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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Also, I think it's good to note that ideas are starting to win. I saw Republicans saying that our prison system is screwed up and needs to be overhauled. That drug users should be treated as people who need help, not as criminals. These are left-wing ideas, and they're catching on. I don't have it onhand, but there was an article back after the 2014 mid-term elections that said that left-wing ideas won at the poll booth, while right-wing candidates did.
I think part of it is people reaping what they've sown. I have a saying I made up that I assume someone else already said long before me, "People ignore problems until they're too big to ignore." I think we're reaching that point.
edited 27th Jul '15 7:02:19 AM by BonsaiForest
I'm pretty sure that's referring to George W. Bush.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It's really simple. We stop signal boosting the living shit out of people like Trump.
Hey, anybody remember Herman Cain? No? Exactly.
The kind of idiocy he represents doesn't go away because we ignore it. It'll keep finding voices until/unless it is very publicly discredited, and the best way to do that is to take people like Trump and show them for the buffoons that they are.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"1) Consider them legitimate threats. Treat them as legitimate opponents that need to be countered and proven wrong.
2) Recognize these are symptoms of a greater cultural frustration and issue. Listening to NPR there were callers willing to jump party lines from the democrats who were willing to vote for Trump because he was independently wealthy and less likely to be bought. Or that he was at least being honest despite that his honesty was completely horrible.
3) Campaign against him. Understand the frustration and use that to build a better support campaign for candidates that can address this in a healthy manner. Use it. Learn from it. And be the wiser and more profitable for it.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur![]()
Herman Cain was called out for, among other things, having virtually no clear resolution on Middle Eastern terrorism. He was not, however, quoted and plastered all over Facebook and Twitter to the point where you couldn't go five minutes on social media without hearing about him. There's a distinct psychological effect that's having on potential voters, and I'm honestly not sure how to explain to you the ramifications of that effect.
edited 27th Jul '15 7:08:53 AM by Aprilla
People have a funny habit of believing what they want to believe. I'm in the process of reading a series of articles about "the dumbest idea in the world", which is focusing on maximizing shareholder value. One of the articles says that it caught on because people wanted to believe it, since it seemed to simple and easy to do: cut costs, jack up prices, create monopolies if possible, and do everything possible to make more more more even if it kills your company or an industry years down the line.
But anyway, that's for the Economics thread, and I wouldn't want to talk about that until I'm done reading the articles.
My point though is that people believe what they want to believe. I hear that Republicans are so fed up with their establishment politicians that they'll go for anything that represents something different that's in line with their views. Much like how I used to be a conspiracy nut in my early 20s when I discovered the independent media, failing to recognize that it pulls all the same bullshit the mainstream media does, plus its own shit. I was looking for something refreshing and new, and I found it, and it was shit. But I didn't see it at the time.
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Ultimately, the only way to sort good ideas from bad ones is to give them all a public airing and see which ones work. You can't kill bad ideas by debating them.
More or less. That's human nature.
Edit: I think I see what Aprilla and Gabrael are talking about, and it's the media's insistence on giving "equal airtime" to all the wackjobs in the name of "fair and balanced". That is a serious problem, of course, as John Oliver pointed out when he hosted a "representative debate" between climate science deniers and climate scientists, with 3 debaters on one side and 97 on the other.
But if the media were to treat them as the ridiculous ideas they properly are, it would serve us much better. "Mike Huckabee, who is still holding out on his imbecilic YEC beliefs, said ..." "Rick Santorum, whose name means something that we can't say on the air (but look it up, it's funny), said..." "Jeb Bush, who's riding on the coattails of the President who sent a bunch of Americans to die pointlessly in Iraq, said..."
edited 27th Jul '15 7:27:14 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"So, what? They will scream "media bias" regardless, so their cries have become meaningless. And it's not like its attempts at neutrality have done anything for the media's reputation.
edited 27th Jul '15 7:42:26 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"You are giving the media too much credit.
