We had an R state rep candidate come by our house. Highlighted two issues in her message to us. Both were simply not actual things. The existence of the problems were lies. WTF do you do with voters who consume media that’s made them believe those? It’s like a huge moat around even being able to talk to them about anything real, even if only to disagree about some real thing.
I wish that democrats had spent less time telling republicans that the boogeyman doesn't exist and more time showing them how we're going to keep them safe from the boogeyman. In WI, there was a referendum question that asked if people wanted to add language to the state constitution which would explicitly specify that only US citizens could vote. The democrats fought against that saying that election fraud was basically non-existent and that it would be a waste of time to change anything since it's already illegal for non-citizens to vote.
They fucked up though, because no matter how right the democrats were about the safety of elections the fear republican voters have is very real and it's never a waste of time to ease those fears.
As it turns out, if the referendum passes (and I'm guessing that it has) the result will be replacing language which says that every US citizen gets to vote with language which says only US citizens get to vote. It never said anything about replacing language in the referendum question voters saw though. The fear of illegal immigrants voting has likely been used to remove language protecting the right of US citizens to vote in WI and could open the door for laws that prevent certain US citizens from voting.
Since Democrats and Republicans are in full agreement that only US citizens should be able to vote the smart thing democrats should have done was push to add language explicitly stating that only citizens can vote but without replacing anything else. That would have satisfied the fearful republicans and protected the voting rights of all citizens. Instead they just wanted to lecture republicans about voter fraud statistics.
Every parent who has checked under their child's bed or looked in their closet for "monsters" understands this. When you have people acting like frightened children about something that isn't real, sometimes you just have to comfort them.
This is the same problem democrats have when republicans say they are afraid of small children going to school and getting sex change operations. Trump tells them it happens which is scary. Democrats just want to tell them that they are misinformed and that little kids aren't getting surgery, but they'd be smarter to say "You're right, little children getting sex changes at school is a horrible thing and we are putting forward a law that would ban that practice so that no child gets sex change surgery!". Why do democrats keep letting these issues both sides agree on become arguments that divide us?
The point is that the irrational fear has to be addressed. Making fun of it, ignoring it, or lecturing on why the threat is imaginary won't help.
Every democrat I know wants elections to be more secure than they are. They just also want them to be fair. There's been a lot of room for proactive measures here that democrats could have been pushing for, but there have been efforts too (https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007715994/manchin-offers-a-v...)
https://www.elections.on.ca/en/voting-in-ontario/id-to-vote-...
Some US states have voting ID requirements, and they tend to be (though not always!) significantly stricter than that, sometimes requiring a specifically a government-issued photo id, for instance.
I’m pretty sure laws that have much looser definitions of “ID” and/or provision resources to ensure timely, free, and easy access to such an ID, see less resistance from democrats. If the entire pro-ID movement just wanted to do what Ontario does it’d be less of a contentious issue, I think.
[edit] for the record, though, I agree this is a place Democrats could safely give ground—the data do not well-support their disenfranchisement concerns, and 30+ states already have some kind of voter id law.
It is, separately, also true that there is no evidence there’s any actual reason to enact more of these laws. The data also don’t support that, at all. But whatever, it’s probably not significantly harmful, just a minor waste of resources.
That’s the risk when the measure is more-or-less harmless but also the problem it addresses isn’t real. They can just keep claiming the problem still exists and running on it.
They’ve been beating this drum for what, fifteen years at this point? More? They should at least have found smoke, if not fire, instead they just keep saying they smell a raging forest fire and coming back with single burnt matches when given the reigns of government to go look for it and tell us what they find.
Being able to cast a vote illegally is trivially easy because there are exceptions baked into the system like provisional ballots. Lucky there is an thorough audit process so having that vote actually counted while avoiding election fraud charges is a lot harder.
This has been a constant refrain from Democrats: "The thing that you are upset about is not happening. Well, it is happening, but it is the exception. Ok, it's happening everywhere, but it's a good thing." No, of course Harris isn't for government sex changes for imprisoned illegal immigrants, except for the fact that she said she was. The truth is that we all know that she would say anything to win, and holding her to any position she ever publicly held feels unfair.
