Trump constantly gets negative press coverage. If his views were actually popular with the internet media and tv media this wouldn't be the case. The media is overwhelmingly against him.
And as for popular left-wing forums /r/politics currently has ~20,000 viewers. At 7am. I'd call that popular.
The thing about underdog is this.
Our culture as produced in books/film/tv/music is dominated by left leaning beliefs.
If your conservate the media that naturally surrounds you does not reflect or celebrate your values.
Though I'm not saying they don't exist.
If you look at a demographic map of blue vs red, you will notice that blue = cities, red = rural. Even many blue states are only blue becuase of their cities.
This can create a feeling of "underdog" in both directions. Blue may feel like islands in a sea of red, red may see as wealth and power bring concentrated in blue lands.
The academic establishment is left leaning. That is a big one you leave out.
Finally regarding the lack of prominent left wing internet communities, this.
I live in the bay. If I want to have a honest discussion about say, basic income I can just step outside.
The same is not true of say, opposition to minimum wage. That will only get vitriol thrown at me and damage my personal reputation.
The left has few prominent internet communities because they don't need them. The right leaning people do, they are either very spread out in real life, or exist in communities that don't agree with them.
The same is true online. I don't need a left wing forum to discuss left wing ideas because every internet community I'm part of is predominantly left wing.
Basically if there is an internet community that's not expressily rightwing, it's community will be leftwing, so leftwing people don't need a space for themselves.
The lack of a prominent left wing forum is simply because the left is so dominant they don't need it.
Finally I we would note that "elite need the common man" is an accusation leveled at both parties.
For example my mother who is really right wing that most politicians who are pro immigration aren't interested in the welfare of immigrants, but just want more people to vote for them.
This lack of sincerity the motives both sides perscribe to each.
It seems obvious to me that UBI is a replacement for minimum wage laws.
Context: I'm anti-minimum wage laws, full stop, with or without UBI. I'm also pro-UBI [at around $500-800/mo/adult].
With a backstop of "now you won't starve if you turn it down", that is much less problematic.
Today, if someone's skills only create $6 of value per hour, they are economically unemployable. With UBI and no minimum wage, someone could pay them $5/hr and both would be better off than today.
Sure there are _some_ wide-spread beliefs here that happen to align with the left, but I would suggest that HN is far more libertarian than it is left-wing.
This could either be a conspiracy comprising of every author of every medium...
OR
It's because stories need sympathetic characters, and current Republican values aren't sympathetic.
I'm not trying to be divisive or flippant, though I'm sure this will be the effect. But success in media is driven by believable sympathetic characters (alternatively explosions), the only two that currently come to mind was John Goodmans character in Alpha House, and Ron Swanson (clearly libertarian) in Parks & Recreation, both of whom are very sympathetic characters, that put people before politics, and neither of whom would accept the last couple of years of their party's behavior.
TL;DR: It's either caused by a vast conspiracy, or the effect of what works in story telling, whichever you think is more reasonable.
What makes you think that?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/26/senat...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbo-score-on-latest-senate-gop-...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/28/senate-gop-health-care-bill-...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/09/18/graham-cas...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/04/18...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...
And this one is a two-fold: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/21/supreme-court-upho...
Both that the Garland-seat was stolen, but also sad that the supreme court is so partisan (cuts both ways).
Tell that to the electoral college.
The results of the prior three elections had the winner also recieve the popular vote, and this voter turnout was at a 20 year low, involving the two most unpopular candidates since at least 10 election cycles back.
But most of all, I don't think the voting (in general) was motivated by sympathy, but by discontent.
I'd argue the exact opposite. Most of the big internet forums, reddit, 4chan, gaming forums are all right leaning to greater or lesser degrees, and most of the smaller forums I've come across in many many years of wasted time on the internet follow this pattern. The lack of a left wing forum is perhaps more due to the demographics of internet forums in general and the fact that forums as a medium are inherently a little abrasive and open to trolling.
HN is left leaning, but I haven't seen any moderator action against right wing opinions. 2nd amendment rights posts used to eat a dozen downvotes each though.
(1) http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/12/02/social-media-site-red...
America invades Iraq, slaughters a million people, fundamentally destabilizes the ME leading to the rise of ISIS, and then caps this off by dumping billions of dollars of advanced weapon systems on the region's two fiercest aggressors, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
But if you talk to most Americans it becomes very clear that they sincerely believe that China is the most significant aggressive threat to the world and Iran is responsible for chaos of the ME.
