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Comment by shklnrj | Hacker News Reader

I think that when people "KNOW" that they are "RIGHT", it sometimes brings moral superiority into people. That, in addition to norms of socially acceptable behaviour, pushes people into a corner.

For example - If someone goes to Bill Maher's show, anyone clapping on a conservative view point is seen as a criminal, while people with liberal point of view clap "together" as a group, with the smug arrogance of knowing that they are superior. If a debate takes in such an environment, the conservative people has no option but to hide his view point.

Liberal ideology should not be used as a fashion statement. Unfortunately it seems to be used that way today. What do you guys think?

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I did not vote for Trump, but I couldn't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude at the reaction of my mostly very liberal friend group to his win. For months and months, they'd been unfairly denigrating Trump supporters while simultaneously insisting that he was a joke, there was no way he would beat Clinton, etc. and somehow convincing themselves that their political ideology was synonymous with science, truth, and reason.

It was very much a form of social posturing rather than careful consideration for many of them.

Of course, instead of toning it back after the election, many have doubled down. I'm curious how that will play out for the next election.

Liberalism is deterministic in so far as it's required for a civil society.

Disagree all you want, but liberal concessions are the result of mass civil rights movements.

Both sides are guilty of this and always have been. If you think name calling and teasing are counterproductive then you must realize that race/gender/sexuality based slurs are all part of that as well. Not only are they counterproductive but they are not things based on choice. It was a choice for people to vote for a specific person for president, that is not true with the issue of skin tone or sexuality.

Though people don't choose their political beliefs as freely as you'd expect; upbringing, profession, region, and even genetics play a role.

At least not initially - and you're right that many will never reconsider the world view passed down to them or some may reconsider and decide it's the best because it's comfortable etc... But ideology is still much easier to change than sexual orientation or race regardless of who you ask. It makes complete sense to me that a group of people can't openly dismiss another and demand their respect at the same time. This is the "golden rule" and is widely regarded as a valid way to approach life by people with all sorts of political beliefs. If someone teaches you something wrong and harmful about another group of people then that is definitely a point of view that needs to be corrected for society to work.

I think the association between "science truth and reason" and the Democrats/liberals is caused by the Republicans apparent flight from science, truth and reason.

Politics has never had much to do with reason - it's our equivalent of war; conflict by whatever means are at hand; our complex, technological and interdependent society however very much depends on science and reason. Truth has it's own way of striking back, of course.

The thing I found most interesting in the article was "we are worse off than black folks because we have no hope of things getting better."

Bill Maher said something along the same lines. That if people in the opposing camp decide they are going to objectify their opposition as one monolithic group of uncouth people that Democrats would lose in the next election --not sure about that, as the current admin may irk a number of Republicans as well, but it's worth noting that devolving to name calling and other denigrating aspects are not the most likely way to win people over to your point of view.

It's quite likely that all Democrats need to do to win the next presidential election is help voters register and obtain any necessary id. Ideologically, Trump and the GOP don't have any strong numerical advantage, they won the election with better tactics and a few good news cycles.

The question is more whether there is sufficient movement (it has to start now) to take quite a lot of seats in the house in 2018. Which is the first opportunity to put a further check on the administration than is provided by the Constitution and such.

> unfairly denigrating Trump supporters

Is there a way of fairly denigrating Trump supporters?

> For months and months, they'd been unfairly denigrating Trump supporters while simultaneously insisting that he was a joke, there was no way he would beat Clinton, etc. and somehow convincing themselves that their political ideology was synonymous with science, truth, and reason.

There may be liberal voters who make that conclusion of synonymeity, but to the extent that you're lumping it in with dismayed astonishment at Trump's candidacy, you're mischaracterizing both.

The position that Trump represents a completely bonkers low point and that opposition to him was synonymous with science, truth, and reason had (and has) a much higher frequency of occurrence vs the position that "liberal" politics presents a total/good view of the world.

> Is there a fair way of denigrating Trump supporters?

