See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paranoid_Style_in_American...
By dismissing the individuals as flawed due to gullibility, you obscure the true phenomena, and make you and your peers more susceptible to it.
Yes, the continual polarization and forcing of picking a side. What's sad is even after the victory speech I'm seeing posts on FB from the 'winning side' that are further polarizing.
Ironic, right? How do we trust any political based polling that got things so very wrong the past two elections?
https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
Very often you do encounter polls these days where an absurdly huge number of people give hilariously trollish answers to pollsters, and then people take the resulting polls completely seriously. Pollsters try to include 'attention check' questions to catch basic issues like people just pressing yes to every question, but I do see very often polls that quite obviously can't match reality without anyone noticing it. There's something about maths that switches people's brains off.
Surely they don't believe the "blood drinking paedophile" part though? It seems outrageous, and yet I know a bunch of people on HN believed PizzaGate back in 2016, so maybe I'm underestimating it.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/22/qano...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/02/majority-o...
But many believe at least some of the theories pushed by QAnon, which include (but are not limited to):
* Trump is taking on a "Deep State" which is trying to take him down
* Trump is combating an international paedophile ring
You're misframing this. The conspiracy theory is not that Trump is taking on the deep state; it's the existence of the deep state to begin with.
>If deep state/swamp/etc is interpreted as a vague reference to the Washington/New York professional classes who populate government in huge numbers and tend to share very similar worldviews and beliefs
Speaking of grotesque distortions of the truth, that is not what the "deep state" has ever referred to. It's always been, by definition, a conspiracy theory. It generally posits that the country is actually run by a group o unelected individuals in secret that orchestrate events in this country up to and including the selection of presidents.
The notion that most rules are invented and implemented by the unelected isn't extreme, is it, it's more like an observation of how the system really works, especially in the US where - unusually - regulatory agencies can create new laws without involving Congress.
No,.that belief was a side effect of (1) the fact that it was, to a certain extent true that her nomination was largely a product of elite arrangements and structural advantage, and (2) the deep and broad unpopularity that was the actual reason she ran aground in what should have been the easiest election for Democrats in a long time.
I think Democratic voters are vulnerable to a different kind of conspiracy theory.
For example, huge numbers of left-leaning voters seem to believe that money is the determining factor in elections, whereas the evidence points towards you needing a certain amount, but beyond that it appears to be of marginal value.
QAnon is one of those projects. So is the social micro-targeting used by Cambridge Analytica/AIQ which swung the Brexit vote in the UK and also did a lot to get Trump elected in 2016.
It would be irrational to assume the same thing wasn't attempted this year. All the media outlets I read - not just social media - have been heavily astroturfed with posts making the same pro-Trump scripted talking points over and over and over.
(HN has been relatively free of this, but I suspect that's primarily because conventional political debate is strongly discouraged outside of the occasional thread not because it wouldn't have been tried if it were possible.)
The problem with micro-targeting is that if you're not in one of the target groups, you don't see the ads - so unlike a TV campaign you're not aware of what the other guy is saying unless you can contrive some real and/or fake accounts that will get you an in.
And the propaganda techniques are both subtle and outrageous. (You might not think QAnon is subtle, but it's very carefully designed.)
Trump significantly outspent Biden on social. But the Trump campaign never really ended, while Biden had to start relatively cold.
So for all these and other reasons you're right. It's not about money, it's about narrative engineering implemented with money - and the right has always been much better at that than the left.
Pizzagate being "real" is ill-defined. Things happening in the basement of a specific DC pizza place seems unlikely, though not impossible. For example, the claim that it lacks a basement is reasonable but unproven. We'd have to excavate to be sure that there wasn't an unauthorized basement that is now filled-in to hide evidence.
We do know that pizza-related codewords are used by pedos, and that pizza-related codewords are used in the leaked Podesta emails. Are they unrelated? Not many people will rent a specific number of slices of pizza for a specific number of hours, but that is exactly what the emails reveal. The number of slices is commonly thought to mean the age of the children, but it could be the number of children.
Would you consider pizzagate "real" if everything was as stated, except that the actual building was next door to the pizza place? Supposedly a near-by building was owned by Epstein.
