This is true of the vast majority of activists in any political cause. Most join as social signaling to their community that they are "one of them". Case in point, almost nobody interviewed for occupy Wallstreet could even agree on what the goal of the group was.
Particularly in this case, showing support is literally as simple as installing an app that does almost the exact same thing as another app. "sure, I'll do that and post to Facebook about it to show how forward thinking I am"
Protests are rarely about setting policy. They're about voicing their disagreement. Even if people at Occupy Wallstreet (and many other protests) can't agree on the solution, they do tend to agree on the problem.
Grassroots activism used to be better organised. Trade unions and other working-class organisations provided structure and institutional expertise. Discontent could be directed as part of a broader strategic campaign. The atomization of society has diminished the influence of these organisations. Most activism today is disorganised and strategically inept, simply because the instigators are inexperienced and lack the support of a wider network.
I believe cases like these are just spotlights on how different we as humans tend to think while assuming those grouped around us tend to be more similar than in actuality.
Its dangerous when all sides don't consider the others viewpoints at all.
Both sides are so busy trying to force their ideologies on all Americans through a tyranny of the majority that they are simply incapable of reason.
"how can you exercise this right if you support its infringement?"
"you should just give up your guns"
"don't expect anyone to stick up for you"
"you're a hypocrite who thinks 'screw everyone else because I already got mine.'"
That's a microcosm of what discourse is like if you have a moderate opinion these days. There is no middle ground.
Its quite reasonable to find it abhorrent, just don't take it as abhorrent because other people to you that it is.
I like statistics and politics, I dig into the numbers and the actual reports behind news stories and the agendas are so obvious, I get the reasons why, in the UK newspapers are sold on outrage and worldview confirmation first and second and facts about sixth.
I don't believe there was ever a golden age of media but I do think they had more integrity in the past.
Anyway, it is indeed disheartening that if we consider some other viewpoint or perhaps even sympathise with it how easy it is to be branded an enemy to the other. It's a 'you're with us or against us' mentality that is becoming more and more ingrained.
I disagree. The bullshit was just harder to discover in the past - without internet and 10,000 independent sources stating contrary to whatever the media was trying to peddle.
Media's job isn't to educate people. It's to educate people to see things "their" way which is where media bias, however major or slight, comes into play.
I think it's the opposite. The headlines, style, and bias made the bullshit more obvious in the past. Now, there can be 10,000 "independent" sources peddling the same person's bullshit. Media consolidation means many of the news sources all come from the same few dozen companies that consistently bullshit. False information also travels fast in waves across social media but debunks don't per Facebook. There are also firms specializing in doing this with propaganda teams.
It's golden age of media disinformation. Also, with so many sources of low integrity, it's harder than ever for the average person to figure out what's true. Smart people can pull it off for many things but it's a lot of work. More work than many will spend vs turning to favorite channel, station, or friend feed.
It's so much easier to find truth backed arguments with the internet, the average person can easily check sources. People are just mostly lazy and willing to let their biases inform what they will accept as true.
Exactly. Combined with easier spread of misinformation, it makes things worse than it was before where easily-misinformed population in voting or demand side has massive influence on our lives.
How about a Hartal? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartal
That implies there was a group, in a formal sense, at all.
Indeed. I think you've underscored exactly why calling out virtue signaling is so unhelpful for productive discourse.
Apparently the latest outrage on Twitter is over Elon Musk's condemnation of Trump's order not being tough enough. They're mad at him for trying to convince Trump to modify his proposal, because "making compromises with the opponent validates them," and he's being "morally cowardly." Well, ok. But at this point the order is (unless the ACLU wins) a reality, and the pragmatic thing to do is to work within the bounds of reality to make things better. Would these people rather he not do that, just to show that he's "standing with them"?
I have an increasing suspicion that the word "solidarity" is becoming a word the means less and less. As far as I can tell, when applied to public figures, it mostly means sending the message that you care. I wish we'd care less about messaging, and more about what works.
As for your suggestion to work with bounds of reality it should apply to Trump. If he want to change immigration policy he can work with Congress to pass laws and regulations. His flashy actions are just for his silly supporters and not for the benefit of US.