Yes, by realizing that he won because of his economics, not his social positions. The rust belt votes of economic issues, which allowed him to win. The poor in the area lean to whoever will help them not be poor, or at least say they'll try. Clinton embodied the status quo, Trump was change. They might not have liked him, and in fact a sizable majority do not, but realizing it was a pick of the lesser of two equals hopefully restores some sympathy for the other side, which is sorely needed today.

> Yes, by realizing that he won because of his economics, not his social positions.

You're responding to a post by sama where he interviews people who voted for Trump, and his findings match what we already knew: this wasn't about economics. Why would it be when unemployment is below 5%? Just look at the answers people gave when asked "What do you like about Trump".

Quoting the unemployment rate at 4.9% is disingenuous at it doesn't look at the participation rate, which has dropped 3% in the past 10 years (aka 10 million people). This unemployment rate also doesn't look at individual regions like the rust belt, which won Trump the election. There's a sizable group that did vote him in on his social positions, which is the common 40% of voters (the battle for an election isn't concerned with the 'base' which is about 80% of the voters, being 40% left and 40% right, it worries about the 20% in the middle, and those middle voters were the rust belt that swayed the election). So although you can say a many Trump voters wanted his social politics, he won because of his economics.

And I understand the selection of the narratives the author used. Like I've said, I live in a small Midwest town.

> Is there a way of fairly denigrating Trump supporters?

It depends what you want to accomplish. Do you want to persuade them to be some other kind of supporters or score points with people who already agree with you?

Say what you will about goody-two-shoes liberals whining about minor issues — as far as science, truth and reason go, the ideology of the current administration allows none of them. That is reason enough to double down (and hopefully prioritize fundamental values of democracy over small distractions in the fight that lays ahead).

It will play out poorly.

The coalition on the right is full of cracks that could be exploited to split them up. Trump actually exploited one of those cracks to get himself the Republican nomination. When the left comes in to pour moral superiority all over people, it fills those cracks in like glue. People who would have otherwise split from Trump are sticking to him because the left is chopping at everything.

The smart move here is to wedge. Pick fights that split the Republicans apart from each other, and focus on that stuff instead of piddly small things whether Trump was being racist or merely inarticulate when he asked that reporter to set a meeting up with the Congressional Black Caucus.

I don't think the elected Democrats can do that though. They're under a lot of incentives to not act that way, considering that their donors and voters seem to have chosen "resistance" as what they want.

>he coalition on the right is full of cracks that could be exploited to split them up. Trump actually exploited one of those cracks to get himself the Republican nomination. When the left comes in to pour moral superiority all over people, it fills those cracks in like glue. People who would have otherwise split from Trump are sticking to him because the left is chopping at everything.

Your assumption is that Donald Trump forged some kind of political coalition. He didn't. The Republican Party votes in lockstep, by and large. What happened was that Hillary Clinton utterly failed to get people in key areas to the voting booth to get the numbers she needed.

The Donald fans can glue themselves together all they want, but it wasn't them who won anything. It was Democratic infighting that ceded it over to them. It's not the Republicans that need to get cracked, it's the Republicans who are pouring glue into the cracked up Democratic coalition.

> Your assumption is that Donald Trump forged some kind of political coalition. He didn't.

You are incorrect about my assumption, but correct that Trump did not forge a coalition. The coalition existed before him and largely held its nose because members of it did not have any other options.

My assumption is that both political parties are large, standing broad coalitions of voters with differening interests that are together mainly as a consequence of the two-party system. Which means that they each contain elements that can (and occasionally do) flip party.

Trump exploited a crack in the Republican coalition that had formed over immigration, which was a wedge issue between the "pro-business" type Republicans that are "part of the establishment" and the party base. He also identified other wedges, like military adventurism. That, along with lack of a sufficiently strong opponent in the other 16 people who ran, enabled him to win the GOP primary, even though Trump has very little to no interest in "conservatism."

There were enough Republicans put off by his lack of "conservatism" (e.g. the lack of interest in the agenda of other parts of the GOP coalition) that they were willing to vote for someone else. But because the Democrats had nothing but contempt to offer those voters, they either stayed home, held their nose for Trump anyway, or voted for third party candidates like "Egg McMuffin."

