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Comment by bjtitus | Hacker News Reader

> Their legal cases are rejected. The mainstream media refuses to take them seriously.

Well these last two seem pretty par for the course for illegitimate claims been promoted as legitimate. At a certain point the line of absurdity has been crossed at it is not the duty of society to constantly debunk illegitimate claims.

> The other side keeps deplatforming them

In this particular case, Parler has been host to a number of specific violent threats against the Vice President and members of Congress. Those threats are a crime under Title 18 Section 871 of the United States Code. Threats to others could constitute assault in many jurisdictions.

I really see it as no surprise that platforms hosting Parler entry points are concerned about this. They could be potentially held liable since this type of speech is not protected by the first amendment.

View on HN

Yes, that is what reddit, twitter and Hacker News reinforce constantly. It's either because it's true, or because the other side has been repeatedly discouraged from adding their two cents in those communities. I've been seeing the world through this lens for so long that I can't tell.

I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels. It seems much more likely that I don't fully understand their perspective.

Why does the left have to censor the right? Surely they should be able to beat the right with logical and reasoned arguments?

Censorship has always struck me as a tool that a side which isn't confident in its arguments uses.

A large portion of extremists are not willing to discuss the results of the election even with other Republicans. People were calling Pence a traitor, boycotting Fox, etc.

Those people are not willing to talk to or listen to anyone who's supposedly on their side but has a different opinion. What makes you think they will listen to the "other side"?

I understand what you're saying, but in my limited experience, it appears it isn't exactly what information is being presented so much as How it is presented. Often I see some with a differing opinion begin along the lines of: "You're an idiot Trumper, you're killing the planet!!" How about begin with a question to engage? For example: " why is it you think climate change doesn't exist? From the studies I've seen, I was convinced. " That's better right?

You seem to be requesting perfection from one side but not from the other.

To keep on the previous example: Pence and Fox News never called anyone "idiot Trumper" or anything and they are being attacked by that crowd.

About climate change: Greta Thunberg has been called all kinds of names without equivalent provocation.

And there's a lot of people willing to engage with climate change deniers in the way you're suggesting they should, but a large part of climate change deniers are not willing to accept that those people are acting in good faith. There's lot of accusations that non-deniers are paid shills and stuff like that.

Again, why does every person on one side has to be perfect, but the other side gets a pass? Even the Republicans can't control the Trump crowd.

The problem with this is that it’s black and white.

Yes, there are clearly completely intractable extremists who won’t engage in good faith.

But there are a lot of their people who will.

Absolutely, and I acknowledge that: the right itself is full of completely reasonable people that is being shunned by some of the extremists.

On the other hand, the same thing should apply to the left! Just because someone on the left has not been using logical arguments and acting in bad faith, it doesn't mean the whole left is doing it. People don't get a free pass on claiming "the left caused it" or (EDIT) "the left not talking to them is the reason they have this opinion".

‘"the left caused it"’

I agree that this is obvious bullishit.

But it’s also bullshit to say ‘the right caused it’.

How many people are getting a free pass on saying that right now?

Wait, just so we're on the same page: by "the left caused it" I mean that I don't believe the theory that "the left is to blame for people having extremist opinions because the left doesn't want to talk to them". Not some specific event.

I also believe that blaming the whole right for anything is incorrect too, and repeatedly mentioned that some of the right are being shunned by extremists too.

I think that one possible disconnect is the issue of ‘extremism’. I don’t think we can make a black and white division between extremists and everyone else.

For example, I think things like saying ‘whiteness’ is the problem, is not particularly associated with the extremes and yet very much are part of the cause of the problem. Similarly, calling everyone on the left a snowflake or a communist, is not only the purview of extremists.

> I don’t think we can make a black and white division between extremists and everyone else.

I haven't made any black and white division between extremists and anyone else. I always said "large portion of extremists", "a large part of climate change deniers", etc.

What I'm replying to here is the multiple posts (not yours) saying that the problem is that some people on the left have been communicating in a combative/ineffective manner.

While this is true, I don't believe this is the source of the problem. And demanding perfection from one side while absolving the other is not a fair tactic. It's pure bullshit. Why must the left be flawless? In fact, it's a bit condescending to the extremists.

I don’t believe it is the only source. However the situation is a non-exclusive OR. When either side does this, they become part of the cause. The behavior is the source of the problem - not a side.