The interesting thing here is that Americans aren't trying to fool or mislead anybody else, only themselves. They don't really care what anybody else thinks and as long as they remain wholly isolated they can preserve the illusion. Every once in a while Americans will hear that the rest of the world believes they are the greatest threat to world peace [1] but this is met only by a moment of blank bewilderment or assertions that the rest of the world is just jealous. But this total disconnect between actual reality and obsessive paranoid fantasies isn't a symptom -- it's the whole point. That's the game.
A French friend describes it best: "Americans are super-heroes of bad faith."
It's what explains articles like this. Again, these people aren't pretending. It's what they really believe. In the author's mind, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X -- both threatened, imprisoned, and ultimately assassinated -- were "celebrity spokespeople" for the left. (I won't even go into wackiness where Malcolm X is "more famous" than Coates, at this point I suspect that the author himself doesn't understand what he's writing.) In the author's mind, being anti-PC is somehow a deeply "taboo" stance. In the author's mind all of the fundamental, "Orthodox" institutions are controlled by liberals who control the "airwaves and pulpits and universities." In the author's mind, the big problem with silencing is that people censor themselves rather than being actually censored by powerful corporations and governments. The conclusion is tragic: anti-PC ideologies, despite being secretly super popular, have ultimately failed to "penetrate to anywhere they might actually have power."
All of this has absolutely no relationship to reality and this is the point. The true goal here is to promote and validate an alternate reality such that communication with the reality-based community becomes impossible. All of this nonsense isn't meant to convince or persuade reasonable people, that's why it's nonsense. The nonsense serves only to isolate the author and his readers. The question itself, and the plea -- "won't somebody think of the brave anti-PC youtubers!" -- is so disconnected from reality and contravenes all objective measurement that it will only attract the true believers. That anti-PC and anti-liberal ideologies are heavily popularized and pushed 24/7 in the vast majority of Youtube videos, the most popular news networks, the majority of state governments and ultimately by the President himself is what gives the entire exercise its power.
[1] https://www.globalresearch.ca/polls-u-s-is-the-greatest-thre...
No they didn't. They were incredibly naive and thought that the Iraqis would jump for joy and become just like America when Saddam was taken out. Instead they decided to kill each other.
> In the author's mind all of the fundamental, "Orthodox" institutions are controlled by liberals who control the "airwaves and pulpits and universities."
Are you suggesting the media, hollywood, and universities aren't left-leaning?
Yes, it's all the Iraqis fault. And I'm sure you sincerely believe that despite it being utterly insane.
> Are you suggesting the media, hollywood, and universities aren't left-leaning?
Ironically, you've aptly demonstrated the entire point. If you asked this question to most people outside of America (you know, the other 7.3 billion people on the planet) I think many would probably agree that no, American media, Hollywood and universities are not left-leaning at all, not even in the slightest. But in America perception has been so completely warped that it's become a "common-sense truth" that the media is left-leaning. This whole banal game, as Chomsky describes it quite clearly[1], is to use propaganda to create a wholly isolated and controllable alternative reality.
BTW I also have to point out, though I don't give a shit about HN points, the genuinely humorous irony of downvoting these comments. I mean come on.
Why is it insane?
> If you asked this question to most people outside of America
If you asked them if American media, Hollywood and universities were American-left then I think the vast majority would agree.
And that's what actually matters. Not what they consider to be left-wing by their own cultural standards.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/05...
The alt-right is a white nationalist/Nazi movement. You flippantly labeled half the country as Nazis, and you're surprised someone would call this out?
>I used the "alt" prefix to reinforce the irony of the name "alternative" right being the mainstream right movement.
Doubling down eh?
When I presented my own moderate Dem perspective, I was shouted down and then banned.
100% agree most conservatives are not racists or fascists -- but in their tribalism, they have allowed themselves to become complicit fellow travellers.
It's not even a political thing. If you find a subreddit for trumpet aficionados and try to start a debate on why trumpets are terrible, you may get banned as well.
>100% agree most conservatives are not racists or fascists -- but in their tribalism, they have allowed themselves to become complicit fellow travellers.
"They" say the EXACT same thing about left-wing and progressive circles. And "they" aren't wrong either with the additional bonus of lefties being very liberal about placing a Nazi label on anybody they disagree with - case in point: OP.