The people who have been kept low-information are the Democrats, because they have been surrounded by media largely controlled by their political party. Republicans often have bad information, but they're constantly out there consuming information and hate-reading what Democrats are saying. Independents, in my experience, are the highest-information of all, because they don't think of political parties as something they can offload their morality to. Independents only see politics in terms of actual issues, and track those issues rather than having parasocial relationships with political celebrities.
In that vein, I'm pretty sure that if I had an experience where a political candidate came to my house and talked about issues that weren't real, I'd talk about those issues specifically, and speculate about their origin. I think you don't mention them because they were real, but a lot of liberals have taken this position of officially denying reality if reality could help Trump. Is widespread voter fraud real? No. Should people be unconcerned about making it easier? Also, no.
If upper-middle class liberals could have won the "stop sounding like Scientologists" challenge, they could have won. If The Democratic party could have wanted to win more than they wanted to avoid alienating any donors, they could have won by taking any popular position on anything. Trump spent most of his campaign actively campaigning for Harris by calling her a radical-left socialist; if she were actually a radical-left socialist instead of an empty vessel to be filled with cash, she would have won. If the Democratic party hadn't chosen again not to run a fair, open, lively primary, they would have won.
With Trump campaigning against radical-left socialist Harris, and Harris campaigning against rapist Hitler, homophobic Stalin, and racist Mussolini, the majority of people looked at which candidate was lying the most, and voted for the other one. Everybody knows who Trump is, and he's already been president, and nobody went to camps. It was a rather sleepy standard Republican presidency, whose few deviations from the norm pleased people. The only reason we heard about Harris is because she (and Buttigieg) pretended to be for single-payer healthcare in order to destroy a popular candidate who was running on an honest program.
While Trump wouldn't do any of that, right? He would say things because they're true :D
> It was a rather sleepy standard Republican presidency, whose few deviations from the norm pleased people
Just a small insurrection at the end, no biggie. Oh, and some international agreements were shattered, but who cares about those anyway. I mean, there was also Corona which jolted some people from sleep, but thanks to Trump's recommendation to get some chlorine you could get right back to sleeping :)
2) “boys in girls sports”. So incredibly niche that who gives a fuck, and does not appear to be an actual problem that sports conferences and associations aren’t handling just fine on their own. Why does anybody care about this? Right wing news, entire reason. Not an actual issue.
And then you're surprised why people vote differently to you...
So why can't Democrats just come out against this insanity and take the easy W? The whole, "well it isn't a really an issue" argument doesn't fly when you still demand your way on it.
2) Boys are in girls sports, and Biden destroyed Title IX with an executive order. And you've gone from "fictional" to "Why does anybody care about this?" You don't see this as a dishonest progression?
edit: and now edited to "who gives a fuck." Women who dedicate their lives to sports. Men who think that half the population deserves half the medals and half the opportunity. Me.
Oh she mentioned defending title IX and I had zero clue wtf she meant (I mean, I know what title IX is, but figured it was some kind of allusion to something I’d only know if I listened to Mark Levin even more than I already do). A glance at The Googles and this appears to be exactly the kind of thing I mean.
Feel free to label anyone who doesn't vote the way you do a "Low information voter"
[edit] shit, we can’t even get to substance on issues where we agree the broad category of thing needs to be addressed. Immigration! Yes! Let’s do some stuff on that! “Biden’s open border” ok well congrats we already solved that because that’s not a thing, rhetorically or in fact, zero democrats with any power want an open border and the border is not open, so… “illegals smuggling fentanyl!” wait how much money do you want to devote to that specifically, because that’s a negligible source of fentanyl in the US (citizens smuggling fentanyl, however…) and yeah we’re just bogged down disagreeing on facts again.
Our understanding of the world is profoundly mediated by fiction, which is to say, lies.
That's why it all ends up like children arguing on the playground. The kind of playground‡ where my 14-year-old classmate Evangalyn Martinez got stabbed to death for, I think it was, stealing Joella Mares's boyfriend, and nobody leaves the playground alive.
Under those circumstances, what does it mean to live a good life rather than a bad one? Good answers exist, but they're not easy.
______
† This is a metaphor. I don't mean that each adult has literally swallowed a child and is digesting them alive like a python.
