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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#324101: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:14:51 AM

The best way of expressing that I've heard is that the political spectrum is a scale.

  1. Hard Democrat, will never vote Republican
  2. Leans leftward, but still open to right ideas.
  3. Independent, no strong opinions
  4. Leans rightward, but still open to left ideas.
  5. Hard Republican, will never vote Democrat

Regardless of which side of the spectrum you're on, you should never try to appeal to 1's or 5's. You are wasting your time and money trying to convince them to vote for you. They've already made up their mind who to support. Politics is a tug-of-war over the 2's, 3's, and 4's.

The stability of Trump's polling is extremely unusual, and it strongly suggests that Trump's base is made up entirely of 5's. Yes, there is some distinction between "Hard Republican" and "Hard Trump Specifically", but not one that actually matters in this context. Point is, that 40% unwavering support for the last four years? That's not who we want to try and market to.

Trump can't win an election on 40% of the vote. 46%, that's apparently reasonable because we suck at democracy, but that's beside the point. We should open our doors to moderate Republicans disillusioned by Trump's antics.

But, and I cannot express this enough, don't expect them to stay. Those 4's who vote Biden are still going to be 4's; they're just voting for our guy because their guy is indefensible.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 17th 2020 at 9:15:20 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#324102: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:15:06 AM

I said it before, you need to distinguish between those who are simply malicious out of ignorance and those who are malicious of choice. The former *might* be reached.

But if the choice is between reaching out to a racist and protecting their victim, then the choice should be clear.

"You can reply to this Message!"
Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#324103: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:16:29 AM

Then you are basically suggesting the Republican party should be made illegal, just like the Nazi party was. I don't think Democrats will go that far. They don't even seem to be that willing to call them fascists or Nazis.

I am aware of that. I am uncertain if the Democrats unwillingness to call out the Republican Party for what it really is right now is out of pragmatism, because they genuinely (or just wish to not recognize) not believe that they are as Right-Wing as they are, but that doesn't change the fact of what the Republican party is now (and may have been to a lesser degree for some time).

ScubaWolf from South Carolina Since: Feb, 2020
#324104: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:16:38 AM

[up][up][up] Considering Trump lost the popular vote with around 55% of the voting population actually voting, his support is barely 1/4 of the country's voters. He cannot win with those numbers if everybody else votes against him.

Edited by ScubaWolf on Aug 17th 2020 at 12:18:28 PM

"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324105: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:22:36 AM

[up][up][up] Good point, and I do mean the people who are merely ignorant rather than wilfully malicious.

Education is an important tool in fighting harmful conservatism.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#324106: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:25:50 AM

I should also emphasize that, speaking as an ex-Republican myself, you cannot convert a person away from their party with just one bad candidate. A 4 can easily go, "Well, the party is good. It's just Trump that's bad." A successfully recruited 4's voting ballot may well have a vote for Joe Biden or no vote on the Presidential at all, but still all Republicans down-ticket.

Removing the Republican Presidential Candidate from his golden pedestal isn't going to make a Republican change parties. The only way to do that would be to remove their personal ideology and worldview from its golden pedestal. A Republican is only going to change if they recognize Conservative belief as toxic and harmful, and Liberal belief as a viable and reasonable alternative. That is a years-long process. It takes time, it takes effort, and it all has to be done by them; you cannot change someone else.

And most aren't going to do that. Despite what fiction might tell you, most people are not one epiphany moment away from upending their entire belief structure and behaviorally reforming themselves overnight.

So if we have some 4's helping us beat Trump, all the better. But, like I said, don't expect them to stick around and mingle. If they genuinely liked what the Democrats were selling, they wouldn't be 4's.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 17th 2020 at 9:28:06 AM

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M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#324107: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:25:58 AM

The people who "only" voted Trump out of ignorance have already changed their minds by now. If they didn't educate themselves after several years of Trump, then that ignorance is willful.

Horses and water.

Edited by M84 on Aug 18th 2020 at 12:26:31 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#324108: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:29:52 AM

Reaching out to Republicans and changing their minds is a solution to heated Thanksgiving dinners, not to a national clash of good against evil. Which, make no mistake, is what we're engaged in. We are under no obligation to gently guide people who are actively working toward our destruction away from their toxic beliefs.

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324109: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:30:53 AM

[up][up][up] So you are saying we can't really do anything to move conservatives to the left, they have to do it by themselves?

