TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

The General US Politics Thread

Go To

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

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#325401: Aug 29th 2020 at 3:01:21 PM

>Doesn't the UK also have at least one party so dedicated to not participating in the Government that they never even claim their seats once elected?

I'm in the UK and I'm trying working out who you mean,certainly doesn't ring any bells

edit:Sinn Fein right

Edited by Ultimatum on Aug 29th 2020 at 10:01:50 AM

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#325402: Aug 29th 2020 at 3:04:48 PM

I knew the initials were S.F., but I couldn't remember what it stood for.

Thank you.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#325403: Aug 29th 2020 at 3:05:17 PM

Yeah they’re a Northern Ireland only party, they could max get 18 out of 650 seats.

The UK system only splits votes so bad because of first past the post, other parliamentary systems don’t have that problem.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#325404: Aug 29th 2020 at 4:22:12 PM

There have been attempts to raise money for the Kenosha Killer. They've already raised over 100K.

Go Fund Me has shut down all of theirs and good for them.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#325405: Aug 29th 2020 at 4:23:42 PM

Agreed.

Do not obey in advance.
Alycus Since: Apr, 2018
#325406: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:07:59 PM

This is currently perhaps the only forum and online social outlet I can trust regarding political discussions, precisely because of firm moderation, actual recognition of disinformation and conspiracies, and understanding the need to allow the viewpoints of minorities instead of simply allowing anyone to post literally anything that fits their biases. And not to mention these rules have existed for years before Trump, so they weren't adopted specifically to spite Republicans.

Out there, it's still stunningly easy to find and join social media groups where people believe that Biden is just as bad as Trump, that Sanders is still the only good Democrat in existence, that BLM protestors are terrorists, that anyone wanting more diverse presentation is media are just whiny crybabies (cue the inevitable "jokes" about wanting representation for non-existent things like robots or aliens), that cancel culture is a serious threat, that freaking Q Anon is real, or that (for a non-US example) Hong Kong protestors are race traitors and should be crushed.

Obviously not everything will be perfect (the Video Games forum has at least one alt-right poster, and the Conservative thread in Troper Covens should probably be monitored in case they start posting popular right wing memes), but I know if I haven't come here, my political education will be much poorer.

Right-wingers who get banned here will probably rant about censorship and intolerance from the left, but that's just what they always say the instant others actually take a firm stand against their conspiracy theories, discredited economic views and harmful views against minorities.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#325407: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:08:48 PM

I think even if crowd funding shuts them down they'll funnel money to him somehow,making sure he never sees a cent will very difficult

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Voltron64 Since: Jul, 2016
#325408: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:09:18 PM

Let's hope most of them are just grifts.

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
#325409: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:47:55 PM

[up][up][up]I’ll be honest: I don’t know why I decided to walk into a political forum in the first place, but this has really been the best possible way the whole thing could have turned out.

My musician page
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#325410: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:53:37 PM

This thread is where I get most of my news on politics and stuff.

Si I think I made a good choice after deciding I should at least get a little informed.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#325411: Aug 29th 2020 at 5:58:25 PM

Likewise, I mostly follow political stuff here and one other forum, though this is the one I feel does the job better. I get most of my political news here, or through here, as this is the site that introduced me to What the Fuck Just Happened Today, whose updates I occasionally post on the site.

Very least I feel there's actual discussion here. I learned quickly that Facebook is mostly politicking by meme, which isn't helpful at all.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#325412: Aug 29th 2020 at 6:04:00 PM

This is unrelated to the discussion aspect, but I actually get a lot of my political news from reddit nowadays. I don't visit the threads themselves at all, but just by being in the default subreddits a lot of political news from legitimate sources appear on your front page. The site itself as a discussion forum has a lot of problems but in that specific regard, it's pretty useful.

As far as actual discussion of politics goes this is about the only place I bother with.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Aug 29th 2020 at 9:06:16 AM

Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#325413: Aug 29th 2020 at 6:31:32 PM

Michael Moore warns that trump is on possible fasttrack for 2016 repeat, he states that enthusiasm for him is high in swing states.

So how accurate is Moore when it comes to political predictions and is he correct about the swing states?

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#325414: Aug 29th 2020 at 6:33:46 PM

Michael Moore is an obnoxious gasbag who has completely stepped off the deep end of late.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#325416: Aug 29th 2020 at 6:42:41 PM

Everytime I've heard Moore say anything about Elections, its always about how the Republican will beat the Democrat no matter who it is. He's basically the opposite of the NRA; he only has any power if a Republican is in charge, and if a Democrat is in charge people ignore him and he loses business.

