The General US Politics Thread

TBH, the same is true of leftists and how Conservatives view them too.

I've sadly actually witnessed Straight-Shaming before. Or had my head torn off by a Straw Feminist for "Unwomaning" her because I held a door open, which I honestly do for anyone, regardless of Gender, Sexuality, etc. And don't even get me started on the Anti-Gun gal who pointed a loaded AK-47 at her audience, which made any half-ways intelligent gun owner facepalm hard enough to leave a dent.

A few of the above cases are why conservatives bunch leftists into one pile too.

actually, I'm pretty sure it's because they also judge people on a per-case basis. Sad fact is there ARE folks on the left who give them viable reasons to dislike them.

Edited by Pendrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 9:16:45 AM

@Pendragon: NVM READ THAT WRONG. Thought the trans friend was a Trump voter.

Maybe its admirable that you can remain friends with people of a different political idealogy. But I've seen way too much "Fuck you! Got mine!" in real life to put up with it in my own life. Maybe you can, maybe they are lovely people outside of their politics, but politics is still part of who you are.

Difference is those aren't the ones making policies. A guy going "FAKE NEWS! and shouting "Blue Lives matter, rough em up a little!" Is making policies and has popular and beloeved republican support and will be for another 1 and a half months.

Edited by Wildcard on Nov 27th 2020 at 12:20:05 PM

Ok, but those aren’t the people who the left puts into elected office. The right, on the other hand, does vote the people who want to take away others’ rights into office. Therefore, I call false equivalency.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Nov 27th 2020 at 12:17:22 PM

Fair enough.

TBH, I might just manage it due to the fact the rest of my family takes Politics far too seriously. That, or the fact that my family is as varied in political views, religious beliefs, sexualities and such. Made Christmas dinners... interesting.

Also a fair point.

I just meant that in the case that there are a few far-left folks Conservatives point at to try and sway people to their side. And have been mentioned by my friends as part of why they believe how they do.

Edited by Pendrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 9:28:33 AM

Idiots exist. Even on the far left.

Point in case.

Hi.

:)

Thanks for the laugh.

BTW, not sure if you guys checked out that vid when I started posting, but Trump recently pulled a Joffrey with a reporter.

Edited by Pendrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 9:31:39 AM

"I don't personally see how anyone can manage to be, know, or care about LGBT+ folks and vote Republican."

The last exit poll I saw had Trump increase his LGBT support from 14% in 2016 to 28% in 2020. Apparently something was working.

Edited by Parable on Nov 27th 2020 at 9:36:24 AM

The big thing that I feel Trump is reflecting is the fact that his self-delusions are being exposed as that. The Qanon/Trumpeteers have an unearned sense of invincibility that is hopefully being shattered.

Hopefully the sense of being losers for all the hate they give (Thank you, Tupac) will teach them some humility.

People tend to react badly to being told that their actions and choices are immoral. Now, I think that voting for Trump is immoral, given all that he’s done.

But there seem to be plenty of conservatives who feel liberals are judging them as bad people for owning a gun, having a job related to the resource industries, not having a university degree, preferring a rural lifestyle to an urban one, or even “being white” or “being male”. And while that’s certainly stoked by right-wing media and propaganda, there’s nonetheless an issue of miscommunication.

Wait, what? How? The guy openly hates LGBT people. How does this happen?!

I have the view that coddling Trumpist viewpoints only results in them believing its a difference of opinion when they're tearing into people's lives with their votes. I feel like Brutal Honesty is the only way to respond to evil. You need to be clear, "This is not ****ing okay."

Harsh as it may be, they need to know that there are social consequences for supporting scum like Trump.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 27th 2020 at 9:48:44 AM

So no demographic is a monolith, of course. It's entirely possible to be, for example, gay and racist. So the initial 14% is entirely explicable.

And, well, I've never actually gotten the sense that the LGBT community is something that Trump has strong personal feelings about. Which means he doesn't push back when his party wants to do something that hurts them, but left to his own devices, he's perfectly comfortable focusing on other things.

Which means he hasn't been as bad for the LGBT community as was initially feared. Not as bad as Pence would've been, for instance. So you might plausible get a few bisexual Fox News watchers deciding that Trump actually isn't so bad.

But really this all speculation. I can't say I understand why anyone who voted against him 2016 would vote for him in 2020. Or, to be frank, why anyone voted for him at all in either election.

I don't think there is, some liberals on the internet say most of those things (points to self) but you won't see Democratic campaigns saying anything of the sort. Dems, both moderate and leftist, do their best to appeal to these people and it comes to naught.

I don't think any kind of communication strategy could breach their willful ignorance, selfishness, and persecution complex.

You also have single issue wonks that will always vote Republican because of issues like gun control and abortion.

Even if they are reasonable people generally, they diss out everything else and vote Trump because he aligns with certain Republican running issues.

The problem is how they can be pretty tacit with supporting awful policies by not giving a single fuck about everything else.

@Galadriel: The sad fact is there ARE Leftists who do all that judging.

I'll grant the propaganda definitely blows it out of proportion, but I have met and/or seen Leftists who do exactly what you said to Conservatives. It's not entirely propaganda.

