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It seems that the idea that someone could be motivated simply by having integrity, valuing honesty and pride in simply "doing their job" correctly is so alien t
by derriz 1y ago
It seems that the idea that someone could be motivated simply by having integrity, valuing honesty and pride in simply "doing their job" correctly is so alien to the current US administration that they see political motives everywhere and in everyone's actions.
The fact that people with such a cynical and amoral worldview wield so much power not only in US but globally and are willing to wield that power in capricious and petty ways is deeply upsetting.
But what is more horrifying for me is that apparently this administration remains representative of a large section of the US population - with seemingly unshakeable approval by between 40% and 50% of the US adult population according to polls.
I love the US, have friends and family there, have a first cousin in the marines, grandfather born there, etc., and have visited many many times and just find it difficult to reconcile my positive experiences with the place and people with the idea that more than 4 out of 10 US adults could approve of the cruel and vindictive actions of this administration. I'm not being over dramatic by stating that it has genuinely shaken my world-view and belief in the innate goodness of humanity.
- pm90 1y agoTo a certain extent this is a result of living in a media ecosystem where most of the population doesn’t actually see an unbiased reporting of facts but whatever is shown to them by certain right wing news networks. But I do agree at some point people need to take responsibility for their information diet. Fwiw media manipulation of American opinion isn’t new, its been a huge part of how America works since at least the Spanish American war of 1896.
- LastTrain 1y agoThere is no such thing as unbiased reporting of facts. People not understanding that, and the fact that there is nothing inherently wrong with bias, is a big part of the problem.
- sheepdestroyer 1y agoObjective reality, it exists. Telling your audience obviously false / anti-factual lies, without any regard for fact checking, is not just "biased reporting". And it is inherently wrong, malevolent, evil. Anyway, I'm amazed each time I hear right wingers who did not get the joke seemingly complaining about how Reality has a left leaning political bias...
- LastTrain 1y agoLying is not the same as bias. That is the problem, people often conflate the two.
- ANarrativeApe 1y agoIs that a fact?
- card_zero 1y agoPresumably yes but subject to benign bias.
- pyrale 1y agoYou can be biased but adopt a systematic methodology and a deontology system, both of which help journalists mitigate their bias and produce quality reporting. The big issue with the current news ecosystem and social media is their complete disregard for this methodology. By discarding the journalistic methodology, they make themselves propagandists, not journalists.
- SkyBelow 1y agoWhat if there is something inherently wrong with bias, but there is also no possibility to solve it. I see people operating under the idea that if there is something inherently wrong, then there must exist some solution to that inherent wrongness. What if the underlying issue is that there are flaws in humans that cannot be fixed and any attempt to manage is going to still leave some victims of the issue unprotected?
- AlexandrB 1y ago[flagged]
- QuadmasterXLII 1y agoThe adults are talking, shh.
- card_zero 1y agoWhat is their reply?
- xocnad 1y agoWhere did you see any reference to any source or lean in what you replied to? You are projecting your viewpoint on which is good or bad.
- lo_zamoyski 1y agoDon’t be disingenuous. The phrase “certain right wing news networks” is pretty clear in an American context.
- smallmancontrov 1y agoFox and MSNBC are relentlessly partisan, but CNN aims for the center and misses. There's a big difference, and it's wild that Republicans got away with pretending that CNN was in the Fox/MSNBC tier just by repeating it as dogma until in their own minds it became true.
- hobs 1y agoFox's main approach - repeating anything that's a lie as dogma until its parroted as core truth by their audience, then saying they are opinion and not news so everyone knows not to take them seriously.
- pclmulqdq 1y agoCNN joined that tier around 2018 for the ratings, then tried to un-join that tier. It didn't work.
- intended 1y agoBias is what exists on the left. Monopoly and capture is what happened to the right. Theres a reason republicans march and Dems debate. The republican strategists build this advantage over decades, it’s not the work of a single term. It’s a captured market of ideas, tariffs if you will. No competition from actual debates. That’s why you can sell contradictory ideas within hours of each other, and never be called out for it. It’s why you can sell debates on Tan suits or prop up bogeymen, and never deal with debate. This is news media. Eventually Fox wasn’t the sole juggernaut, and the techniques got adopted for online debates. It’s been so wildly successful in building a reliable political voting bloc, that every political party in the world took notes.
