party-2022-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republican...

acjohnson55 4y ago

The irony of that statement is that we're talking about a private company deciding what is or isn't appropriate on its platform, not de jure censorship. It is not Twitter's responsibility to facilitate the Republicans' attempted October Surprise. On the other hand, where Republicans have political power, they are using it restrict speech and rights, by law. "Both sides" are not the same.

nonethewiser 4y ago
This grants that Twitter is partisan though.
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  Twitter also removed posts at the behest of Trump’s team. But I will say they definitely lean left, which everyone knew.
- acjohnson55 4y ago
  No, because "partisan" would imply they work on behalf of a political party. The so-called Twitter Files themselves demonstrate that this is not true. I'm not here to claim that people working at Twitter are unbiased. Everyone has bias. But also, there's extrinsic bias in what they're dealing with, in the sense that "both sides" aren't doing the same things. One trick is to behave egregiously and then when called out for it, claim bias.
ehsankia 4y ago
It's also ridiculous to me that they think removing a couple naked pictures of Hunter is "censorship". As if you can truly "censor" information on the internet. You can maybe slow its spread, but if anything, the hardest thing is get things off the internet, not on. These people keep blaming some vague magical power for the reason Hunter stories never went anywhere, but the real reason no one talks about them isn't censorship, it's because they're literally non-stories. It's just revenge porn videos of a known drug abuser. To call this "authoritarian censorship" is honestly mind boggling.

Terretta 4y ago

> but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely So as a moderate you prefer DeSantis approach to Disney, his forbidding of speech in schools, etc.? He's not passing literal anti press and anti speech laws to piss off the MAGA base. It's remarkable to me he so badly wanted props for punishing Disney for exercising free speech he forgot he's supposed to be pro business and anti big government regulation. Suppression of speech has to push you away from far left and far right, so that should cancel out. Then, if you're really prefering all the other policies as you say, you could vote center left ... Or -- vote Forward: "Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America's dysfunctional two-party system." "The new party, called Forward and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters." -- https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republicans-democrats-form-new-third-us-political-party-2022-07-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republican...

xdennis 4y ago
> So as a moderate you prefer DeSantis approach to Disney It's amazing how things change. In the past the left would have been happy to see the removal of subsidies to mega corporations.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Just to set the record straight, it was not a subsidy. When Orlando papers did the math, they showed it will cost the tax jurisdictions more to provide the services than it cost to waive the taxes and let Disney provide them to itself. Further, Disney is far from the only private town with the same arrangement; it's how Florida does it all over the state any time there's a big enough planned development, because that saves the government money. Republicans should love this, because it proves government services privatized can cost the tax payer less. That narrative was inconvenient to "the right" so didn't get talked about much because then the entire thing would just look astonishingly petty. And "the left" didn't really want to have to talk about how it saves towns money to privatize services. So that whole angle, swept under the rug by 'both sides'. UPDATE After posting this, I just saw this in Financial Times: > Florida prepares U-turn on Disney's 'Don't Say Gay' punishment -- Lawmakers seek compromise preserving theme park operator's right to run private government > By Christopher Grimes in Orlando, Florida (yesterday) Since FT is paywall, found a Reason link: https://reason.com/2022/12/02/is-florida-giving-up-its-fight-against-woke-disney/ https://reason.com/2022/12/02/is-florida-giving-up-its-fight... > In other words, this looks like it was never much more than a pissing match between DeSantis and Chapek, who drew the governor's ire when he sharply criticized Florida's so-called "Don't Say Gay" law that censored discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. DeSantis signed the bill into law in March. > Florida has hundreds of special tax districts like Reedy Creek, but DeSantis seized on Chapek's criticism and framed the whole thing as a culture war fight against a corporation that had received special privileges from the state. Chapek's criticism of the new law amounted to "provocation, and we're going to fight back," DeSantis said in April as he signed the law undoing Disney's special status. > But most of that was a wild exaggeration. As Reason's Scott Shackford wrote in April, the special tax and governing status granted to Disney in 1967 aren't so much privileges for the corporation as they are gifts to the local governments surrounding the Walt Disney World resort. If the special status were revoked, Orange and Osceola counties would become responsible for providing mandatory public services—including basic infrastructure like water supplies and emergency services like fire departments, all of which Disney currently self-operates and self-funds within Reedy Creek—to the massive resort. It would effectively put local taxpayers on the hook for essential services that Disney used to pay for itself. > "Any contention that DeSantis is eliminating some sort of 'special treatment' for Disney comes with it the perhaps mistaken assumption that the two counties suddenly in charge of all of this infrastructure will somehow make the park better and not worse. In reality, putting Disney parks at the mercy of two different counties with different laws will be a huge mess for everybody involved, and that's the point," Shackford wrote. "It's not about what's fair or what's best for the citizens in the area. It's about punishing political foes and centralizing government power (a very nonconservative approach) to do so." > Friday's report that lawmakers are preparing to back down from those proposals only seems to confirm that conclusion.