No ‘side’ can claim not to be the cause unless it can curb the behavior. The left cannot curb the right behaving unreasonably, but it might be able to curb unreason on its own side.

However this: “demanding perfection from one side while absolving the other” seems like a straw man. If this is being done, it’s clearly being done by the right and the left.

When the right say the left are causing the problem by doing this, they are correct. You are also correct to say they aren’t the only ones causing it.

However the left cannot improve the situation by pointing fingers at the right and doubling down.

The left doesn’t have to be ‘flawless’, but if it’s not better than the right, then how does it expect to improve anything?

It's not a strawman. The posts I answered virtually said that the reason extremists still hold their extreme position is due to "the left" being too combative and being unable to create arguments to debate with the extremists. Note I'm not saying "the right" to refer to them.

I'm not talking about "the right" here. The right is too varied (as is the left). I'm talking about extremists.

I pointed out that some extremists are not even willing to listen to people on the right itself. Pence and Fox News are definitely not calling people "idiot trumpsters" and are still being attacked by them.

It's not even a matter of the left trying to engage in discussion. People have screamed at me and called me "sheeple" for wearing a mask in the supermarket. How do you engage? I just left. Am I the cause of the problem for not speaking a word before or after the engagement?

The left can't improve the situation by trying to debate with people that's unwilling to debate in the first place, period.

“The left can't improve the situation by trying to debate with people that's unwilling to debate in the first place, period.“

This is true.

However the left can improve the situation by being willing to debate people who are willing to debate, and yet casual dismissals or irrelevances about whiteness and racism stop that dead.

Look at this comment as an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25698039

By not doing so, they do create the climate for extremism, frankly at both ends.

Extremism is a problem, but it’s a false dichotomy to think of extremism as somehow independent of what everyone else does.

The people who claim to be willing to debate aren't necessarily willing to debate though. Someone like a Richard Spencer is really looking to gish gallop and not debate

ratww, I didn't intend to suggest perfection from either side. But, only one side wants to censor the other for their opinion, the manner in which they convey it, or broad association with extremists by way of similar beliefs on a much narrower subset of ideas.

My example of climate change was merely a "for instance" rather than for the topic of the example to become part of the discussion.

Point being, silencing one side doesn't work if the alleged reason is their ideas are so wrong they are too dangerous to be read unless you can properly show what you claim is "right".

I never mentioned anything about censorship here, so I don't see how this applies to my reply.

What I was objecting here is the theory that people on the right has been radicalised due to the left not wanting to discuss. I'm just demonstrating that not only the left wants to speak to the extremists, but also the right itself wants (Pence and Fox News). But the extremists don't care: they're even attacking both left and right preemptively. There's zero interest from extremists to understand opposing opinions.

This theory that the left is to blame for the radicalisation of those people holds absolutely no water.

It’s really tiresome seeing the “Republicans are victims of the left“ meme over and over. You’ve controlled the government for years. You’ve mismanaged the pandemic, killing more Americans than world war 2. We’re not supposed to take the president’s words literally, unless he’s saying something that you happen to personally agree with.

And no, discussing studies doesn’t work. See the anti-vax debate. We’ve been pointing out the science on climate change and vaccines, clearly and respectfully, for _decades_ and it has not mattered.

I’ve never seen anyone directly start a persuasive argument with “you’re an idiot Trumper”. It isn’t that common. Your helpless victim attitude is showing.

Trump had every opportunity to win this election rightfully. He is not a victim and neither are you or his supporters. Stop playing one.

> People were calling Pence a traitor

More than that:

> Others called for Vice President Mike Pence — who enraged Trump when he acknowledged that he did not have the power to unilaterally throw out electoral college votes — to be tried for treason. One Facebook post, quickly deleted, said Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should be hanged.

* https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-conspiracy-theories-...

Deplatforming isn’t censorship, it is publishers saying they find said speech to be garbage. I don’t typically stop arguing someone because I have convinced them of my view but because I guess further interaction with them on the topic is a waste of energy. I am confident in all my arguments but a lot of people are too dumb and too emotional to be worth debating. And in the group context, arguing without moderation has mostly devolved into name calling and child porn. It is an experiment often repeated. Some people want a different experience, which seems to mean they want moderation in exchange for a good forum, e.g. this web site.

