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

PointMaid Since: Jun, 2014
#324126: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:27:12 AM

Ideas...

  1. Move the Overton window, do what's possible to de-normalize the Far Right
  2. Work on systemic issues of our political system: Gerrymandering, voter suppression in all its forms, the electoral college, etc
  3. Take care of education and make sure tomorrow's voters are educated and taken care of: address funding imbalances between schools, make sure textbooks aren't whitewashed, emphasize critical thinking
  4. Address social issues: Poverty, healthcare for all, unemployment, discrimination (on race, gender, orientation, religion or lack of) in public spaces, environmental justice. Show that this is not a drain of resources, but a positive good and leads to a more prosperous and secure America for all.

Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#324127: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:28:33 AM

I don't think he is making excuses, some people, as sad as it is, really are like that.

Some people really do not care about Trump or racism at all and just support them or wear their symbols to 'trigger the libs'.

Sad, but a reality.

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Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#324128: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:30:28 AM

[up] I can buy that some people just want to be contrarians or fuck around to piss people off but I think the point is more that this kind of attitude requires at least a tolerance to if not sympathy with those kind of beliefs to begin with.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#324129: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:32:12 AM

There's an Alt-Right Playbook about this too.

Short-version: people who 'are just in it for the lulz', aren't. They've adopted a position that they think will shield them from the social consequences of their hate. They are still very firmly entrenched in the right-wing belief structure. Note that a true nihilist would take as much joy in trigger conservatives as liberals, and they never do this despite conservatives generally being astoundingly easy to trigger.

If all they care about is triggering libs and they can't answer why they don't trigger conservatives, there is still a reason for that. It's because they're conservatives.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 17th 2020 at 10:32:54 AM

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unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#324130: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:33:36 AM

Again, as someone who live in a actual dictatorship can atest and make a tesis about it, what you are experience is polarization.

Polarization is a difcult beast because it normalized violence but also legitimized, meaning that you not only said hitting people is cool but that hitting people is JUST, if people cheer pushing a nazi polarizationt ell you can do the same to other people and can in fact move people from inepenents to downright fanatic and I now this because it happen in my country.

I said this becuase a lto of people here seen the idea that people just love trump all the sudden, he is the culminzation of decades of quiet polarization kick into overdrive, while you cant change their heart, you can stop polarization, failing to do so is pretty much write all those people as stupid who must vote left or bust.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#324131: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:35:55 AM

Lots of them actually do that though.

Take for example Mister Metokur or Kiwi Farms, just on top off my head. They mock people on the Left and the Right equally.

And honestly, I think it is worse that way because these people truly care about nothing at all, other than satisfying their own sick sense of humour.

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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#324132: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:38:44 AM

And were either of them marching at the Charlottesville rally, waving tiki torches and wearing Nazi swastikas?

Centrists who think it makes them intellectually superior to everyone else to belligerently refuse to take a side are a different phenomenon from hate groups that claim they only wear Klan hoods and lynch black people ironically.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 17th 2020 at 10:39:16 AM

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Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#324133: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:40:53 AM

I mean that's kinda the other thing: past a certain point people's motivations for doing something aren't that relevant. LAR Ping as a white supremacist still means you're pushing white supremacy.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Aug 17th 2020 at 1:47:55 PM

KazuyaProta Shin Megami Tensei IV from A Industrial Farm Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Shin Megami Tensei IV
#324134: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:41:44 AM

[up][up] Usually not. They are opportunists. The real both-sidist is a different thing that the alt-righter, usually still bad but not the same thing.

I honestly find Innuendo Studios videos to be quite...lacking in actual experience with the Online Alt-Right sphere.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 17th 2020 at 12:44:18 PM

Watch me destroying my country
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324135: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:44:06 AM

Obviously I am not making any excuses. I am just pointing out that some of these people seem to have very little awareness of what they are getting involved in, and how wider society will react to that. They go to a Nazi rally, and then are shocked that everyone around them treats them like scum.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
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
#324136: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:49:50 AM

[up]That goes into how they think almost everybody’s actually racist, even though it’s not socially acceptable, and they ended up unable to understand how Trump’s election did not make everyone open about it, but rather caused people to confirm that they actually aren’t racist.

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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#324137: Aug 17th 2020 at 10:50:23 AM

That's not ignorance of what they're getting involved in. That's ignorance that what they're getting involved in will carry social consequences.

White cis-het men in the United States are accustomed to being sheltered from consequences. We misbehave frequently because there are no consequences for misbehavior. White male rapists are similarly shocked on the rare occasion when they actually go to jail, even though they're only in jail for three months while black drug users go to jail for over thirty years.

It's not that they don't know that it's bad. It's that they don't think that doing a bad thing will carry consequences for their life. Because 95% of the time, it doesn't.

