Outlaw83
3mo ago
From the outside, that was maybe more true under this place's prior home, but I think there are far more just out and out right-wingers or more accurately, people who have become more right-wing over time. Sure, there are some Grey Tribe or whatever people still here, but many of the comments here, policy-wise, when American politics come up, are just a more erudite version of the comments under any National Review or Federalist article.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Except the divorce rate is going down consistently. The main reason there was such a high level of divorce in the 70's and 80's is a lot of bad marriages finally had valve releases, and a lot of people headed for the exists. Now, you can think that was a bad decision or whatever, but I doubt even many conservative-leaning people are going to be OK with, "let's go back to 1955 norms about marriage."
Outlaw83
4mo ago
How do European grandmas pull it off, then?
Pretty much because many Europeans, especially in more dense city centers, and even in the suburbs (which are more dense in many cases than American suburbs) don't go to the supermarket once a week and get an ungodly amount of food. There's a local market, or at least a much closer supermarket they can stop by daily or maybe three times a week, get what they need quickly, and then go home.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
The actual reality is that 95% of "COVID voters" that existed in any large numbers were type B, and that's one of many reasons DeSantis died on liftoff - people don't want to think about COVID. That's why the Loudon County School Board went back Democratic and Moms for Liberty types have been largely failures outside already bright red areas. If the Virginia Governor race had been in March of 2022 instead of Novemeber of 2021, Youngkin probably loses, and he's basically the only real right-leaning victory that ran on COVID stuff, when it came to school closures and the like. The temporary allyship they had with center-left to center-right parents upset over school closures ended when the schools basically all reopened by fall of 2021, and life was back to normal for the vast majority of people, outside of the 5% of always maskers and 5% of people who think being forced to make sacrifices for other people you disagree with is the same as a concentration camp.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
No, you're right. At least, as of the 2020 election, Alberta would vote as liberal as New York & Rhode Island in polling done during the 2020 election.
https://www.thewrit.ca/p/how-canada-would-vote-in-a-us-election
Now, maybe that's shifted a lot, but I doubt it. The thing isn't how liberal the rest of the world is, but how right-wing US Republicans are, even compared to even other right-leaning parties in the rest of the developed world.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Yeah, as somebody who was arguing w/ pro-Iraq War conservatives at the time, they brought stuff like the above, but then backed off, when multiple people said basically, "so, we spent billions and sent thousands of American's to die for Saddam's leftovers he didn't get to using against Iran? You guys were talking about mushroom clouds over New York."
Outlaw83
6mo ago
I mean, there are plenty of people who think we'd would've been better off if we turned the ancestor of the Boebert's around at Ellis Island.
Outlaw83
6mo ago
It hasn't panned out for Western Europe, because they're a bunch of weirdos who think being French or German is determined by whether your ancestors were peasants dying for some Lord who wasn't even from that area 1,000 years ago. Throw in bad housing policy, and you have a situation where even fairly well-meaning multi-generation Turks in Germany don't feel German, let alone other Muslims with more touchy backgrounds with the West.
OTOH, if you come to America, have some kids, start a business, learn English (even if it's broken), and don't wall yourself in some ethnic enclave after your first or second generation, even many Trump voters will be happy to have you as neighbors. It is funny how so many people who despise birthright citizenship don't realize the moderating influence it has.
Yes, yes, yes, I know 3rd or 4th generation college educated immigrants are all SJW's who complain about America all the time. Well...what's more American than that?
Outlaw83
6mo ago
Yeah, any poll without a none of the above/no opinion option I throw out as junk, even if it agrees w/ my views.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
It's basically that on the Congressional list, and as I said above, really bad timing w/ Mitch, Biden, Pelosi, and Trump all in power. But, Pelosi has stepped down, Biden will be done after 2024 or his next term, and Mitch will likely be gone at worst at his next election. After that, there aren't a ton of new 70 year olds vying for power - Bernie & Warren aren't running again, and in both parties, there are 40-60 year old politicians ready to run.
