Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, if there's a secret amount of people who's #1 view is cut immigration, then just like w/ UKIP, an anti-immigration party should be able to run and effect politics the same way UKIP got moderate globalist David Cameron to OK a Brexit referendum.
The UK is a different animal than the US when it comes to minor parties.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
No, the youth vote even among young white males in 2022 was still D+4 Democratic. Obviously, that's not as good as the D+31 young white women have, but it's better than any other white male demographic. Even among young Latino's males, 57% went for the Democratic candidate, despite talk of Latino's going away from the Democrat's. In addition, as also noted in that data, that narrowness among young white males is driven by rural youth voters, who went 64-33 for the GOP, as opposed to 66-31 for suburban and 67-28 for urban voters.
I'm not saying it's a fait accompoli, but there's no actual evidence that ya' know, manosphere Youtubers, alt-right Twitter, 4chan, or anything is actually moving young males to the right by any large degree. It's a combo of already conservative guys going even further right, and basically, teenage kids being idiots and going 'norrmie' once they actually get laid or have to actually get a job and interact with different people.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
As a leftist, I want pharma companies to be nationalized, so that trans kids can have easier access to medicine they may have financial issues getting at the moment. Same thing w/ the vaccine - the doctors who made the vaccine are not the issue, it's the assholes who want to charge for it. Same thing w/ Disney - the problem with Disney is it's power through copyright and buying up other companies, not it's social views.
It's not really an argumentative problem for leftists, since most "leftists" were always fine with vaccines and also fine with minority representation in culture. It's some uneasy allies, but hey, we've team up with worse before to beat reactionaries.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
"The X-Men stories were insanely transparent with their messaging, messaging that was bout concepts which the culture war is still raging over to this day - but there was enough subtlety and art to it that it didn't throw the audience out of what they were consuming."
Except there are letter pages from the '60s with the same exact arguments that are raging today in these and many other comment sections, about how Stan Lee was shoving his politics down their throat. This makes my point - that culture war issue is mostly dead, so it can become just entertainment.
In 2060, there'll be the right-leaning people of the day, going, "look, back in the 2020's there was subtle and well-done inclusions of transgender folks like the Republican nominee Senator Martinez-Chu, but now these damned transhumanists are shoving it down my throat!"
Outlaw83
1yr ago
Detroit is probably the most corrupt city in the US, or at least in the top 5 for machine politics. 95% Dem? Really?
I mean, yes. That sort of voting pattern has been consistent in Detroit for decades. It seems people don't really get there can be very red and very blue areas in this country. Like, there are countries in the rural part of Texas, et al that vote 90%+ Trump. I don't think there's any fraud there.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
"Could a white supremacist who was a serial rapist of black women be rehabilitated in the public eye"
I'm pretty sure that despite the best efforts of my fellow wokists, we still cover Thomas Jefferson in school fairly positively.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
Sounds like what every older generation says about the newer generation, as they come up.
I guarantee you whenever they went into the military, there was some veteran claiming the new recruits were going to ruin the military because of whatever reason x got a hair up their ass. Meanwhile, we're still so far ahead, that the stuff we have in basically the shed we forgot about is beating back the Russian's, likely w/ help from a bunch of they/them furries w/ security clearances giving targeting assistance to some Ukranian's with HIMARS
Outlaw83
1yr ago
I mean, being an Eisenhower-era moderate on civil rights made you a conservative by 1975 in many ways. Remember, Eisenhower actually looked back at putting Warren on the Court as a mistake. Social mores have always changed like this. It's just for a lot of people, it's the first time it's happening to them, so they think it's new, and proof this cultural change is different. There were people grousing in Gen X's perfect year of 1993 about how you couldn't say certain things anymore, and such.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
When you looked at richest/poorest Senator lists, Biden was always at the bottom, or just above Bernie during his whole entire time there, and only became slightly more wealthy because of the usual appearance fee circuit, some book deals, and the like. Part of the reason the whole 'Biden is secretly corrupt' is failing outside the most partisan Red Tribers, when less than great views about Obama or Hillary extended past that, is that it doesn't pass the BS meter of the median voter - the median voter can buy Hillary is corrupt, Obama is conceited, and Trump is an asshole. They simply see nothing showing that Biden is making secret deals.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
That's the other thing - the most movement is among basically, the exact profile of people most likely to not vote.