So I'm not putting much stock into what he says, other then there is always a chance Trump can win re-election. And that's why we all need to vote.

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#325417: Aug 29th 2020 at 6:46:23 PM

Still, he raised the same alarms in 2016, and he was right.

In a similar vein, this NYT article breaks down the dominance of right-wing partisan content on Facebook, and those numbers are not meaningless.

    NYT - What if Facebook Is the Real 'Silent Majority'? 

Listen, liberals. If you don’t think Donald Trump can get re-elected in November, you need to spend more time on Facebook.

Since the 2016 election, I’ve been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on Facebook, the world’s largest and arguably most influential media platform. Every morning, one of the first browser tabs I open is Crowd Tangle — a handy Facebook-owned data tool that offers a bird’s-eye view of what’s popular on the platform. I check which politicians and pundits are going viral. I geek out on trending topics. I browse the previous day’s stories to see which got the most reactions, shares and comments.

Most days, the leader board looks roughly the same: conservative post after conservative post, with the occasional liberal interloper. (If you want to see these lists for yourselves, you can check out @Facebooks Top 10, a Twitter account I created that shows the top 10 most-interacted-with link posts by U.S. Facebook pages every day.)

It’s no secret that, despite Mr. Trump’s claims of Silicon Valley censorship, Facebook has been a boon to him and his allies, and hyperpartisan Facebook pages are nothing new. (In fact, my colleague John Herrman wrote about them four years ago this month.)

But what sticks out, when you dig in to the data, is just how dominant the Facebook right truly is. Pro-Trump political influencers have spent years building a well-oiled media machine that swarms around every major news story, creating a torrent of viral commentary that reliably drowns out both the mainstream media and the liberal opposition.

The result is a kind of parallel media universe that left-of-center Facebook users may never encounter, but that has been stunningly effective in shaping its own version of reality. Inside the right-wing Facebook bubble, President Trump’s response to Covid-19 has been strong and effective, Joe Biden is barely capable of forming sentences, and Black Lives Matter is a dangerous group of violent looters.

Mr. Trump and his supporters are betting that, despite being behind Mr. Biden in the polls, a “silent majority” will carry him to re-election. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest and most online son, made that argument himself at the Republican National Convention this week. And while I’m not a political analyst, I know enough about the modern media landscape to know that looking at people’s revealed preferences — what they actually read, watch, and click on when nobody’s looking — is often a better indicator of how they’ll act than interviewing them at diners, or listening to what they’re willing to say out loud to a pollster.

Maybe Mr. Trump’s “silent majority,” in other words, only seems silent because we’re not looking at their Facebook feeds.

“We live in two different countries right now,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist and digital director of Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign. Facebook’s media ecosystem, he said, is “a huge blind spot for people who are up to speed on what’s on the front page of The New York Times and what’s leading the hour on CNN.”

To be sure, Facebook is not the only medium where right-wing content thrives. Millions of Americans still get their news from cable news and talk radio, where conservative voices have dominated for years. Many pro-Trump Facebook influencers also have sizable presences on Twitter, You Tube and other social networks.

But the right’s dominance on Facebook, specifically, is something to behold. Here are just a few data points I pulled from Crowd Tangle this week:

The conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has gotten 56 million total interactions on his Facebook page in the last 30 days. That’s more than the main pages of ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR combined. (Data from a different firm, News Whip, showed that Mr. Shapiro’s news outlet, The Daily Wire, was the No. 1 publisher on Facebook in July.)

Facebook posts by Breitbart, the far-right news outlet, have been shared four million times in the past 30 days, roughly three times as many as posts from the official pages of every Democratic member of the U.S. Senate combined.

The most-shared Facebook post containing the term “Black Lives Matter” over the past six months is a June video by the right-wing commentators The Hodgetwins, which calls the racial justice movement a “damn lie.” The second most-shared Black Lives Matter post? A different viral video from The Hodgetwins, this one calling the movement a “leftist lie.” (The Hodgetwins also have the 4th, 6th, and 12th most shared posts.)

Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian and Trump supporter, has averaged 86,500 interactions per Facebook post in August, more than twice as many as Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, who has averaged 39,000 interactions per post. (Mr. Trump outdoes them both, naturally, with an average of 92,000 interactions per post.)

A few caveats, before my Democratic readers jump off the nearest pier.

