Many still believe it's a major problem that states like Pennsylvania violated their own laws during the election, which should be illegal, but handling that is a separate issue. Many also believe it's a problem that our election processes are so insecure and that we need more election security. That's separate from believing the 2020 election was stolen in the sense that provably illegal voting activity swung the election.
Where are the policy proposals? What major legislation did conservatives pass during the previous Republican administration when they had a trifecta? What was the Republican Party platform in 2020? And why is the RNC choosing not to allow a debate in 2024? This is not a party with lots of ideas ready to fight for the hearts and minds of voters.
One of trump's failures is that he isn't a good statesman and so failed to unite his own party, which caused a lot of failures in the legislative process as people like John McCain voted against him just because they hated him. I sincerely wish Trump doesn't run in 2024, not because I think he would do worse than Biden (he would have been 100x better than Biden), but because his greatest strengths are also his biggest flaws, and I don't think he can lead the country effectively.
The general platform of conservatives is: "this is the greatest civilization in history we've inherited. Please stop screwing it up so badly!" That may be different from the RNC platform, but Republicans at least align with conservative values more closely than democrats, so we don't have much choice but to vote for them. Unfortunately, conservatives have rarely been dominant even within the Republican party, and many anti-conservative measures have been perpetrated by Republican presidents.
I agree we need new and better ideas to go mainstream in the party, though not that these ideas don't exist. Among the weaknesses of the Republican party in the past decade have been the unwillingness of the party elites to sense the times and pay attention to their constituents or to the looming culture wars.
As it is most of the time, the strongest argument to vote for a party is not that that party is great, but that the other party is worse. I have no solution for that.
You're also ignoring the 147 elected members of Congress that voted against certifying the election results, and the countless mainstream conservatives politicians and pundits who are constantly promoting provably false conspiracy theories, and not just the Big Lie, often it's even far more nonsensical garbage. This is not a fringe movement, this is the mainstream Republican Party.
The numbers are almost the same when broken up by ideology (conservative/independant/liberal) instead of party affiliation.
It’s not an issue of “crazies on both sides” — mainstream conservative views of recent events are detached from reality. There’s a pipeline of misinformation that starts with white nationalists, runs through InfoWars and their ilk, and eventually leads to OANN and Fox News. Keeping the audience’s attention is the top priority, so facts matter less than feelings.
[1]: https://polsci.umass.edu/toplines-and-crosstabs-december-202... [2]: https://polsci.umass.edu/sites/default/files/Jan6thAnniversa... (page 5)
If you ask a vague question, the answer isn't meaningful.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum...
I don't, however, take either poll seriously. Also, the word "illegitimate" can be interpreted multiple ways. One meaning is "not genuine". Many Republicans are unhappy with, among other things:
* the shameful lying and misinformation spread by corporate media outlets during election season. These organizations outright lied and just didn't care. The ends justified the means: https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-staffer-networks-trump-off...
* Shameful outsized influence and suppression of stories by big tech. For instance, The Hunter Biden story got completely quashed by Twitter. It turns out the story is mostly true and could have affected the election. There is significant evidence that Joe Biden was involved in corrupt deals as well. In a more just world, Biden would probably be out of office and in jail: https://news.yahoo.com/might-not-hunter-biden-shenanigans-08....
* Corrupt influence by wealthy democrats like Mark Zuckerburg, who spent millions to potentially influence the outcome of the election: https://bbc-edition.com/entertainment/the-2020-election-wasn...
* States like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin breaking their own laws at election time.
They are plenty of ways to justify using the word "illegitimate" without claiming anything overtly illegal was done to successfully change the results of the election.
It’s not an issue of “crazies on both sides” — mainstream conservative views of recent events are detached from reality. There’s a pipeline of misinformation that starts with white nationalists, runs through InfoWars and their ilk, and eventually leads to OANN and Fox News
I don't follow Fox News or Infowars, but I know of numerous examples of lies and misinformation coming from NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, NPR, and so on. Maybe both sides peddle in misinformation. Maybe one side peddles in it a lot more than the other. I'm going to need to see more than this UMass poll to convince me that it's the republican side that's the bigger problem.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-...
Also, N = ~750 Republicans polled over 2 days but they extrapolate the results to the entire country? Not exactly rigorous science here.