As I said, according to Catalist, which is the best voter database showed Biden got 62% in 2020 and Democratic candidates got 62% in 2022 among Hispanics - if that number is 55% or 57% in 2024, would not be a huge shock. I just don't think the polling showing Trump winning Hispanics by 15 or 20 pass the smell test.
But, as been pointed out by many, because of the actual demographic makeup of voters, if Biden does a point better among white voters because college educated whites move even more in his favor as a result of Dobbs and Trump focusing on 1/6 and 2020, that basically evens out, and ironically, probably helps Biden more in the blue wall states of WI, MI, and PA.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I think the number of women and doctors who would both agree to say, in week 38, to randomly decide to do an abortion is basically zero, and basically all Republican-led abortion restrictions put far too many hoops in front of couples in the middle of the worst moments of their lives, just because of a lack of trust of women, doctors, and random religious beliefs.
As I think I've said before, actual European abortion laws (appx. 15-weeks plus exceptions you can drive a truck through) would probably be fine with a mass majority of the voting public. But, Republican's even when they claim they are, don't actually put forth France-style or German-style abortion laws, so that's led to a massive reversal in support for said 15-week abortion bans (they're now underwater in the US), and much increased support, with 55% noow believe women should be able to get an abortion if the woman wants it for any reason, up from 38% in 2006.
If there was some indication of some large numbers of women having abortions at 37 weeks willy-nilly, my view might be shifted, but even the case people like to trot out - Kermis Gosnell - was mainly women who only went to him, because of restrictions put upon earlier abortions that made it harder for those women to get them then. Obviously, still terrible what he did, but these women were not coming to him at week 37 going, "y'know, baby seems kind of a drag now."
There's a reason 90-something percent of abortion are in the first trimester, and even then, most of those in the 2nd trimester are more, "I didn't have enough money/time to wait out the state-mandated waiting period/etc." than "I decided 4 months in babies are no fun."
Outlaw83
1mo ago
It's easy to say that when you know you'll always be on the side of the 20:1.
Also, I just do think it's true. The smartest left-wing person with immense writing talent could show up here, and honestly, I don't think a single mind would be changed. Now, I know the response to that is, "that's just because progressivism/leftism/wokeism is such a weak ideology, that even a genius-level intellect can argue for it, and the only reason it wins today is the rich, powerful blah blah blah."
No, I think it's because most people here are right-wing. Which is fine to have solid views - God could come down from Earth, say, "actually, all abortion is evil according to your Creator, and all aborted babies end up in Limbo forever" and I'd say, "cool, I don't care. Sounds like you have a shitty ideology." But just admit that, instead of just being, "well, I've heard all the arguments and mine were the most logical and true."
That's the reason I only comment here to put forth the actual left-wing view on stuff, instead of the imagined one, to push back against obviously incorrect stuff, and stuff like this, where it's not really a political issue mostly,
Now, the other thing is, I don't get when it became conservative/right-wing/etc. dogma that liberalism means anybody can say anything anywhere and if you don't want to argue that issue or point, that's censorship and the death of liberalism. Like again, I'm almost middle aged. I've been arguing on the Internet for a long time - even in the early 2000's, there were still TOS and yes, they were maybe more free-wheeling than 2021 in what you thought Twitter was then, and obviously, some politics has shifted, but you could always get banned, and while people may have argued person x didn't deserve a ban, the argument was never, 'banning people is wrong and against free speech,' because even the right-wingers understood there were rules, and if they didn't like the rules, the door was over there. If mods went too far, obviously there'd be a mass dispersal, but the secret was, in most cases, most people who got banned deserved it.
I know the response will be 4chan and it's antecedents, but 4chan was always the place for edgy losers who couldn't follow the relatively loose standards of the Internet, and the fact the young Right is basically all 4-chan adjacent is probably why all decent youth polling still shows them as overwhelmingly left-leaning, because the alternative is the people who were seen as edgy weirdos in 2004, let alone 2024.
That's why even though I dislike it, I'm fine with Elon changing the rules on Twitter/X. Now, he's currently paying the price for it, because it turns out people don't like 'nudes in bio' bot responses, and all the other stuff that has bubbled up, but it's his house, his rules, as long as he's not breaking any other laws. Now, the way he has happily limited the free speech rights of certain groups when certain governments come calling makes him a hypocrite, but that's another story.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Sure, but if those parties had done what people here would've wanted on the pandemic, they would've likely lose elections in the 2020/2021 era, so at worst, they got three extra years in power, so they got to do what they likely thought was right, get celebrated for it politically, but then they lost as all politicians do.
Like, I know parts of this site likes to engage in conspiratorial-type thinking, but in reality, most politicians actually say and do what they believe on the big stuff. Poltiicians are actually far more honest today in 2024, worldwide, than they ever have been in history, because there's more feedback loops than anytime in history.
If you were a random Dixiecrat from North Carolina in 1966, you could go to DC, actually work well with your African-American colleagues in the Democratic party, vote for big-time spending bills that pushed a lot of money to inner cities, but also your district, then go back to your district, say some race-baiting stuff in some speeches, go to the opening of the bridge you got money for, slam the spending in Harlem, and easily win reelection, because nobody cares about a random House race in North Carolina.
Now, for good and ill, no politician can really pull that two step.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I guarantee you that almost every swing Tory-Labour in the UK, Liberal-Conservative in Canada, or Labour-National in the New Zealand hasn't suddenly decided COVID policies were the wrong way to go.
They think, "it was good we got checks and didn't go crazy like the American's did opening up so soon, but bad prices rose."
Meanwhile, part of the reason, outside of general two party dominance that despite his current not great approval ratings, Biden is still outpacing most other incumbent world leaders is because regardless of what the Right and Left both think, the economy is currently the best in the world and inflation is amongst the lowest.
He is a public figure, due to the coverage of what happened. Like, I'm sure there were parodies, TV films, and episodes of TV based off Scott & Laci Peterson. Those were not public figures initially either, and I'm sure not all of the above took great care, but they were OK. Ironically, if the right-wing press hadn't made such a martyr out of him, there'd be a slightly better case. Not enough to do anything about it, as 1st Amendment laws are fairly clear about this.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Then some of those kids either go to college, or go to a larger city, and become blue tribe, or some sort of lib (and by lib, I mean not a Red Triber who thinks they're a super oppressed group of people who need to commit violence to survive. They still might vote for Republican's, but they just grill and don't care if their neighbors are gay.)
As long as Red Tribe kids have Youtube or any sort of access to the global Internet, we can win them over, even by such simple things as, "oh hey, the people I were told are terrible human beings who must be destroyed seem normal and have some of the same interests I do," aka, why random beauty bloggers on Youtube who are lesbians probably did more to advance gay marriage among say, rural Nebraskans under 25 than any politician, school, or normal form of entertainment.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
I mean, that sounds like a problem with modern conservatism if their audience wants them to say things than get them sued.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
Yup - weirdly, the dumb politicians who have to appeal to the morons have kept the world much less violent than the ones with divine right ever pulled off. Probably, because even worse, the most corrupt politicians in a democratic society, no matter their ideology so pick your poison, can't get close to the amount of wealth by percentage kings held.
Even Trump, whose been the most openly corrupt President in ways that an ideological President's I dislike intensely would've never dreamed of is still only, a possible billionaire in a world of many billionaires.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
I mean, I'm somebody whose to the left of like, 95% of the population, and while I'm obviously not happy with the current situation, it's far better than it was ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. Now, when I was twenty, I was more upset, just like 20-year-olds are now. That's the job of 20-year-olds. But, you get older, and you don't change your views, you just get smarter about implementing them.
The kid gap is somewhat overrated, and even then, we'll just bring in more immigrants (totally legal and unionizable), who will end up voting left-leaning for a few generations because the Right's voting base will require their politicians to be mean to them.