Those divides in the GOP are not going to go away. Those voters are out there, waiting to be picked up by somebody. They may be as much as 20% of that party, which is enough to tip future elections towards the Democrats forever if they play their cards right. But that's going to be an opportunity that isn't going to be exploited as long as the Democrats are playing "resistance" as their strategy.

> The smart move here is to wedge. Pick fights that split the Republicans apart from each other

One of Sam's interviewees pointed it out too:

    What would convince you not to vote for him again?

    "If the Russia thing were true, I’d turn against him.  
    Why don’t y’all focus on that instead of his tweets?"

i.e. reframing the argument along themes that the opposition cares for (in this case, patriotism).

Oh man, I don't like Trump at all but it's so hard to resist enjoying the schadenfreude. I think my favorite part is the "nothing to hide" people who are now afraid of the surveillance state but couldn't have cared less about it before.

I think the "science, truth, and reason" thing really resonates because it's been used to as a shortcut to presuming the "correctness" of anything vaguely left-wing in areas where things are anything but black and white.

It's true, for sure, that there are some places things are fairly black and white, like climate change. Or vaccination.

But in other areas... there's anything but a clear cut situation. Take immigration. The second Trump started to try and start arresting and deporting people my social media filled with memes asking things like "who's going to dig up potatoes for $0.45 per giant bucket filled now?" So... start deporting undocumented people and the "Left" will suddenly embrace the propriety of paying people unliveable wages citizens would never accept? Why would anybody think that we won't in the not distant future be collecting potatoes with robots?

Likewise, there seems to suddenly be this notion that pretty much anybody who shows up whenever for whatever reason should just be allowed in to stay and work in America... There's a very real conversation about how isolationist we can/should be, whether/how/what-degree we should be trying to export our human rights norms, what kinds of employment visas we should have, what their conditions should be, whether we should accept refugees, etc. I find the current refugee situation embarrassing, but at the same time I think there's been real refusal to take a holistic look at making a comprehensive and consistent policy, let alone a "scientific" or "reasoned" one. It's like one group of people started jumping off the right side of a building (nobody enters) so everyone else rushed to jump off the left (everybody enters).

I think lots of issues are like this.

>Likewise, there seems to suddenly be this notion that pretty much anybody who shows up whenever for whatever reason should just be allowed in to stay and work in America

Globalization promotes the free flow of capital, but not labour. This never seemed fair to me. It feels like a mechanism of exploitation.

Who _deserves_ to work in America more? Someone born into that country, or someone who left their whole life behind and made an long dangerous trip to get there?

Deserve is a terrible and dangerous word.

Even the mere idea that jobs should be for the "deserving" sounds like some sort of weird cultist wet dream.

But maybe in the future we can get rid of borders and citizenship, establish a global government with a single labor market, and then allocate jobs to the "deserving" by going down a list of afflictions, awarding points for suffering, and then giving jobs to those who've suffered the most. It really sounds like a utopia.

I wasn't endorsing the concept of 'deserving' here.

It may have been a bit of a straw man, but the idea that "foreigners are stealing our jobs" has an undercurrent of entitlement to it.

People insisting that Trump is a joke weren't wrong about that. What they were wrong about was their belief that this country wouldn't seriously elect someone so wildly incompetent and unfit to be president. The fact that Trump got elected doesn't reflect badly upon the people who said he's a joke, it reflects badly on everyone else.

> Of course, instead of toning it back after the election, many have doubled down. I'm curious how that will play out for the next election.

Given the recent trajectory of the Tea Party, I think it'll play out pretty well—if not the next election, then the one after that.

To his credit, Bill Maher is incredibly good at creating a safe space for everyone to express their views at least, and frequently seeks out figureheads who disagree with him, much like Bill O'Reilly does.

Also, Bill Maher constantly berates liberals for being easily triggered and calling for the suppression of free speech through "chilling effects" of PC culture. Liberals seem to have forgotten the ACLU has defended the KKK, the Confederate flag, and Rush Limbaugh. [0]

[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-...