I think in a century, it'll be noted this was a weird genorcratic period - maybe something about wanting older leadership after the chaos of the Recession w/ Obama at the helm will be some college students doctorate or something.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
The actual reality is the Sex Recession was either something made up out of bad data, a temporary drop mostly due to women being more worried about COVID than men, especially among single people under 30, or was left-leaning women being more wary of "non-political men" and those men learning how to better sell themselves.
Why do I say this? Because according to the same data people used to write one zillion Hot Takes about how online dating has destroyed young men's ability to get laid, everything is fine - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyOlWt9aUAAYZsd?format=png&name=small
We're back to the only guys not getting laid actually being probably the guys who were never getting laid. Or maybe the incels aged out, and Gen Z, born into dating apps, know how to deal with them better as they enter adulthood.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Yeah - like, there's an argument on this thread about leftists not wanting to argue.
But, this isn't true - go to a Democratic/left-leaning well-educated group of political types and ask them about health care, taxes, etc. and they'll be a bunch of different ideas thrown around.
It's just yes, I don't have much interest in arguing about why the 2020 election wasn't stolen, why the Jew's don't actually control everything, how smart or not specific racial groups are, and how much we have to limit women's freedom to get them to make more babies, and start having them earlier.
Note, even controversial stuff is fine if it's based in actual reality - if somebody wants to argue we should stay out of Ukraine because America shouldn't involve itself in European power politics or something like that, OK. But, if it's arguing about how America helped an illegal coup in 2014, and Ukraine is full of Nazi's, then yeah, there's not much to talk about.
Same thing on immigration - if you want to talk about economics versus culture, or criminal rates or whatever, again, we'll probably disagree heavily, but there's something there. If your belief is well, immigration has basically been too high since anywhere from 1830 to 1970 depending on the poster, and our racial mix has been terrible since then, then there's not much to talk about.
In general, when I try to get involved here is when something is insanely wrong on a basic thing, when I think the actual left-wing view is being wrongly thought out, or something like that. But in general, this place is less interesting, not because it's more right-wing, but I already know the responses to anything the moment an issue or story gets brought up.
Which, I'm sure one could say about left-leaning forums or arguments, but y'know, we're right and you're wrong. More seriously though, on the issues I care about and don't have 100% firm opinions on, like health care, taxes, spending, foreign policy, and so on, there are plenty of conversations going on in left-wing, center-left, and centrist spaces. But, if you're only interest is proving social freedom of women has gone too far and we need to IQ test everybody to put them in their proper place in society, then yeah, left-leaning spaces probably do similar.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I'd also point out that college-educated rich women in 1910 were also doing basically non-profit work, they just weren't paid for it. There were many ideological varied movements being led by middle class and rich women of the time, no different from today. This idea there was a time when rich/UMC college-educated in urban areas were just sitting around, doing nothing but taking care of their kids has never really been true in like, the past probably 150-200 years, because of what you said.
In some ways, the 50's were the worst of both worlds, which is what led to feminism - technology has risen to where even middle class women didn't need to spend all day doing household work and because they were in atomized suburbs, there wasn't much to do but kvetch with your fellow other college-educated but at-home mothers about your life.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
There are natural, organic ties between and across generations in families (illegible ties, you might say) that are crucial to nurture for the health of broader society, and having the government intervene in PROMISING to support the elderly is likely to do grave damage to the longer term building of those ties"
The problem is this was a failure and seen so at the times which is why Social Security was immediately popular - as seen when you compare endemic elderly poverty rates in comparison to other groups pre-Social Security and now.
Let me start this by saying Trump could totally win with a hiccup in the economy, Biden looking old at the wrong moment, something going really bad in foreign policy, or something else off.
But, where are you seeing this idea the Democratic ground game in shambles? In reality, in basically every special election for the past few years, plus the midterms, the Democrat's have run past their prior margins, including just this past week, winning a Trump +1 state legislative seat in suburban Huntsville by twenty five points.
In addition, Biden just raised $25 million in one night, with a plan to actually get a healthy bit of funding out to state parties, all while many Republican state parties, including swing states like Michigan and Arizona, are either in feuds with each over who is actually in control of the state party, is basically in a deep fundraising hole, or in some cases, both.