‡ Technically that was actually the parking lot. Also, I was already no longer her classmate at the time, and because we were in different grades, I don't remember if I ever met her. She wouldn't be my last classmate to be stabbed; in my high school biology class each student was paired with the same lab partner for the whole semester, and the next year, someone else at the high school nonfatally stabbed my lab partner, Shannon Sugg, now Shannon L. Schneider (ginga.snapz1718). If memory serves, she dropped out from the psychological trauma. You can read the decision in her lawsuit against the school at https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/nm-court-of-appeals/141549..., which says it was Alicia Andres who stabbed her. ”Plaintiff asserts that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment imposed a clearly established duty upon school officials to protect her from this stabbing.” I'm glad violent crime has dropped a lot since then in the US.
It actually is, though.
Sure, it didn’t work—probably because enough people weren’t convinced that it was true enough (and also because they didn’t care)—but it's not unreasonable to think that such an argument should have been enough.
Victor Orban - President of Hungary.
The AfD in Germany got a higher percentage of the vote in Thuringen in Germany than any other party. Currently polling higher than any member of the governing coalition nationally.
Geert Wilders - successful in the Netherlands.
Marine Le Pen - possible next president of France.
The Freedom Party of Austria - has been in government.
These parties all sometimes win in Europe.
Freedom of protest was, in fact, restricted in italy in a way that it affects climate manifestations more than lobbies manifestation - we have taxis striking and blocking cities if someone wants to touch their ungodly privileges -
Journalist striked on the public news because news has become unreliable, propaganda spewing news at a level before unheard of
It didn't happen, but Giorgia meloni wanted to abolish the crime of torture to better allow police to do its work (lmao even)
At the season opening of the teather la scala di Milano, one man shouted "viva l'Italia antifascista" (long live antifacist italy). Police was sent to check his documents and similar intimidatory shit
How many evangelical Christians just voted for an adulterer and convicted criminal because he’s not pro choice?
Heck, I know quite a few people who are very strongly religious and somehow view Trump as a good Christian candidate. That one really blows my mind, unless they've changed the ten commandments entirely since I was growing up.
it is an important issue.
> Heck, I know quite a few people who are very strongly religious and somehow view Trump as a good Christian candidate. That one really blows my mind, unless they've changed the ten commandments entirely since I was growing up.
What makes it bizarre is not things like adultery (a fundamental tenet of Christianity is that we are all sinners) but that Trump is clearly not a Christian. He does not even know the basics of Christianity - remember when he wished people "Happy Good Friday"?
For sure. I don't take issue with anyone voting based on whatever they care about in general. I don't feel strongly enough about one topic to be a single issue voter, but I get it for anyone that does feel that strongly.
> What makes it bizarre is not things like adultery (a fundamental tenet of Christianity is that we are all sinners) but that Trump is clearly not a Christian.
100% agree. No one is perfect and I wouldn't expect anyone who is religious to always fit the bill, but Trump is an example of someone very far from any religious ideals. I was raised Catholic, if Trump were catholic I don't think he would have had time outside of confession to even run for office.
That literally made me lough out loud. Raised Catholic too (been an agnostic since, and some sort of Christian and technically if not theologically a Catholic now).
I'm personally also worried about the rise of left-wing authoritarianism in the US but that's another matter and far less of a general danger to the world at this time. But it's worth noting that authoritarian positions are popular on either side of the political fence in the US right now, and classical enlightened liberalism seems to be completely dead. (To be fair, it was never strong in the US to begin with.)
Trump tested American democracy by consolidating power and was not successful, so we avoided being under a fascist rule
The fear is that we might get to test democracy again, and most of America doesn't seem to mind that. Maybe it's due to lack of understanding, not caring, or genuinely wanting fascism, I don't know.
I'm a centrist, the way I see it you go into storytelling hour with a grinding monologue aimed to gaslighting yourself and any listeners into a position of "we should execute our political opponents for being fascists, maybe some communism banners would be chic too"
It's a caricature of ideology that even chatGPT would laugh at.
And then the cult of traditionalism while strong in the NRx movement, is arguably stronger in the Republican side than in MAGA itself.