Now, I don't think it's going to be a KO win for us on the left, just like radical abolitionists didn't get everything they wanted, nor did socialists in the 1910's, MLK or Malcolm, or various other left-leaning leaders. But, I think while everything is dangerous in the short term, in the medium and long-term, everything you just listed makes it incredibly difficult to actually have a unified political movement.
On a purely political level, I'll take the trade of 3 high-propensity middle to upper-middle class voters in the suburbs over a rural low propensity low to moderate-income voter not only because they're far more likelier to turn out, but because in 2023, they're far more likely to actually be more left-leaning on economics and social views. Hell, there are thousands of those voters that just made sure abortion will be legal in Wisconsin, and there might be something resembling legislative democracy on the state level as well, whom previously might have voted for Scott Walker a few times.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
I mean, the alternative is usually, people die out, and so do their views. Like, there used to be a major Anti-Masonry party in many states in the US. Nothing was really done on a national level to appease those people. It's just that their kids and grandkids didn't really care.
Same thing w/ interracial marriage. Well, there were obviously some shifts by people, if you look at Gallup polling, which goes back to World War II, you see a steady rise until the 80's, then a big jump during that time. Which makes sense - a lot of people who would've been in their 40's by time Civil Rights were a live issue (post-World War II/Humphrey convention speech/Truman desegregation) were dying off, and being replaced by a bunch of Gen Xers who were like 95/5 for interracial marriage.
Ironically, the only issue where the win condition has happened because of actual shifts in people's views, as opposed to generational rollover is gay marriage. Obviously, there was some bit of 85-year old gay marriage opponents being replaced by pro-gay marriage 18 year olds, but the shift happened too quickly to be that.
But yeah, in another generation and a half or so, most of the current Fox News audience/Trump base is going to be worm food. At that point, just like the Right stopped with the overt racism, sexism, etc. in the 70's and 80's to win over younger voters (including winning the youth vote in '84 and '88), the GOP will either have to figure out how to appeal to a largely currently Democratic voting-base (again, yes, Millennial's are voting at lower rates for Democrat's than they did in 2008, but if I remember right, it's about D+8. That's still death for the GOP if the largest voting bloc is even D+4 or D+5, when the smaller, younger voting blocks are even more D-leaning), or they do actually die, outside of the Senate seats they'll hold in depopulating states, and then things get interesting.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
The difference is, yes, actually if you go to some very conservative parts of the Midwest or still heavily Catholic partts of rural Texas, I'd actually bet you're right. I disagree heavily with those people's likely politics, but I don't doubt that most of them arre following the tenets of their religion. The problem is, those aren't the people on Twitter complaining about women having too many partners in college, but rather, it's basically dudes who spend too much time on Twitter that decided the sexual revolution was the reason why they didn't have a cute 19 year old to marry when they finished college (when the reality was, they'd be out of luck in 1962 as well).
Outlaw83
1yr ago
That's people who work for those companies, not the companies themselves.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
Speaking personally, I'm not that worried about Andrew Tate. Partly because a lot of what Tate says was far more mainstream only a few decades ago, just in a slightly different language, and second of all, Tate's audience isn't 20-something incels. It's horny 14 & 15 years olds. Now, as a former horny 14-year-old boy, of course, they're frustrated.
But, the reality is, most of these 14-year-old boys will have some sort of relationship in high school. Guess what, once the option is a makeout session/handjob/etc. or continuing to watch Tate or some other dumb streamer, guess what the horny teenage boy is going to choose? Like, it's obviously not great, but I don't think it's the crisis people think it is.
No, like JD Vance & Josh Hawley have ideas, too. They're dumb ones, but they do.
But, folks like Tuberville, MTG, Boebert, and the rest of the newly arriving Trumpian Senators and Representatives just don't. Like, at the top of each party, the knowlesge level is similar, bu even the most down the line hacky Democratic politician could tell you a decent amount about their pet policy, whether it's ya' know, health care or child care or taxes or whatever.
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