Also, Trump's own small donor fundraising has fallen apart, which is why, along with the whole needing money for legal bills, is why all of the sudden he's friendlier with Chamber of Commerce types, and has done things like talk about being OK with entitlement cuts, and totally flipped on TikTok, once a billionaire with a stake in ByteDance got close to him.
Plus, on the actual primaries, even in closed primary states after Haley dropped out, she was still getting 15-20% of the vote in some of these places. Now, I don't that's representative of actually 20% of the GOP voter base, but in a close election, you need every voter you can possibly get.
As far as the polling goes, it is interesting - all the polls are showing the biggest shift since the Civil Rights Act with Trump supposedly winning 25-30% of the black vote, straight up winning the Hispanic vote, and either winning or getting close with the youth vote, but the other thing people don't mention because it make things look even weirder, is these polls usually show, because otherwise Trump would be up by like 10, is Biden is somehow turning around 30 years of movement, and winning older white voters.
Now, maybe that's happening.
But, we're not seeing this shift among non-white voters in special elections, and even in 2022, the only real shifts to the right happened in Florida, along the Texas border, and in some deep blue parts of NY & CA, all while the national vote for both African-American & Hispanic voters basically stayed steady from 2020.
In addition, polls that oversample black, Hispanic, and youth voters to get more than just a subsample with a higher margin of error show numbers much closer to 2020 & 2022.
Again, Trump can win. I even think he could get to 15% of the black vote and 45% of the Hispanic vote. The issue is, in places like the Atlanta, Dallas, Milwaukee, etc. suburbs, the bottom is falling out of the suburban vote, especially among women who are turned off by Trump, then got turned off by Dobbs. Plus, there's a new generation of 30-something's coming to the suburbs, and they're more diverse, and less conservative than the prior generation.
But, my personal belief, is here are the actual most likely results of the 2020 election.
-
2020 redux - it turns out, most people haven't shifted their views
-
Trump inside straight redux of 2016 - slight turnoff shift by minority voters, youth vote dropoff, etc.
-
Big Biden win - what happened to rural voters among Democrat's in the past few decades happens to the GOP among suburban voters, there's more Haley voters/supporters who decide not to turnout, Trump's non-voter base that he turned out in 2016 & 2020 have gotten bored, and the Genocide Joe types are overstated on Twitter, and it turns out young single women care more about abortion than whether Biden is old or Doordash delivery is more expensive.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Yup, I have sympathy w/ pharma companies over R&D costs. I don't have sympathy for all the TV, magazine, and online commercials they run. The only downside is we might have a flood of unemployed attractive, moderately intelligent women from various sororities around the country if pharma has less marketing dollars.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I generally prefer my TV shows to have shades of grey in them (BSG, GoT, The Expanse come to mind).
Most people, especially the older people still watching network TV, don't. That's why shows like Bluebloods, FBI, 9 different CSI and NCIS's are all on the air and more popular than 99% of shows that get Emmy's.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I think there are a lot of guys who women think are in a relationship, but the guys aren't having sex with anybody else because nobody is directly approaching them, and the woman is good enough. Ironically, this is far more likely than what many online MRA/incel/PUA types are worried about, which is a chad swooping in and stealing your girlfriend via Instagram DM's or whatever.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Because all the efficiency isn't going to the very wealthy?
Again, the only study that has shown any sort of long-term wage depression for workers was in the immediacy of the Mariel boatlift in Miami-Dade, but that's an equivalent amount of immigration nationwide that would never happen, short of Bryan Caplan somehow becoming dictator. Yes, things don't go positively for 100% of people, but most of the actual economic downturn in certain parts of the country is actually due to outside competition from China, not immigration into the US.