I mean the Republican party has argued in court that it should be legal for them to prevent black democrats from voting as long as it targets them as Democrat voters, rather than by race, so it's not like this is a big secret conspiracy or anything.
https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
https://www.amazon.com/Discrimination-Disparities-Thomas-Sow...
In short, if voter ID laws cause some groups of people to vote less than others, that doesn't make the law discriminatory or make the law bad. Scanning over this ACLU article, I see nothing to convince me that voter ID laws are bad. Many of us here are programmers and understand there is a tradeoff between usability and security. Our current voting process errs far too heavily on the side of usability at the expense of security.
Yes, in theory, you could have a color blind system and some random change could have a negative impact on some group randomly.
That's not what happened in reality though.
"In theory, I might not have killed him" isn't a great argument for someone found standing over a body with a knife, you're generally looking for something a bit more concrete.
Someone standing on top of a giant pile of bodies and saying "As I've said for decades, I theoretically might not have killed them" is even less convincing.
From there I found a link to the evil Brian Kemp who dared to purge voter rolls! https://newrepublic.com/article/151858/americas-relentless-s...
Many believe that one of the greatest opportunities for fraud come from outdated voter rolls. We need more effort to purge them, not less. Again, I am not hearing a single thing from you that convinces me laws like voter ID laws are more harmful than beneficial. If this weren't a deeply partisan issue for an insanity-driven culture of divisiveness, there would be little argument against voter ID laws in this day and age.
Lastly, it is very partisan to focus on efforts of republicans to suppress democrat votes while ignoring democrat efforts to continuously game the system in their favor, like:
* Making Washington D.C. a state, which makes zero sense unless you just want to win.
* Stacking the supreme court, which, again, makes zero sense unless you just want to win.
* Abolishing the filibuster, which completely undermines the purpose of the senate. The founders of the constitution purposely did not set up a pure democracy and they had many good reasons for it.
* Federalizing election laws, obviously in ways that favor democrats, even ignoring the complete unconstitutionality of the law. if anything is obvious about the democrats, they see the constitution as an obstacle more than as a founding document.
* Purposely not enforcing existing immigration laws (this should be illegal and Biden should be in jail for it), and then fighting to allow non-citizens to vote (this is already legal in NYC), or to grant citizenship to illegal entrants. Fortunately, the Hispanic vote seems to be shifting right, so we can hope this evil strategy will backfire against the democrats.
* Gerrymandering that rivals or exceeds republican gerrymandering efforts. But, when it's the democrats doing it, the corporate media like to call it "redistricting".
The democrats have long ago made it clear that they will fight as dirty as possible to win. If anything, Republicans need to start fighting dirtier back.
The article you linked to talks about a lot of really horrible things, which I guess you agree with based on your linking to it and describing removing voters from the voters role for simply not voting in the previous election as no big deal?
My big picture take is that democracy is good, and depriving people of votes is bad. If thats partisan then I'm glad I'm not in the party fighting to reduce democracy.
Welcome to American politics. That you were willing to have a dialog at all with someone who disagrees with you might set you above the average.
My big picture take is that democracy is good, and depriving people of votes is bad.
How about this big picture take? Democracy is good, and citizen votes deserve protection. Every fraudulent vote dilutes a legitimate vote. Even the appearance of insecurity undermines faith in the democracy.
And yes, it's incredibly partisan for you to claim that republicans are trying to "reduce democracy." An attitude like that will both fail to convince anyone who disagrees with you, and also keep you in the dark about truths your party in general are unwilling to accept.
Is it, though?
My belief is that voter fraud is basically a non-issue, that it doesn't really happen very much at all, and that it is a bogus argument put forth by the Republicans to give an excuse for why they are so consistently fighting to not allow people to vote.
Google search "does voter fraud really happen", and "how bad is voter fraud":
https://www.google.com/search?q=does+voter+fraud+really+happ...
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+bad+is+voter+fraud
I can't find any results that don't back up my belief. Can you?
The Heritage Foundation, a far-right think tank, has a page on voter fraud: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud
But, in my opinion, it's kind of amazing that they leave the page up. The purpose of this page is to document and expose how bad voter fraud is, and they provide a searchable database on all the cases they have found and confirmed. Their database goes back to 1982, and they have found... 1340 cases of voter fraud.
