3 ms·
> We had an R state rep candidate come by our house. Highlighted two issues in her message to us. Both were simply not actual things. The existence of the probl
by pessimizer 2y ago
> We had an R state rep candidate come by our house. Highlighted two issues in her message to us. Both were simply not actual things. The existence of the problems were lies.
This has been a constant refrain from Democrats: "The thing that you are upset about is not happening. Well, it is happening, but it is the exception. Ok, it's happening everywhere, but it's a good thing." No, of course Harris isn't for government sex changes for imprisoned illegal immigrants, except for the fact that she said she was. The truth is that we all know that she would say anything to win, and holding her to any position she ever publicly held feels unfair.
The people who have been kept low-information are the Democrats, because they have been surrounded by media largely controlled by their political party. Republicans often have bad information, but they're constantly out there consuming information and hate-reading what Democrats are saying. Independents, in my experience, are the highest-information of all, because they don't think of political parties as something they can offload their morality to. Independents only see politics in terms of actual issues, and track those issues rather than having parasocial relationships with political celebrities.
In that vein, I'm pretty sure that if I had an experience where a political candidate came to my house and talked about issues that weren't real, I'd talk about those issues specifically, and speculate about their origin. I think you don't mention them because they were real, but a lot of liberals have taken this position of officially denying reality if reality could help Trump. Is widespread voter fraud real? No. Should people be unconcerned about making it easier? Also, no.
If upper-middle class liberals could have won the "stop sounding like Scientologists" challenge, they could have won. If The Democratic party could have wanted to win more than they wanted to avoid alienating any donors, they could have won by taking any popular position on anything. Trump spent most of his campaign actively campaigning for Harris by calling her a radical-left socialist; if she were actually a radical-left socialist instead of an empty vessel to be filled with cash, she would have won. If the Democratic party hadn't chosen again not to run a fair, open, lively primary, they would have won.
With Trump campaigning against radical-left socialist Harris, and Harris campaigning against rapist Hitler, homophobic Stalin, and racist Mussolini, the majority of people looked at which candidate was lying the most, and voted for the other one. Everybody knows who Trump is, and he's already been president, and nobody went to camps. It was a rather sleepy standard Republican presidency, whose few deviations from the norm pleased people. The only reason we heard about Harris is because she (and Buttigieg) pretended to be for single-payer healthcare in order to destroy a popular candidate who was running on an honest program.
- vundercind 2y ago1) “Local crime in your specific hilariously safe rich town is out of control and rapidly rising, which is why the cops are asking for more money and I’m going to give it to them!” I double checked to be sure, and no, of course this was fiction. So you encounter a supporter of hers and want to talk about actual issues, you get stuck pulling up the cops’ own crime stats on your phone I guess. Good luck with that conversation, we’ve tried it with relatives who are convinced it’s true about their own different rich low-crime towns. Now you’re stuck fighting phantoms. 2) “boys in girls sports”. So incredibly niche that who gives a fuck, and does not appear to be an actual problem that sports conferences and associations aren’t handling just fine on their own. Why does anybody care about this? Right wing news, entire reason. Not an actual issue.
- arandomusername 2y ago> So incredibly niche that who gives a fuck And then you're surprised why people vote differently to you...
- vundercind 2y agoI’m not, I’m well aware of the boring shifts in policy and law over three or so decades that have gotten us to fighting phantoms instead of trying to decide whether incentives or mandates are the right way to achieve greater healthcare access and lower costs, or what have you.
- pessimizer 2y ago1) I don't know where you live, you may be right about crime where you are. It is not specifically Republican or uncommon to run on law & order while exaggerating disorder. 2) Boys are in girls sports, and Biden destroyed Title IX with an executive order. And you've gone from "fictional" to "Why does anybody care about this?" You don't see this as a dishonest progression? edit: and now edited to "who gives a fuck." Women who dedicate their lives to sports. Men who think that half the population deserves half the medals and half the opportunity. Me.