afavour 4y ago

> the more division they create, and the more moderates and people on the [opposite side] grow to resent them This feels like a universal to me that applies to both parties. And I’m sorry, “authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas” is pure propaganda. No mainstream left leaning politician is actually perusing such an idea, it’s a boogeyman created by the right and by the looks of things it’s working great.

BurningFrog 4y ago
It's very common on the left to demand suppression of "hate speech". Of course, that commonly ends up mostly meaning "speech I hate".
- afavour 4y ago
  You’ve made a very vague statement there. There are extremes in every political movement, no doubt. I don’t deny that there are people on the left out there protesting against “hate speech”. There are also people on the right that are out and out racist. I think choosing whether to vote Democrat or Republican based on either of those extremes is a poor choice. OP said: > I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression So we’re not talking about vague “leftists” here, we’re specifically talking about the Democratic Party. You’re going to have a rough time arguing they are campaigning on authoritarianism.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  So in this specific case, for one example, we're talking about Biden's team requesting the removal of revenge porn. Do you think it's acceptable to make that request? Should Twitter be obligated to leave revenge porn up? Is this an example of the 'suppression of "hate speech"' you're referring to with scare quotes? Because it doesn't seem like one to me.
- ruszki 4y ago
  There are several countries in Western Europe where there are such laws, and it never means that.
4y ago

roenxi 4y ago

One of the curses of democracy is you have to form coalitions with other humans instead of ideals. At least in the US it is out in the open. Many countries have worse problems and bigger, more friendly smiles. This is a good time to plug 3rd parties and candidates. Organised pressure to make the situation better is more important than winning elections - even if they don't get voted in they may force change for the better. At some point the best options amongst two evils is still too evil to tolerate.

rpmisms 4y ago
Pedantic reminder that the US is not a democracy, and representing it as one is missing the point of the US. We are a constitutional republic, because democratic decisions need reigning in.