Also, fertility is linked to women's education. America could become a fortress with zero immigration, and TFR will keep on going down, as long as birth control and highly educated women with expansive freedom exist.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Yeah. along with massive economic and cultural changes, what happened is a lot of people in those communities decided they'd rather be ruled by far-away people in DC who'd listen to you, rather than petty, corrupt local tyrants who could not be defeated on a local level, thanks to generations of control in a local area, and were corrupt in ways that the federal government could never be. The federal government may not listen to you (and even that's overrated - a lot of the reason why supposed popular things aren't done isn't because of the evil elites, but because those popular things aren't as popular as you think when they're not push polled, both from the Left and the Right - the reality is most people just dislike change, period), but it's far less likely a random cousin of a congressman is going to beat you up, or try to do something with your wife and girlfriend, and nobody will do anything about, because his father, cousins, and brothers all are in charge of various aspects of the local area.
This is true of big cities, small cities, rural areas, urban areas.
Outlaw83
5mo ago
As long as most media is concentrated in urban areas, and also aimed at the youth, it's also going to seem like it's overrepresenting non-white people to many people outside of those areas. Like, the reality is, to use a recent example, it makes more sense for a young kid in Queens who gets bitten by a radioactive spider to be a mixed black and Puerto Rican kid, not a nerdy white one.
Also, as noted below, there's a distinction between "media gets attention" and "all media." There are plenty of procedural shows on CBS that are still mostly white, especially when you account for guest characters and the like.
Outlaw83
6mo ago
I'm fine w/ abortion being a "state issue," if by state issue, you mean one determined by referendums on various abortion laws.
But, red state governments don't like that very much, because it turns out even the most right-wing states don't agree with the extremists in charge of state governments on abortion law.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
Eh, I'm the weirdo who thinks this is just a particularly bad moment with Mitch, Biden, and Trump in leadership positions and it'll soon pass.
Look at both parties - on the Democratic side, whether you like them or not, they're Newsom, Harris, Shapiro, Whitmer, Walz, etc. all of whom are normal political ages, and Pelosi just stepped down.
For the GOP, there's DeSantis, Reynolds, Hawley, Cruz, Kemp, etc. who again, are all in normal political leader ages, and McCarthy and most of McConnell's likely successors.
Now, the actual problem is that in 2028, if he's still living, the 80-something Trump will still likely be the choice of at least 30-40% of the primary voting base.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
The irony is a big thing that could end the dysfunction is to end the filibuster, and actually pass legislation.
Now yes, this would lead to some things this forum would not like passed. Also, it wouldn't lead to say the Civil Rights Act getting overturned, because it turns out a Senator who can get elected in say, Georgia or Arizona probably doesn't want to actually do that, or fill in whatever other right-wing promise numerous swing state Senator's have made, but would never actually vote for, because they like their job.
Ironically, the filibuster currently gives the Right an overstated case of their actual political strength, because if you're a Republican Senator in a swing state, you can agree to all sorts of things in a primary, knowing voters don't really care until you actually vote for something/it gets put into law (ie. the Dobbs effect), and they know you need 60 votes to pass anything not directly related to spending.
I say this thing to my left-wing friends as well, as a dirty left-wing social democrat SJW - your issue isn't the system. Your issue is that nobody actually agrees with you because life in America is actually pretty damn good for the vast majority of people, and well yeah, they may complain about [random right-friendly or left-friendly issue], but they're not going to vote for somebody who wants to overturn the whole damn thing. Now, I know, "but a small minority of woke people control society."
Not really true, but also, most people may think going to a DEI training (even though, again, your company having a DEI training is kind of a tell on your educated background) may be a bit over the top, but they also don't think the world is ending as a result of a couple hour training they go too once or twice a year. So, when you act like it is, most normies go, "you're a weirdo, and if the choice is you or the nice lady in charge of DEI training, I'll go with her."
I mean, the problem for pro-lifers is the vast majority of moderates are OK with "oops, the condom broke or I forgot my birth control" when it's their daughter, sister, et al whose about to go to college, and tells them they missed their period. Which is why in every single vote on the matter, no matter how extreme the pro-choice bill is written, it passes. Even in places like Kentucky, Kansas, and Montana.
Because yes, American's may not like 'up 'til birth' extremists like me (because I trust women and doctors not to be crazy), but if given a choice between me or the median pro-lifer who wants to ban abortion after six weeks, they'll choose no limits every damn time.
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