Would you consider pizzagate "real" if the pizza place was just a location to meet up, but not where any child was actually harmed?
I agree that not starting wars is good (except potentially when it's the only way to stop a terrible human rights abuse, like a genocide), and Trump certainly has a better record than Bush there. He does also seem to have made progress with middle east treaties. So I am with you there.
What on earth do you like about his style though? His style is to lie about everything, making up whatever supposed fact suits him at the moment, launch ridiculous ad hominem attacks at anyone he views as an enemy, and just basically stir up anger and discord. The way he "pushes back" is that of a childhood bully. He has ramped up partisan division and anger to an unprecedented level in modern history, and is in the process of undermining confidence in the democratic process itself. He's also alienated the rest of the world with his narcissism, incivility and pettiness. These do not seem like good qualities in a person, and especially not in a president.
I can understand people who vote for him because they're staunchly pro life. I'm not, but I can understand their ethical position. And I can understand those who have fallen for conspiracy theories. But if you're existing in the same reality I am, reading the things the man writes, and listening to the things he says, I honestly can't imagine how you can support him. I'm not one of these that thinks all Trump supporters are racists, or conspiracy theorists, or Russian bots, but I do find that any I've met who seem reasonable, once I dig deeper, believe things about the world that I don't just disagree with but know to be factually untrue. I've also met some who see the world the way I do, but aren't reasonable - basically those who just enjoy the fact that he makes the other side angry. I would truly like to understand what, besides a genuine belief that abortion is murder, could bring a reasonable, knowledgeable person to vote for Trump.
It is usually best for the USA to act in a unilateral way. This is due to power. Working with multiple other parties is typically a harmful distraction. I get that some people are horrified by this, but it's clearly true, and the president's job is to put the USA first. Coalitions are for the weak.
His style is fun. There is nothing wrong with fun. It's a nice bonus, though hardly a reason to vote for the man. The same goes for getting globalist communists angry. It's a nice bonus. There are far more important reasons to support Trump.
The definition of "lie" has become absurdly biased. It's a "lie" if Trump makes a joke, exaggerates a bit, uses sarcasm, or has a few percent error on a number. Meanwhile, his opponents endlessly repeat proven falsehoods. Partisan division and anger were ramped up by his opponents, particularly in the media. There would be no division at all if people would simply accept the Trump plan for America.
We haven't had a non-narcissist president or candidate since Eisenhower, so clearly that isn't anything that matters.
You say he "is in the process of undermining confidence in the democratic process itself", as if it is his responsibility to sweep flaws under the carpet. His opponents have fought hard against anything and everything that could be used to prove fraud. (suspicious...) How can you support this situation, purposely being unaware of the extent of fraud? Unjustified confidence should be undermined. Unjustified confidence is harmful. We should not blindly trust a supposedly democratic process that would be easy to corrupt.
I'm looking back at you in disbelief. To use your wording: I would truly like to understand what could bring a reasonable, knowledgeable person to vote against Trump. (in either election) Are you in fact knowledgeable? DKIM proves corruption for both Hillary and Biden. The first time I chose Trump, I didn't trust him, but I knew that Hillary despised normal Americans and that she had committed crimes that would put any normal person in prison. I was shocked that Trump actually followed through on most campaign promises, and that earned him my enthusiastic support.
Because the political and cultural interests of rural areas are different than the interests of urban areas? The economies of rural areas have crumbled. But 50% of the population live in cities and so economic policies that benefit the "majority" of the population will completely miss the issues rural areas face. Trump's support is because he at least pretends to care about them.
I don't view that as gullible, I view that as a perspective that is incomplete due to geographical circumstances. And I am sure that's probably a road that goes both ways, with people in urban & suburban areas not seeing the full picture with respect to rural society.
https://www.cato.org/publications/tax-budget-bulletin/reform...
To put that in context, the GDP of the state of Iowa is $173B. And that's just one state with a large agriculture sector.