That is censorship. Prior to this point in time only hate speech, inciteful, vulgar, things were censored. To remove speech from the view of others that is contrary to your own simply because you believe it is "garbage" is censorship. Perhaps the other side believes your speech should be censored. Let's have your comment removed because of your generalization of speech you don't like as "garbage" doesn't conform with the guidelines i just thought of right now and actually, i think your comment is "garbage". How to punish you for your opinion now? 12 hours ban? 24? Deplatformed? Where does it end? THAT is censorship.

Stop using someone else's services for your expression. Just imagine you are in Walmart or a Target or your local grocery store. You don't have a right to be there or to engage in any speech or really anything else if the manager wants you removed from private property. If you want to nationalize Twitter and Facebook be my guest but until then the owners of said private property can continue to kick people off of it. I still have yet to see one case where a person's right to free speech were somehow infringed upon.

I would put forth that you're not going to get far in this conversation if you can't acknowledge that censorship and government abridgement of free speech are not one and the same.

A company deplatforming an individual is indeed censorship, but is not government abridgement of free speech.

Why don’t they build their own platform?

They can raise the money. I assume there are enough software engineers that will sympathize with them and build one.

Was this Parler that they created?

Looks like the app got shut down today. But I’m sure they can still make a website for it, running JavaScript.

You can’t shut the website down, unless you hijack the DNS.

Dailystormer proves that you /can/ shut down a website through pressure on ISPs.

You're censoring AOC right now. Why doesn't your post contain one of her quotes? Stop censoring her

Isn't deplatforming the term that gets used when certain individuals, invited to speak at a University (for example) get prevented from actually saying anything due to intentional disruption?

Would you consider this to be censorship? Does it make a difference who the speaker is?

That doesn't work with people who didn't get to their beliefs by reason in the first place.

I'm not sure if you're applying that statement in mass or not, but I have seen this reasoning from both sides, straw-manning people into a belief system and calling them irrational because they disagree. I see this much more about the right from the left though.

I think if you sat down with an educated conservative and an open mind you'd have a different point of view.

If your statement was just a blanket statement about people in general, I apologize for mis-categorizing it.

Agreed. If I say, “One equals two”, and you say, “Don’t ever talk to me again, you racist”, then I’m never going to understand the flaws in my thinking and you’re going to wonder why you are unable to convert people to your side.

Nobody is going to call you a racist because you claim that 1=2.

If you want to debate in good faith whether people are too quick to call others racist, maybe you should start the debate by enumerating what kind of speech have sparked those claims? Otherwise you're just being hyperbolic and increasing the political divide.

I get that people are pissed for being called racist, but if they REALLY wanna fix that, the first step is admitting that the other side might be pissed about something too.

> admitting that the other side might be pissed about something too.

I spend most of my mental effort trying to get people on each side to do this, its not easy bro.

"Nobody is going to call you a racist because you claim that 1=2."

? A woman is under arrest for trying to grab what she thought was her phone back from a black kid. It's a national story.

In 2020, getting into an argument with a Black person is 'racist' and 'criminal' if you happen to be wrong.

The woman did 1=2, in that, her actions are wrong.

But because someone is a different colour, she's being destroyed and doxxed on the MSM for the assumption of racism. (Ironically, she could easily pass as a 'person of colour' if she chose to).

This is unfortunately a problem right now in politics and it's perpetuated by the press.

> ? A woman is under arrest for trying to grab what she thought was her phone back from a black kid. It's a national story.

> In 2020, getting into an argument with a Black person is 'racist' and 'criminal' if you happen to be wrong.

Assault isn't a mere argument, and it's a crime regardless of the race of the perpetrators or victim.

> But because someone is a different colour, she's being destroyed and doxxed on the MSM for the assumption of racism.

No, she’s being condemned for the objective fact of assaulting a child.

That's a terrible example. She not only falsely accused, but also assaulted someone she had never seen before.

False accusation and assault should be crimes, period. If she had done the same thing to me you can be damn sure I would want her ass in jail regardless of my skin colour. Her arrest is a good thing. Actions that affect others negatively should have consequences.

You're misunderstanding my point.

Assault is a crime, yes, what she did was wrong - yes, of course - I agree with that.

But what she is being destroyed for is 'racism' - not 'assault and false accusation'.

She was being irrational (1=2) and then because of this, castigated for racism - which is a much more devious charge.

Also - it's shocking that anyone is 'shocked' over such a pedestrian encounter. Have HN readers never been in a fight before? Have folks literally never been in an argument?