The media gives the people what they want. People are genuinely interested in Trump because they feel he is a fresh face to help a broken system. They are even willing to take a chance on the hateful things he is saying because of his candor.
And there are even more people who honestly believe in what Trump is saying about things like Mexican immigration and needing a businessman in the office to help the economy.
Even if Trump himself doesn't win the nomination, Cruz, Rubio, and other candidates are picking up on his issues and riding his bigotry.
This isn't just who is in front of the camera more. It is the camera reflecting what too many people believe.
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - AszurThere's really no cure for idiocy of that level. We had a politician raving something about "preserving monocultural Finland" and beginnings of a "struggle" the same day Norway was remembering the mass killing committed by Breivik. He's also being seen in several pictures with our very own Neo-Nazi group.
So being public is not a problem for him, and he also strengthened the wills of the more right leaning people. However, putting no attention on this would've being equally bad since the organizations he associates with thrive on secrecy, and would feel legitimized as a member of parliament shares their view of the world.
The method to defeat them has to be tailored towards each of them individually. Otherwise, I can see some of the more nastier elements getting stronger while some are culled. That's my two cents.
Si Vis Pacem, Para PerkeleIf that is what it takes to move the US to roughly the Overton Window as the rest of the developed world, then it must be done.
Keep Rolling On
Then you must really be champing at the bit to throw your Tories into concentration camps, because they are every bit as bad on economic issues. It's just that the British Overton Window is a bit farther left.
I did not mean that inquiry as a suggestion.
edited 27th Jul '15 9:09:50 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@ Fighteer: Honestly, I don't know. I'm not enthused by any party at the moment — it's more who I vote against then who I vote for these days. Sometimes I wish for a Military Coup to get things sorted out. It's tempting.
edited 27th Jul '15 9:11:50 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On![]()
Nope. The solution for guns is always more guns.
I know the feeling, but there is scarce evidence from history that such things are ever an improvement on what came before.
edited 27th Jul '15 9:41:34 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There's a group that left-wingers call the 27%, which is based loosely on Bobby Jindal's approval rating in Louisiana. The 27% are the people who are lost completely, sucked up into the Republican infosphere and likely to never return until they die or get too old and senile to vote.
The 27% is legitimately interested in Trump, along with a small slice of low-information voters.
Most of the interest comes from what it is, watching him clown around, say ridiculous things, and bring his style of celebrity feuding into politics and watch how actual politicians react.
I would wager even the Republicans have enough serious voters (outside of that 27% crowd) that it will take the wind out of his sails by Super Tuesday, if he lasts that long. Remember: he leads the polls because polling is distributed amongst all of the other candidates, when after Iowa and New Hampshire it will very quickly coalesce around only 2 or 3 of them.
A guy like him has to have skeletons, and you can bet every major candidate has a dirty tricks team out there trying to find a prostitute, a drug-dealer, an ex in-law, with some real dirt on him.
Or if he somehow makes it to the general, we'll see a steamroller worse than Obama 08 and the GOP will have to figure out how to get the 27% to stop steering the party, lest they doom themselves to a slow death.

I have to wonder if these whackos being public will gradually erode support for religion more and more.
The Pew forum found that religiosity in the US dropped a lot in the last 10 years, by about 8 percentage points. The non-religious are about 1/5 the population. The Christians are down to 70.8% of the population. And many people cite religion and politics combining as part of their reason for turning against religion.
While there's always the threat of polarization - the current atmosphere both drives people away from religion, while the increasing anti-religious sentiment makes other religious people become more crazy and clingy - I have to think that the religious nuts will scare people away in their own parts of the country. I saw an article a few years back saying that religion is falling fastest in the South. While it makes sense on one level, considering they have a lot more to lose, it seems to go a bit against the narrative that the South is where religion is "strongest".
The religious are unlikely to think "If I act like a dumbass in public, I'll make more people turn atheist!" Instead, they're more likely to think "Crap! Atheists! Agnostics! Secular humanists! Muslims! This is terrible! I need to fight them!" and then have long-term Pyrrhic victories as a result of their screaming to the choir.