This is an embarrassingly low number, isn't it? A few thousand fraudulent votes over the last 40 years?
Also, it's not like these cases are cases of people manufacturing thousands of votes. You can check for yourself, the entire list is here:
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud-print/search
These are overwhelmingly on the order of "a single extra vote was cast" because someone voted in two districts, or mailed in an absentee ballot for a deceased relative.
Meanwhile, do Republicans work to suppress votes? I think it's hard to argue otherwise in good faith:
https://www.google.com/search?q=do+republicans+suppress+vote...
Why does Mitch McConnell say that the idea of making election day a national holiday is a "naked power grab" for Democrats? Shouldn't making it easier for people to vote be a "good idea that strengthens our democracy"?
https://www.google.com/search?q=mitch+mcconnell+election+day...
Another belief of mine is that it's common knowledge in politics that the more people who vote, the worse Republicans fare in elections.
The Republican professional politicians are usually better at not openly admitting such things, but Trump gave us another example of "saying the quiet part out loud" with his usual eloquence: "They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again"
https://www.google.com/search?q=They+had+levels+of+voting%2C...
Why would Trump say that?
The Republicans are trying to reduce democracy. They lost the support of the people. They have only won the popular vote once in the past 30 years. Rather than changing their platform to try to appeal to more voters, they've decided that the people are their enemy.
From what I read, McConnell thinks most federal workers vote democrat. This makes sense in that if you work for the government you are probably pro-big-government. If they got a week off, they would just use that time to campaign for democrats, giving democrats an extra advantage. Also, it would result in an undue burden on the taxpayer, apparently to the tune of 4 billion a year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/04/18/new...
Here is a more comprehensive rebuttal of this H.R. 1 bill: https://republicans-cha.house.gov/democrat-politician-protec...
And here is the an op-ed written by McConnell himself: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/call-hr-1-what-it-is...
I'm not going to claim McConnell is right, but I will claim that from a quick search I can find there is a reasonable other side to this story different from "Republicans want less voters".
Since I've already spent too much time on this thread, I'll just say I have convinced someone to be more open-minded in the future and be willing to research more than one side of the issue.
I've never understood why discussion around voting laws / election integrity is always either somehow racist or harmful. Seems like a lazy rebuttal against a strawman but I'm open to having my mind changed. Gonna need more than "democracy good, laws bad" though.
Because "election security" - applied strategically and unequally (such as removing ballot boxes and voting stations in areas that are strongholds for your political opponents) is nothing but suppression tactics. Even voter ID laws, when applied only in places where gov ID is not common, can be weaponized.
You know this.
It's possible to be unfair with every law, and every law will have disparate impact. What a silly argument to make!
Roughly 11% of Americans don't have a valid government-issued ID and many of these individuals are lonely, ill, disabled, destitute, and are now being forced for the first time in their life to provide an ID to vote while at the same time their states are making it harder to get an ID. The Republican party is pushing these policies in almost every state, and prioritizing them over most other legislative concerns. This could not be less subtle.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-a-gun-license-accepted-as-a-vot...
"Your university I.D. was issued by a university compared to a government issued one. The license to carry contains your verified address, dob and all that. What does your University one have? The LTC required compete fingerprints and a background check. Seeing some differences here?"
Also:
"I cannot be 100% certain but its because Texas requires Social Security Numbers, Background checks and proof of citizenship to obtain a license to carry. So its a valid form of state issue ID. Not unlike a drivers license. Anyone could get a University ID. so long as they’re a student there. Including those on VISA’s or non-us residents."
At some point, I hope some of you all break out of your narrative bubble and start seeing that people on the other side aren't insane, racist, and power-hungry, and that we often have good reasons for what we do.
Why not get better integration with universities so it is a valid id?
This is Texas, not Massachusetts or New Jersey. The government does not get any more discretion in granting an LTC in TX than they do in issuing any other form of ID. Meet the requirements and they are legally obligated to give you one.