However I'd also like to comment on a common argument that Blue States/Cities pay for Rural areas. Yes, red states receive a disproportionate amount of federal aid, but that is something everyone benefits from. For example, farm subsidies keep food costs low for everyone in the country. Low income states with a high proportion of people on SNAP & other means-tested government programs mean the social safety net is improving our society as a whole by ensuring fewer people are left behind, which would be an even larger drag on society & the economy. In short, I don't think you can separate funding by state in that way and come to any value judgments based on it because the interwoven nature of our society means we do not stand alone as individual states.
And that's why I said:
Not bad people, but gullible people.
You're of course ignoring even worse problems on the Democrat side.
The lowest education rates and highest drop-out rates in the US are not in rural areas, they're almost exclusively in the inner cities where Democrats tend to completely dominate the vote.
Rural students at 87% are more likely to graduate from high school in four years than the national average at 83%.
The graduation rate by comparison in Washington DC public schools is typically around 65%-70%. Shall I list all the major blue cities by graduation rates, or is that not necessary because everyone already knows what the outcomes actually look like?
The persistent low education and high drop-out rate problems in so many major Democrat dominated cities (eg: Philly, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, Cleveland, Milwaukee, DC, etc.) is terrifying as an American. They're rates that low-development nations might be ashamed of.
The left pretends none of that exists when it's inconvenient, like when making blanket statements about Republican voter education levels.
Anyhow, in the United States, all citizens have the vote, and an uneducated urban vote and an uneducated rural vote are both votes, though due to our unequal representation the rural vote is 'worth' more.
In the US, we scream bloody murder at most attempts to even out those starting point disparities that our ancestors caused... when I was in school, one favorite trick to do instead was to stick Magnet programs in poor schools to import kids from the rest of the city to try to bring up some of the numbers, rather than focusing on the kids who weren't doing well in the first place.
It makes for a wonderful self-fulfilling "these people are worth less because they accomplish less so it's out of our hands so we have no need to try to make right our past wrongs" story.
The logic being: better little-to-no government at all than one that does a terrible job.
Holding a degree is to a large extent a proxy for age. It used to be that not many people went to university. The concept that ~everyone (or at least 50%) should go to university is a relatively new one. So the numbers of people graduating over time has shot up. Hence if you select the population by whether they have a degree, you'll end up with a lot of young people. And youth is quite correlated with voting left.
The notion that holding a degree makes you inherently smarter than someone who doesn't is an increasingly suspicious one to many folks, like me. There are too many people with multiple PhDs writing academic papers that have major errors in them, signing off on papers that have major flaws, changing their supposedly expert opinions overnight for political reasons, saying things on Twitter that are totally bizarre and so on. Do universities really make you "educated" or do they just make you unwilling to question another "educated" person's opinions even when obviously wrong? My experience is that older people, people in more rural areas and those without a degree are more willing to engage in common-sense reasoning and reject nonsensical claims even when they come from an educated member of the elite, whereas degree holders find it far harder (perhaps because it would devalue their own degree).
You find derisive comments on rural areas throughout writings of the 19th and 20th century and it will probably still be reiterated for decades.
Worth a thought.
"You're dumb and racist, so vote for us" is apparently not a winning message. And spending hundreds of millions on the same dumb media consulting firms that lose again and again, zero positive message besides "it's us or trump".. I could go on for days about how "smart" the democratic politicians are.
What values did Biden communicate during the campaign?
Second off.. I mean Biden's basically center-right, and he does nothing for any of the values most loudly espoused by the democratic base. He'd have been fired from a FAANG company for the "You're not black" comment, but everyone just agreed to pretend it didn't happen instead because we were stuck with him at that point.
So you can't say it's about values instead of winning. The thing is, our values would win. 60-70% of the country supports medicare for all, most people would support a more redistributive tax code, most people don't like the idea of cops shooting their kid, it goes on and on. But the democratic professional class refuses to run on those values, again and again.
Do you ever see the Republicans telling the pro-life people to eat shit the way the Democrats consistently tell progressives? No, they make a deal that they'll fight for it, probably lose, but at least they'll fight, and they get votes for it.
And the coup de grace is that anyone who questions the democrats' commitment must not really be on our side. Probably a closet racist. It's really kind of genius if your goal is to maintain control of the party.
Anyway, I'm done here, no energy left after going through these threads. I generally agree with your sentiment though, albeit not on everything.
