Outlaw83
1yr ago
If it's true the Grossberg lawsuit is the reason for Tucker's firing - (there's also a LA Times story that Rupert thought Tucker's 1/6 coverage might get them in trouble), it proves that the Right needs to learn that yes, you can probably make "cancellable" statements about minorities in a college-educated conservative-leaning workplace, because any minorities who work in such a place aren't going to be upset about it or they'll just agree.
OTOH, making jokes about which female Governor candidate you'd rather have sex with is likely to upset even otherwise quite conservative women at that said workplace, because even in a right-wing space to the right of much of the nation, the median conservative woman is still going to be upset about openly sexual comments like that. 1960's/1970's feminism - aka, I can have my own job, financial independence, not getting fired for getting pregnant, and freedom from open sexism in the workplace is basically believed by 90% of women in the US.
The Right needs to learn this, or they'll keep ending up in the same place.
Outlaw83
5mo ago
So, there was some talk in this thread (or the previous one) about why the Israel/Palestine issue is such a big one in progressive circles, as opposed to country x, y, or z. Well, there were some decent historical and cultural explanations, I think one reason that really didn't get brought up is because there's actual disagreement within the wider left-leaning coalition is why there's more fire, on both sides.
So, as an actual progressive Democratic partisan, let me explain a bit.
Putting aside actual tankies or the 11 Lieberman Democrats left, if you put the median Bernie & the median Biden primary voter in 2020, and had them talk foreign policy, there would be wide agreement - Iraq was a mistake, we were in Afghanistan too long, Russia is bad and Ukraine needs our defense, but American foreign policy has been too hawkish in general, and so on. So, there's no spice, outside of the occasional Twitter dunk of somebody who had a bad take on Iraq in 2004, but even that's kind of hackish and old news to most Democratic voters at this point.
But, there would be actual disagreement on Israel & Palestine, especially if both sides were intelligent median voters because it's an actual complicated issue. At the moment, polling shows the median Democratic voter view is along the lines of, "the Israeli government are a-holes, Hamas is terrible, and the hostages need to be released, but Jesus, the IDF seems to be going overboard on this, and oh yeah, the surrounding governments are full of instigators."
Now, the more progressive voter would be more harsh on the Israeli government, more friendly to the Palestinian population, and so on, but the polling that showed 50/50 support for Israel vs Hamas among younger voters, was likely bad polling. The reason why Democratic views used to be more pro-Israel, is because the Israeli population used to reflect a more liberal view of the conflict, and now it really doesn't, plus wider changes in the makeup of the Democratic coalition.
Finally, the "but Palestinians have bad views on x, why do you support them," is a bad argument, because as progressives, we believe even terrible have the right to vote, and self-government. Only letting people with the right views (or the right amount of land ownership) is the reactionary view. Now, if said Palestinian government passes anti-LGBT laws or whatever, then we'll treat them like we do other countries with no leverage on us - sanctions and such until they embrace the loving arms of deviancy, or whatever.
In the long run, if this is all old news by Election Day 2024, it'll likely be forgotten, and more importantly, the vast majority of even young SJW left-wing Democratic voters are self-centered voters, like 95% of all voters, and will be reminded that Trump wants to put more reactionaries on the court, cut taxes for rich people, limit trans right, etc, make student loan payments higher, et al, and vote accordingly. I'd make a $1 bet w/ anybody here, that as long as the Israeli situation is basically back to some form of status quo, there will be no real movement of the youth vote, or a lack of turnout, beyond the lack of turnout there always is.
After all, Gretchen Whitmer actually lost ground among Muslim voters in 2022 in her re-election campaign (probably due to LGBT issues), but won by wider margin. Which is the only real trouble spot for the Biden team in 2024, since they literally do not care if some college-educated 2nd gen Muslim immigrant in Los Angeles doesn't vote.
Standard Disclaimer: Yes, lots of people are dumb, and will have simple reasons, and weird views.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
It's not so much the media doesn't care about white victims - it's that the African-American community is organized in such a way that if somebody gets shot by the police, somebody in that family knows a pastor or a community organizer who knows another pastor or a local politician who knows somebody reasonably famous or a prominent journalist to get it out there.
Meanwhile, probably half of the white victims' own family will back the cops over the victim.
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
3mo ago
Basically, nobody on the Internet supported Joe Biden, but he was the Democratic nominee easily.
I'm not saying Haley is going to do that, but the loud online people are all Trumpian, just like the loud people online in 2020 were all Bernie supporters. It's just Trump also has more support among the rest of the party.
Haley at say, 20% is not a shocking number, and ending up at say, 35-40% in New Hampshire, a very moderate state that Haley is putting a lot of time into wouldn't be surprising at all. So, a few outlier polls currently showing her within 5 or 10 in New Hampshire aren't out of line.