As an aside, getting an LTC in the shall-issue states is easier than getting a non-driver's license ID. In both cases it's just "meet requirements, show up, do paperwork, wait for them to check your computer records" but the police/sheriff issue it and they don't deal with nearly as many people wanting to file paperwork with them so they haven't optimized those processes for treating people like cattle the way the DMV has so it's a little easier.
> The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread
And, no, the law doesn't need to ensure every citizen gets a voting ID. How would one even do that? The voter rolls are out of date and don't contain every citizen. Also, how would you ensure the right IDs get to the right people?
You, as a citizen, do not have an inherent right to vote without having the ability to prove you are who you claim to be. You, as a citizen, may have to experience some inconvenience to get a valid ID if you don't have one already. As long as the inconvenience is reasonable, it should not prevent the creation of voter ID laws.
Incorrect. Every citizen can vote, without any additional barriers designed to prevent them from doing so. Poll tax, literacy tests, ID laws, etc. They are all illegal in that they deny the RIGHT to vote.
If voter fraud were common, you might have a point about needed to "prove you are who you claim to be". The problem is, it's incredibly rare. And there are checks and audits done after the fact to ensure fraud is low. You simply do not need to check ID at the polls to ensure someone is not voting fraudulently.
And you know this.
And where is the abuse that fuels this belief? What are the numbers?
And more importantly, how many people does doing so prevent from voting, which is just as fraudulent as allowing an extra vote?
And where is the abuse that fuels this belief? What are the numbers?
[1] https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/2019CanLIIDocs1747
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-vot...
Voting is meant to be a private activity free of all external influence. The solution to long queues is to set up more voting booths so the queues are smaller. The solution to getting thirsty standing in line is the same as for any other queue - bring a bottle of water with you. The solution to people not having ID they can use to prove citizenship is to get them that ID, not eliminate citizenship requirements for voting. This is, like, Intro To Civics level stuff.
Can you clarify your meaning?
> The solution to long queues is to set up more voting booths so the queues are smaller.
Yes. Laws are also being passed to intentionally decrease the number of polling places available, especially in counties dominated by the party that is not in power.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-geo...
> This is, like, Intro To Civics level stuff
I agree, but only because Intro to Civics probably skips over the more advanced topics like America's fraught history of use of land ownership, poll taxes, and literacy tests to deprive people of their citizen-guaranteed right to vote. As an American citizen, I'm not actually required to carry ID; therefore, imposing an ID requirement on my right to vote can be interpreted as a stealth literacy test ("Oh, you didn't know you needed an ID? No vote for you."). It is a reasonable position to treat any new such requirement as suspect (and a reasonable position to disagree).
I think most are aware of this history, voter ID is just the argument they can make in public. Because denying your political enemies the vote (largely along racial lines) isn't something you can advocate for without some kind of spin.
They aren't bad on the face of it, other than being chosen specifically because black people are less likely to have an ID, or be able to get one.
A new restriction like "you aren't allowed to give out water anymore" because black people were sharing water in the ultra long lines in the heat black people are forced to wait in to vote doesn't impact security at all though, only useability
Amazing all the words that some come up with to discount what was a violent attempt at staying in power after losing an election.
We also know now that the russian collusion hoax was entirely fabricated by Hillary's team: https://nypost.com/2021/11/04/the-real-collusion-was-the-cre...
I don't agree with what Trump did, but what he did was rile up a crowd of people that had zero capability of actually usurping the government, and then waited too long to ask them to leave after they went too far. Politicians on both sides do worse things than that all the time, including our friend Hillary. What she did was worse and far more diabolical, and helped undermine our democracy for four years. What Trump did was to just provide fodder for the democrat party to milk for 2 years in hopes of it saving them from a coming midterm election sweep.
Our government was under zero actual threat on that day. Even the left's own polling shows that moderates aren't buying their narrative: https://www.dailywire.com/news/cbs-buries-poll-results-showi...
Linking to opinion pieces by right wing media isn't a way of making an argument btw, it's outsourcing your thinking to partisans that can tell you want you want to hear.
I don't like a lot of things about politics these days, but excusing political violence because it's "your side", and you assume they would "never be actually violent" is a basic logical fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman). Please try and see the blinders you have on regarding nearly everything you've said.
The assertion coming from the Clinton camp was that Donald Trump had a "server that was communicating with a Russian Bank". They were _very_ careful in their use of words talking about it on the campaign trail. It was never asserted the _content_ of those communications just that _communication occurred_.
This being a technology forum, I think we can all agree that kind of jives with how DNS works - DNS logs can show can infer the "who" but not the "what".
Knowing those things, I don't think it strains credulity to believe that a nefarious political actor could take advantage of people unfamiliar with DNS to suggest a connection that doesn't exist while still having plausible deniability.
I don't think anyone agrees with that, either in spirt or practice.
> The assertion coming from the Clinton camp
"Whatabout the Clintons" is not an actual response to my question, it's just deflection.
> Knowing those things, I don't think it strains credulity to believe that a nefarious political actor could take advantage of people unfamiliar with DNS to suggest a connection that doesn't exist while still having plausible deniability.
Yes Tucker Carlson and Co. ran with it under the headline "Bigger than Watergate" for days. There is no bottom in terms of what lies are told for partisan political purposes. None.
"Please try and see the blinders you have on regarding nearly everything you've said." is something you said a few comments up. You should listen to yourself more often.
> And, as we are learning now, Hillary Clinton's team paid to infiltrate into whitehouse servers as part of efforts to delegitimize Trump's election: https://www.dailywire.com/news/bombshell-clinton-campaign-pa...
Is false. It's a lie. And giving lies equal time as the truth, to be "debated", is one of the reasons why we are in this collective mess.
First, virtually none of what appeared in the recent filing from Durham’s office is new information. Here’s a New York Times story from over four months ago with basically all of it: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/us/politics/trump-alfa-ba...
Second, nothing in the filing supports breathless claims technically illiterate cable hosts are making. It does not allege anyone “hacked” Trump computers, or was paid to “infiltrate” networks, or that anyone “intercepted e-mails and text messages."
You mindlessly repeat these claims hoping people aren't looking critically enough to see through them. You either don't understand these matters yourself, or you know they are lies and repeat them anyways. I personally view the second outcome as much worse.
While some might blur the line between “spying” and “exploit[ing] . . . access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data,” the distinction is, based on what we know right now, critical. Durham has not alleged a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Stored Communications Act (SCA), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), or the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) — all of which are major sources of law as to the prosecutions of federal computer crimes.
I still believe I am still correct that the Steel Dossier and the Russian collusion story were entirely unfounded fabrications of the Clinton team, and I still believe that what they did there was worse than what Trump did on January 6, but this latest alleged Clinton scandal might be overblown.
Big of you to say.
> I still believe I am still correct that the Steel Dossier and the Russian collusion story were entirely unfounded fabrications of the Clinton team
Then you double down on more partisan nonsense.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/senate-intell...
The GOP-led bipartisan commission concluded Russia attacked the 2016 election in favor of Trump, their words. You are again to the right of your own party. Also nothing in the Steele Dossier has been disproven, and lots of it has been collaborated. If you are still interested in what is true and what isn't, please continue reading with an open mind:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-dossier-retrospective
https://www.justsecurity.org/44697/steele-dossier-knowing/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/politics/dossier-two-years-la...
Right now, I believe Trump legitimately thought the election was stolen and he wanted Pence to de-certify the election to give time for his lawsuits to go through the courts and show the evidence of the fraud. I absolutely do not think Trump was in any way encouraging people to riot in the capitol, much less stage a coup. I also believe that no such fraud was ever found, putting Trump in the wrong, most likely. If I am wrong, let me see the evidence.
I believe you. No one thinks their guy is the bad guy, it's human nature.
> I believe Trump legitimately thought the election was stolen
Again, this is your blind spot. You give a man who deserves no benefit of doubt infinite rope.
But you are deluding yourself. You are to the right of your own party leadership on this matter: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/593339-mcconnell-breaks-...
You don't refute any of the points, you merely state your opinion over and over "I don't think Trump meant to do anything wrong". Of course, intention cannot be known by anyone, so arguing in favor of what is unknowable brings this whole discussion to a standstill.
Also, people still go to jail for crimes even if they aren't intended (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter). So I don't particularly care if Trump meant to organize a violent attack on the nation's capital at the exact time and place the certification was taking place, he still did it.