Ultimately Fascism is deeply spiritual but all I get from Trump is brash 80's boomerism. He's not ideological enough.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that based on common criteria the term Fascism is adequate for Trump's movement. I'm not claiming that it's strongly related to prior Fascist movements. These occurred in other countries at other times and I leave it to scholars to make comparisons if they must.
Just a thought
This behaviour culminates in what you're seeing.
And as you agreed, Trump does the same, more than anyone. So unless you are openly stating "the left should behave more decent than the right if they want votes", there is a problem in your logic as well.
There is no right wing equivalent to the institutions I mentioned: CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Hollywood, not to mention schools, universities, tech giants like Google, Apple, Meta etc, all of whom lean left and have shown biases in their actions.
Please try to entertain the hypothesis that maybe I'm not the one in an incredibly well insulated bubble
Edit: maybe not, I think they're still in procedural limbo because no other party wants to be in the coalition.
Some Americans may well vote for the rightwing candidate because they want to stick it to the left (or whoever the "anti" would be).
Personally, I don't think that alone makes a majority in that binary choice; in Europe, it would mostly end up in the vote for a minor "ultra" party. And less-"anti" conservative voters have other options.
In the US though, as someone with conservative values and views, one always has to choose ... do I want to vote with everyone else who votes for "my" camp including the stick-it-tos (because there's only one option "on my side"), do I not vote, or do I even vote against what feels closer to me because the stick-it-tos vote for them as well, and/or their head on the ticket is clearly one of the stick-it-tos ?
Am I glad I needn't make that choice. And am I sad what kind of asocial extremes are encouraged by the binary, winner-takes-all US political system.
Trump was very favorable to Israel and has a Jewish daughter. Not typical fascist behavior.
Debbie Dingell said Trump will build internment camps and put her in one. Were were the internment camps in Trump's first term?
Mussolini was in power in Italy 10 years before Hitler was in Germany and he wasn't very anti-Semitic at all. He was influenced by Hitler towards the end of his reign but even then his anti-Semitic policies were mild when compared to Germany.
Part of the problem with calling someone a fascist is that people associate the word with Hitler. But Hitler wasn't the only fascist or even the first fascist.
So perhaps this:
> Part of the problem with calling someone a fascist is that people associate the word with Hitler.
Is not making the point you think it's making.
We don’t have to worry about him stealing any more elections, he’s far too old for that to be an issue
So because Israel is involved in something means that something can't be fascist? What about the fascist things Netanyahu is doing with Israel?
Okay, I'm in the US and will try to explain.
> As a European
Yup, the US is at least different!
> an arguably fascist agenda
> extreme right wing candiate
US politics can be tough fighting, lots of lying, deception, anxiety creation, violent demonstrations, assassinations, emotional appeals, media definitely biased and pumping out paid for propaganda, big influence from special interests (e.g., want money from the central government), lots of money buying and selling, e.g., as I recall, the Democrat Party spent ballpark $1.6 billion on ads -- the rich people giving that money want a return on their investment.
In the US, Trump is a moderate, i.e., "all the traffic is in the middle of the road".
The US middle of the road: Free enterprise, entrepreneurs should be free to be successful in business, often based on a lot of private investment capital (money) but sometimes based on just two guys in a rented garage or one guy in college with a Web site or some guy with a simple Web site selling books and records. Curiously, it was the US that did that, for the US and now the whole world. People should make their own way financially, etc. If people genuinely need help, then there, in various forms, is a social safety net with some help but not enough for a good life or everything. Real socialism where the government is Big Daddy that everyone can count on for everything in life is left and not widely accepted. A guaranteed minimum income is not quite here yet. There is still some question how much the government will supply in free health care and education. Can spend $100,000+ a year on college, the main point is who you meet, not what you learn. For learning there are plenty of cheap colleges and universities where can learn as much as want as there is known now; really, can go from first year in college to PhD., MD, LLB all for free if just are a really good student. In simple terms, in the US no really good student is short on education due to lack of money.
And in the US, if need medical care, a REAL need, and can't pay, then there is ..., and also ..., and, don't tell anyone, ....
US politics and media throw around "fascism" essentially only as an insult for people who don't understand Germany in the 1930s or what real fascism was. It is ironic that someone from Europe needs someone from the US to explain "fascism". The fascism insult is to lead to a Hitler insult, wildly far from the truth. Europe DOES actually, deeply, correctly remember Hitler? Right????