I can see that argument, but there's the problem of far right forces actively pulling conservatives to the right, towards ever more extreme ideology. If we sit back and hope they will turn around by themselves, won't we just be leaving them to the mercy of the alt-right, who will have no such qualms about letting people make up their own mind and change on their own?

Also, how can you expect them to educate themselves when they are trapped in the Fox bubble?

Edited by Redmess on Aug 17th 2020 at 6:33:25 PM

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
ScubaWolf from South Carolina Since: Feb, 2020
#324110: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:33:15 AM

[up] That's why we have to pass and enforce laws that can curb harmful behavior such as hate speech. A lot of 4s consider themselves law abiding citizens. They will follow the laws as needed, and making what the 5s do look harmful to their own well being (through heavy fines and jail time) is a good way to keep 4s away from 5.

Edited by ScubaWolf on Aug 17th 2020 at 12:34:58 PM

"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#324111: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:33:56 AM

We aren't sitting back. We're pushing for the political change we want, and if we're successful, those who are willing to see reason will see that the world we're building isn't the lawless hellscape they've been told it is and start backing away from the Far Right on their own.

If they don't, then they were already too far gone, and it's not our responsibility to save people who refuse to take our hands.

Edited by Wryte on Aug 17th 2020 at 9:36:09 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#324112: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:34:23 AM

[up][up][up]Unless their televisions are locked into the FOX News channel, they aren't "trapped".

Edited by M84 on Aug 18th 2020 at 12:34:11 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
ShinyCottonCandy Everyone's friend Malamar from Lumiose City (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Everyone's friend Malamar
#324113: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:39:19 AM

[up]Just like how alcoholics aren't "trapped?"

[down]Fair enough. I know at least some alcoholics are capable of recognizing their problem and that they need help.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Aug 17th 2020 at 12:50:53 PM

My musician page
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#324114: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:42:26 AM

[up]You seriously comparing Trumpists to people with an actual problem with their brains?

Kind of insulting to alcoholics there.

Edited by M84 on Aug 18th 2020 at 12:43:59 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#324115: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:42:43 AM

Addiction is physiological. Watching nothing but reactionary propaganda isn't.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#324116: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:42:57 AM

Also, Redmess, have you ever tried talking to these people? The type who will see that the network has started placing a disclaimer before Blazing Saddles explaining that the racism is a product of the depiction and meant to look bad, and not assume that this is the network trying to appear in tune, but rather that it's treating them as too stupid to work that out themselves. And then get angry about how the left is "destroying history" and using race as a dividing tactic. I quote "Either way, race identitarianism is being used as a smokescreen to cover the erasure of history and the discrediting of cultural landmarks as unacceptable and requring context from some thumb in makeup."

Try actually talking with this and see how well you do.

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324117: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:53:18 AM

Well, I don't really know anyone like that, and besides, I don't live in the US.

But yeah, I suppose it would be harder than I make it sound.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#324118: Aug 17th 2020 at 9:56:57 AM

So you are saying we can't really do anything to move conservatives to the left, they have to do it by themselves?

I can see that argument, but there's the problem of far right forces actively pulling conservatives to the right, towards ever more extreme ideology. If we sit back and hope they will turn around by themselves, won't we just be leaving them to the mercy of the alt-right, who will have no such qualms about letting people make up their own mind and change on their own?

Also, how can you expect them to educate themselves when they are trapped in the Fox bubble?

I don't. The unpleasant reality of toxic people is that they will not change. They will take their toxicity to the grave and there is nothing you or I can do to fix them. People who genuinely change for the better are rare; they should be considered exceptions, not the standard of toxic behavior.

We can't make people stop believing toxic things. The most we can do is shame them for it. Punch Nazis. Protest police brutality. Deride them for eating Mexican food while supporting Trump's wall. Publicize racism, publicize sexism, publicize anti-LGBT rhetoric, etc. Any time they say the quiet part out loud, ring it out so everyone knows what they said. Create social consequences for ill behavior.

Create social consequences for overreaching, so that the quiet part goes back to being the quiet part. Because that's where it should be. We can't make them stop believing the quiet part, but we can make them stop saying it. When they don't say it, children don't hear it. When children don't hear it, children don't realize it's a part of the rhetoric.

That's part of why Millennials and Gen-Z are as liberal as we are. We grew up hearing "Land of the Free (for white people)" and "Land of Opportunity (for cis-het men)" without those parentheses in them because conservatives were shamed away from saying them. Then we grew into the world those conservatives had created. And now we're mad because we were lied to.