This kind of stuff is 'daily' on the streets, at WallMart, etc. It's not very civil obviously, but it's really common for people to get upset over things. We have bouncers at bars for this reason. But we're adults and we move past it.

And - 'false accusation' in this manner is clearly not criminal. The woman had her phone stolen, it's reasonable for her in a hysterical state and just see the first iPhone and possibly think it's hers. Again, not nice at all, but not completely crazy.

The proper response to a hysterical person who had their phone stolen, and who maybe thinks you have it is to 'take the high ground' and calmly demonstrate your ownership. That's all. I don't expect this of a kid, but that could have happend.

That we have a 'national story' with literally Al Sharpton because someone 'grabbed someone's arm' is utterly ridiculous. The kid is 'seeking counselling' because someone 'touched him forcefully'? It's a farce. They've turned this utterly minor incident into a bad SNL parody.

Finally - I'm not implying their couldn't have been racism either, this woman could possibly just as nasty as it gets, it's impossible to tell.

And of course, the whole point of CNN putting this on the news is not that this specific moment is important, but that it could be demonstrative of 'systematic racism in the commons' and they want to make an example out of her - but lacking any possible reference to racial motivation, it's just plain stupid.

In summary - this is an example of certain parts of the media castigating individuals who may be of a certain persuasion (in this case 'White') for no reason, and I can see people getting upset over that.

The riot on capital hill however was not mostly a political movement of general malaise, rather, it was specifically about that certain people feel the election was stolen. It was mostly certainly not stolen, but they believe that because Trump told them so, and that's the primary motivation issue of the violence at this point.

No, it's nowhere near reasonable for her to do what she did. Everyone has a damn iPhone and they have very few models which all look very similar. The kid even had his own phone case which she asked him to remove. It's unreasonable to ask a stranger that just appeared in an elevator to give their phone to you.

And maybe it's a cultural thing but I've never seen a grown woman tackling a 14 year old kid to the ground like this, and if I ever do you can be sure I will call the police. Just because you've seen it often doesn't mean it should be normalised.

And no, she's not being "destroyed" by the racism accusation. But she might be destroyed if she goes to jail and gets a permanent record. And she had it coming. Actions HAVE consequences.

> Actions HAVE consequences.

That is a fascinatingly passive synonym for "struggle session."

This is hyperbolic and disrespectful to people who actually went trough it.

Breaking the law has consequences. And the only consequence here is her being prosecuted for assault and battery and potentially going to jail. This has nothing to do with racism accusation, and is nothing compared to the torture you're suggesting.

This is hyperbolic.

Nobody is going to jail for grabbing someone's arm.

Even hitting someone - it's not nice, but not a big deal.

What is wrong with the rhetoric here?

This is a 'non incident' - someone was upset over a lost phone, and some minor classroom shenanigans played out.

Nobody was hurt, nothing happened, it doesn't even belong in the courts.

The woman is up for DUI she's a little unhinged, some people are like that, life goes on.

So I don't mean to say it's reasonable in normal circumstances, just given a little bit of hysteria after having lost an iPhone.

I guess I should have said 'undersandable' when someone is angry.

And yes - she is totally destroyed.

Do you understand the implications of your face being all over TMZ and CNN, publishing your name?

She will have death threats.

She will almost certainly lose her job if she has a normal job.

This will tar her for the rest of her life.

People commit suicide over this kind of stuff.

'Naming and shaming' for such a minor even is vindictive and terrible.

I understand CNN wanting to call attention to casual racism, but they should probably using these as 'lesson events' and probably not using real names.

They also dramatize by giving some back story 'son of a musician' and 'lady with a history of DUI' which is shameful - none of that is relevant.

Given how sensitive these things are they could be really polite about it, talk about what happened objective, talk about how the actors could have acted differently without names and colour commentary.

> Surely they should be able to beat the right with logical and reasoned arguments?

It's a self-harming myth the left believes in. You don't need to be right to win the argument.

A significant number of people are threatened by rational critical thinking. They instill these values in their children who then they go off on raving rampages touting false patriotism. You can't make them listen. Taking away their echo chambers is the only way to cool them off.

"You can't make them listen."

You are correct about that but why are you so set on making other adults think the way you do?

I don't need them to think like me. I need them to be self-reflective enough to admit when they're wrong. You can see this inability in action when their pugnacious behavior is held up to the light and they immediately dodge with conspiracy theories about planted agitators from the other side.

