Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I think that if someone were truly anti-establishment, and not just self-proclaimed, they'd have to be an anarchist. At least in my experience, people don't seem to actually want that, in a surprising but fortunate aversion of the Original Position Fallacy.
At this point, I can say that the word "establishment" actually HAS entered semantic satiation.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Apr 12th 2019 at 2:35:14 PM
My musician pageIf you want to be technical, anarchy is the establishment of a non-establishment, so it wouldn't be wrong to say that no one is anti-establishment, just wanting to change the current one.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."On a side note, regarding the topic of political awakenings;
I grew up in a mostly apolitical and areligious home. I didn't get a face full of politics until my late teens/early twenties. I was living with my girlfriend's family at the time and they were staunchly conservative members of the LDS church. In particular they had a family friend that was so conservative she called moderates 'cowards' and the sheer apparent thoughtlessness with which they followed conservative views raised my hackles. It's why I generally regard such things as pounding one's chest and screaming "THIS BAD!!!!!"
Later I lived with my brother and he, too, was very conservative. Which seems ironic to me now as he's the one I credit for teaching me about tolerance when I was a kid. At least he taught me that if they aren't hurting anyone, why should we care what they're doing.
I almost feel like I became liberal because everyone around me was so conservative I felt someone had to be the Devil's advocate and look at the other side.
Your story sounds similar to mine, though with less personal connection to the people around me at the time. I was attending a Christian college (admittedly not the most fundamentalist it might have ended up being)(a story for another time, I'll just say I learned a fair bit before deciding to leave the school and the faith) at the time of Trump's election (probably a significant factor in that whole "learning a fair bit). I was not at all politically invested before then, but I noticed a lot of Double Think, hypocrisy, and just the general nature of select groups of people at the time.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Apr 12th 2019 at 2:46:16 PM
My musician pageIronically, I became very conservative, homophobic, and nasty as a teenager as a reaction to the seeming lack of care around me. It took a literal mystical experience to shake me out of it.
Conservatism is huge in Kentucky because it sells the idea that it is the party of the little guy and that they are the anti-establishment people. That small government is for them—it's a pretty shocking reality check how much the propaganda has warped the actual viewpoints.
That's because the poor and working class of rural America would never vote for them if they did lose their stranglehold on propaganda. Unfortunately, people rely on these figures for their protections and they get none in return for their loyalty.
"The masters tools will not dismantle the master's house."
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 12th 2019 at 12:13:10 PM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I was apolitical when I was younger, mostly because my dad said both sides were equally bad and probably in cahoots (ironically or perhaps hypocritically,he has a very conservative outlook) but after the 2016 election I became much more aware of it's effects and was spurred into my more liberal affiliation.
I always find discussions on political awakenings rather amusing, as I’m pretty much the opposite of most people here. I was raised in a near anarchical household and went to an international, anarcho-communal boarding school. Amusingly enough that background has given me great faith in the establishment as a system, not particularly in the people who run the establishment, but I’ve been inside the system on a level, I trust in the concept of the system if nothing else.
As for who is an outsider, 538 discussed it recently on their podcast, the problem is that outsider means many different things to different people, broadly you’ve got.
- Policy outsiders. They may be part of the system but their political ideas and goals are outside the mainstream.
- Identity outsiders. It’s not about what they want it’s about who they are, racial minorities, sexual orientation minorities and women are outsiders in some way.
- Political system outsiders. People who haven’t run for office before, or don’t have much experience, businessmen and celebrities.
- DC outsiders. This is tied specifically to the idea of Washington as a bad place, Bush junior ran on being an outsiders because ideas of having spent time in D.C. he was in Texas, it’s basically just saying that you’re outside the national government.
- Economic outsiders. These are the really rare ones, people who don’t have money and a serious wealth advantage, people like AOC who genuinely are working class and move in social circles of people who have trouble making ends meet.
Breaking: Trump apparently told the head of CBP that he'd pardon him if he was charged/jailed for violating immigration law.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/12/politics/trump-cbp-commissioner-pardon/index.html
Being from Boston I've always leaned on the liberal side of politics, although closer to th center and more conservative in the technical sense than I used to be. Always been socially liberal, but going to a school where a lot of the students were far-leftists of the tankie strain drove me towards a phase of libertarianism since my family's background as Cultural Revolution refugees meant I had little patience for communist apologia, and traditionalist conservatism with its old-fashioned views on race, gender and sexuality were absolute no-goes. Dealing with radfems and their questionable views on gender and sexuality, namely such bold claims as the idea that bisexuality was a construct created by the patriarchy to brainwash lesbians into heteronormativity and things like that, or that I was deluding myself about not being a trans man just because I preferred non-traditional means of gender expression, also didn't exactly endear me to the leftist strains I encountered.
My social views opened up, my economic views moved leftward, and I shifted to the Social Democrat I am today through talking to people on this website who were willing to embrace left positions but with appropriate kinds of critical thinking and minus the disgusting apologia leftists elsewhere embrace. It helped me realize a lot of my issues with leftism had less to do with the policies and philosophies themselves, which make plenty of practical sense to me, and more to do with the asshats espousing them. The same applies to social justice and "SJW" types (in the original sense, rather than the alt-right dogwhistle it is today).
![]()
Absolutely disgusting.
Edited by AlleyOop on Apr 12th 2019 at 4:48:25 AM
Edited by AzurePaladin on Apr 12th 2019 at 4:42:22 AM
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -FighteerHang on though, isn't this what we've been waiting for? We've said that Trump's dangling of pardons could be considered obstruction of justice. Secondly by accepting a pardon you waive fifth amendment rights as you have to admit guilt.
So, if it does go down the way Trump suggests, then firstly we have a conspiracy to commit a crime and obstruction to cover the crime and the key witness cannot avoid testifying if they have accepted the pardon...
Of course, this is all on the assumption that anything really matters anymore.
Trump bragged on camera that he successfully tampered with a witness' sworn testimony to Congress.
Obstruction of justice is not possible.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.For the sake of providing a source:
Pardons are only for guilty people; accepting one is an admission of guilt.
In 1915, the Supreme Court wrote in Burdick v. United States that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.” Over the years, many have come to see a necessary relationship between a pardon and guilt. Ford carried the Burdick quote in his wallet, defending the Nixon pardon by noting that it established Nixon’s guilt. More recently, MSNBC host Ari Melber taunted Arpaio by saying he had admitted he was guilty when he accepted Trump’s pardon.
But Burdick was about a different issue: the ability to turn down a pardon. The language about imputing and confessing guilt was just an aside — what lawyers call dicta. The court meant that, as a practical matter, because pardons make people look guilty, a recipient might not want to accept one. But pardons have no formal, legal effect of declaring guilt.
Indeed, in rare cases pardons are used to exonerate people. This was Trump’s rationale for posthumously pardoning boxer Jack Johnson, the victim of a racially based railroading in 1913. Ford pardoned Iva Toguri d’Aquino (World War II’s “Tokyo Rose”) after “60 Minutes” revealed that she was an innocent victim of prosecutors who suborned perjured testimony in her treason case. President George H.W. Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger because he thought the former defense secretary, indicted in the Iran-contra affair, was a victim of “the criminalization of policy differences.” If the president pardons you because he thinks you are innocent, what guilt could accepting that pardon possibly admit?

My point is that even the well-meaning "anti-establishment" people still want to eventually be the establishment. Since that's how you get shit done.
So it seems wrong to automatically hate the "establishment".
It'd be more accurate to say you want to change the current establishment.
And of course, not every "anti-establishment" person is well-meaning.
Edited by M84 on Apr 13th 2019 at 2:27:33 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised