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The "randos who said it" included Donald Trump - who became a GOP higher up when he was nominated for President. Both Trump's popularity with the anti-establishment right and his extreme unpopularity with the pro-establishment left (and large parts of the pro-establishment right) start here. When Obama published his birth certificate, Trump claimed the credit for making him do it. Per Wikipedia, Trump didn't publicly acknowledge that was a US citizen until September 2016 - i.e. after fighting the Republican primary as an ambiguously-repentant birther.
Falsely claiming that a major party candidate is ineligible is an attack on American democracy. The GOP primary electorate nominated Trump despite (definitely) or because of (probably) his willingness to do it anyway. Trump's base within the GOP is people who think that Democrats always cheat, that they get away with it because the GOP establishment are cucks, and that Republicans should cheat back harder. This is more obvious post-Jan 6 than it was then, but Trump's opponents brought receipts in 2016.
Fundamentally, the scary thing about Trump is that he behaves as if American elections are kayfabe on top of an underlying system of raw power politics, and his supporters love him for it. If American elections really are kayfabe, this makes him someone who breaks kayfabe and gets away with it, which any wrestling promoter knows can destroy the franchise. If you think that American elections are not in fact kayfabe, then he is the worst threat to American democracy since elections really were rigged in 1960's Illinois. In either case, he needs to be stopped.
Oh come on, tone down the drama. Such claims existed long before. Exhibit 1: https://www.sethkaller.com/item/1415-23425-Claims-that-First-Republican-Presidential-Candidate-is-Foreign-Born-&-Ineligible&from=12
That's 1856. Somehow, the American Democracy (R) (TM) has survived this attack, which can't be called the worse since Pearl Harbor or the Civil War only because it predates both.
So, he behaves as if what significant part of his electorate believes and observes is true - is true? What a scoundrel! The norm for a candidate is to pretend he cares about his electorate, and then once elected, wear a nice tuxedo or dress, show up at gala receptions, get the appropriate pork allocations from taxpayer's money and otherwise not rock the boat.
Now you're starting to get it. This franchise is no longer serving the people that are supposedly their clients (an apt metaphor, because most entertainment franchises, such as ones of Hollywood, also moved on from serving the people to serving a tiny sliver of increasingly bizarre elite critics) - so it's time to break some things.
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This is begging the question. The only way to determine the truth of the claim is to make the challenge. McCain's eligibility was challenged, falsely as it turns out, and Democracy seemed to survive.
Obama published a certified copy of his birth certificate, authenticated by the State of Hawaii, in 2008. Trump was pushing birtherism in 2011-2, when "falsely" is appropriate.
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It's pretty strange to see so much discussion here about why liberals hate Trump - a lot of "sore loser" theory - without Democrats or progressives pushing back on why they think he's particularly norm-breaking.
It actually makes me worry about the skew of this site and if we left a lot of left-wingers back on Reddit.
It's not just that "Trump wasn't supposed to win". He violated a lot of norms - not just red and blue norms like unconditional support for the nominee - starting with not releasing his taxes and escalating to things like playing footsie with not acknowledging the outcome of the election.
THIS was the particular red rag that was theoretically avoidable by a generic GOP candidate (as opposed to being anti-immigration - or rather: anti-some immigration)
There is obviously a thing where liberals (this can be of the left AND right variety - especially if you look at Europe) conflate their particular politics with democracy and freedom as such - which is how things like populism, Brexit, being anti-immigrant all end up being marked as "dangerous" or threats to freedom - but, in this case, Trump tied the connection himself.
We don't even need to look at the lib reaction - look at some of Tucker's leaked texts from the Dominion case if you think this reaction is purely lib derangement at a "blue collar billionaire".
There aren't very many Democrats or progressives on this forum and I'd hazard to guess most of them view trying to push back to be a waste of time - most of these arguments have been re-litigated dozens of times since Trump's presidency and the assumptions gap has been found to be unbridgeable.
This is likely true. But as a progressive Democrat myself, I wonder how many people here are like me in that I don't particularly want to push back but rather read and learn. It's pretty easy to see countless arguments that Donald Trump is a particularly norm-breaking POTUS practically everywhere I look, but it's harder to see arguments of the "sore loser" theory, especially any good or strong versions of those arguments. A large part of my motivation in reading posts in this forum is to see such things in the hopes that they actually challenge my biased perspective on various CW issues including Donald Trump, in the hopes that I can form a more accurate view of them.
For this particular issue, what I'd most prefer to see is a progressive Democrat make a case for the "sore loser" theory and a MAGA Republican make a case for the "Trump was a particularly norm-breaking POTUS in a way that was genuinely dangerous to democracy" theory, not out of charity but out of genuine, heartfelt belief. Because those are the arguments that I would find the most credible and most valuable for triangulating the actual truth of the matter. Unfortunately, such people don't seem to be particularly available, and so I want to see the strongest version of the theory I personally find distasteful or wrong on a visceral level, which is the "sore loser" theory.
I am a progressive Democrat myself, and I feel similar to you in terms of reading and learning. I myself have very little interest in “pushing back”; I find it would be absolute waste of time, and likely why you won’t find the discourse you are looking for. In my opinion, the value of a forum like this is that it allows progressives, at least such as myself, to observe a rich diversity of right-winged thinking to identify the more insidious and subtle dogwhistles indicating the traits of a conservative, so one may steer clear of them in IRL interactions.
Wow, this would have felt vaguely intimidating a few years ago, but now it's just funny. You guys really are losing your juju.
Is this type of discourse approved by the mods?
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In my younger years, I would have thought that this sort of intentional closing off to other perspectives was definitionally antithetical to progressivism, but I must admit that my own cynicism about the supposed tenets of progressivism has grown in the past decade or so. I personally try to hew to the tenets of progressivism and expose myself to such conservatives in IRL interactions as much as I can (which, to be fair, is very low due to the physical location in which I reside, where IRL conservatives are about as common as a zebra/unicorn hybrid), but I do understand now that different progressives understand progressivism differently from me.
As I understand it, progressivism cannot exist alongside conservatism, because all of the progress done by the former will always be challenged by the latter. I think I have been open to those perspectives for a majority of my life and once possessed them myself, but when I realized I was at the point where I was sadly conceding that my future husband would inevitably cheat on me, or at least want to cheat, because I would get older and his nature would have him seek younger women with better childbearing hips, I figured I didn't need to be open to that kind of stuff anymore.
Anecdotally as well, where you find conservatives a rare breed where you live, the opposite is true for me. It is rare for me to find a progressive here.
This is almost the exact opposite of my understanding of progressivism and conservatism. Progressivism must exist alongside conservatism because the progress done by the former will always be challenged by the latter. Every ideology must be challenged in order for that ideology to be strengthened and corrected by attack from its strongest opponents, with the weakest and most harmful parts of that ideology not surviving that contact, which only benefits that ideology. Any ideology that must have its opponents not exist is one that is also a totalitarian dogmatic religion, and I don't believe progressivism is one. Subjecting one's ideology to its opponents is the basic scientific way of approaching ideology, which, again, I used to think was what progressivism was all about. Again, over the years, I've certainly become more cynical about how progressive people view progressivism, but I've personally tried to keep by the tenets myself.
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While I find the sentiment of maximizing the purity of your social bubble somewhat loathsome, in this instance I would be entirely content providing you as much assistance on this front as I could. I even think that I could do this in good conscience, given that your stated premise is to
The rules I have, personally, for total removal of an individual from my life before I even know them have been invoked a few times in my life, but not often enough that I feel the need to nervously genuflect towards the Paradox of Tolerance when I do.
That said your somewhat duplicitous presence would lead to my wondering whether your [statistically likely presence somewhere along the chain of decision-makers in the hiring/firing process, for instance] motives in this are entirely pure, or at least not intended to cause real, actual harm to real, actual people while offline. Could you please tell me if the stakes being there was a consideration to you, when you wrote this comment?
Would you consider asking yourself as well, if coding "right-wing" to danger or at least avoidance isn't just coding class-signals (your presumed outgroup) as political?
I sincerely don’t know what “coding class signals as political” means, otherwise I would answer that question.
I believe you are asking, “Would I not hire someone if I knew they were conservative?” To answer that, I would, yes. I believe conservative ideology is incredibly abusive to both the believer and those associated with them. My evidence for this belief is partially anecdotal; every single conservative I have ever known in my life (to include myself at one point) my mother and father, my brothers, my grandparents, my boss, my coworkers, my boyfriend’s sisters, brothers and parents, and his friends hurt themselves and others around them as the expectations social conservatism puts on them clashes with their wants and desires and causes untold amounts of emotional discomfort, immaturity and agitation. I have my own objective evidence as well, but that would be too long to list for this response.
I personally trust the judgement of someone who believes in social conservatism to be so significantly impaired that yes, if somewhere down the line I were to find two applicants were equally qualified but one attended their college’s Turning Point club and the other did not, I would find the former to be a potential emotional, physical and ethical danger to my employees. I would worry they would say hurtful things to their coworkers, disrespect the authority of their supervisors and use workplace equipment incorrectly.
If you are asking me if I would hurt a conservative in real life when you say “real harm”, no. I believe social conservatism was partially born from poor emotional regulation being met with hostility and pain, and responding with more pain is not constructive.
I think it's likely you are confusing the urban/suburban/rural cultural divides with political allegiance: while these things map to each other to a degree, these are far more likely to signal class allegiance as opposed to political (e.g. "conservative", "progressive"). Since we're discussing anecdata, I happen to know a great many pro-lgbt, pro-public healthcare, pro-prison reform, all around fairly leftwing types who also exhibit every sign you likely find repulsive (religiosity, "traditional" families, regularly hunting every autumn, drives a pickup truck daily for no reason). These are overwhelmingly lower class markers, not political. In fact there's almost no commonality whatsoever between the "cultural" practices of members belonging to any given political group, these commonalities are far more accurately mapped onto stuff like Red Tribe/Blue Tribe, lower/middle/upper class. If you've (perhaps) had trouble figuring out just why the chuds voted against their interest in 2016, perhaps view it through the lens of "the proletariat sending a message to the petit bourgeois". Hopefully this helps you understand my meaning, I wasn't attempting to be cryptic and apologize for not making myself more clear.
Thank you for answering, it's pleasing to see my assumptions born out by reality, at least so far as this place is a reflection of it. How do you reconcile your overt and clearly stated reactionary behavior and bigotry, that appears of the same order (if perhaps a differing flavor) with what you proclaim to despise? It's hardly an original observation, but could you please tell me where and how your desired institutional discrimination differs from historical redlining, women being unable to vote or legally own property, or exclusion of lgbt from marriage/adoption/surrogacy? Or that this discrimination will catch only bad actors and not simply the poor, working and lower classes?
This is not a gotcha to be clear, I find quite literally everything you've said to be objectionable but I'm genuinely curious what your worldview is that consolidates and synthesizes what appear to me to be contradictions and am hoping for an explanation. Or do you simply not feel that these are contradictions, and that conservatives are so uniquely repugnant and valueless as a group their ultimate extinction (not via murder or violence of any kind of course, just the inexorable push over a generation or two down and out of our shared world) is a net benefit to society?
I think that you and I have differing thresholds for what we consider "harm". I think someone being denied the opportunity to fulfill their natural talents or chosen course in life, not by insurmountable failure or poor fortune, but rather by a conscious and conscientious human being deliberately putting their finger on the scales to be harmful. Consider that others may share my definition of harm, and that some quantity of the hostility you see might be a normative reaction from fairly standard-issue human beings towards perceived contempt and deliberate depredations. Consider that the Morlocks also know how to read, and have recognized, rightly or wrongly, the parallel between your course of action and the UN definition of genocide, specifically Article II.c. Consider that someone otherwise entirely sympathetic to your motivations and lived experience would still look at your proposed course of action and consider you "a baddie".
I know you've stated already that you aren't interested in discussion or debate (here, at least) so if you don't want to respond then feel free to ignore me, I won't take it personally and am happy to indulge your wishes.
Bonus points:
You and I may be in agreement with your direction on this specific example, if not your destination. Mere attendance isn't quite the mortal sin to me as it would seem to be for you, however.
I do think conservatives are uniquely repugnant, and therefore do not consider discrimination against them bigotry, much less in a similar vein as sexism and homophobia. I reconcile this because, unlike homosexuality, poverty, sex and gender, conservatism is a choice. What you consider bigotry, I consider to be consequences. I do not think someone who chooses to be anti-authoritarian, bigoted and dishonest is a good employee for a workplace, although I sympathize that emotional abuse is a lifelong damage people suffer from, and I try to, as they say, separate the sin from the sinner. However I believe the good news is they have the ability, unlike gays, women and the poor, to change their status down the line to find a job they really want, or find someone who doesn’t care, or to actually change their mind. Therefore I would disagree as well that my motivations lie in genocide, because conservatism is not an immutable trait. In your link, genocide is defined as “in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”. Unless conservatism is a religion or a nationality, it fits none of those descriptions.
I do not believe the people you know who are “fairly leftwing” are also “traditional” and are more likely in my opinion casual conservatives, because “traditional” families (AKA gender roles) set misogynistic and misandrist expectations for everyone involved, and sexism is not a tenant of progressivism (but is of conservatism). I know myself plenty of self-described liberals who spout misandry (and therefore reveal their misogyny) - I do not consider them to be liberals. I also do not consider religion, hunting and pickups repulsive, although I do consider traditionalism to be. Almost all of the conservatives in my life I have known have not been rural - they live in the city or suburbs, with the exceptions of my aunt, grandmother, and a family friend. So I disagree with you there are no commonalities between the culture practices of conservatives, because I have seen a farmer in Minnesota and a mayor of an affluent neighborhood and a divorced mom of two in the neighborhood ask me the same questions and have the same responses and be just as nauseating to try to converse with.
I have known no trouble understanding why “the chuds” and the city folks and the suburbias voted against their interests - because they ate Fox News every morning for breakfast and the Drudge Report for lunch and more Fox News for dinner and found a man who represented their emotional immaturity born from generational abuse kickstarted by the Industrial Revolution. I believe they wanted a man to reenact the abusive nature of their lives, and a person like Trump was bound to come along eventually.
If someone was entirely sympathetic to my motivations and lived experience, then they would also agree with my desires. It is the common good for everyone that social conservatism, much like institutional Civil War era slavery, is no longer tolerated by civilized societies, and is socially ostracized. Such as, for example, Turning Point. I do not believe that organization has anything useful to say, and so I find the motivations for why someone would want to listen to useless things dubious, unless they found it useful.
I am not interested in discussion and debate insofaras I have no expectation that my arguments will be met in good faith much less intellectual honesty and so will not put in extra effort into replying to a post that engages me.
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That's a rather cynical way of viewing things, but you do you. So long as you can be sure not to consider any other perspectives, and most importantly to "steer clear of them in 'in real life' interactions". Something, something, "ATM machine".
I feel it is unfortunate you find it cynical, as I find it to be rather optimistic. I am quite sure I have considered other perspectives, and have found them, in charitable terms, to be utterly fruitless. I believe my overall peace increased and my confusion decreased when I stopped giving my time to conversations which I found ultimately proved unconstructive. As a result, I like to think my capacity for mercy and forgiveness increased with my overall contentment, and where my previous necessary interactions with conservatives was, I’d say, entirely hostile, now I believe it is far more constructive when viewed from a lens of what I consider to be compassion. But I find I can only retain such compassion in the company of conservatives IRL by restricting my company with them to absolutely minimum - sans my one guilty pleasure of commenting on here.
I don't have much to say to your response, other than to say that it strikes me as shockingly condescending and naive. Hopefully life experience will help you grow out of the arrogant perspective you seem to have adopted.
I find your last sentence to be especially uncharitable and antagonistic. Is this type of discourse approved by the mods?
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I didn’t want to litigate all the reasons I think he’s a defector, a criminal, and personally disagreeable. Partly because it’s very clear that the OP starts from different axioms. Partly because I wanted to talk about what happens after someone is convinced that he’s a personal enemy.
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Why? What's so worrying about it?
Also, how do you maintain your faith in democracy in the light of all the madness we could observe over the last 10 years?
Because I don't want to be in an echo chamber - which splinter-sites of witches like this can be. It felt like the original motte was skeptical of a lot of woke points (since naturally wokes had a billion subreddits to hang around out) but you still got a pushback and back and forth. It is concerning if we've lost a lot of those people in the move.
Here we have a question of "why was Trump - the most polarizing figure in recent memory - hated?" and most of the answers seem to flow in one direction, as if it's obvious.
It's quite possible I'm just wrong and it is obvious. But it's concerning that something so divisive seems to swing in one direction.
EDIT: And yes, the fact that it's cutting against me may play a role. It's natural to not want to be outnumbered.
Easy: I don't.
I think most of the main points are still present. Perhaps in a more autistic neutral way.
The big difference is on Reddit you would have one conservative and one leftist debate for 30 replies on whether Trump was serious or joking when he said Russia should release Clinton emails. Intent will never be settled. The big difference would be fighting over tone with depending on who you’re speaking with a greater emphasis on when Trump did x,y,z and it was really bad. Then a reply leftist did x,y,z on these occasions.
You would probably get some reply on HRC being the chosen one. I’ve never actually seen a leftist give that opinion but seems to pop up on right coded places.
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But it makes it all the more important to not be so worried. By being here and arguing against us, you're playing an important role in not making this place an echo chamber. Thank you for your service!
Damn.
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On reddit the participation of progressives largely felt like folks dropping by to sneer on themotte for a few comments rather than actual engagement. It felt as if a good number of them wouldn't have minded if themotte got hit by the banhammer.
That said, preaching to the choir on themotte while feeling nice doesn't give you much. But I do not have any ideas for how to improve upon that. People like places that echo their views back at them and enforce the ideological conformity for their worldview. For this use case reddit is strictly better especially if your views are aligned with the current zeitgeist.
A lot of people on themotte may want to convince progressives that their positions are not logically consistent and patently unfair. But progressives have no incentive to engage with you to be convinced or to try to convince you. Their views are already mainstream and platformed by institutions.
It’s difficult to be convinced you’re logically inconsistent and unfair when the people trying to convince you are, in your own view, being exactly that.
Why would I want to debate with facts in a forum that seemed to genuinely approve of the generalized declaration: “Men are funnier than women.” being justified with with the anecdote, “Because the men in my life make me laugh more than the women.” instead of, I don’t know, “Because here is a study that concluded that estrogen affects the part of the brain that creates brevity which is the leading trait for successful comedians, please look at the data and tell me if you disagree with their methods of testing.”?
I can empathize that it's not a nice experience to face positions that you feel are an attack on your person or deeply held beliefs.
I pretty much feel the same in every corner of the internet. To give an example that should hopefully be at some distance from the American Culture War, I definitely do not enjoy people claiming that India being colonised by the British empire was good for us and civilized us unwashed barbarians. It is not fun to be spoken down to by Americans who believe my lived experience of living in my country holds no weight. Nor do I enjoy reading about what Americans say behind our backs about the Indian expats in the Software industry.
But as much as I would love to give objective statistics to prove people wrong, I doubt I will ever be able to satisfy those who disagree.
Now on whether "Men are funnier than women", it is a poorly supported argument since the only thing going for it is anecdata. But given the dumpster fire that is the reproducibility in Sociology, anecdata is probably the best you will get. Besides, how many people even base their social know-how on studies over anecdata from folks they know or can relate to?
Also is it that the argument is poorly supported that bugs you, or is it because you feel that it puts down women?
Would it feel any less offensive if someone gave "objective" proof for this?
It wouldn't be any less painful for me even if someone threw objective proof at my face by ripping open a portal to a parallel universe where India never went through successive stages of colonization and is still a cesspit of suffering.
It’s the poor support that bugs me. This forum claims that conversations here “leave feelings at the door” and deal with the facts, and as far as I see, most users here pride themselves for foster that culture. But anecdotal evidence for generalized inflammatory statements such as, “Women don’t know what they want and are less funnier than me .” are such a poor foundation for debate that I am quite doubtful that it is what most users here actually want.
I would be much less “bugged” if what I perceive to be rampant intellectual dishonesty was not as generally supported as it is here, so yes, I would rather someone here give me objective evidence that men are funnier than women so we can debate the merits of the data.
While I cannot give any point in the support of "Men are funnier than Women" since that's not something I believe to be true.
I think I understand our point of difference better. You expect The Motte to be a forum for perfect rational debate. And I guess that's what many on themotte claim it to be.
But it's not that and that bugs you.
It doesn't bug me since I do not expect The Motte to be a forum for perfect rational debate. While folks here are better at stating and accounting for their biases than other spaces on the internet, I do think a lot of people end up venting their frustrations a bit. And that's fine.
I feel that mainstream progressive (and conservative) spaces impose binaries on topics and rule out discussion on domains that their binaries fail to explain.
The less restricted nature of The Motte helps to find arguments that may offer better explanations and would otherwise be banned. But of course you also get bad arguments that should have received more pushback. We all have our biases, I just see that as a part and parcel of the trying to model the world better.
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She said very clearly that the poor justification for the claim rather than the claim itself is the problem.
Really? So it's just an axiom that everything bad in India is because of the "Britishers"? That certainly helps to understand Indians' beliefs, though it doesn't make me more sympathetic to them.
I don't have a portal to a parallel universe – the only place with technology that advanced was India 3000 years ago – but I can direct your attention to Ethiopia. The country had a long history of written language and a centralized government, and was under colonial rule only for about a decade before and during World War II. After the war, Italy even had to pay reparations, so the damage that did happen during this period was compensated. (The Allies presumably decided Italy's conquest was an illegitimate war of aggression unlike the totally just and lawful conquest of everywhere else by Western countries.)
And yet Ethiopia "is still a cesspit of suffering", with a GDP per capita significantly lower than even that of India. That's because it was a cesspit of suffering before the Italian occupation.
I'm not going to argue that British colonialism was a net positive for India, and the British certainly committed many unjustifiable abuses, but I do strongly object to the common Indian nationalist claim that India was extremely rich and developed in the 18th century before the British showed up and stole everything. It was poor when they came and it was poor when they left. The reason India is still poor is the 75 years of awful economic policy between then and now, and that can be blamed entirely on Indians. The UK didn't instigate the farm bill protests.
You explicitly chose this example expecting it to be unobjectionable, so I apologize if my objection was unexpected. If it helps, I share your distaste for Americans' views on Indian immigrants in software, especially the rhetoric surrounding H1B visas. And I am not American, I'm just constantly exposed to American politics thanks to the internet.
I do not appreciate you trying to strawman my position.
The core argument of Indian Nationalists is that the concept of India is not a colonial construct that only exists due to British Colonialization. They argue that people in the region have been linked by shared culture despite having lived through frequently changing borders.
Indian Nationalists do not make any claims to India's past economic heft. In face they very much accept that they have a long way to go. They feel that the fractured nature of their people works against them and that to accelerate development there is a need to leverage the cultural links to build a shared ethos if you ever want to get things done. For them the British are just one among the many foreign conquerors that have ruled the region since the 12th century. I very much detest it when people try to reduce it to just "Indians think India sucks because of the British". Whether or not it can be proved that India is worse off due to colonization is not at all a part of my argument.
Going back to elaborating on the point I had been trying to make to @justawoman.
What I am saying is even if there is objective evidence that India was destined to be the way it is regardless of past events, that wouldn't make the fact any less painful. And I recognize that some arguments that folks on themotte may throw around casually are actually painful to read depending on what race, religion, culture, gender or background you come from.
The whole segment on my experiences as an Indian on the internet is essentially me trying to say yes, I can empathize with the experience of @justawoman who has to argue with people casually discussing a topic that she cares deeply about and would only accept the highest standards of evidence.
But while I think that folks on themotte can be more careful with how they throw around words, it should not be something that's verboten, since topics when sociological, at best have scant evidence and that's the best we can ever get.
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