Trump plan is to govern through the crisis. He will make flashy stupid actions to get everyone attention while Republicans and Lobbyist disassemble what has been achieved in last 8 years.
That makes no sense. Our existing structure we're working in will let him do about whatever he wants with his voters supporting him. If you want to change that, try to get some amendments to the Constitution through that will. If you're not changing it, then he'll do whatever he wants. Then, anyone trying to change that has to work within the constraints. His if appealing to Executive Branch. Giving him something better for you that also appears to accomplish his goals is one way to do it.
I'm not pushing any specific ideas on that. I'm just saying that it's ridiculous act with assumption the villains shouldn't be villains or some other utopia should happen. Instead, gotta work with what we have.
> Fuck. That. Shit.
What, you think it was only true when it was applied to people you like?
I like my wife, child and few friends. I do not care about Musk, Jobs, Jesus or any other created by PR icon that people put faith in.
This is ridiculous bullshit doing nothing.
Thousands of people doing something that would risk their job, or land them in jail (and I'm not talking about a couple of out-of-work stragglers while the rest high tail it home when the police come out) might change something.
But this? Just a big circle jerk which if Trump has a brain in his head, will just ignore.
Then it would appear there are far fewer Trump supporters than people who oppose Trump.
Quite surprising when you start to do the math.
Trump received almost the exact same number of popular votes as Romney in '12, and McCain in '08. The difference is that 10 million Obama voters stayed home for Hillary:
http://i.imgur.com/AT0kqVz.jpg
Whether due to disappointment that Bernie Sanders wasn't nominated, or belief that voting wasn't important since Trump wasn't projected to win, or "OMG Russian hacker!!" conspiracy theories, etc. The bottom line is that Democratic turnout has dropped 15% over the past couple of cycles.
Like the shore in low tide, "swing" locations shift and move out when this happens. I hear advice that future nominees should just ignore blue states and focus entirely on swing locations. That's exactly what the Clinton campaign did! It's a recipe for failure in the modern day. Because once again, turnout is what matters. The rising tide pushed back the "swing" coastline.
This new era of U.S. politics scares me... because I've grown accustomed to Democrats having the luxury of sounding reasonable and centrist, while the Republicans have been forced to pander to extremists in their base. But I think the old conventional wisdom of "run to the edge in the primaries and then pivot back to the center for the general" is breaking down.
In the new rules, candidates have to LIVE out on the edge in order to keep their bases energized and draw turnout. I think we're going to see extreme left candidates facing extreme right candidates (or whatever Trump is), with a goal of get-out-the-vote operations rather than winning over swing moderates. As a swing moderate myself, this sounds disastrous no matter who wins.
That said, I agree with your general message about turnout.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
That is important, but it's turnout in states that have swing counties. Turnout in California is less important.
> Whether due to disappointment that Bernie Sanders wasn't nominated, or belief that voting wasn't important since Trump wasn't projected to win, or "OMG Russian hacker!!" conspiracy theories, etc. The bottom line is that Democratic turnout has dropped 15% over the past couple of cycles.
Your explanation is curiously devoid of what I see many people here omit: the repeal of the VRA. We saw changes to requirements and last minute eligability changes in many states that would have been illegal and challengable under the VRA.
While I certainly think there is a contingent of "bernie or bust" people, the turnout in blue states was NOT substantially depressed and HRC didn't lose votes. The vote totals were similar to their 2012 counterparts (in some cases higher) in blue states with absentee/mail voting making a huge appearance. If the BoB people were a significant factor for the blue vote we would ahve seen it reflected.
It's a weird myth that blue turnout was down in blue states. When I look at the vote counts post January, I just don't see it.
What we do see is a conspicuous and large gap of blue votes in red states, and when you overlay that with voter law changes enabled by the VRA the correspondence is quite high.
It's really tempting to lean on the "well they just didn't vote" argument, because it's very pat and not contentious. We should be suspicious of that though.
Instead we get stuck in the mud with tangible topics that affect regular lives like universal health care and free public higher education. Good things, sure, but not the solution to our deeper problems.
uses Peter Thiel backed Lyft instead
funny thing is, Trump supporters are now deleting Lyft in favor of uber.
nobody does an ounce of research anymore.