Like this:
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/a-massive-mural-featuri...
Even though Clinton and Obama weren't saints - and I have limited respect for both of them - you are going to have a really hard time finding behaviour on that scale on the liberal side.
You're also going to find much less evidence of either threatened or actual violence.
Even BLM at its worst has never come close to the appalling record of right-wing violence in the US over the last couple of decades.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/27/in-ameri...
So that's why liberals "lose" - we're far less likely to feel comfortable with lying, cheating, bullying, violence, and intimidation. And for a substantial percentage of right-wing supporters those seem to be considered admirable moral features, not bugs.
Disagree? Provide evidence of general trends, not specifics.
I would say that candidates pushing a three year old conspiracy theory doing better in elections than, say, the Libertarian or Green candidates demonstrates some mass.
I would say the US president supporting it gives it some mass.
Pretending it is not a significant force in Republican politics is either spin or an ostrich impersonation, not sure which.
I've found that the most reasonable people tend to be staunchly pro life. And I can see that—if you truly believed abortion was murder, it would be reasonable to support almost anyone who might stop it. I don't believe that, but I can respect it. Others tend to believe things about the world that I don't think are true, like climate change isn't a big deal, other countries have been taking advantage of the US for decades, democrats are controlled by the military-industrial complex, etc. Their conclusions might be reasonable if you take their beliefs as fact, but I think their starting position is flawed.
And then there are of course those who aren't reasonable. Those who just enjoy watching Trump troll libs. Those who want to see the whole system burn. Those who just believe whatever Fox or Breitbart or whatever says. Etc.
I mean, I'm sure I have my own biases. I despise the very thought of the man, because of the way he acts and how he doesn't care about the damage he does. But I'm sure that feeling makes it difficult for me to see any of his positive qualities, or that someone could (perhaps rationally?) value those qualities over the negative ones I see. So far though, I haven't been able to find evidence to change my mind.
For example, suppose a person doesn't want to become a linguistic or religious minority in their own country. When they logically oppose immigration, do you decide that you're hearing a dogwhistle for white supremacy? If so, you're discarding what was actually said and you're substituting false data that supports a pre-determined conclusion that Trump supporters are racist.
Another factor is that there has been some truly shocking projection and gaslighting with regard to corruption. Like no other president, Trump has fought corruption, yet he is relentlessly accused of it. The claim that Obama had a "scandal-free presidency" is a cruel joke; his abuse of the intelligence apparatus to target a political opponent made Nixon look saintly. Biden's family has gotten rich off of foreign influence; we have the evidence and there is no alternative explanation. The whole impeachment process started because both Biden and Pelosi had children collecting bribes from Ukranian gas companies, and Trump dared to tell the Ukraine that prosecuting the corrupt was proper. Looking back to Hillary, her actions with classified information would have put any normal person in prison for decades. The contrast with Trump is stunning. For years everybody has investigated Trump in hope of finding something, and everybody has failed.
The desire to put America first is real, legitimate, and proper. It's a job requirement for the president.
Cutting regulations shot the economy to record highs before that virus hit. Inequality actually dropped. Black and hispanic unemployment was the lowest recorded ever, with records going back over half a century. Trump knew what business needed, and he delivered.
Why do you imagine that "he doesn't care about the damage he does"? He is only damaging things that need to be damaged, like the choking bureaucracy. He cares, and he did the damage on purpose, because the damage was needed. If by "damage" you're referring to something like the opinions of the leftist leaders of parasitic countries, yeah he doesn't care and he shouldn't care. The job is to put America first, not to please foreigners.
And to answer your final question, the most recent example of Trump not caring about the damage he does is him currently undermining faith in the democratic process itself in order to avoid admitting defeat. More generally, he will always take opportunities to fire up his base despite any deleterious effects on national unity. And yes, also his actions and rhetoric toward strong allies such as Canada. Framing such as "parasitic countries" is both inaccurate and diplomatically unproductive - from you, but especially from a world leader. I would go further into why I disagree with that approach, but that would lead me into all the things I disagree with here. So instead I'll just ask you to do some research on your other points outside of right-wing sources. The most clear-cut one is this thing about Pelosi's son, so maybe start there.