Bill Maher is just awful. Horrible interviewer, horrible at pacing things, horrible at listening, don't give a crap what his views are.

>> Liberal ideology should not be used as a fashion statement. Unfortunately it seems to be used that way today. What do you guys think?

I've often wondered how many people voted for Obama just to prove to the world that they are not racist. Or in other words to show their moral superiority. I think the same dynamic was in play with Hillary - all she talked about is how "we'll make history" meaning "let's show them how forward thinking the nation has become that we can elect a woman president". IMHO backlash against that crap is exactly why Trump won, and I've had several people confirm that.

I'm one of the few people I know who is an enthusiastic supporter of Hillary. I like her because of her track record on children's issues, 9-11 and the Iran deal (among others). I'm also conservative so I like that the last time she lived at 1400 Pensilvania Ave the government was running a surplus.

>> I'm also conservative so I like that the last time she lived at 1400 Pensilvania Ave the government was running a surplus.

I was scared when Bill Clinton won, but he is now one of my favorite ex-presidents precisely because he didn't make things worse. And yes, the budget was briefly balanced. Too bad that's not actually a core principle of the democratic party - see what happened under Obama, and see how little one of their biggest fiscal mouth pieces (Paul Krugman) cares about debt or deficits. But yes, the late 90's were a good time in the US. I don't credit Hillary with that though.

>Too bad that's not actually a core principle of the democratic party - see what happened under Obama,

See what? That he reduced the deficit during his tenure?

>and see how little one of their biggest fiscal mouth pieces (Paul Krugman) cares about debt or deficits.

Obama took office during an economic depression. This is how macroeconomics works. You spend to goose demand when the economy is down and you tax for the down times when the economy is up. The largest depression since the Great one isn't the time to be worrying about anything but getting us out of it.

>> See what? That he reduced the deficit during his tenure?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.ht...

What?

TARP is signed by the Bush administration at the end of 2008. The money kicks in with Obama’s entry in 2009 and has ARRA added to it as he begins the herculean effort of digging us out of the Bush recession.

By 2016 the deficit is back down to 2008 levels. And that’s despite Ted Cruz’s shenanigans.

A new President's budget doesn't take effect until around September the year he takes office. Just like Trump isn't responsible for the current deficit right now, it's disingenuous to attribute most of 2008 to Obama.

I drive Foothill Expressway in Silicon Valley to work everyday.

One of the weirdest things I noticed this election cycle was the near absence of Hillary bumper stickers. The lack of Trump ones, I understood. But when Obama ran, there were Obama bumper stickers everywhere...

But today, I notice perhaps one car a week with an H sticker.

I live near DC. On the weekends when I'm driving in and around DC, I almost never see Hillary stickers, even though DC is a thoroughly liberal town. It was like this before the election too. I saw far more old Obama stickers than I did Hillary stickers.

Same here in Portland, Oregon, a place that makes D.C. look like Utah on the ol' left/right-o-meter.

> 1400 Pensilvania

In non-alternative fact land, it's 1600 Pennsylvania.

lol. time to fire my fact-checker

If we're talking 2008 vs McCain, if McCain didn't listen to his advisors telling him to play to the base and start taking more extreme positions on everything, I think he would have had a better shot and I'd at least have considered voting for him.

Plus, at least for me, it wasn't so much that I wanted to prove I wasn't racist, but that I wanted America to finally prove that it was no longer true that in order to be president it was required that you be a (usually older) wealthy white guy. It only needed to happen once, for it to change people's perceptions that "this is the way it would always be" and allow for more minority representation in the future.

Which was proven when the Democrats actually nominated a woman for the next election, even if it wasn't the best choice in hindsight.

Paul Graham's "Keep Your Identity Small" (2009) article is relevant here:

http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

I think everyone on this thread still arguing about what's right or wrong should really read this essay.

I especially found this part interesting:

> The most intriguing thing about this theory, if it's right, is that it explains not merely which kinds of discussions to avoid, but how to have better ideas. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible. [2]

Last couple of years I see people come up with all kinds of buzzwords--VR, AR, Bots, "Voice is the future", Drones, AI, etc.--and turn it into their identity. "I'm working on bots", "I'm working on deep learning", etc. I doubt any successful company will come out of these people because these mere concepts have already become their identity and they are unable to accept ideas adjacent to what they're trying to build.