- Applejinx 1y agoBear in mind that a lot of people took pains to not look at their candidate too closely, to the point where a (slim) voting majority wasn't showing up to rallies etc. during the campaign. One might see this as signs of their being fake, but it could also be suggestive that they didn't want to come out and see where their guy was really at. They voted for the IDEA of him and what they figured he represented, and were indulged in those beliefs as hard as possible. So this 'approval' is sort of phantom approval. It's approval of a fantasy man who doesn't track too closely with the reality of what's actually happening. The point where people pay heavily for their erroneous beliefs, for instance by losing their retirements and savings, is a point where people re-evaluate.
- scarface_74 1y agoEveryone who voted for Trump knew exactly what they were getting or should have known. He was in office for four years. 40% of the people know what he is doing and approve of it.
- intended 1y agoSure. There’s many reasons to vote for Trump. Now, someone has to act to deal with reality. This is pretty much the job of every adult in america. I suspect this is why Vance has been so over the top as well. I think he expects Trump to get impeached, and take over the party faithful. This is an idle musings though.
- jjtheblunt 1y ago> But what is more horrifying for me is that apparently this administration remains representative of a large section of the US population - with seemingly unshakeable approval by between 40% and 50% of the US adult population according to polls. It’s possible that percentage counts dissatisfaction with the previous administration more than approval for the current one. That is, it might just count people wanting any change.
- basejumping 1y agoYou should then be dissatisfied with both at the same time. When people wish 'any change' they actually wish a change into better, otherwise it's plain stupid.
- jjtheblunt 1y agoI agree: it’s strange and misleading statistics seemingly.
- belorn 1y agoIt is difficult for people to be unhappy with two choices unless given a third that they can be happy with. When you are either with us or against us, there aren't much people who will be dissatisfied with both at the same time, since that isn't an option given to them.
- pclmulqdq 1y agoI think it's clear that the approval ratings Trump gets are more about disapproval of the rest of politics. When you have every politician getting rich somehow while your life gets worse and worse, a lot of people will want all politicians punished. Trump is that punishment, and many people are excited to see the political and professional classes suffer. That is the approval rating.
- notahacker 1y agoThe irony being that Trump enriches himself and rewards politicians [mainstream or otherwise] for corruption to a greater extent than any previous politician, and doesn't even try to hide it. The people that are happy their savings and/or chances of making rent next week are being eroded to enrich Trump insiders because at least random mid level professionals and Hispanic people with autism awareness tattoos are suffering more deserve everything they get.
- seydor 1y agoIt's too early to see visible results of what has happened in less than 100 days. I am confident the approval will rise and fall as swiftly as the price of new iphones.
- josefresco 1y agoApproval ratings might fall, but they've installed a system of nearly unchecked power, and have shown a blatant disregard for law. It's probably too late for even the base to affect change without bloodshed.
- wizzwizz4 1y agoThe flipside of the "states' rights" movement is that the Federal Government is much weaker: so while it's easier to strip away rights and dismantle federal institutions, it's also easier for individuals to oppose the concrete harm that'd cause by working the levers of their local government. https://plush.city/@scarlet/114355949314782873 https://plush.city/@scarlet/114355949314782873 gives a few concrete things that individuals (not even groups) can do, which might make an outsized difference.
- josefresco 1y agoYou're right in normal situations, but masked federal agents (HOURS FROM MY HOME) are kidnapping and sending US citizens to foreign gulags. As what point does "states rights" extend to the physical protection of its citizens? Will my local police protect me from the gestapo?
- dingnuts 1y ago[flagged]
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoA lot of people in the US, especially the Christian Trump supporters are nice but not kind. They will say hi, they will smile, they ask if you need anything, then they will happily defend the deportation of innocent people to secret prisons in foreign countries without any sort of due process. They will offer to bring you soup while your sick but will fight tooth and nail to make sure you don't have affordable health care. The list goes on and on...