From my side, you are wrong. The stances you think I have are probably inaccurate too. Your side seems to always lock us into a prison of two ideas without letting us speak for ourselves.

The extreme assumptions and generalizations don't help. There are many of us that don't agree with you but don't exactly line up with Republicans or even Trump supporters at times.

Many Trump supporters are Libertarians that do not agree full with Republican ideals completely, but it's the closest home.

I need them to be...

You're setting yourself up for lots of disappointment, in this life. If you truly need complete strangers you haven't met to do pyschological work for you, happiness will always slip away.

Maybe you're the one who's wrong, ever think of that?

Lots of groups only accept one view point. Anyone that disagrees is attacked viciously.

It’s how the Scientologist operate. How China operates. It’s where America is/has going.

Next step is going to be a push to gather up all the guns. Wouldn’t want all the free thinkers getting any ideas now.

I remember how, in the Obama era, there was a constant drumbeat of "they're coming for your guns," and unsurprisingly it never materialized.

Why should I believe you this time?

Well there were pretty heavy gun regulations that were enacted under Obama.

I guess Obama did allow cartels to have guns by continuing Fast & Furious so you're half right.

> Well there were pretty heavy gun regulations that were enacted under Obama.

No there weren't.

> I guess Obama did allow cartels to have guns by continuing Fast & Furious so you're half right.

You're half-right because of this one, the Obama administration circumvented federal law to allow known prohibited persons to buy guns and then let them take the guns across the border. over 1200 guns were lost to known organized crime without even getting Mexican gov't permission.

For one thing, it’s happening slowly in states like California, and for another it is written into Biden’s platform.

“Put America on the path to ensuring that 100% of firearms sold in America are smart guns.” - a quote you can check today on Biden’s website.

Venezuela operates like that too.

That already happened though. Black people aren't allowed to have guns. That's why police shootings now have to mention "unarmed black man" because being armed is breaking the law for a black man.

You just aren't the free thinker you think you are

Honestly, I think you could say the same about both sides of the left/right divide.

...is the only way...

Wait, has this actually worked before? Ever? Do you have examples? For instance, when they denied "radical Islamist groups" access to popular social media, "radical Islamist groups" just started using less popular social media that is harder to keep tabs on. "Radical Islamist groups" certainly haven't disappeared...

I have an example - I remember a time before social media and internet populism. In those days these same groups existed, but were exclusively on the fringe. You didn't hear people bring up radical alt-right talking points, or sympathize with nazis, or spout outright racism (as much).

The fact of the matter is that echo chambers encourage extremism and social media is nothing but echo chambers.

Another fact of the matter is human psychology. Humans have a biological tendency to accept as truth the first opinion they hear on a topic. This is a result of evolution. If your tribe member tells you a berry is poisonous, is the first response to argue? Or to just listen. Better to be safe than sorry.

When you combine that bit of psychology with social media, you see people go online to some circle jerk, innocently at first, and then get radicalized.

Now before any counter examples get brought out, just consider that while it doesn't work this way for every person, in every context, it does work this way for some non-trivial amount of people, and that's what we're seeing. A lot of users on parler aren't domestic terrorists, but if it's even 1% who fall victim to basic human psychology, that's enough for what took place on Wednesday.

So yeah - the example is the time before social media.

The time before the printing press was invented is certainly not an example of "taking away printed materials". Both the printing press and social media exist now. You wrote lots of stuff without including the example I requested.

Also, if you didn't hear racism in USA in the 1980s you've led a very sheltered life.

You must have misread my comment.

YES. Recently many platforms were key in deplatforming ISIS and slowing the rate of radicalization. ISIS was an internet phenomenon and when their media was pushed to less famous outlets then their outreach was weakened.

Ever since the beginning of the Internet webhosting companies have colluded to deplatform the KKK and a few other notorious white supremacist groups. This has been largely successful in curbing the outreach of the KKK in the United States. It's also why YouTube is getting a lot of criticism for embracing white supremacist groups and facilitating thier growing outreach. This is a break from long-running comm business practices.

> You can't make them listen

Daryl Davis has certainly proven otherwise, but I freely admit that no one should have to have the sort of patience or dedication to the cause that he's demonstrated in doing so.

