7 ms·

> And the other half wholeheartedly endorses convicting a certain candidate of something, anything to keep him out of office. There's a strong argument that th

> And the other half wholeheartedly endorses convicting a certain candidate of something, anything to keep him out of office. There's a strong argument that the candidate in question shouldn't be in the position he was in is because he acted inappropriately. Not just in demeanor and professionalism, but he has several ongoing criminal trials going right now. There is a real possibility that he committed treason. But even so, no one is really opposed to him gaining office if that's what truly people want. At that point, the concern is what the hell is wrong with the people that voted him in, and what the hell happened to get the population to that point. My guess is Reagan.

lolinder 2y ago
> No no no. Enough of this 'both sides' nonsense. No, not enough. The lack of 'both sides' is what got us here. You want to know what the hell is wrong with the people who voted him in? They have felt alone, disenfranchised, and cut off by the coastal elite (both sides!) for decades. One party took their vote for granted, the other wished that they didn't have a vote at all. They got sick of being ignored and condescended to, and a freaky sociopath named Donald Trump realized that they were the key to "winning" his perverted game and he finally successfully courted them. They fell over themselves for Trump because no one else spared them a second thought. So no, I'm not going to be done with 'both sides'. The Left thinks that if they just prosecute Trump and get him convicted these people will just go away and we can go back to business as usual, but this populist movement has found its voice and it's not going anywhere. The only thing that's going to stop this from turning tragic is for the Left to figure out that these people exist and have a vote and find a way to speak to them. And the only way I have to help is to cry "both sides". Trump voters are normal people with very real needs, and our only hope to avert catastrophe is to see them and hear them.
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  > No, not enough. The lack of 'both sides' is what got us here. lol, why are you going out of your way to reply to this? It's not in my comment, and it wasn't in the comment when you logged in to reply. Did you copy and paste it from your rss feed or whatever specifically to be able to reply to it? That's really weird. Anyway. > They have felt alone, disenfranchised, and cut off by the coastal elite (both sides!) for decades. The problem is they have no education and have no idea how to think critically. In society we have made it such a bad thing to be 'stupid', combine that with studies showing being wrong can be similar to being physically hurt [0], well, now we have a population that has no education, is religious and rejects science, doesn't want to be called stupid or be wrong, so they rally around 'alternative facts' and a charlatan who they see as one of them. The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote, or hopefully waiting for the oldest and most stubborn conservatives to die out so alphas and gen-z can vote with a little more heart and brain. > So no, I'm not going to be done with 'both sides'. The Left thinks that if they just prosecute Trump and get him convicted these people will just go away and we can go back to business as usual, Trump's an especially bad candidate to be leader, the left just wants the Romney style republicans back. You know, not the science denying nazi wackos obsessed with guns and controlling women's bodies. The left isn't the problem here, and never has been. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/28/why-being-wrong-really-hurts https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/28/why-bei...
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Thank you for laying bare the problem that I was attempting to describe. You've made my point better than I ever could.
    - DEADMINCE 2y ago
      Likewise. Cheers.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    > The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote. History tells us that the Narodnik[1] plan failed. The real change in minds came when the rural masses migrated to cities with dense habitation and the calculus of labor doing industrial jobs proved fertile for new ideas. The only problem we have today is that large-scale rural->urban migration leaves huge swaths of the heartland emptied out which severely exacerbates our present problem because of the way senators are apportioned. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodniks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodniks
  - goatlover 2y ago
    > The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote Sounds very authoritarian and not democratic at all. What makes you think they won't try to do the same thing? I certainly don't want any government to have the power to re-educate adults and limit who can vote because they're voting wrong. That's Orwellian.
    - DEADMINCE 2y ago
      > Sounds very authoritarian and not democratic at all. It's what we already have, just extended a little. We already limit voting to citizens, and we have mandatory education for age groups and as a prerequisite to do certain professions. > I certainly don't want any government to have the power to re-educate adults and limit who can vote because they're voting wrong. That's Orwellian. Look at the situation we are in now, though. We have an extremely ignorant, outright science denying, not insignificant subset of the population, who due to our system of government can elect in people who share their beliefs, who then go on to be in real positions of power. What do you do when you have a slight majority of Trumps or MTGs as your representatives? More than likely, freedoms will erode and wars would likely increase. So, how can you avoid that, or worse problems caused by an ignorant voting block? If you want to keep this form of government (which I would argue we should not), I'm not sure what other solutions there are other than to have some sort of test for voting. Maybe moving the definition of what constitutes a citizen like in Starship Troopers could work.
- achenet 2y ago
  actually, I think the issue is that there are only two sides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
intended 2y ago
Man. Nothing is wrong with the voters. There is just a lot more power invested in republican elites than democrat elites than we realized. There are organized efforts, decades long to skew courts, remove laws, increase dysfunction to prove the point that government fails. Medicare was based on Romney’s model, and he was forced to disown it because the party would rather be partisan than give democrats a win. Partisanship, divisive politics get you here. It gets you Fox News, and infowars. It gets you the idea that everything is a liberal conspiracy, like evolution. Hell, people heard “build a wall” and were cool with it. I believe the term that was coined by republicans for people whose feelings are hurt was snowflakes. the
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  > Nothing is wrong with the voters. I don't understand how anyone can genuinely believe that. Half the population has an absolutely astounding and embarrassing level of education, think things like climate change are hoaxes, don't care about the constitution and just want Jesus' word to be law, etc etc etc. The problem is absolutely the voters. It's also why this model of democracy is actually kind of terrible unless you have an educated population. We're basically watching the fall of the American Empire here.
HumblyTossed 2y ago
Yes, Reagan embarrassed the shit out of the Russians and so they have been attacking us from the inside since.
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  Reagan destroyed the US by cutting funding for schools, cutting mental health social services, and removing regulations from companies.
  - HumblyTossed 2y ago
    Most of those ideas came from the Heritage Foundation which is the same org behind Project 2025 which Dump is so fond of.

