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Comment by akiselev | Hacker News Reader

Their "facts" include gems like pedophilia rings run out of nonexistent basements below pizza shops, the Q-anon conspiracy (Trump's going to take down the evil cabal any day now!), and millions of illegal voters and criminals around every corner. Zero evidence for any of it. These aren't fringe views as many of us can attest to - this is crap millions have to listen to every day coming from their closest friends and family.

Two decades ago the Republican party acted as a bulwark against rapid change and as the yin in the yin-yang of individual vs collective. Not no more; we don't have another two decades for our education system to bring us back from the brink.

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I honestly think that if Biden does nothing else, engineering an environment where people accept basic common facts has to be somewhere at the start of it. As you say, once your base facts about reality differ there's really no hope for reconciliation about things at a higher level than that. And for all the healthy spirit of "both-sides-ism" in this thread, I will put it out there that there is one side that has egregiously allowed it and its supporters to become detached from reality. Note I'm not talking about "bias" here which both sides certainly exhibit, but concrete basic verifiable facts of reality. I really don't see how much can be achieved if we can't repair that. And as much as I want to encourage a new spirit of unity, I fear that if that becomes an excuse to not confront this problem, then it will actually just make things worse.

The best way I’ve heard this described is that we are all part of a book club that meets every four years to talk about the book we read.

Some show up to discuss a book they didn’t read, others show up having read a completely different book than the other half.

We have no common ground anymore. Everything is inherently political or can be made political.

It’s somewhat of a surreal game you can play. Name something not political.

I agree. I don't think the vast majority of conservatives are intransigent, just so emotional wrapped up in their beliefs that they're completely unable to distinguish fact from fiction. I don't think it's a coincidence that it happened to the party that Barry Goldwater referenced in this prediction: "Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them." It's not a coincidence that the qanon conspiracy is chock full of rhetoric about satanic rituals either.

> And as much as I want to encourage a new spirit of unity, I fear that if that becomes an excuse to not confront this problem, then it will actually just make things worse.

Here's why I have absolutely zero faith that a spirit of unity will work: this "situation" has been festering since the founding of this nation and every time "unity" prevailed, the can was just kicked down the road. We wanted "All men are created equal" and got the 3/5ths compromise. We tried to save the Union, only to give up on Reconstruction before it could even really begin while institutionalizing slavery in the 13th amendment. Instead of letting general Sherman raze the south, we paid for their rebuild on the backs of "free" African Americans and let them institute Jim Crow laws to continue the oppression. When the Civil Rights movement and desegregation finally came home to roost, it caused the biggest political realignment in this country's history taking us up to this point.

We wanted the best, but it turned out like always.

Nothing demonstrates more the acceptance of basic facts than pretending, when launching a campaign, that it is motivated by Trump calling white supremacists “fine people” when anyone can look at the transcript of that speech and see that a few lines below Trump explicitly condemns white supremacists.

It is unfortunate but lying openly about facts has become the only common ground in US politics, and so many people seem to be completely blind to the lies of their own camp.

I completely agree with you. I have winced about that being thrown at Trump ever since the incident - I think it was horrendously poor wording, but it was actually him in his own way attempting to unify people.

However at the same time I want to clarify that I'm talking here about a level of facts even more basic than that. That is still an interpretation of what he said but at least he said it. We have an even deeper problem right now where people believe things that are completely totally untrue. Things that are provably not true without any need to bring any interpretation into it.

For example, how do we have a reasonable discussion about how to fix social justice if one side believes most of Portland has been taken over by anarchists burning cars and smashing windows of every shop and the other things it's a peaceful hippie commune covering a block and a half? Somewhere in there is an objective truth. If we can't get to that, we're never going to have a productive discussion about the underlying problems.

What’s really unfortunate is you get downvoted for pointing out a fact. Probably by people who complain that the right won’t accept facts.

Are you able to please link to the transcript?

https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trump...

"you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. [...] And you had people -- and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists -- because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly."

You're quoting the second interview Trump gave about Charlottesville[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25019361

He didn't call whites supremacists white people, if you listen to the rest of the sentence, he was referring to the protesters from BOTH sides that they are fine people. And then said that he condemns neo Nazis and white supremacists. I only came across this this morning btw, and I too believed he really did call them fine people.. EDIT: watch this whole thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmaZR8E12bs

He's not off to a good start. It's not even a "fact" that he is president elect yet.

What president in modern history has waited for the electoral college vote to make a victory speech? Given that Trump isn't likely to ever concede, I'm not sure what he's supposed to wait for, besides all the networks calling it. (Which they were very cautious in doing, waiting until PA was clearly out of reach.)

I suspect you're lying because Pew research shows the vast majority of Republicans don't even know what QAnon is. More Democrats know about QAnon than Republicans (28% vs 18%).

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/30/qanons-cons...

Your kind of rhetoric is what's dividing people.

I'm lying about my personal experience with my family?