jmyeet 4y ago

> I'm a moderate The Overton window in the US stems from center-right (Democrats) to extreme-right (Republicans) so if you're in the middle of that you're firmly a conservative. Don't believe me? Example: we've got the ongoing threat of a strike tby rail workers who want paid sick leave. They currently have no paid sick leave. Calling in sick will come off their vacation days. It may even get them disciplined and fired. They asked for 15 paid sick days. Some in Congress wanted to compromise and give them 7 days. Over the last few years the rail companies have furloughed ~30% of their staff to the point where covering sick staff is a real problem. They've so far made $20 billion on profits this year. The excess profits have routinely been used in share buybacks and dividends. Biden, who claims to be pro-labor, has sided with the rail companies in directing Congress to use an old law to rob these workers of their right to industrial action and mandate a contract. With no paid sick leave. How can anyone with a straight face in good faith argue there is any leftist power in politics when Democrats side with capital and routinely go out of their way to eviscerate labor and the progressive elements of their party? > I think people on the left have a blind spot here So you've made two false premises here: 1. There are peeople on the left in politics. As I noted above, this is a falsehood; and 2. The "left" is a monolith and wanted to suppress the Hunter Biden story. This is right-wing propaganda because conservatives treat Trump like a cult leader who is above the law. Speaking as a leftist (FWIW), I don't care about Hunter Biden. Throw in jail. Hilary too. I don't think Twitter should've blocked the NY Post story but ultimately it's a nothing burger because there's nothing of substance on this laptop. If there was it would've been passed on to law enforcement instead of being passed raround right-wing operatives (to the point of destroying any chain of custody) in an effort to smear the administration and nothing came of it, which is why they just fell back to the old playbook of pedo allegations. > ... people on the right grow to resent them People on the right already call people on the left groomers, pedos and criminals. > ... this authoritarian suppression of speech What suppression? Everyone knows about this story. The only "suppression" (which, again, I personally disagree with) is you couldn't share a link to one post on one site (Twitter). to believe this is "authoritarian suppression" belies successful right-wing propaganda. > ... both sides ... Bothsidesing American politics does nothing more than show how normalized right-wing ideas have become (and how far right the Overton window has swung). You have the former president espousing QAnon conspiracies, election denialism at every level of government and white supremacy (which is a core tenet of the Republican Party and America's founding and history) spilling over to where the likes of Kanye are saying the quiet part out loud, Elon Musk tweeted (then retracted) a conspiracy about Paul Pelosi and his attacker and the #1 "news" program in US openly pushing Nazi propaganda (ie Tucker Carlson and the Great Replacement Theory). Bothsidesing this doesn't make one enlightened or "above the fray".

lamontcg 4y ago

dehrmann 4y ago

It doesn't look good that a lot of credible media outlets had to walk back their stances on the Hnuter Biden laptop and lab-origin covid. Both proved to be plausible enough that they never should have been censored or suppressed.

acdha 4y ago
It’s useful to read what the media actually wrote at the time rather than how Republicans portray it. I’ve included a number of links below but the main thing which is obvious is that coverage was dominated by the questions of authenticity and especially the challenges of not having a forensic trail which wasn’t tainted by Giuliani, who was so unreliable that even Fox News warned reporters not go trust him. A lot of that coverage also focused on how Fox and the WSJ passed on the story because they couldn’t verify key details, or how the Post’s own journalists had reservations because they couldn’t verify details such as whether an email ever got a reply or particular meetings actually happened. Years later, the story remains the same: some relatively boring details have been confirmed but nothing explosive has been found and evidence of tampering likely means that if something was buried in there Giuliani would have helped Hunter Biden by tainting the evidence to the point that it wouldn’t stand up in court. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-post-hunter-biden.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/business/media/new-york-p... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-biden-laptop.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-biden-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bidens-alleged-laptop-an-explainer/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bi... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/ratcliffe-says-no-proof-foreign-actors-tied-biden-laptop-officials-n1243874 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/ratcliffe... https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-twitter-limit-sharing-of-new-york-post-articles-that-biden-disputes-11602736535 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-twitter-limit-sharing-... https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924506867/analysis-questionable-n-y-post-scoop-driven-by-ex-hannity-producer-giuliani https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924506867/analysis-questionab... https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hunter-joe-biden-emails/2020/10/14/2740c702-0e4c-11eb-8074-0e943a91bf08_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hunter-joe-biden-ema...
- 4y ago