In simple terms, fascism has the government have much more power, especially over the economy, including industry and business, than Trump wants or used in his first term as POTUS.
Uh, fascism needs a LOT of power in the government; in the US mostly people don't trust government and don't want government to have that much power. The standard joke is
"We are from the government, and we are here to help."
So, a charge of fascism is a lie to get votes from people afraid of government power. Yes, in his first term, Trump had a lot of power, and now has it again. But, really, the US left wants more power, in total, than Trump or the US center or right. In particular, if listen to what Kamala really said, she wants nearly all revenue (and effectively ownership) to flow to DC (District of Columbia, seat of the central government) and then returned in various government programs to people and selected businesses, e.g., the $93 trillion for whatever; Kamala wanted such in principle (like some sophomore art major college women with an all-night bull session with plenty of beer and about politics and society) but had no meaningful details for implementation.
> a convicted felon, rapist, and probable russian intelligence asset.
All 100% junk information generated and spread as political mud wrestling:
In no meaningful sense is Trump a "convicted felon". Parts of the US judicial system went after Trump to have some people BELIEVE he was a felon. It was political propaganda, all lies for a political purpose, with the eager complicity of parts of the media, to damage Trump's reputation and have stories and narratives to get eyeballs and ad revenue. The crime was from the prosecutors and judges, not Trump. But there the judicial system's bite had no teeth: All the cases are delayed for various reasons and, now that the election is over, have served their propaganda purpose and will disappear via various actions. It was all cooked up, made up, kangaroo court, dirty politics, lawfare, election interference. Apparently the US legal system is resisting just throwing out all the cases based just on laughter over the absurdities and wants to pretend to have actual legal deliberation but is being careful never actually to convict or jail Trump or have him pay some $500 million fine.
There is no meaningful evidence that Trump is a "rapist". Again, that's propaganda.
> probable russian intelligence asset
Nonsense. Cooked up, made up, fake, contrived nonsense by Hillary Clinton and others to convince some naive people. The complicit, biased media got a lot of shocking headlines, eyeballs, and ad revenue.
The US Constitution has its First Amendment, "freedom of speech". So, people get to speak nearly anything, including lies and propaganda, and do. It's up to the listeners to filter the truth from the rest.
> extreme right wing candiate
No good evidence. Not Trump. Just look at his statements and record -- he's solidly in the middle of the road. Ukraine? It's partially about NATO, will Ukraine belong to NATO? Get help from NATO? The far right has Cheney, John Bolton, and others who never wanted to pass up another opportunity for a war, e.g., for Ike's Military/Industrial Complex, war profiteers, one world, US "New American Century", police the world people.
> Please explain.
Okay, just did that!
In the south, at least this is flat wrong
A niece got PBK at Indiana University, went to Harvard Law, got first job at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore. Left for an MD, and has been practicing since then. Suspect she spent very little on tuition.
As a first grad student in math at Indiana University, I got paid for teaching, had a nice single dorm room, actually lived well, and saved some money.
There are a lot of buttons to push, strings to pull, to get low cost or free college, then free through Ph.D. Being a good student, good SAT scores, already know calculus well, all can help.
Point: Self study can work well. Obviously: Once a prof reading research papers, nearly always have to use self study, and the papers are generally much less polished than good textbooks.
So, I recommended to students short on money just to do some self teaching and show up, demonstrate what learned, and ask for a scholarship.
I have and/or have seen good evidence for all that I mentioned, but such evidence is NOT wanted by or common in the media which means that I have no well written, comprehensive, single reference to give.
Uh, YOU try: Write a document with good evidence, details, quotes, video clips, etc., and see how much interest the US MSM (mainstream media) has in publishing it!!! I predict you will regard your effort, no matter how carefully done, as a waste of time.
E.g., so far I've never seen even one credible graph over, say, the last 16 years, of, say, the US CPI (consumer price index). Same for budget deficits, spending bills, balance of foreign exchange, Fed loans, spending on the war in Ukraine (was there actually ANY spending or did we, instead, actually just ship war supplies produced in the US?) -- the actual details are absurdly messy, sloppy, missing, etc.