18% of Republicans is at least ten million people, if not tens of millions, which is an order of magnitude more than I thought. Pizzagate and the illegal voters was the party line from Fox including Hannity and Carlson and is easily accessible with a [whatever you prefer] search.

The time for rhetoric and comity was a year ago when COVID didn't kill hundreds of thousands. Now is the time for action.

That is a ridiculous argument to be honest. 100% of Americans have heard of Nazism. Does that mean 100% of Americans are Nazis? By your logic, more Democrats are QAnon believers (28%).

Fair point, but the Democrats aren't the ones literally espousing Qanon and Nazi rhetoric. The number is somewhere in the middle, enough so that all the major networks utter the name on a regular basis.

I just did a Google search for QAnon for Tucker and Fox News. The news on QAnon are labeled under "conspiracy" on foxnews.com. I see no promotion of the QAnon theory anywhere.

I didn't say that Tucker/Carlson/Fox promoted qanon (I referenced them in the context of pizzagate/illegal votes), I implied that some Republicans did, far in excess of their opposites.

For what it's worth, AFAIK qanon has only been mentioned/displayed in passing on Fox [1] and while I haven't been on Fox specifically, I've never been prepped or had my wardrobe reviewed on other national broadcasters' programs so I assume they don't exert editorial control either. I'm too tired to do a deep dive for pizzagate so I will admit I may be confusing it with the Seth Rich conspiracy. It's hard to keep track this deep into the abyss.

[1] https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/definit...

Qanon is just todays Dominionists. The democrats tried to push the same dangerous "other" group back when palin/mccain were running.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/dominioni...

The democrats love to trot this out, the fringe group that somehow is a massive threat. Meanwhile they act suspiciously silent about the riots we had with BLM, which caused actual and serious damage. Not much about Philadelphia at all.

Looking at the survey it asks "How much, if anything, have you heard or read about QAnon?" I'd be interested to see how many are aware of QAnon conspiracy theories but don't necessarily know the origin.

I bet more Trump voters believe QAnon is real than Biden voters.

You bet? How very scientific of you.

Do you believe otherwise? It's very clearly the case; the whole QAnon conspiracy theory is built around Trump being some kind of savior and democrats being a ring of child molesters. Of course it's believed by more Trump than Biden supporters. That doesn't mean the majority of them believe it of course, but some high profile ones certainly do, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is now a member of congress.

This approach right here is why things are getting worse.

Do you know Tylenol can cause horrible death where you have all your skin fall off and veins explode? Do you talk about this when you have take that simple medication?

Try to find common ground. See what you can work together on, see what you can agree upon, rather than point to the most stupid and extreme points of the other side and giving up completely or ignoring all their concerns.

> Try to find common ground. See what you can work together on, see what you can agree upon, rather than point to the most stupid and extreme points of the other side and giving up completely or ignoring all their concerns.

They're not even the most extreme, that's why there's no common ground! The most extreme would be the honest to goodness neo-nazis like the ones marching through Charleston a few years ago, several other flavors of white supremacists and "nationalists" like the NatCons and Bugaloo Boys, religious extremists like Pence, their crazier brother the dominionists like Bill Bar, and outright authoritarians (all of the above).

I'm all for finding common ground, but I don't care for the liberals putting in the extra effort anymore, just to have bad faith actors take advantage of it. It's time for the conservatives to "find common ground" by getting their house in order. Get rid of the Nazis, get rid of the supremacists, get rid of the extremists, and undo all the damage that Barry Goldwater predicted the preachers would do.

You definitely won’t find common ground if you think the Republicans accept or even tolerate Nazis and white supremacists. They have about as much to do with them as the democrats have to do with the KKK (which was started by democrats).

While this view is potentially applicable to the party as a whole. I still maintain that the best way to engage with an individual is to try to understand, from their perspective, why they've come to the conclusion they've come to. Even when they say there's nothing to understand. Even for those with extreme, reprehensible views. You can understamd without agreeing, but it takes effort to fight down the "cast out the evil other side" feeling that is super easy to fall into.

Most people aren't that one-dimensional, even when they've wrapped themselves up in a one-dimensonal identity. There is nuance and context to how each person arrives at the conclusions they do, even when they'd struggle to explain or remember it.

If you refuse to empathize, you're making things worse.

When I say "facts", I don't mean the politically charged "facts" that people argue with. I mean the ones about their life experiences that led them to the dark place they find themselves in. You don't exit the womb a neo-nazi, you get there over time, through (bad) experience, and (questionable) learning. If you can't answer the "why do they believe what they do?" with a genuine, i.e. not rhetoric, not othering, answer, you don't have the facts.

There are truly horrible people out there, but the vast majority of people that voted Trump are normal people with boring everyday lives. Treating every individual in that group like its extremists serves only to divide and polarize. It makes the problem worse. IF your goal is to effect positive change, you need to take a different approach. However, if you goal is to feel superior and good and like you're "on the right team", feel free to keep hating.

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