> What I have come to find to be the greatest and most effective and successful weapon that we can use, known to man, to combat such adversaries as ignorance, racism, hatred, violence, is also the least expensive weapon, and the one that is the least used by Americans. That weapon is called communication. [0] [1]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0vS0qvYo0&t=34s

Incorrect, you CAN NOT make someone listen, you can only take advantage when they are willing to do so. No one will believe anything they're not willing to. If they open the door, only then does communication work.

You can certainly encourage someone to open the door. I've found that staying calm, humble, and listening first tends to cause others to listen in return.

Maybe the right needs to understand that no corporation is required to give them their platform.

It isn’t “censorship” to toss your ass off Twitter for violating their TOS. It is censorship for the government to demand Twitter shut ya down

See the distinction?

> It isn’t “censorship” to toss your ass off Twitter for violating their TOS

This is a misnomer. It's certainly censorship to "toss your ass off Twitter", even if somebody's arbitrary interpretation of a TOS concludes in the finding of a violation.

The concept of free speech doesn't just restrict the government via the First Amendment... it is a tradition and a founding principle (as documented in the Federalist Papers) of the United States of America, as well as a social contract.

I would argue that companies are obligated to abide by the principles of free speech, not from a legal perspective, but from a social perspective, lest they face the consequence of controversy Twitter is currently facing for banning the account of a sitting US President.

Ultimately, silencing people you disagree with is a no-win path to go down.

Because every single time the left agrees to sit down and have a conversation with “reason and logical arguments” they get met with bad-fair arguments.

In spite of this, they keep offering. As soon as they do anything except bend-over-backwards to accomodate the right, they are met with “so much for the tolerant left”. Is it any surprise that people get fed up when this is all they’re ever met with. If you can’t come to the table and behave like an adult, don’t be surprised when you get relegated to the kids table.

I am quite worried for the future of the country when Republican voters elected not one but two adherents of QAnon to the House of Representatives.

What is any sort of reasoned debate about policy going to look like when one of the participants is coming into it with a set of beliefs as divergent from reality as QAnon?

"Meet in the middle" says the man in bad faith.

You take one step forward, he takes one step back.

"Meet in the middle" says the man in bad faith.

“every single time the left agrees to sit down and have a conversation with “reason and logical arguments” they get met with bad-fair arguments“

Absolutely true.

Also true:

“every single time the right agrees to sit down and have a conversation with “reason and logical arguments” they get met with bad-fair arguments“

Why not try both approaches? We'll let Pence and Graham explain, with logic and reason, why the Electoral College selected Biden, and then we'll see how people respond.

Assuming you are serious, let’s watch Lindsay walk thru Reagan International today:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lindsey-graham-called-trait...

I’m reminded of Qaddafi’s last video. If only he had used logic and reason...

In case it isn't clear to people who only watch briefly, the people in the video are Trump supporters, yelling at Graham for giving up on perpetuating the "stolen election" lie.

These are people who are nominally on his side, angry that he's no longer carrying water for Trump.

The left/right dichotomy is not something that is rooted in logic or argumentation but in psychology.

The left is succeeding because it has abandoned argument in favor of the raw pursuit and exercise of power, including their incessant moralizing, which is of course how a priestly caste expresses power.

Why would they go back to debating?

They censor because its playing field they're winning on.

Technically the corporations censor because it's profitable to do so.

The profit motive to keep trump on is gone, so he's gone

Research into belief perseverance shows that even when people are shown overwhelming evidence contradicting one of their beliefs that they dig in their heels and stick to the belief anyway. [1]

There's also Frank Lunz's observation that many people form opinions based solely on the emotive content of the words (Russell conjugation [2]) they're presented with, regardless of the facts. [3]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz#Use_of_language

The woke don't believe in debate[0].

They feel that the deck is rigged against them, debating reinforces the current oppressive system, that all disagreement is illegitimate, and that anyone with power who isn't dismantling the current system is evil.

[0] https://newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-wont-debate-you-heres...

When I study history of various places and times, fifty percent of the population has often done a lot of questionable things, especially at the behest of leaders willing to use irrational divisions, like skin color, to enhance their power over that fifty percent. And, to tie it to ycombinator, isn’t the software motto 80% of everything is crap?

And to semi-agree with your paean to understanding, there are people whose actions I deplore and whom I know well enough to glimpse thru their eyes, and the combination of constant emotional disregulation and self-centered ness means one can try quite hard to be good and be nothing be a source of evil actions. Understanding this emotional reality has helped me to stay clear headed when confronted with the maelstrom, but has not lessened my determination to oppose the actions.