That anger is where change comes from. Because here's the other unpleasant reality: in any culture war between young people and old, young will inevitably win. Time favors the young. The old will die sooner than the young, because that's how age works.

Our battle isn't to change Conservatives. It's to make them stop saying the quiet part out loud so that they can't create a new generation of young Nazis to follow Gen-Z.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 17th 2020 at 9:59:20 AM

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PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#324119: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:04:34 AM

Of course, it's probably important to remember that Millennials and Gen-Zers are generally liberal. But it's not like there's a particular shortage of "far"-right* teens to 30-somethings out there. Even when the old conservatives die out, younger ones will take their place. The best we can hope for is that they're lesser in number.

[*=]They're pretty much the standard-right these days.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Aug 17th 2020 at 1:05:00 PM

i'm tired, my friend
TitanJump Since: Sep, 2013 Relationship Status: Singularity
#324120: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:06:43 AM

Reminder: The Trump Death Cult is composed of people who seriously believes that Obama was president during "9/11" and that Covid-19 was intentionally introduced and allowed to spread through America by the democrats due to, and this is their words, "just to make Trump look bad.".

There is no helping these tinfoil-people.

Edited by TitanJump on Aug 17th 2020 at 7:07:27 PM

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#324121: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:08:39 AM

Converting hardcore right-wingers is a good inspirational goal, but not good electoral strategy. Ideally we would show people the problems with right-wing ideology and convert them to our side. Practically, this is a long and unreliable process. It happens over the course of years, and the election is in less than three months. It's something that needs to happen eventually, but something that imo happens kind of on its own when the Democrats have a governing policy of "making things better for America" rather than "rewarding allies and punishing enemies", and are allowed to put that policy into action. Anyone who can (and wants to) see the truth will get there eventually, at their own pace. It's not a process that can be rushed or forced.

And in the meantime, Democrats have to win elections in order to demonstrate that they're actually the party of responsible governing (and, you know, keeping Trump from burning the country down in the meantime). Which means focusing on practical strategies, not high-minded ideals. That doesn't mean we should betray our high-minded ideals, but "reaching across the aisle in the spirit of comradery" doesn't win elections, "appealing to your base and leveraging voter engagement to drive high turnout" does. So you do that, and reach across the aisle with comradery spirit when you can, but you don't make that the core of your election strategy.

Which makes "but why aren't Democrats reaching out to Republicans" naive at best and deliberate concern trolling at worst.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324122: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:11:06 AM

Indeed, there were plenty of students at that Charlottesville Nazi rally. Some of whom apparently really didn't quite understand just how vile a thing they were getting into until it bit them hard when their faces appeared on TV.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#324123: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:18:52 AM

[up][up]I feel that "reach out to the other side" is a fundamental aspect of the ideology of at least a faction of the Democrats, particularly Democrats in leadership positions. It's what makes it difficult for Democrats to really mount a resistance against the Republican ideology, doubly so when the more soft parts of American Nationalism that typifies the Repuiblicans are also accepted by many Democrats.

[up]I find that difficult to believe given the abundance of openly Fascist Symbology and Rhetoric that was being pealed around. Even if they truly were only in it for "the meme" it betrays an immense amount of privilege and callousness that they could think that a blatant Fascist rally could just be a joke.

Wryte Since: Jul, 2010
#324124: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:20:45 AM

^^ No. They knew goddamn well how vile it was. What they didn't expect was to face any actual consequences for displaying their vileness loudly and publicly.

Stop making excuses for bigots.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#324125: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:27:09 AM

Of course, it's probably important to remember that Millennials and Gen-Zers are generally liberal. But it's not like there's a particular shortage of "far"-right* teens to 30-somethings out there. Even when the old conservatives die out, younger ones will take their place. The best we can hope for is that they're lesser in number.

[*=]They're pretty much the standard-right these days.

Yes, culture wars are won in a span of decades to centuries. There is no silver bullet that can be fired that will make Conservatism abruptly cease to exist tomorrow. There will probably still be some Nazis when we grow old and die.

But narrowing the Nazi population from, like, 50% of Americans to 30% to 5% or whatever, that's still a net-gain for non-Nazis. The reasonable goal isn't to somehow make it so that Nazis cannot exist at all. It's to marginalize and diminish them out of popular conversation.

The goal, right now, is to make Nazis go back to the rocks they were hiding under before Trump made them a new shade of normal.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 17th 2020 at 10:28:49 AM

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