- spicyusername 1y agoI think they are just nice and ignorant, honestly. So many I interact with are just simply unaware and vote based on their discomfort with urban liberal culture. That's it. The blue hair and the pronouns made them feel weird, so they voted the other way.
- nwsm 1y agoYou're completing brushing over the rampant racism and xenophobia in white conservative America.
- gitremote 1y agoThat's the "urban" part.
- trinsic2 1y agoThat's been my experience as well. There is a large population of uneducated people (At least in terms of critical thinking) in the US that are not able to understand the impact of what is happening regarding what this administration is doing. And I think this is by design as the attacks on educational systems are increasing.
- stogot 1y agoI’ve had many conversations that amount to “I’d agree that illegal citizens should not have entered the country and maybe deportation is the correct recourse” (even from immigrants) but if they saw how the inhumanity of how deportations happened they’d be appalled. The government could be nicer to humans, but it’s a government
- tpmoney 1y ago> But what is more horrifying for me is that apparently this administration remains representative of a large section of the US population - with seemingly unshakeable approval by between 40% and 50% of the US adult population according to polls I feel this is largely a consequence of decades of overwrought hyperventilating about all things politics and a lot of crying wolf. Every republican candidate has been the next Hitler, every democratic candidate has been the next anti-christ. Every 4 years we go through this song and dance predicting the end of the world and untold human suffering and every 4 years life went on with barely a change. Why would people expect this time to actually be different? Why would they expect that this time the stories of corruption and abuse of power are actually true and being reported without ridiculous embellishment? Why would anyone who voted for Trump in the first place think that reports of abuse of power from the side of American politics that coined “chimpler” as a nickname for W. Bush would be sincere about Trump? I agree with you that I think more people should be more concerned than they are. I just don’t think it’s all that surprising either. The lesson of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” is that when the wolf finally comes, no one will believe you. Of course the other lesson is that eventually the wolf does come. It didn’t work out so well for the village, and it might not work out so well for us either.
- alabastervlog 1y agoThe thing is, there has been a wolf. It's now eating us, and the time to stop it is gone. But sure, it's the fault of the people who correctly told you there was a wolf, and that it's been coming closer and looking hungrier and hungrier since the '70s.
- tpmoney 1y agoYou seem to have missed the point. For one, I’m not telling you this is a good thing or that this is how it ought to be. For two, even in the fable the wolf was real in the end. The problem is, the wolf wasn’t real the last time, or the time before that. Or the time before that. Or the time before that. You can quibble over whether prior politicians were heralds of the wolf or not, but that wasn’t the message. The message was that the wolf was at the gates. And when no wolf materialized, people grew resistant to the idea of the cries ever having meaning. So now we have a wolf, and the problem we are facing is that the people who we need to convince that the wolf is real have no reason at all to believe us until their sheep are being eaten by a wolf in front of them. So how do you convince someone that has no incentive to believe you that this time you’re telling the truth? That’s the problem to be solved. Everything else is just a side show.
- shadowgovt 1y agoSomething interesting to watch about the current executive is he never talks about the future concretely. Keep an eye on his rhetoric. He'll talk in broad strokes, bright-shining-future abstracts... But he never talks about anything specific. Never about how any specific policy will create a specific good outcome. No concrete ideation. An idea that has been floated on this topic is that he's not actually capable of imagining such a future because he won't be in it (one way or the other; dude's 78). It makes him dangerous. He can accidentally destroy something he can't even conceive of existing.
- layer8 1y agoHe'll likely live another 15 years or so. I'm pretty sure he's imagining a future for himself. He's talking about a third term, which means at least eight years of "future". He also has children whose continued success he probably cares about. That said, I agree that he doesn't seem interested in building anything but his personal kingdom (including walls to protect it).
- shadowgovt 1y ago> He also has children whose continued success he probably cares about. Does he ever talk about them using anything other than abstract platitudes like "great?"
- FireBeyond 1y agoWell, "If she wasn't my daughter I'd probably be dating her" is a bit more on the specific side...