Unfortunate that Paul Graham didn't follow his own advice. Seeing him attack Trump supporters with all the negative labels Trump has been falsely portrayed by the media and comparing Trump to Hitler in twitter really makes you pause.

> What do you guys think?

I think this is nothing new. US mentality has been going very sharply that way for years; two sides of a coin becoming more and more extreme and caring more about hating the other side than about what's good for the country.

People bending over and accepting absurd things from their presidents, or politicians in general, just because they're "on my team".

Roll back a few years. How is it okay that the US ever allowed attack ads between politicians? Presidential election campaigns spanning over a year? "Reelection" campaigns starting a year or two into office?

How is it okay that your politicians can sweep atrocious bills under the rug by giving them fancy names like PATRIOT? In fact, how is patriotism so often used as an excuse - why is it even working?

The US turned politics into a team game. Us vs. them. American politicians have been using the "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric for decades; it then only makes sense that opposition becomes "the enemy".

So yes, I completely agree, it's shameful that people on both sides feel superior to the other. It's shameful that people are unable to recognize they flaw because, god forbid, should they start to think that "their team" has flaws then they'll end up in the other team, and the other team is even worse, yknow?

I could write more about this but I feel like it'll fall either on deaf ears, or on ears that already know this. The election has been a constant feeling of helplessness against a wave of knee-jerk reactions from a majority of people unwilling to hear the other side out. And this happens on both sides. How do you even begin to fix this, when the attitude is "yeah, but the other guys are doing it too"?

Don't think this is a US specific problem unfortunately.

Attack ads? Seem to be growing in popularity over here in the UK. Atrocious bills are being swept under the rug here too. And if the Brexit situation taught us anything, it's that the political scene here is very much an 'us vs them' situation too.

Either way, I suspect these trends are (sadly) becoming more and more normalised across almost all societies and countries now. The US might seem more extreme here, but the general pattern does seem to be getting more common elsewhere too.

Yeah, the UK is slowly copying the US model, lagging a few years behind it. But I don't think it's ever been as pronounced. The divide in the UK is far thinner than it's ever been in the US, even though it's still "us vs them".

It's also possible that the internet itself is helping to spread the US mentality to other countries. Scary to think about.

>two sides of a coin becoming more and more extreme and caring more about hating the other side than about what's good for the country.

Not really. [url=https://img-washingtonpost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w1000/s... polarization in the US is driven entirely by the GOP. Full stop.[/url]

You can't address the problem if you're blinding yourself to its causes. The Democrats have, by and large, branded themselves as the party of non-partisan centrist technocrats, not as liberal firebrands. Sanders' defeat in the primaries only cemented this.

I think the same is true for all of the political parties in the US. Everyone likes to feel that they are correct and refuses to consider that not only their viewpoint, but the calibration of society as a whole, might be (and I believe is, in the case of the US) out of balance and that thus perceptions are even further off than a gut feeling would conclude.

There is a very strong perception that if you are a conservative and you speak out either against left-wing views, someone will try to destroy your career and rob you of your livelihood. Take a look at a recent example of a teacher who made comments on Facebook about the #DayWithoutImmigrants[0]. Those parents who supported amnesty ascribed racism to what was an otherwise completely non-racist comment, and enough of them complained to force the school to act against him. You simply can't ask for the rule of law in America anymore without putting your career at serious jeopardy.

[0]http://eagnews.org/teacher-reassigned-after-praising-trump-a...

May be that's because left wing areas are indeed safe space to express views. I dare not put a pro-choice bumper sticker in a deep red state.

Here's a counterpoint, the website "Professor Watchlist" where Conservatives can report their professors for being liberal:

http://professorwatchlist.org/

What is the point of such a website except to try and ruin people's careers and invite harassment of them? What about all the 4chan and reddit threads dedicated to finding and harassing outspoken liberals?

