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Originally Posted by RandBlade
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Originally Posted by Loki
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Originally Posted by RandBlade
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Originally Posted by Loki
Those crazy leftists...
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Originally Posted by RandBlade
https://64.media.tumblr.com/393171a9...eedf6a097.gifvQuote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Haha same energy :haha:
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Originally Posted by RandBlade
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Originally Posted by RandBlade
Cruz = a Lewk who went to law school.
Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
You would think that was a compliment wouldn't you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Aimless that your list was so much smaller than mine is a good thing. The GOP bar a few are rats getting off the SS Sinking Ship.
I can't tell whether you're clueless or whether you think you're being funny. The number of prominent GOP figures who fell in line behind Trump and his dangerous rhetoric is far larger than the number of people listed in the tweet you posted (and it's worth noting that even their opposition was decidedly milquetoast). For starters, the GOP—officially. So stop being silly, RB. Just stop. It's not cute—it's just painfully stupid.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
It's started already
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Hope so. I'm tired of the hyper-partisanship and vitriol and I'm fine with us being the bigger person if that's what it takes. Just not to the point of allowing the GOP to continue screwing around with judicial seats.
what if what the other half of the country has to say is hyper-partisan vitriol, hmmm? what then?Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Have you actually spent much time talking to people who voted for Trump, or who are habitual GOP voters? Because while there's your usual cranks and those holding deeply objectionable vIews, most of the ones I've actually talked to at length are just normal people who share most of the same basic priorities with other Americans. I disagree with them politically, but that's hardly grounds for demonizing a huge group of people. Not everyone is a QAnon boogaloo proud boy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
The party has to remain laser focused on furthering its political & policy agenda. That includes ensuring accountability for those who have broken or greatly stretched laws, rules and principles. It doesn't really require much vitriol. It does require a lot of political power and capital. I'll grant you some vitriol and payback may be important for mobilizing grassroots activism, but I honestly think those activists know there are more important things at stake over the next two years—esp. if Dems fail to take the Senate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
What regular people, media outlets, journos and pundits do, that's their business, and it's silly to pooh-pooh them as if it will have some massive impact on anything. That's just people trying to justify their personal preferences. Although I think it's important that people not drop the ball in showing the other "half" exactly what it is they were supporting, exactly what it is they did to their neighbors, to some of the most vulnerable people in the world, and ofc to themselves.
You'd be surprised how often those people don't let on what their true beliefs are when conversing with normies. 'Hiding your power level', they call it. This is a deliberate recruitment tactic with them, because they know if they go straight in with the white genocide, adrenochrome harvesting etc, it just turns people off. So you don't necessarily know what they actually believe just by talking to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
That aside, if they're as reasonable as you claim I think they'd be open to the idea that if the voted for Trump they bare a share of the responsibility for all the damage done the past four years, including the lives lost, and that they're the ones who need to do some listening to what the other half has to say.
For a change.
I did not say the Democrats should spend their time with vitriol etc. I'll have that covered over the next few months, so they don't need to worry about that. What they should do is what you said: remain laser focused on furthering their political and policy agenda, and not compromise on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Esp. since the same sage, pseudo-centrist geniuses who downplayed the threat posed by trump in 2016 will once again begin to busy themselves with trying to derail every element of that agenda in order to once again show the world how mature, level-headed and non-partisan they are :noob: some compromises may be necessary in order to take back the Senate, but it should be in exchange for concrete and substantial concessions—not as a pre-emptive show of undeserved goodwill and kindness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
After years of mounting evidence that there is a difference between the sides wrt the ways in and extent to which political affiliation influences their tendency to embrace or tolerate truly reprehensible and/or borderline delusional views—and disregard truth and basic morality—I feel like it might be time to retire this tiresome "they're just regular people" defense. Regular people believe, think and do some truly fucked-up repugnant shit, but not all groups of regular people are alike in this respect. Sometimes we see good that just isn't there—because we want to, because we're wired that way. But seeing things that aren't there isn't always a path to success or healing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Indeed. From the little I can tell - and though I have met one Trump-voting American couple I have not discussed politics with them, nor have I discussed Trump with any other American - they seem to believe that Trump does a better job with the economy. Normal folk worry about their jobs, their paychecks, their financial security. They reason that those things are better under Trump than current alternatives. Simple as that, really. No widespread white supremacy, conspiracy theorising, racism nor misogyny, just normal folk who want job security, and pay little attention to or ignore the sideline crazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Really should distinguish between voluntarily self-reported preferences and unreported or revealed preferences. Ofc, what you describe does reveal something concerning about a person: they value minor (or, thanks to the trade war and the pandemic, non-existent) economic advantage over everything else that might matter to a person who wants to be decent—and/or have a dangerously different approach to appraising information about reality. How do you place minor (if any) economic advantage over racism, misogyny, abuse of children, attacks on freedom and democracy and outright lethal incompetence? There are several different ways you can do it, but no approach to that state reflects particularly well on a person. I must disagree with this defense of being pro-Trump based on what "normal folk" are supposed to be like. A majority of American voters oppose Trump—and a staggering number oppose him vehemently (see historically large protests against him since the beginning of his presidency); clearly, "normal folk" have complex hierarchies of priorities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
I'd like to be clear - I was arguing with the statement that half of the country spouts hyper-partisan vitriol, not that we should kowtow to Trump voters and give them a free pass for their choices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
I live is a super weird bubble of extremely well educated and often well-off people. And I'll admit that the (relatively rare) GOP or Trump voter boils down to one of three cases:
1. Single issue (or few issue) voters who are unlikely to support a Democrat for the simple reason that these issues will not change any time soon. To them the person fronting the ticket doesn't matter as long as their chosen issue is represented appropriately. It could be some element of foreign policy, or immigration policy, or abortion, or taxes... but whatever it is, it has very little to do with a broader partisan bent.