lolinder 2y ago

> No no no. Enough of this 'both sides' nonsense. No, not enough. The lack of 'both sides' is what got us here. You want to know what the hell is wrong with the people who voted him in? They have felt alone, disenfranchised, and cut off by the coastal elite (both sides!) for decades. One party took their vote for granted, the other wished that they didn't have a vote at all. They got sick of being ignored and condescended to, and a freaky sociopath named Donald Trump realized that they were the key to "winning" his perverted game and he finally successfully courted them. They fell over themselves for Trump because no one else spared them a second thought. So no, I'm not going to be done with 'both sides'. The Left thinks that if they just prosecute Trump and get him convicted these people will just go away and we can go back to business as usual, but this populist movement has found its voice and it's not going anywhere. The only thing that's going to stop this from turning tragic is for the Left to figure out that these people exist and have a vote and find a way to speak to them. And the only way I have to help is to cry "both sides". Trump voters are normal people with very real needs, and our only hope to avert catastrophe is to see them and hear them.

DEADMINCE 2y ago
> No, not enough. The lack of 'both sides' is what got us here. lol, why are you going out of your way to reply to this? It's not in my comment, and it wasn't in the comment when you logged in to reply. Did you copy and paste it from your rss feed or whatever specifically to be able to reply to it? That's really weird. Anyway. > They have felt alone, disenfranchised, and cut off by the coastal elite (both sides!) for decades. The problem is they have no education and have no idea how to think critically. In society we have made it such a bad thing to be 'stupid', combine that with studies showing being wrong can be similar to being physically hurt [0], well, now we have a population that has no education, is religious and rejects science, doesn't want to be called stupid or be wrong, so they rally around 'alternative facts' and a charlatan who they see as one of them. The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote, or hopefully waiting for the oldest and most stubborn conservatives to die out so alphas and gen-z can vote with a little more heart and brain. > So no, I'm not going to be done with 'both sides'. The Left thinks that if they just prosecute Trump and get him convicted these people will just go away and we can go back to business as usual, Trump's an especially bad candidate to be leader, the left just wants the Romney style republicans back. You know, not the science denying nazi wackos obsessed with guns and controlling women's bodies. The left isn't the problem here, and never has been. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/28/why-being-wrong-really-hurts https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/28/why-bei...
- lolinder 2y ago
  Thank you for laying bare the problem that I was attempting to describe. You've made my point better than I ever could.
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    Likewise. Cheers.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  > The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote. History tells us that the Narodnik[1] plan failed. The real change in minds came when the rural masses migrated to cities with dense habitation and the calculus of labor doing industrial jobs proved fertile for new ideas. The only problem we have today is that large-scale rural->urban migration leaves huge swaths of the heartland emptied out which severely exacerbates our present problem because of the way senators are apportioned. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodniks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodniks
- goatlover 2y ago
  > The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote Sounds very authoritarian and not democratic at all. What makes you think they won't try to do the same thing? I certainly don't want any government to have the power to re-educate adults and limit who can vote because they're voting wrong. That's Orwellian.
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    > Sounds very authoritarian and not democratic at all. It's what we already have, just extended a little. We already limit voting to citizens, and we have mandatory education for age groups and as a prerequisite to do certain professions. > I certainly don't want any government to have the power to re-educate adults and limit who can vote because they're voting wrong. That's Orwellian. Look at the situation we are in now, though. We have an extremely ignorant, outright science denying, not insignificant subset of the population, who due to our system of government can elect in people who share their beliefs, who then go on to be in real positions of power. What do you do when you have a slight majority of Trumps or MTGs as your representatives? More than likely, freedoms will erode and wars would likely increase. So, how can you avoid that, or worse problems caused by an ignorant voting block? If you want to keep this form of government (which I would argue we should not), I'm not sure what other solutions there are other than to have some sort of test for voting. Maybe moving the definition of what constitutes a citizen like in Starship Troopers could work.
achenet 2y ago
actually, I think the issue is that there are only two sides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

intended 2y ago

Man. Nothing is wrong with the voters. There is just a lot more power invested in republican elites than democrat elites than we realized. There are organized efforts, decades long to skew courts, remove laws, increase dysfunction to prove the point that government fails. Medicare was based on Romney’s model, and he was forced to disown it because the party would rather be partisan than give democrats a win. Partisanship, divisive politics get you here. It gets you Fox News, and infowars. It gets you the idea that everything is a liberal conspiracy, like evolution. Hell, people heard “build a wall” and were cool with it. I believe the term that was coined by republicans for people whose feelings are hurt was snowflakes. the

DEADMINCE 2y ago
> Nothing is wrong with the voters. I don't understand how anyone can genuinely believe that. Half the population has an absolutely astounding and embarrassing level of education, think things like climate change are hoaxes, don't care about the constitution and just want Jesus' word to be law, etc etc etc. The problem is absolutely the voters. It's also why this model of democracy is actually kind of terrible unless you have an educated population. We're basically watching the fall of the American Empire here.

HumblyTossed 2y ago

Yes, Reagan embarrassed the shit out of the Russians and so they have been attacking us from the inside since.

DEADMINCE 2y ago
Reagan destroyed the US by cutting funding for schools, cutting mental health social services, and removing regulations from companies.
- HumblyTossed 2y ago
  Most of those ideas came from the Heritage Foundation which is the same org behind Project 2025 which Dump is so fond of.