That same fear exists whenever /anything/ contrary to the local community's predominant viewpoint is raised. You may think your community is different; you are very likely wrong about the way others perceive it.

I think that's an inaccurate assessment. If someone at such a show holds a minority viewpoint and doesn't want to be the only person clapping, that is up to them. I have never seen a contemporary domestic example of the attitude you describe, of someone like that being "seen as a criminal", except at Donald Trump rallies.

Well there were widespread calls by people to push even Peter Thiel out of silicon valley positions which he holds just because he supported a candidate. His fault - He supported a guy publicly! Even he was seen as criminal. Forget about the average Joe. That's why people wanted confidentiality agreements!

Don't those widespread calls fall under the callers' freedom of speech?

Why shouldn't they be able to call for Thiel's ouster?

Why shouldn't I be able to call for shklnrj to be fired, so long as I do it through the usual public channels (e.g. are not harassing you or your workplace, etc)?

Hopefully, your boss would dismiss me as a nutter. But hey, that's free speech in action.

I think you're confusing what should be legally allowed with what is moral.

I'm not saying calling for Thiel's ouster is right.

But saying it shouldn't be allowed? Screw that, I like my first amendment.

And I don't think anyone is saying it shouldn't be allowed, legally. We're saying, it's bad for society that this has become normal.

E.g. If you lived in a society that found adultery almost totally acceptible, You could think adultery is wrong, you could not like that society considers it acceptible, but you could still be against making it illegal.

Very clever. Yes calls for my firing would be under freedom of speech. Agree totally. But a culture in which only one side is able to call for firing because that side's opinion is WRONG leads to a divided society. Imagine people asking for firing of someone because that person supported Hillary Clinton for some reason? In such a society, the side whose voice is silenced by the popular culture would come out to vote strongly for the other side.

Of course they do. Nobody is saying you don't have a RIGHT to condemn and criticize.

The discussion is around whether you SHOULD be criticizing a person.

>> Don't those widespread calls fall under the callers' freedom of speech? Why shouldn't they be able to call for Thiel's ouster?

For one because he's got his own free speech rights. But more importantly the parent poster was holding him up as an example of why people tend not to stand up for their opinion when it is not popular. Even a popular silicon valley figure was ostracized for supporting the "wrong" candidate among his peer group. That backlash is exactly what people are afraid of.

You know what? Backlash is one of the inevitable consequences of having any opinion in a free society. Especially if you're a wealthy, powerful individual with a big platform for pushing your ideas. Especially if they're unpopular ideas among your peer group.

Thiel is also a powerful, wealthy individual, with a much bigger platform than most of us will ever have. He's also obviously weathered the storm of being calling for his ouster just fine.

I just don't see this as a sign that society needs new rules on protecting people's opinions from criticism. Thiel isn't some delicate snowflake who needs a safe space. He's a grown man who speaks publicly about political things, and will be able to do so for the rest of his life, due to his wealth and power.

> "He's also obviously weathered the storm of being calling for his ouster just fine."

Will you (or I) be able to weather a similar storm?

I think the OP's point was that even someone who is as powerful and wealthy as Thiel could get ostracized in a community of his peers by taking an unpopular position on a political issue, hence the average Joe could do much worse.

I read root parent comment as being about the break down of thoughtful exchange of ideas and acceptance of views in a democracy. First amendment rights didn't seem to be on the table.

There were calls, yes. But he is still a part-time YC partner and on Facebook's board.

> He supported a guy publicly!

...You can't just talk about the abstract notion of "supporting" "a guy". A specific thing happened, not the generalized notion of "publicly supporting a candidate".

Is he not subject to criticism for his political positions? Where exactly is the line? How should someone be challenged to change their positions?

> Where exactly is the line? How should someone be challenged to change their positions?

The line is the one that divides their politics from the rest of their life. You challenge their ideas, you don't harass them or try to get them fired.

All actions are political, to at least some extent. So that's not a very clear line to draw. Furthermore, you talk about "challenging someone's ideas" without apparently any reference to the the rest of their life, which is... a rather nonsensical. You further give no means by which to do so, and rule out one of the more important ways of influencing someone--social stigma.