I think that depends on how you interpret a lot of statements made by Trump and others[0], for instance:
“We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal. …
“You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can’t let that happen. These are the facts that you won’t hear from the fake news media. It’s all part of the suppression effort. They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it. …
“We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
What's certain - and we know this from their own testimony and communications - is that many of the rioters believed they were acting under Trump's orders[1]. Where did this belief come from? Was there simply no relationship between the words coming from Trump and other Republicans, and what Trump supporters were hearing? After four years of paranoid rhetoric amongst the right about vast leftist conspiracies, violent Marxists in the streets, vaccines as fascism and now the election being stolen right before their eyes? Four years of the populist gospel of victimhood and the need to exact revenge upon the elites? When you, as a Trump supporter, see the courts throwing out lawsuit after lawsuit, and Republican Congressman Louis Gohmert suggests on TV that people should "go out and be violent like antifa[2]" how do you react?
On the spectrum of culpability from "Trump had absolutely nothing to do with anything" to "Trump literally planned it himself", I fall somewhere on the latter side. Where seems to depend on just how much Trumpists piss me off that day, I'll admit. Unfortunately, there's no smoking gun here.
But there's also no way Trump didn't at least understand the atmosphere he was creating, or really discourage it (until well after the damage was done, which isn't a good look.) I think at the very least he was hoping the chaos, whatever form it took, would benefit him.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/07/trump-incite...
[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-rioters.html?a...
[2]https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/louie-go...
The article is about how people have become better informed thanks to the internet, and how increasing political polarization is due to people making political choices based on more sophisticated ideological alliances and deeper held beliefs, rather than ways they might previously have done so. Part of why people are better informed is that the internet makes it easier to bypass 'elite consensus' in a handful of media outlets, and also, easier to link to sources to cite them in arguments.
PathOfEclipse is demonstrating this in action: he is citing sources for his beliefs, including sources from different partisan factions like the CBS poll he quotes at the end.
In response, you're taking a pre-internet approach. Dismissive and without intellectual merit, your post simply asserts that none of PathOfEclipse's sources should be considered legitimate, not even the (hopefully somewhat objective) opinion poll made by a left wing news outlet, that shows widespread bipartisan agreement by voters on the question of what happened on January 6th.
PathOfEclipse clearly wins this round. He uses the internet in the ways people hoped in the 90s it would be used - to cite evidence for calm, level headed beliefs and arguments that boil down to "cool it folks". There's nothing wrong here.
The kind of conversation you are suggesting is being offered here isn't. It requires a lot of good faith, and a relatively credible and overlapping set of facts.
This is what any honest exchange of ideas requires, and these conditions are almost never met online (social media, forums, etc.)
Id also add that source validation is required (as you point out an 'overlapping set of facts.') If you can't agree that a major news media organization with full time fact checking (no matter their political bent) is objectively better than a shiftless blog or single social media personality with a dodgy history of accuracy, then there is no hope for exchange. It's just a boxing match.
The problem comes down to "you don't trust the sources that I trust." Why people tend to trust sources that clearly aren't worthy of anyone's trust largely depends on their own confirmation bias.
Yes, in fact "single social media personalities" routinely beat major news media organizations in being correct (especially as the latter are perhaps most accurately described as coalitions of the former), and this happens frequently enough that lots of people have noticed. If you can't accept that this happens regularly, then there is indeed no hope for actual exchange because any evidence or argumentation of the form "news org X said Y which is proven false <here>" will be rejected as an inherently illegitimate challenge to power.
The solution is to, when possible, fact check sources yourself. You don't have to do it every time. Patterns will soon become apparent. Once done you can reserve such work for cases where someone disagrees and is citing a source you know to be false.
Yes, it's slow and hard work. The discovery of truth always has been; either toughen up or be quiet and leave the work to other people. Bleating about how terrible it is not everyone automatically regurgitates CNN is just holding society back at this point.
Citation?
> and this happens frequently enough that lots of people have noticed
Now we are getting back into "feelings" about what is true or not, or more plainly "this is what I want to hear" vs. "this is was is factually accurate". I am confident individual social media accounts become better confirmation bias machines than even you most slanted news orgs.