Speaking of Gun Control, it reminds me of an Anti-gun Ad that got ran with "facts" about an AR-15, like its "100-round Magazine" and so on. And then notably use the Dark Knight Rises shooting as an example about why it should be banned, when ironically, part of that shooting was as deady as it was was DUE to gun control, namely the fact he specifically picked said theater due to Concealed Carry not being allowed there (his mag jammed long enough someone could have taken him down before clearing it), which is part of why the guy's defense claim of "insanity" got tossed out the window.

Edited by Pendrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 10:08:18 AM

So... a small proportion of people with views more to the left of the spectrum?

When the Right seems to have a whole propaganda machine dedicated to bashing the Left for even slightly progressive views?

Yup. Totally reasonable to think every single person is going to think you're just peachy fine.

People keep saying they are misled or ignorant and I'll be honest I'm tired of that excuse, especially if it comes from a first-world western nations. This isn't the damned 80 or 90. People no longer need to work hard to find information by scouring books, newspaper or the libraries. Not only Internet is pretty much fucking everywhere in those nations, there are other ways to find information that are much easier compared to back there. I live in Indonesia, a fucking poor nation that is about to encounter national crisis and I can still find information. Heck, even people from Venezuela, including some tropers in this forum, can do it as well. So, what the fuck are those guys' excuses? Let's face it. Those ignorance is pretty much wilful.

I know some would say that those people are too busy, aren't good enough to use technology or the internet, or those issues are just not their top priority for now, and so on, but that is just ultimately the same thing really.

Besides, for all those excuses, those people always able to find out the latest crazy conspiracies to support their version of reality, so they have time or tech savviness or whatever to find out about those stuff, but too whatever to not be misled or ignorant?

So, when someone is in a dump, poor, and unable to find job, we tell them to grow up and be independent. Personal responsibility yo. But when someone being a shithead and even hurt others directly or indirectly, we have to be compassionate and be understanding and shit because we have to help one another?

It's just fucking messed up...

Well, that's where the monolithic party thing comes in again. In the US, it is basically impossible to be a liberal or conservative and still shut out elements of that party you don't like. The two party system basically forces every voter to vote for things they may not necessarily like or want. And this happens on both sides. And I think this fosters an attitude of "well, I don't like this candidate, but at least they care about my particular issue".

But we have the opposite problem now: way too much information, and no good way to curate what is true and what isn't. There is so much disinformation and bias that people are starting to distrust all media, and sticking to a few trusted sources they think are unbiased. And some of these sources are pretty good at convincing people they are unbiased and truthful when they are anything but.

Edited by Redmess on Nov 27th 2020 at 7:10:22 PM

"People are ignorant" might have flown before the US went through four misery-filled years of Trump - anyone claiming ignorance after this is being willfully ignorant at best.

People either like all the terrible things his regime did or don't give a shit - and neither option makes them look good in the slightest.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 27th 2020 at 7:08:54 PM

It is very simple to fathom why anyone would support LGBT issues and vote Republican.

They probably are not gay themselves. It is simple on a theoretical level to be "ok" with gay people, bu not enough to, you know, actually inform yourself and vote in their favor over your own.

And if they are, there's a whole beautiful level of denial going on on several levels which is akin to a trainwreck.

You may be overestimating the capacity of people to understand information and the sheer amount of it. We live in the era of information, an abundance of it that you may take for granted how easy it is to parse. Trust me, as a teacher to high school graduate students who often come from poor regions, it is very eye opening how few people know how to read.

Not just recognize and translate words into meaning. But seriously read and integrate the message that is being conveyed.

The era of information is also the era of disinformation: Qanon would not have proliferated in a world where random shmucks couldn't reinforce their insane heuristics instantaneously, daily, and for an accesible price.

Good point. Guess I'm a bit spoiled up here in Canada since we have multiple parties. Even if we haven't had a non-Conservative or Liberal Prime Minister in several decades. Though I think that's due to there still being a few Red Scare lobbyist groups around at the national level.

Edited by Pendrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 10:12:19 AM

I will agree with pendrake here, even we are not engaging in the same shit as them this thread at time have gone full "every single one of them is monster who really want facism" even between lines, which is a part of polarization in the sense of "no dealing with them, only the sword" even if a political sense.

And I mean I can't blame you seen how deep the republican have sunk but indeed it this goes it can let the problem of democrats engaging in the same "wins at all cost" or the "he said some bad things but he is a dem so I will vote for them", after all the republican polarization didn't star yesterday.

The issues between Republican and Democrat single issue wonks is how each base reacts to those candidates.

The Republicans l SI Ws always vote with the party, the Democrats had to deal with 4 years of Trump because the Unicorn Brigade didn't want to vote blue because their pet candidate didn't win.

Thankfully at least Biden and the Democrats had enough sense to include more progressives in the campaign, Trump also helped by being an incompetent moron and rallying even people who wouldn't vote Democrat or even vote, against him.

And the average voter situation won't get any better if conservative bullshit non-news machine isn't dealt with.

Hell, to use an Anime Example, look at Universal Century timeline Mobile Suit Gundam.

There's plenty of sympathetic people on both sides of the One-Year War, and plenty of people who fit Complete Monster or at the very least Jerkass on both sides as well. While Operation British is completely horrific (Gassing a colony, and then dropping it on Earth), Origin shows at least one instance of a Federation Gun Tank "Tianamen Squaring" Zeon protestors just previous to their declaration of independence from the EFF.

Edited by Pendrake on Nov 27th 2020 at 10:23:05 AM

moving this

Edited by AngrokVa on Nov 27th 2020 at 1:24:39 PM