Certainly in this case we're talking about a financial company (YC)'s input and direction. Does someone who supports policies like the current occupant of the white house belong in a position of influence there? They are being paid in this capacity for their ideas, and therefore challenging their ideas means challenging that relationship.

> You further give no means by which to do so, and rule out one of the more important ways of influencing someone--social stigma.

Come on, dude. I only ruled out harassment and attempts to get people fired. If you can't think of any other ways to "challenge someone's ideas" on your own, you're beyond help from me.

I'd love for you to address the other points in my response:

Thiel is hired for his ideas. You say that he can not be fired for his ideas. This is a problem.

> Thiel is hired for his ideas. You say that he can not be fired for his ideas. This is a problem.

Here, I'll try to address it, using simple words:

There are different kinds of ideas. He was hired for his business ideas. It is not a problem that he shouldn't be fired because he has other kinds of ideas, too. People should be allowed to have different ideas. It wrong and immature to want to hurt them because they disagree with you. You are not doing good by trying to hurt them. Trying to hurt people is bad.

If you disagree, instead of hurting them, you can try to express your ideas without trying to hurt them. You could express yourself by writing a blog, by writing obtuse internet comments, by peacefully holding a sign somewhere, or by doing something creative! Just don't try to creatively hurt people, because hurting people is bad.

It's happening all around you to Trump supporters. And, it has been happening for all of time, basically.

Most people, by nature, revel in being superior to others. And, when there's a moral high ground to take (justified by being part of the "in" group), it really comes out.

I've never lived in a left leaning area, but conservative, "gun-loving", etc has been a fashion statement for at least a decade.

On the other hand, there's some dangerous censorship happening in the public school system and in the business world and in government, and I think a lot of Trump supporters recognize this and are worried about it.

censorship regarding what?

You can't say Merry Christmas. You can't say you understand homosexuality to be a disorder. You can't call a man "he" if he identifies as a "she". Do any of these in school, business, or government and you'll be punished.

These are mainly just social norms. I guess I never considered that as "censorship".

"You can't say Merry Christmas."

First off... yes you can. However, Why would you assume a large group of people in a public setting outside of a Christian context would all want to be wished a Merry Christmas...seems unlikely to me.

"You can't say you understand homosexuality to be a disorder."

Again.. you can say that, However you would be factually incorrect. Mental disorders are "disorders" because of the negative impacts caused in the sufferer's life.. What has been shown to be the negative impacts of homosexuality?

"You can't call a man "he" if he identifies as a "she"."

You can call anyone anything you like... what you don't have control over is how they feel in reaction. Assuming you identify as a man.. how would you receive someone that always referred to you as a female, and I mean always not just as a one-off joke type thing. I'm going to take a guess that you would feel worse than "censored".

" You can call anyone anything you like... what you don't have control over is how they feel in reaction. Assuming you identify as a man.. how would you receive someone that always referred to you as a female, and I mean always not just as a one-off joke type thing. I'm going to take a guess that you would feel worse than "censored"."

Basically, imagine having Dr. Cox calling you Shirley every single day, even though you hate being called girl's names. A lot of it boils down to 'Don't be a dick'.

> You can't say Merry Christmas.

Specifically in schools, this is problematic because it makes children who do not celebrate christmas feel left out. Adults should be able to handle it, children not so much.

> You can't say you understand homosexuality to be a disorder.

This is not an opinion related to your job, so you should definitely keep it to yourself while on the job. While some people will definitely throw a fit about it if you make the opinion known outside of your job(especially regarding teachers) I agree that this is bad and shouldn't be done.

> You can't call a man "he" if he identifies as a "she".

This is just simple respect. If someone asks you to call them something, you call them what they asked. Even if you think it is wrong/ridiculous. It doesn't hurt you any.

Regardless of whether any of these are considered "rude" or "disrespectful" (which btw is an opinion that many Trump supporters openly disagree with), it's a very real form of censorship to mandate that people aren't allowed to say these things. And that's dangerous.

I don't see the danger in encouraging people to treat each other with respect.