> If you can't accept that this happens regularly, then there is indeed no hope for actual exchange
I admit it has happened, like you can pull 1 or 2 examples using 30 years of history, but it's extremely uncommon. And you haven't sourced anything in making your arguments. If the statistics say individual social media accounts (or any specific account) have greater accuracy than news organizations with full-time fact checking, now is the time to provide those numbers.
> The solution is to, when possible, fact check sources yourself.
I think I know where this is going.
> Patterns will soon become apparent.
Yep. You are describing how people go down internet rabbit holes and become conspiracy theorists. "Doing your own research" is incredibly hard, we rely on trusted sources to do this work. What we need to do individually is make sure the sources we trust deserve our trust. No anonymous blogs, no podcasts with a long history of getting important things wrong with no accountability.
Mike Caulfield's SIFT method is an excellent intro into media (source) literacy: https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/
> Yes, it's slow and hard work
It's literally impossible if you don't use trusted sources. If you attempt to understand vaccine science with no science background, international trade policy with no econ history, etc. You are setting yourself for failure.
> either toughen up or be quiet and leave the work to other people.
Please, you aren't a hero for trusting the wrong people (who are telling you what you want to hear, coincidentally).
> Bleating about how terrible it is not everyone automatically regurgitates CNN
And you end with a fundamental misrepresentation of what I am saying, not surprising. You should not automatically trust most sources, but some get things right far more than others. Living every moment of your life with "I need to research this" means a standard trip to the shop would take 8 hours.
And how exactly do you think the "sources we trust" are held to account? They don't hold themselves to account and I think you'll find they work hard to cancel anyone who reveals their flaws under their own name.
Example: you've proven above that whatever sources you are relying on to educate you about vaccines have misled you. You thought there were no safety issues with the polio vaccine, which is a false claim. Nobody has been held to account for misleading you and you probably won't do it yourself. I knew about this incident, but it wasn't from reading the New York Times or watching CNN. It was from venturing outside these untrustworthy sources and reading far more broadly than journalists are comfortable with anyone doing.
"You should not automatically trust most sources, but some get things right far more than others."
Like which ones? If you don't trust CNN (which I'm using here as a token to mean "all similar media outlets"), then where are you getting these false ideas from? Enquiring minds want to know.
Perhaps this is a reflection of how little people understand the journalism industry. To get something published on NYT.com, there is a process of fact checking and verification that goes through every comma, every claim. Of course mistakes are made, but they are publicly addressed and accounted for. There is no just thing as a purposeful, objective lie that remains unaccounted for.
> I think you'll find they work hard to cancel anyone who reveals their flaws under their own name.
The Joe Rogan / Tucker Carlson opinion stuff can be left out of this convo without losing anything.
> You thought there were no safety issues with the polio vaccine
Nope. I said "no one had any issues with a polio vaccine MMR, etc." not that there weren't an adverse health effects. You project what you think i'm saying so you can argue against that. I don't know if you are aware that you are doing this, but it would make you a perfect cable news guest as that is the tactic of choice.
If you can't even read what I said and accurately respond, there's no point in continuing. This isn't Thanksgiving and i'm not unlucky enough to be at your table.
> Like which ones?
Again, try and educate yourself in the basic differences in journalism, who follows the rules of accountability and accuracy and who blatantly ignores them while still attempting to come across as "news".
If you still want to respond, cite the claim you've made first:
> "single social media personalities" routinely beat major news media organizations in being correct
Citation?
That's usually how debate works, yes. That's the whole point of evidence-based argumentation.
Your post is kind of the worldview Yglesias is arguing against in his article. His argument, summarized, is that certain types of people are railing in frustration at so-called "misinformation" that, when examined carefully, turns out to simply be information that the current ruling classes don't like, often because it exposes them as hypocrites, intellectually dishonest or not actually expert in their claimed field of expertise. Because they can't rebut the data or facts being presented they instead fall back on logical fallacies like appeals to authority ("experts"), false claims of lacking good faith, blanket assertions that any non-left wing source is illegitimate and so on and so forth.
There's the conspiracy language, I had a hunch. Instead of discussing the world in vague platitudes, lets get specific. 20% of the US is avoiding getting a safe and effective vaccine, as a result thousands have died unnecessarily. This is a new problem, no one had any issues with a polio vaccine MMR, etc.