mdasen 4y ago

I find these kinds of comments hard to respond to. I want to respond in a way that's constructive, but it's hard. It's hard because many Republicans are pushing the US in a direction that will harm millions of Americans in very significant ways. Tucker Carlson and Libs of TikTok all but encourage violence against LGBT people. Republicans are trying to prevent Black people from voting. Many Republicans tried to overturn the 2020 election and are actively working to be able to overturn future elections. Republicans have gerrymandered many states so that Democrats don't have a chance. Women have lost access to abortion which is medically necessary in many cases and has left them in situations where they don't get treatment until sepsis or other serious complications have set in even if they survive, it can have a huge recovery time (and they may never fully recover) and it can end up costing a lot of money due to lost wages and healthcare costs. Yea, Democrats are annoying sometimes, but the situation we're in has consequences for a lot of people. > At this point both sides suck and I want nothing to do with either. I wish I could say that. For a lot of us, we can't say that. The Democratic party might be pissing you off, but the Republican party is truly harming millions of Americans. The Republican party is no longer John McCain and Mitt Romney. I have my issues with them, but both seem to genuinely care for people and want to make America a better place. Today, so many seem to want to weaponize hate. I guess I'd ask you what you think the Democrats should do differently while protecting women, Black people, LGBT people, and other minorities. I guess I don't completely know what you mean by the Democrats having an "authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas". In most of my experience, it's been pushing for more inclusive language and not being mean to people while Republicans are forcefully trying to censor a lot of topics as they ban books and pass "don't say gay" bills. Is it that Democrats think Ye (Kanye West) shouldn't be given a massive platform to hate on Jews? Is it that Democrats think places like Netflix and SNL shouldn't pay Dave Chapelle millions to hate on Jews and trans people? I'd note about this is that the instant anyone says something bad about White people or men, Republicans all line up to say that they shouldn't have a platform to say that. Republicans try to "cancel" people just as much as Democrats do. I think it's also important to note that there are differences between government restriction on speech and social condemnation of speech. People use speech to organize. Sometimes that's great and other times you get Nazis. There is a pretty big concern in many communities over the increase in violent attacks from right-wing groups. These are groups that are pushed forward by many main-stream Republican commentators and many Republican politicians. Sure, they'll say it should stop just short of violence, but it's an effective strategy. I'm not arguing that the government should control speech, but any respectable person or organization should probably not promote Nazis. Would you hire a Nazi to give a speech at your company about their ideology? If you owned a newspaper, would you hire a Nazi to do your editorials? If you didn't, are you suppressing their speech? If you published a letter from a Nazi and put a big warning alongside it that your newspaper condemned the views expressed by the letter, are you suppressing that speech? I'd also note that speech has real-world consequences. People used speech to create the political will to suppress Italian and Irish immigrants. People used speech to build coalitions to keep Black people enslaved. Nazis used speech to get the power to murder two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. Bad ideas should be fought against. Not all ideas are equal or equally good. Some ideas are evil and we need to make it known that they're evil ideas. Again, I'm not saying that the government should control speech, but I do expect good politicians to speak out against evil ideas and to call the people promoting those ideas bad. Hitler was a very bad person and Ye is a bad person for promoting Hitler as good. That's not suppression of speech. That's noting that Ye is supporting evil that should be opposed. I genuinely understand that it's difficult to know where the line should be, but I'd also note that the past was never a bastion of free speech. You needed to be wealthy to publish things in the past. Most people didn't have free speech beyond who could hear them at the pub. In the 21st century where our communication is often less in-person, what does that mean for platforms like Facebook or Twitter which are kinda like newspapers, but also kinda masquerade as a personal communication device (or a common carrier as some people argue they should be)? What did it mean when newspapers controlled information and only some ideas were pushed by the newspapers with the biggest circulation? What does it mean if the in-person communication of yore is replaced by the Facebook of today? I'd also note that speech always had consequences. People have always been "canceled" when a powerful person or their community decided that their speech was wrong - Senator Sumner argued against slavery and was beaten half to death on the Senate floor by pro-slavery Senators. During the American Revolution, lots of people faced dire consequences if they said something that might have sounded too loyalist. People have always lost jobs because they said something a higher-up didn't like - or something a third party didn't like who had power with one of their higher-ups. People have been fired for coming out as gay. Are we talking about the same consequences that have always existed and have often been wielded (and continue to be wielded) by the right? If you have constructive ways the Democrats could be better, I'm open to hearing them. I guess I'll close with hoping that you'll think of the LGBT people, women, Black people, and others in your life that will be harmed by today's Republican party. I hope you'll value us more than you're pissed off by Democrats. I want my life to be worth more than your resentment. I don't mean that as any kind of slight against you or anyone else - I understand how hard it is to vote for someone who genuinely pisses you off. I just truly hope that you'll choose me. I don't really know how else to say it. I like my life, I want to continue living it, I want to be protected by my government with the same rights as everyone else and not persecuted by it. Please choose me.