Clearly, bluntly the details do not SELL -- won't get a big audience.
To give good evidence here would exceed by several times the 10,000 bytes or so limit that Hacker News seems to have on a single post.
US media credibility? Here is evidence of biased, cooked up, gang up, pile on, organized mob attack from 2017:
https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908
I wish, profoundly wish, have posted many times on social media, that the US news media should provide JUST such evidence, at least up to common standards of high school term papers. All that is no more than a spit into the wind -- the media does NOT want to expend bytes for such writing, documentation, evidence, etc.
So, here I did all I can do to respond to the question I quoted, apparently, from a European. Agree or not with what I wrote, but it is the best I can do under the circumstances. The question from Europe are not very deep; so I gave answers of similar depth. The speeches in the election were not very deep. The Trump statements at the economic clubs in Chicago and Detroit were deeper.
That's my explanation, best I can do, take it or leave it.
But, really for an accusation of "Nazi", etc. the "burden of proof is on the accuser". The rape? He said, she said. There in the dressing room of the department store, did she scream and get some witnesses? Nazi? Just what is the evidence that Trump has done anything like the Nazi stuff Hitler did? Felon? He has never gotten a sentence -- if he does, then he can appeal, win the appeal, and show that he is NOT a "convicted felon". So, no sentence. The papers case, the J6 case, the Georgia case, the "hush money" case -- all are falling apart due to appeals, etc. They are NOT legal cases but just efforts to misuse the legal system to have others, as here, believe he is a felon. But with the appeals, e.g., even to the SCOTUS, ALL of the cases are falling apart. My view is that the wrong here is from low level parts of the US legal system and not from Trump.
And where are the arguments about 10+ million illegal immigrants, the inflation, the attacks on US fossil fuel energy, the Ukraine war, the Gaza war, the Lebanon war, the hundreds of missiles from Iran, the promotion of biological men in women's sports, the lies about abortion (Trump sent the issue back to the states to decide), the bans on gas powered cars and trucks, etc.?
You have failed to provide one.
Just what was I supposed to do but "failed" at?
As a European you don't have presidential elections that matter. Executive and legislative power is in the hands of your parliament and the president is a figurehead (if you have one).
If you want to compare your European experience to the USA, you should look at congress and not the presidential elections. You'd probably find the same dynamics there as in your own country, with the exception that the blocs that you have in parliament have been distilled into two parties.
US two-party system really is the weird one.
> or they face a more moderate party taking their seats
That's not right. You cannot lose your parliament seat in any European parliament until the next election. If an MP or an entire party in Europe is too divisive, they might not be able to be part of a majority and they will be in opposition.
In the USA, the executive government is not elected by parliament - so you're comparing apples to oranges. The president builds the executive government after being elected by the people in the states. That's something different.
> Ok well..that's not really an argument?
Choosing to not put a fascist(-leaning) individual into power is "not really an argument"? So it's okay to re-elect individuals who have tried at least once to stop the peaceful transfer of power?
I mean take everything from the climate crisis, to my favorite - creationism being taught in school at the same level as evolution.
The playbook is literally right there, you get experts to come on stage, ridicule them to your audience, show that they are cartoons and have no real value.
Then you provide you viewers with good sounding news bites and manage the optics, and you can get a convicted felon elected to President.
Yes - it really is just the information ecosystem. There really is no free speech when one side is a regular joe and the other side is a marketing and political speech behemoth.
It is that simple, and we can’t do anything about it, because that would be harming our ability to speak freely.
I mean, if one of Trump's own closest advisors carefully states that he fits the definition of a fascist, is it not fair to call him one? If Trump outwardly celebrates many of the traditional concepts of fascism like attacking the media, attacking minorities, attacking "enemies from within" is it not fair to call him that?
And what do you say about a person who supports fascism? That they're very fine people?
Ok well..that's not really an argument?
And yes we can bring up all the terrible Trump examples but if the point is separating yourself from that, how is what they've done any different?
It just feels each side just despises the other and it all ends up like children arguing on the playground.
Where are the adults?
There's going to be all kinds of hyperbole thrown around today on both sides but personally see this as a failure by the Democrats to sway Independents.