2. Long time conservatives who generally buy into the small government idea and are very suspicious of Democratic policy priorities. Often borderline libertarian. These are the people who don't like Trump at all but were way more afraid of what a Clinton or Biden administration would do, so held their noses and voted for him (or, on occasion, didn't).
3. True believers who believe they're listening to what he means, not what he says. They overlook his personal failings and the manifest evidence of his incompetence in office and construct an alternative narrative. It's largely fabulism, but they're smart enough to construct a sophisticated narrative. This is the '3D chess, not checkers' crowd. Oddly enough, there is a left leaning correlate that sees Trump's actions as part of a nefarious master plan rather than a series of bumbling responses that lurch from one crisis to another.
Group 1 isn't worth engaging with, they're unlikely to shift. Group 2 is certainly worth engaging with and are persuadable - but they are relatively few in number. Group 3 is the closest to the hyperpartisan crowd and while they're theoretically capable of being persuaded, it's damned hard.
BUT! These are all small parts of the electorate (Group 1's subgroup on abortion might be the only one that really has electoral heft). I've also had the opportunity to learn a bit about the worldview and political leanings of people who aren't overeducated and living in relative comfort. Blue collar types, people living in rural areas, etc. And these people don't engage with politics very much at all. They vote, often reliably for one party or another, but don't get too worked up about it on a regular basis.
I'd bet that at least 90% of Trump voters don't know any of the coded language you describe above. It's limited to those who are very politically engaged, especially on the internet. Most people don't think much about politics except when an election rolls around, and they are not well versed in the many deficiencies of Trump of the GOP's current platform. They vote based on tribal loyalty, or the commonly held beliefs of their peers about who is better suited to deal with X issue. Occasionally they'll vote against someone who's portrayed as being a status quo candidate because the status quo isn't working. A lot of times they're afraid of change, which is frankly not an unreasonable position to take.
But the vast majority of these people don't know jack shit about QAnon. They might be casual consumers of e.g. Fox News, but they're not obsessive consumers of the media. They're probably casually racist (most Americans are) but would be horrified to hear some of the drivel that comes out of the foaming mouth types. Mostly they just want to get on with their lives. They don't even know enough about politics to be hyperpartisan. If the pictures I paint is more accurate, it means that the strategies towards engaging with them must be fundamentally different than if your assertions are accurate.
I do want to note that they probably are sexist and racist and believe in some conspiracies. Not that their compatriots who didn't vote for the GOP are necessarily all that great, either. But their sexism and racism and belief in conspiracy theories is likely not driving their political beliefs all that much, mostly because they're not super politically aware and because their racism and sexism is largely of the incidental variety.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbuk2
And yet 80% of them don't think Covid is a big deal. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar percentage believe these elections were stolen from Trump by (((Soros))) et al.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
The reality is that most aren't worth engaging for the simple fact they don't want to be engaged.
wiggin's analysis is missing the whole 'facebook' side of things.
If your formative experiences with the Internet were in the late 90s and early 0s (as I think many of ours were) there is a tendency to think of the Internet as siloed off from 'IRL' and populated predominantly by a subset of technologically mostly young men and boys with distinct concerns, interests and opinions from everyone else.
In reality, I don't think this has been true for the best part of a decade, and following current events via your Facebook feed is at least as mainstream as cable news, and probably more so than the major newspapers.
And Facebook is where a lot of the pro-Trump memeing, conspiracy theorising etc took place.
It's not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
That this obvious truism even needs saying is rather sad.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
If the Democrats don't compromise then clearly they will achieve nothing in the forthcoming years considering the GOP almost certainly have won the Senate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Biden has won precisely because he is a sane individual who can reach across the aisle.
Classy from Buttigieg. Most of the Dem leadership seem very classy. Glad they're not following Steely's advice.
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Sure, or Biden has won because tens of thousands of Republicans and leaners in key states voted for Jo Jorgensen, while Howie Hawkins didn't manage to get on the ballot in Nevada and Georgia. Or because he's a regular, old, white and very familiar man who talks like a normal person. Or because he ran against Trump. There are a lot of competing narratives, and none of them will be particularly compelling until the dust has settled and there's some good scholarship on the subject.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade