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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.
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".
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.
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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