Encouraging is not the same as enforcing. People should have the freedom to say what they want. Just because someone cries and says "they hurt my feelings" doesn't mean we should put mandates and rules in place to stop it from happening again. It's a pretty slippery slope, and complete liars can take advantage of this to basically make new rules for everyone else, and we'll also end up with a fundamentally broken society who can't handle any kind of criticism at all and who don't understand that their feelings don't trump other people's rights.

> Just because someone cries and says "they hurt my feelings"

In the context of trans people we're not talking about "hurt feelings". We're talking about murder, sexual violence, severe assault, and increased risk of suicide.

How do you feel about businesses choosing who they do business with? Which customers they will serve? What company culture they want to support? What health care options they'll offer their employees?

> mandate that people aren't allowed to say these things

If you are rude or disrespectful to people at your job then you are negatively effecting your job performance and you will be fired due to that. This is anywhere. I haven't heard anyone (though there is probably someone out there, there always is) recommend jailing or otherwise punishing anyone beyond losing their job.

I presume you are referring to states that omit or downplay evolution in history textbooks.

Not at all.

In modern democratic society, this war of ideas is what we've chosen to use instead of wars of violence to control the transition of power in government. It's pretty reasonable that it will evolve over time as traditional war did. That's the entire idea behind Alex Jones' site, and he's been very influential on Trump and his campaign. I see clear information-war analogues to doctrines like guerrilla tactics, total war, etc.

Liberals in USA has reached the level of maniacal stupidity. I love politics and participate in events across the political spectrum. But despite my genuine efforts I find the typical left to be completely unfathomable.

I get the feeling like the idea behind Sam's experiment was to eliminate the notion of "unfathomable". Listen and discuss, acknowledge the views and beliefs of others where possible as valid, through empathy and open-mindedness. Sure, there are some viewpoints which can be written off as too far off the deep end, but "liberals" are humans with thoughts and opinions, and so are all those who voted for Trump and/or continue to support him.

The answers in Sam's interviews make this quite clear.

Start trying to fathom instead of just saying you can't?

Out of curiosity, who do you refer to when you say "liberals"?

I think of myself as liberal, and I bet we could find plenty of common ground.

It's important to not confuse liberals with leftists. My liberal friends have remained (for the most part) fairly objective and open to dialogue. My friends who identify as leftists...not so much.

I agree entirely. The Left co-opted the term "liberal" to the detriment of true liberal thinkers in America.

Liberals, even if you don't agree with them, are generally interesting people to talk to and (from my experience) often easy to get along with. They, by definition, are willing to entertain alternative ideas and debate them.

Leftists, while not all cut from the same cloth, are not a subset of liberals. The BLM and AntiFa movements are clearly illiberal.

I think co-opted is a bit strong. I don't think there's ever been a concerted effort on the left to own the word liberal. If you know of any evidence to the contrary, I'd love to learn about it.

I think it's more accidental in that terms end up associated with one side or the other, and in this case the left perhaps had an edge in that it's generally been associated with civil liberties. (Whether or not that can be supported is a separate discussion.) Having effectively two parties in the US results in a lot of incongruities.

Maybe provide some examples of liberal policies you find to be "maniacally stupid". Otherwise, this is pretty baseless.

The Left is not monolithic, it is better understood as a coalition of separate forces with different interests united against a common, feared enemy.

What you perceive as "manical stupidity" is fear. Fear of a common enemy is one of the few things that can glue together a diverse coalition.

> What do you guys think?

I think that you're operating under a pretty severe cognitive bias.

Well, I might be. Everyone has some level of cognitive bias.

I think that it goes both ways: take Fox and Friends instead of Maher, and you get exactly the same kind of reaction. I'm not sure why you are singling out "liberal ideology" here, when my favorite new joke is a rehash of an old one: "how can you tell if a person is a Trump supporter? Don't worry, they'll tell you!".

Haha I am amused at your assumption. I am not going to clarify the air too much, except saying that what you seem to be assuming is wrong :)

What assumption? If you think I'm assuming you are a Trump supporter, please state where I said that?

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