And then they start whining about Cancel Culture and White Genocide because the idea that a white cis-het male might be publicly shamed or given a slap on the wrist for hate speech and/or committing actual felonies is so unthinkable that they literally cannot comprehend that it happened to them. They are outraged at minor punishment for major offenses.

White cis-het men in the United States have been spoiled for centuries.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 17th 2020 at 10:54:04 AM

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Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324138: Aug 17th 2020 at 11:27:19 AM

I think the Internet has also played a big role in fostering that attitude, probably more than anything before it. The internet allows, generally speaking, absolute anonymity and freedom from consequences. This goes from the relatively harmless bullying in online games to the very harmful alt-right social networks that tolerate racism, sexism, and ultimately white supremacy (because that tends to be the natural outcome of racism when left unchecked).

A policy against right wing fascism should then also involve a policy fighting back against this toxic internet culture.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
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
#324139: Aug 17th 2020 at 11:28:44 AM

*Insert quip about the First Lady’s “efforts” against cyberbullying here*

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Aug 17th 2020 at 2:28:37 PM

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Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324140: Aug 17th 2020 at 11:48:24 AM

The video from the Alt Right Playbook had an interesting quote:

"So much of conservative rhetoric is maintaining ignorance of one's own beliefs".

I think that is ultimately behind those people socked (and outraged) about facing consequences for joining a fascist rally: they would rather not think about what what they believe in, and facing consequences forces them to face their own beliefs, and how toxic they really are.

These people are fascists "for the lulz", because they think that is a good way to own the libs.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#324141: Aug 17th 2020 at 11:51:05 AM

I dunno, I think the internet is just exposing how big white supremacy is.

Until the Equal Rights Amendment, half the country was under apartheid and campaigns of terrorism.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324142: Aug 17th 2020 at 11:55:29 AM

I don't doubt that it was always a big part of US society, but I think the internet has allowed it to express itself in ways it simply could not before. Those Chan boards are a prime example of that.

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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
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#324143: Aug 17th 2020 at 11:55:49 AM

Right-wing spaces on the internet are both revealing and cultivating white supremacy in the U.S. It's giving white supremacists a place to a) revel unashamedly in their hate and also b) recruit impressionable new white supremacists.

Nobody's born a white supremacist. Hate is taught; it's not a natural disposition that certain people are automatically disposed to because they have The Bigot Genes. Children grow up to be white supremacists because they learned it from somewhere. That can be their parents. It can be their role models. And it can be their social environment.

Chan boards are one such social environment.

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astrokitty Happiness is a cup of tea from Somewhere Out There Since: May, 2014 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Happiness is a cup of tea
#324144: Aug 17th 2020 at 12:04:53 PM

So then...what exactly is there to be done about it?

Somebody once told me the world was macaroni, I took a bite out of a tree
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
#324145: Aug 17th 2020 at 12:08:32 PM

[up]The indoctrination has to be stopped before it starts. The "how" is an unsolved problem, but multiple factors, like educating kids about the tricks used in propaganda and making sure they don't visit sites like 4chan can only help.

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Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324146: Aug 17th 2020 at 12:11:14 PM

I think that ultimately we will have no other choice than to regulate the internet to some extent, and forbid such websites from being hosted.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#324147: Aug 17th 2020 at 12:13:47 PM

Which is a futile effort, especially since people will just switch to russian providers.

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Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#324148: Aug 17th 2020 at 12:19:02 PM

I have said before that, in the same way semi-automatics have to make us rethink the 2nd amendment, the Internet may force us to rethink the first.

Leviticus 19:34
Izeinsummer Since: Jun, 2013
#324149: Aug 17th 2020 at 12:19:11 PM

It is possible to ban things from the internet. But it requires a very high degree of international consensus that it should, indeed, be banned. Fascism is not likely to be a target for that kind of unanimous approbation.

We need tools to crack people out of information bubbles and moral traps. - By moral traps I mean the part where once people have publicly supported something, and it turns out to be bad, they so very often double down, rather than admit error....

And suddenly I think I see the point of the EU right-to-be-forgotten laws. If stupid shit you said can be put into the proverbial shredder, maybe people will be more willing to move on and just never mention their youthful stupidity again.

Edited by Izeinsummer on Aug 17th 2020 at 12:21:29 PM

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#324150: Aug 17th 2020 at 12:23:18 PM

Yes, that video talked about that, too - a distorted sort of rationalism, where believing that you are a rational person means that when you believe something, that must be right, and when someone challenges that belief, they must not be rational.

We really need to teach more philosophy in school...

And yes, the right to be forgotten certainly has some merit, especially in an age where everything online is stored somewhere and can remain there for decades. Not allowing those things to be forgotten effectively disallows people from moving on and maturing. You should not be held forever accountable for what you said when you were a naive, uninformed teenager.

Edited by Redmess on Aug 17th 2020 at 9:25:38 PM

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