I also think you're likely in your own bubble. The type of people who support Haley, are likely not on media you show, or in areas where you are. Also, NYT polling isn't polling NYT readers, it's usually polling people who watched the debate.
But, as somebody else noticed, the type of person who likely supports Haley at the moment is a combination of college-educated center-right voters, normie suburban voters, and such, that for obvious reasons, don't mention their politcal beliefs on the Internet a lot, because they'll get called RINO's by most of the party, but also are too conservative to ever be Democrat's.
Outlaw83
19d ago
Let's be honest here - nobody is censored here, but it turns out, people don't like arguing 20-on-1 anywhere in society, regardless of ideology. Which is true of left-leaning spaces as well, for conservatives. But, well, those spaces don't do the whole "we're not censoring viewpoints" thing, they just say forthrightly, 'yeah, this is a place for people who agree on x, y, and z. Like it or leave.'
Outlaw83
1yr ago
Yup, there's always these polls that show "x of professors used to be Republicans in y year, but now..." when I can guarantee you that most professors who were still registered as Republican in say, 1980, hadn't voted for a Republican since maybe, Nixon, the first time, and were only registered Republican's because of weird ethnic coalitional politics where they grew up, or being in one of the weird places where the GOP were the more left-leaning party (like say, the South, and that's even kind of questionable).
Put it this way, the amount of Reagan-voting professors in 1980 is probably similar to the amount of Trump-voting professors in 2022.
Also, as noted, there are a lot of moderate professors who'd vote for a center-right European party that was liberal socially, but I suppose most of the people upset about woke professors wouldn't be too happy about that either.
Finally, the culture war, as far as "cancel culture" or "trans issues" go are low salience issues, even for GOP voters, as seen in midterm exist polls. In reality, it's the bugaboo of general right-wing social reactionaries, and centrists stuck in D+50 urban areas. Yes, if you're a standard-issue centrist Dem who works at a college or in media, you're probably annoyed by what the woke kids want to do. But, be like Matt Yglesias or Jonathan Chait, and complain enough online about them that they get annoyed by you, while also writing a lot about how Ron DeSantis voted a lot to cut Social Security & Medicare, and that Republican's still want to ban abortion, as opposed to spending all your time on the woke thing of the moment.
Even CRT/school closures as an issue, is kind of sketchy - people point to 2021 and Virginia, but if you really look into things, voting patterns show the standard drop in voting for everybody as is standard for off-year VA Governor elections, except for 70+ voters, which tells me the CRT thing was a bugaboo to older conservative voters, and that's about it. Even DeSantis and his massive win, is more accurately connected to general shifts in Florida's population (big increase in Venezuelan refugees + more older conservatives from midwes states moving in + COVID "refugees) + DeSantis doing non-conservative things (like using ARP money to raise teacher salaries + broadly supported environmental protections + not f'ng up post-hurricane) + as a bonus, the anti-woke stuff + a massive drop in turnout among Democratic voters. I forget the exact numbers, but only 80% of Democrat's turned out in 2022 compared to 2018, while 107% of Republican's did, and that's not all changes in voting registration.
Now, personally, as a leftie, I'm actually kind of OK w/ Florida becoming a Republican vote sink. Yes, all right-leaning people, upset about your woke swing state, move to Tampa. Upset Michigan has a Democratic trifecta, hit the road to West Palm Beach. Pennsylvania not banning abortion got you down? Panama Beach is looking lovely.
Outlaw83
6mo ago
Mark Levin has a radio show that lots and lots of people still listen to (1.5 million daily was the most correct-seeming number from a quick Google, but it could be an over or underestimate), especially the type of right-leaning person who still buys books (old people), while RH mostly gets into arguments on Twitter, has a successful Substack, but really has little reach in normie land.
I think sometimes people forget that because of things like Substack, Patreon, etc., somebody can have a very healthy living, while not having much reach. Like, I don't knoe his Substack numbers, but he could have a healthy six-figure income, and have an audience of basically nothing, politically.
Outlaw83
7mo 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
1yr ago
"This is coming from a group of hucksters that have been proven to be lying multiple times," and then link to the various takedowns. Sure, it won't convince right-wing entertainers on Twitter or anti-vax folks, but Pfizer doesn't care about that.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
Hell, we had the supreme court justice primarily selected on her identity
This is always the worst example people who dislike affirmative action bring up. First, the idea that there are specific seats for various ethnic groups or genders or whatever has been true of the Supreme Court since the early 20th century when there was a Jewish seat. In addition, there's no actual way to determine whose the best qualified person to be a Supreme Court Justice, outside of personal political beliefs, and if there are a few dozen people who'd basically vote the same, there's no reason to not try to diversify things.
Outlaw83
19d 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
25d ago
As a leftist/social democratic, there are no puppet masters. It's always weird when people assume the other side are these insane puppet master, wielding superpowers that can't be stopped. The left was like this for a long time as well, and it was annoying then. Karl Rove wasn't some Sith Lord, he was just pretty good at his job.
