For example, a group of my progressive acquaintances has been debating in depth on the New Yorker's reporting over past few months, including especially the long piece on Hillary the week before the election. They have framed that discussion around progressive views on fairness of opportunity and fairness of wealth distribution.
The leading political progressives have the same depth of argument - listen to Obama's speeches, the speeches at the DNC, Bernie and Robert Reich, Kander on voting, Stiglitz.
In contrast the right is intellectually bankrupt. Michael Anton's articles motivated the right for the past few months and the articles are poorly argued flimflam. Heritage's chief economist is disingenuous and misguided. The chief GOP wonk in Congress, Paul Ryan, is a mediocrity who barely understands healthcare never mind economics. This is what happens when a party goes to war on expertise[1] (because expertise of course threatens their donors' ability to make huge amounts of money[2]).
1. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-death-of-experti...
2. http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/10/14871696/sco...
And if you live in a majority red community, people who have left views will be the ones who have thought long and deep about their views.
These kinds of claims on Hacker News happen to be nearly indistinguishable from trolling, and it's not OK to then attack other users when they bite. We're after civil, thoughtful discussion on HN, so please don't take us in the opposite direction.
That's literally a description of the conservative base. It's literally the platform Trump ran and got voted in on.
Denying muslims, lowering taxes, and reducing welfare. Toss in some Mexican wall too.
It's all small minded, black and white, fear driven, devisive, fear based politics.
Classic strong man strategies.
If I could find a single conservative that can give me an explanation of their conservative philosophy that isn't just parroting something they heard... that is based in sound reasoning... and an actual semblance of a philosophical/economic framework I would cry tears of joy. \
But that doesn't exist.
Also, you've been trolling all over this thread.
You're 'examples' are anecdotal, or not fleshed out with details at all.
I've never once seen a conservative give a legitimate critically thought out answer to any of the points Ive made, however, conservatives are super quick to ad hominem attacks like calling someone a troll.
I guess that's the next best thing when you don't have ideas or a point of your own.
Its a problem on both sides.
The time has come to put conservatism on the back-burner until we later encounter some problem against which it can serve as an effective tool.
And yet the opposition can barely muster the chutzpah to defend the Affordable Care Act, much less to create a 21st-century New Deal!
Worse, what are people focusing on? College students protesting! Can someone explain to me how stricter behavioral policing of college students is going to rebuild rusted bridges or install high-speed passenger rail? Who gets health-insurance out of telling college students to shut up?
Meanwhile, the President of the United States tweets us all "letters from grandpa" material he saw on blogs, while his party plots to realize an ideological utopia that would actually make us all worse-off. Why? Because college students! And fake protesters paid by George Soros!
This is insane. We have real issues that can't be solved with a hashtag, a tweet, or a cardboard sign.
Are you talking about Berkeley? I'm not sure a lot of those were college students. Nor were they protesting...
A fair point, however, I think the only way to reverse the trend on the left is for the right to employ the left's own tactics back against them, in spades. The right needs to destroy the lives and careers of, for example, some university presidents who allow this sort of brutish behavior to go unpunished, sometimes even making excuses for it. Or go to war against companies who cave to the SJW demands. It has to be mutually-assured destruction, not one-sided.
And I think this has made them intellectually soft. Many of the younger ones don't know how to argue for their views intellectually because they've never had to.
A now-deceased friend who was an avowed socialist, who came of age in the late fifties/early sixties, absolutely loved to argue politics and ethics with avowed free-market capitalists like myself, and I enjoyed arguing with him. But I've found it impossible to have any discussions with any element of intellectual rigor with any of the 20- or 30-something Bernie Sanders supporters I'm acquainted with. Within minutes, they fall back on character attacks -- "that's racist!", "you're greedy and selfish!", etc.
And it looks like it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.