colordrops 4y ago

Good, don't ever choose a "side". "Sides" are for corralling people into manipulable herds. Every issue should be considered individually using logic and data, rather than following the blind recommendations of a "side" down the line.

dan-robertson 4y ago

I think a story one could tell about more recent events is that Twitter banning various extreme right wing views was good for the Republican Party because they could make arguments about free speech or whatever and not need to deal with those extreme views being associated with the Republican Party. If such views aren’t hidden, maybe it will force Republicans to work harder to separate themselves from such views, similarly to the way that Democrats expend much effort trying to show that they aren’t secretly communists or whatever.

nonethewiser 4y ago
Hunter biden laptop story isnt really a right wing view and clearly benefits Biden. There is a performative aspect to banning "extreme" views that certainly domt help Republicans.

preseinger 4y ago

I'm a moderate Democrat ... authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas both sides suck This is a great expression of what is commonly described as a South Park republican. That is, someone who believes they live in a political space between republicans and democrats which does not actually exist. The fundamental emotion is cynicism, which manifests as active hostility towards any notion of empathy for any other dimension of society, and ultimately distills down to status-quo-ism. Of course cynicism is non-falsifiable, and there is no coherent notion of a moderate or independent in American politics, because there exists no coherent political position between democratic and republican policy. Anyone claiming to exist in this middle space is in practice a republican, just without the conviction that's typical to that party's base.

imran0 4y ago
> Anyone claiming to exist in this middle space is in practice a republican, just without the conviction that's typical to that party's base. So it's basically, "If you're not with us, you're against us?"
- Manjuuu 4y ago
  Maybe you missed this part in the parent message: "I would have identified as a Democrat on pretty much every issue, but this authoritarian suppression of speech and ideas has just pushed me away from that side completely." It's so absurd as a statement, no one does a 180 "because free speech". Both parties are so clearly distinct that if you claim to be something in the middle you'd better explain what you mean. But I'm not an american, I could be wrong, I just watch the show from the outside and sometimes it's sad.
  - yucky 4y ago
    > But I'm not an american, I could be wrong Yes, this is the case here. There are a number of issues that matter enough to make people switch parties, particularly the more moderate people in each party. In fact you can see entire swathes of voter blocks having changed parties over the last 20 years as party platforms have changed focus on some core issues. They won't necessarily switch from D -> R or R -> D. They will often switch to a 3rd party or Independent. Over time they may eventually find their way into supporting the opposite major party. Occasionally they will switch directly from one major party to the other. Just depends on the issues and where people are at in their lives.

iinnPP 4y ago

Both sides suck teammember here too. I've almost completely detached from all news because none of it passes even the stuffiest nose in a sniff test. My two favorite realizations: - Data is the best liar. - You can get -one- expert to say literally anything. You can always find one expert with an opinion that matches what you want to say.

joxel 4y ago

This is such a ridiculous political narrative. The Democrats are not for policing speech, Twitter can police whatever it wants. Imagine being a conservative and thinking government regulation of corporations is wrong and simultaneously thinking you have a right to post stuff on twitter.

philjohn 4y ago

The tweets the Biden campaign asked Twitter to take down (you can verify this yourself) were all non consentual intimate images of Hunter. That is both against the Twitter ToS, hence flagging to them, and illegal in 48 states + DC, including California, where Twitter is based.

DoubleDerper 4y ago

ranked choice voting can chip away at polarization.