Like guys, there is no secret decoder ring. If anything, we on the left complain about how bad we're at politics as much as you guys do, because neither side thinks they're winning.
it would have been 2008 with Trump taking the L for COVID happening in his watch just like 2008 was a blowout
I'm always interested when people assume this - in every other country, regardless of ideology, the incumbent leadership gained a huge advantage, and many of them won big electoral victories. Now, inflation and other issues have run some of those politicians aground, but in 2020, they were all very popular. The only reason Trump didn't get that was not that the left would not give him any credit (see various Republican governors who had insanely high approval ratings during COVID), it's he did a terrible job, outside of the one thing his base now hates (Operation Warp Speed).
I do think a non-COVID 2020 election would've been interesting, because Trump would've had a good economy, but it was basically just the late-era Obama economy continuing, there would've been no checks going out to low-info voters, and many things people on this forum like Trump that normies don't would've been a bigger deal. I also think there might've been a bigger move among the center-right to basically sit out things, especially the people who got radicalized by COVID and then supported Trump/DeSantis/etc. harder than they would've before.
I don't mean famous people, but the owner of a HVAC company in suburban Michigan whose kind of annoyed by Trump, dislikes immigration, but also dislikes that he tired to repeal Obamacare, but hated that the country was shut down, and like the PPP loan he got. Without the latter, maybe he doesn't vote for Biden, but does he turn out for Trump?
Outlaw83
3mo ago
Iran & Saudi Arabia are having big drops in fertility. The only places that aren't are Israel (who has a national story about being attacked on all sides) and some very poor African countries. That's it.
You can educate women + have accessible modern medicine or you can have high fertility. That's it. It's not society or anything else, it's that it turns out the number of women who become even mildly educated and want to have lots of children isn't that large.
Outlaw83
19d ago
I don't think it's always duplicitous, but I think anybody who seriously thinks the reason why this place is more right-leaning is some belief that in a free and open debate with nobody limiting it, the right-leaning argument wins is kind of lying to themselves, when in reality, the way the right wins these supposedly open spaces is saying enough things that trigger basically the fight or flight part of people's minds.
I'm a nearing middle-aged white guy, so the silly to frankly, terrible things said in this forum brush off my back, but a lot of the current left are basically and I say this in descriptive way, The Other - single women, minorities, immigrants, non-straight people, etc. So yeah, I can see why many people if in a community where what they think is open racism/sexism/bigotry against them is accepted, they say bye, and leave that community. Some people will hang around and still fight, but the reality is, most black people in 1960's America didn't have to argue about whether they deserved to use the same bathrooms as white people, and likely would've left any group arguing that. Obviously, not zero, but most people aren't argumentative weirdos like we are.
So yeah, the general tilt of any community will eventually become more of that, one way or the other. Also, in many cases (this isn't true here), there's a silent majority that's not as extreme, but also are effected by the community. YT comments section are kind of a perfect example - in a lot of cases, they're utterly rancid, no matter the topic, even when a creator doesn't want that. Because somebody whose basic belief about a YT video is, "that was all right," isn't going to post.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
No, Trump is legitimately popular among the base. WTA delegate rules are dumb, though.
But, by "party scheming," you mean Obama called up people and said, "hey, sure seems you all agree with each other, so support Joe since he's our best shot." Like, Twitter joked about moderate voltron when MSNBC did it in polling, then was very mad when it happened. The Iowa & SC is just whining - the number of people shifted by Pete "winning" as opposed to Bernie couldn't fill up a Starbucks, and again, yes, you have to appeal to actual voters in a state to win, and guess what in South Carolina, that's the supposed "uneducated" black voters.
That just shows, and I say this, as a left-wing social democrat, how united the moderate wing was, and how weak and divided the left-wing of the party was, and how much a failure Bernie was, when between 2016 & 2020, he lost support in many working class areas he'd won in 2016 and failed to reach out to black voters in the South, that he needed to win.
Also, by fundamental calendar changes, you mean, making more contests actual democratic primaries instead of weird caucuses, yeah, they did that, and that was a good thing if you think the party nominee should actually have popular support.
The actual problem dead-enders who still think Bernie was screwed over don't get is that a lot of people like Bernie, but they liked Biden too, but they made a choice they thought Biden had a better chance of winning.
The median Bernie voter is the girl from this news story - (https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/10/19/boston-woman-dunkies-fenway-voting-video/) - who said she was voting for Joe Biden. She said she would’ve voted for Bernie Sanders but “it’s a team sport," not upset doomer blackpilled folks on Twitter.
I say this all as somebody who voted for Bernie twice, but both times, saw massive flaws in how he and his team were approaching the primary, including his manager saying all they needed to worry about was winning 1/3 of the vote.
Outlaw83
25d 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.
Outlaw83
7mo ago
The difference is, in the US, for a long time, you didn't need your ID in most places, and calls for ID's only came when a certain group of people began voting in far higher numbers.
Now, personally, I'd be fine w/ voter ID, as long as it was a national ID, given out for free, sent out as an update to your SS card.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
'I will say that everybody on that show seems to be a lot gayer than is statistically reflected in society,'
So people say this about a lot of recent shows, and that may be true, but the question is, is it true of the people currently being shown on-screen? After all, a majority of people under 30 aren't white, LGBT identification is surging among young people as well, and so on.
So yes, if you have a show centered on say, a small town in rural Iowa, there shouldn't be that many gay or non-white people. But, if you're making a show in a city in 2023, if you're even close to the demographics of people under 30 in that city, it's going to seem "woke" to anybody watching from the outside.
Now, the TLOU is a slightly different thing, but the representation that's being used was part of the original game for the most part AFAIK, so if you hated the changes to The Witcher, you should be OK w/ what's being done to stay current with TLOU.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
I mean, ironically, in most super blue districts you're talking about, they actually shifted a couple of points to the right (from like 95-5 to 92-8) because of the shift in the non-college educated minority vote.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
When it comes to stats like this, I think people are missing two obvious possibilities -
1.) The data is just bad
2.) Men and women's definition of relationship are different. So, yes, the dude that has a FWB he smokes pot with and watches Netflix before having sex isn't a relationship, but she isn't dating anybody else, and they hang out regularly so...
Also, he whole "they're all dating older men" argument could be figured out, by just looking at the data, because if it's true the women are just dating older, there'd eventually be gaps between men and women, where men would have the advantage. I'm going to guess that the worry all the 33 year olds are dating the 22 year olds isn't really true. Some 26 year olds might be, but that's been what happens even in the 90's.
Hell, in 1993, I'd actually bet more 18 year old high school senior girls had sex with adult males than in 2023.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
The fact we can be so unserious, yet still rule the world just shows how powerful we are. We can talk about the Avengers, then drop decades old tech in the DOD equivalent of the backyard shed and basically ruin Russia's ability to make progress.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
The actual long-term issue for the anti-woke is how long will the centrists deal with the excesses and weirdness of the right they're currently allied with. It's one thing to talk about you're uncomfortable with puberty blockers, girls' sports, or whatever, but are fine with adult transistion, use people's chosen pronouns and names, etc., how long are you going to put up with statements from right-wing evanglicals they want to ban even adult gender affirming care to get what you want to be done.
Now, yes, there will be a group of people who are radicalized enough on this issue they're fine, and even begin agreeing more with the Matt Walsh's of the world, on the overall issue, but the reality is, if you're in general, a center-left to centrist liberal, and unlike some people on Twitter and Substack who make money off it, you're spending your own time about this, how long until you just give up, especially if your kids are exiting high school and college themselves, and it you get tired of trying to explain why you're on the same side of people who talk about groomers, but who also want to double check menstrual cycles and the genitals of teens, because half a dozen trans kids in your state want to compete.
Same thing w/ other woke issues - because actually, even 'normal' conservatives don't care about the issue that much, as seen in post-midterm exit polling, so the people who do care are kind of weirdos about it. This is a general issue w/ the GOP at this point and part of the reason why they lost the midterms. They looked likee the weirdos obsessed with stuff you only know about if you're on Twitter and/or watch Fox News or OANN all the time. Your median voter is like, "litter boxes in schools? What - I'm worried about inflation and that you want to ban abortion. I think the Democrats are spending too much money, but at least I understand what the hell they want to spend money on."
This is also why I'm not that scared of DeSantis - he'll talk about Disney, AP College Board classes, and M&M's, an Biden will say, "OK, what I care about is what most American's care about - Social Security & Medicare, that while in Congress, Governor DeSantis voted for cut x times, while supporting massive tax cuts for the rich blah blah blah." If DeSantis is really dumb, he'll also pass a six-week abortion ban as well, as he's stayed he'd be open too.
Outlaw83
24d 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.
The people who will stop Chinese hypersonic missiles will be, and I am only slightly being hyperbolic, are trans furry military members in some bunker in Nevada piloting drones or other military gear, not some guy who signed up for reasonable reasons like access to college or career training or the darker reasons.
We already saw this in Ukraine - lots of hype over the true non-woke military, and it's regularly getting shredded by missiles that are largely being guided by a they/them army.
The actual thing that'll probably stop Chinese hypersonic missiles is a combination of they probably don't really exist in the way that anti-woke people hype them up online in the obsessive way they tend too, a corrupt Chinese procurement process that makes the US process look clean and normal, and the fact we've probably got stuff we're working on that we don't have to hype up the way the Chinese do to look strong.
More options
Context Copy link