People don't trust experts at a time when that trust can literally save their lives. The information space is a minefield, expecting every person on earth to have the tool to "make up their own mind" is unrealistic, to put it simply.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/
"In April 1955 more than 200 000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. Subsequent investigations revealed that the vaccine, manufactured by the California-based family firm of Cutter Laboratories, had caused 40 000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10."
I thought the Cutter Labs incident was quite well known, but apparently not.
Now, back on topic. See what I did there? You made a false claim and then asserted that anyone who disagrees with you is the victim of misinformation and engaging in "conspiracy language". You believed there were no issues with the polio vaccine when in fact there were such severe safety issues the first mass vaccination programme had to be abandoned. I responded to this with facts and citations, showing conclusively that it's actually you who is a victim of (pro-vaccine) misinformation in this case, not anyone else.
All this is possible due to the internet. You're claiming the "information space" is a "minefield". But that doesn't seem to hold up. The internet is really much, much less dangerous for your mind than reading ordinary newspapers or watching TV news. And that's what Yglesia's is saying - people who doggedly stick to what media/government selected "experts" tell them are constantly being trounced in debate and made to look foolish by facts and data. They react to this with a massive case of projection.
Lol actually getting off of vague platitudes is "changing the subject". Right, enjoy your weekend.
> You made a false claim
No I didn't, you either misunderstood what I said or deliberately lied about it to argue a strawman, because that's easier than actually addressing what i'm saying.
> The internet is really much, much less dangerous for your mind than reading ordinary newspapers or watching TV news.
Lol. Truly, you made me laugh out loud. Funny you didn't say "is more accurate" - because that would be an impossible claim. You said "is less dangerous" which is also patently false. This book is the beginning of most study on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/d...
It's unequivocal and damning.
> no one had any issues with a polio vaccine
Reality:
> 40,000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10
There's no misunderstanding or straw man here. You made a false claim whilst accusing others of misinformation. Which seems to be often the way it goes with "misinformation" - not a vague platitude, of course, but the topic of the entire thread.
"Dr. Offit also explores how, as a consequence of the tragedy, one jury's verdict set in motion events that eventually suppressed the production of vaccines already licensed and deterred the development of new vaccines that hold the promise of preventing other fatal diseases"
A big part of what drives vaccine refusal today is awareness that vaccination campaigns have a history of being so dangerous the producers cannot survive in the open market under the normal rules.
Also, the topic of discussion is actually the original article about misinformation and the internet, in general. It was you who insisted on bringing up vaccines in an unrelated thread.
Not to the point where 20% of the population refused it, which is the point of this discussion. Major news networks didn't run opinion voices lying about the safety and safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Comparing that era to this one is misinformed.
If you think that’s how debates work, we probably have nothing to say to each other that the other would find valuable.
In any case, your ascribation of those feelings and ideas to me and my post are baseless and completely false. You’ve failed to comprehend the point.
The irony here (ha) is while people are more polarized, actual ideology has almost completely gone away, replaced with vague slogans (MAGA) that don't actually mean anything and are designed to weaponize nostalgia in a way that is useful for particularly amoral politicians. Keep in mind, the GOP literally had no formal platform for 2020, just "we're with Trump" (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/party-no-c...)
It's just rhetoric. Anything can become a debate, such as who won the 2020 presidential election, if one side is willing to make up facts and repeat them over and over. Proponents of the Big Lie are super-informed, insofar as they have a lot of lies they can say with a straight face that act as stand-ins for actual information. And if they keep asserting those lies, the other side is forced to respond, hence a debate. There is still no merit to the Big Lie, but now it must be discussed as if there was. THAT is why there is a live debate.
And then there is this nonsense: "overall political climate was much more right-wing in the 1990s."
That is so outrageously false I'm not sure why anyone is supposed to think this person is worth reading. Just think of how many mainstream politicians will swear up and down that the election was stolen in 2020. I guess if you pretend "right wing" is about policy you could craft a convoluted argument that today's Republicans are less conservative (as the author does), but that's not what the right wing is about. The right wing is about the Big Lie, it's about illiberalism, it's about demonizing the media and institutions and political opponents - all the policy stuff is just window dressing.