Other aspects of culture matter too. It's just more comfortable to know that your neighbors laugh at the same jokes, celebrate the same holidays, and so on. People who want different can leave, but people who want the same have no option other than to fight to keep their culture from being overrun.
This idea that there is a problem with "undermining faith in the democratic process itself" suggests that the most important thing in a fraudulent election is to hide the flaws. I hope you were at least fair about that, not complaining at all when Trump or Bush won. I hope you opposed taking those elections to the supreme court. Lots of people claimed that those three elections were stolen, and lots of people even rioted. If you had any complaints whatsoever about those far-cleaner elections, you're just being partisan. I happen to believe that there is a duty to expose problems, including any way by which fraud could go undetected. We shouldn't just trust that an election could be clean; it is dirty until proven clean. The fact that the left has vigorously opposed election integrity efforts is shameful and highly suspicious. If you'd rather Trump didn't have a legitimate argument that the election was stolen, maybe you should have cooperated in securing it against all possible fraud.
Have you found the perhaps-mythical unbiased news source? Are there any non-right-wing sources that don't censor the news and maliciously spread misinformation? Anything that spread the Russia hoax or "fine people" hoax is disqualified immediately. If the news source didn't fully cover the Biden laptop, it is censored. Full coverage includes at least a description of where to find the video of Hunter naked and worse with his niece, and it includes mention of the email being DKIM verified. The news is censored if it didn't included coverage of Biden's sundowning and other signs of dementia. The news is censored if it never tied the Ukraine controversy back to Joe Biden being caught on video bragging about how he got the Ukrainian prosecutor fired by threatening to block a billion dollars of foreign aid.
The purpose of an open mind is to close on the truth, but that should be more like science than dogma. New information can change conclusions.
My value system is largely focused on the success of my descendants, including distant ones not yet born. They will prosper best if they have complete dominance for their country, culture, language, and religion. They are more likely to die off otherwise. To prosper they also must avoid the mistake of leftist government (socialism, communism, etc.) because that killed over 100 million people in the 20th century and it's still killing people today.
Answering a couple more points from your original comment here: I don't just enjoy watching Trump troll libs, but I do enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with a bit of fun. People on the right don't believe Fox anymore, and haven't for several years. There was an ownership and control change, with Roger Ailes dead and Rupert Murdoch mostly gone. Aside from two major commentary/interview shows, Fox is now leftist. Fox even hired Donna Brazile, the disgraced former head of the Democratic National Committee.
You mention that you despise the very thought of Trump because of the way he acts and how he doesn't care about the damage he does. OK, so what about that crime bill? I mean the one that put lots of black people in prison for crack. Joe Biden fought hard to pass it, Kamala Harris eagerly used it to put black people in prison with huge sentences, Hunter Biden was immune from it while smoking crack, and Donald Trump signed a prison reform law to stop the harm. How can you not despise the very thought of Biden because of the way he acts and how he doesn't care about the damage he does?
As you say, "I'd really like to understand how reasonable, ethical people could vote for someone I see as so despicable and dangerous." Yes, me too, but the other way. The 100 million are dead, and more are dying. The war in Iraq, supported by Biden, killed plenty. A few decades of life in prison is roughly equivalent to a death, and there were an awful lot of those. Perhaps you can explain why all these things are reasonable and ethical?
>Republicans, in particular, have been drawn to QAnon, with 38 percent of GOP adults who had heard of QAnon saying they believed the claims were at least somewhat accurate, compared to 18 percent of Democrats and 16 percent of independents.
Strangely enough Democrats and Independents were more likely to have an opinion of QAnon than Republicans. However they were much less likely to believe any of it with 63% of Democrats labeled it somewhat or completely inaccurate while only 24% of Republicans did.
This also seems to be another strike against the idea of "shy Trump voters" because I think there is a bigger social stigma against QAnon than Trump. Although I guess maybe the Republicans who are saying they aren't aware of or have no opinion of QAnon could be "shy QAnon believers".
[1] - https://morningconsult.com/2020/10/14/social-media-qanon-pol...
See: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/28/bush-did-north-dakota/