These figures include only posts on public pages, in public groups, and by verified accounts, and they don’t include Facebook ads, where the Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign in recent weeks. Counting Facebook interactions doesn’t tell you how someone felt about a post, so it’s possible some conservative posts are being hate-shared by liberals. And Facebook has argued that engagement isn’t the same thing as popularity.

“These points look mostly at how people engage with content, which should not be confused with how many people actually see it on Facebook,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. Mr. Osborne added that “when you look at the content that gets the most reach across Facebook, it’s not at all as partisan as this reporting suggests.” (Facebook does not disclose this type of data publicly, except once in a while in response to my tweets.)

Democrats aren’t totally absent from Facebook’s upper echelon. Ridin’ With Biden, a pro-Biden page started in April by the founders of the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats, has quadrupled its following over the past three months, and routinely gets more engagement than Breitbart and other right-wing heavy-hitters. Individual posts by Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats have broken through in recent weeks.

And political campaigners have pointed out, correctly, that being popular on the internet isn’t a guarantee of electoral success. (“Retweets don’t vote,” as an experienced Democratic operative once told me.) In addition, Facebook’s older, more conservative user base may not reflect what’s happening on platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok, which draw a younger crowd.

Still, the platform’s sheer scale makes it vital to understand. As of 2019, 70 percent of American adults used Facebook, and 43 percent of Americans got news on the platform, according to the Pew Research Center. (Those numbers may have increased because of the pandemic.) We know that the company’s product decisions can make or break political movements, move fringe ideas into the mainstream, or amplify partisan polarization. Registering four million voters before the November election, as Facebook has said it would do, could be a decisive force all on its own. (Typically, higher turnout benefits Democrats, but given what we know about the media diets of hyperactive Facebook users, who knows?)

The reason right-wing content performs so well on Facebook is no mystery. The platform is designed to amplify emotionally resonant posts, and conservative commentators are skilled at turning passionate grievances into powerful algorithm fodder. The company also appears willing to bend its rules for popular conservative influencers. Recent reports by Buzz Feed News and NBC News, based on leaked documents, found that Facebook executives had removed “strikes” from the accounts of several high-profile conservative pages that had shared viral misinformation in violation of the company’s rules.

The Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign on Facebook in recent weeks.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times Over the past few years, I’ve come to view my daily Facebook data-dive as a kind of early-warning system — a rough gauge of what’s grabbing America’s attention on any given day, and which stories and perspectives will likely break through in the days to come.

And looking at Facebook’s lopsided political media ecosystem might be a useful reality check for Democrats who think Mr. Biden will coast to victory in November.

After all, Mr. Trump’s surging popularity showed up online before it showed up in any polls in 2016. And even though much about Facebook, and American politics, has changed in the past four years, the basic laws of social media physics still apply. Controversy wins. Negative beats positive. All attention looks good to an algorithm.

Brad Parscale — the digital director of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign — told “60 Minutes” that of everything Mr. Trump did that year, the thing that actually moved the needle was Facebook.

“Facebook was the method,” Mr. Parscale said. “It was the highway which his car drove on.”

That highway is still open. And right now, the fastest cars on it have MAGA bumper stickers.

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#325418: Aug 29th 2020 at 6:47:09 PM

This is a better source than CNN International, which has some good programs but tends to go a bit too much with breathless "breaking news" sometimes.

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#325420: Aug 29th 2020 at 7:07:27 PM

It would be nice to have an actual political debate again, but that's impossible if the participants aren't all debating in good faith.

Now I'm waiting for an actual Nazi to debate his beliefs here in complete, straightforward honesty.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#325421: Aug 29th 2020 at 7:30:34 PM

[up][up][up][up] Social media is a cancer.

They just let this shit fester like a Goddamn tumor.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#325422: Aug 29th 2020 at 7:39:31 PM

I think we're going to end up with Facebook as the right-wing social media and Twitter as the left.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#325423: Aug 29th 2020 at 7:52:40 PM

[up]Mmn, unlikely. Facebook is aggressively trying to absorb everyone. It's just that the right-wing's bot army is a lot better-programmed and probably has insiders on the algorithm.

AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#325424: Aug 29th 2020 at 8:00:46 PM

I'm sorry, Twitter as a Left-Wing social media?

No. Just...no.

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#325425: Aug 29th 2020 at 8:09:02 PM

I'm pretty sure the only reason conservative content trends higher on Facebook is the legions of conservative and Russian bots trying to push that shit. Also I feel like right-wing users are more likely to aggressively spam and share content. So it could still be a vocal minority, basically.


Total posts: 417,856
Top