It's far more likely that half the population has been duped into following someone because of clever conniving. Trump knew exactly what to do to build up that base and now that their head is gone, the chicken is running around in the yard with no direction wondering what the hell happened. Once the dust settles, I think a lot of those people will reintegrate into society, especially if they start to receive the benefits of good governance, such as healthcare, assistance due to COVID, robust anti-discrimination, job prospects, etc.

I very rarely hear this hope expressed and I struggle to believe it—can you elaborate?

I don't doubt that so many people on the right are hurting. Their constant accusations of being called the "fly-over states" is totally true. There is endless rural decay, industry is gone. When life is difficult like that, it is very easy to pine for a time gone past when things were better. But now it's gotten so bad that people are desperate. COVID-19 has made it much worse, and people don't want to follow restrictions as it could be an existential threat. So they try and latch on to the one guy that is rich, because they are not; the one guy that talks straight, tells them what they want to hear. And they fall for him, and pledge their support. Combine that with a severely underfunded education system where people don't think critically and just think to tests or drop out, people can be swayed easily. Just look at the people at the Capitol riot. These people are not smart and thoughtful, you can tell by their incoherent ramblings. They have been incited by their environment. Yes they chose to go to DC and they deserve to be punished for it, but I can sympathize with what brought them to this place. The problem is Republicans are so bad at dealing with those issues, because they require broad-based governmental programs since private enterprise has abandoned those communities.

My optimistic hope is that with a few years of widespread governance by the Democratic party, we may see some wide-reaching assistance reach these people. Get education reformed, get police reformed. Teach these people that hating black people actually causes their own outcomes to get worse. Support their businesses that they have had to scrape together. Pass widespread healthcare reform so healthcare is accessible to all, not just the rich. Build up people, don't tear them down. And, most importantly in the short term, vaccinate the whole country to get past this COVID-19 pandemic so the economy can get back to full strength. I think once that happens, and the Trumpers have some time to grieve from the loss of their former leader, these people will come back to the fold and see that hate isn't a useful method of getting what they need.

Thanks for sharing. I gather your optimistic view is founded in sort of taking election promises at face value. I’ve always thought they are more like things politician say to seem cool, so my pessimism builds from assuming they won’t come to fruition.

Understandable. I put my trust in activists who do it for the cause. When government and activists actually work together instead of in opposition, great things can happen. We've seen it in New York and we can see it nationwide.

> My optimistic hope is that with a few years of widespread governance by the Democratic party, we may see some wide-reaching assistance reach these people. Get education reformed, get police reformed.

Aren't there areas in the US that have been governed by Democrats continuously for decades, yet also don't have the programs you list above?

I don't know any area that's continuously controlled by Democrats except for maybe certain municipalities. Even New York had a Republican Mayor and Governor for many years in the 2000s.

San Francisco hasn't had a Republican in office since the 60's.

take a look at the top X cities in the US, and see which party is running them. Then, see how long they were there... then see if the data supports your assertion.

Missing a couple of points.

Trump is a fighter. For many he fights for them.

He has been attacked mercilessly for years. To an absurd level.

Every republican has been attacked constantly. Until now, they have all been wimps. Bushes barely pushed on any issues.

The next republican is going to have 95% negative Media coverage. The actual reasons will be figured out later

>He has been attacked mercilessly for years.

Maybe because he is a lying blowhard grifter. This is not new, he has been this way for fifty years. You can go back to his interviews in the 70s and 80s, and see the same behavior.

I think what you're saying about causation has a lot of truth to it. I believe one of the other fundamental considerations is simple numbers. Looking at the pictures of the Capitol riot it doesn't look like there were more than a few thousand people there and probably less than ten percent of those breached the Capitol and/or engaged in violence. There are more than 328 million people in the US, some minute percentage of those people, because of mental illness or some sort of subclinical ideological derangement are going to be drawn into this kind of idiocy given the present environment.

The rise of online platforms unquestionable explains part of why large hordes of conspiracy addled red hats have taken to the streets. But I am very pessimistic about the potential for deplatforming to solve this problem. Clinton famously said that the Chinese censoring the Internet would be like, "nailing jello to a wall," basically impossible. It turns out, for the most part, the Chinese have been able to hammer down dissent online. But they were able to write almost any laws they wanted, create a massive censorship apparatus, and exert control over every aspect of society. Even with all these advantages they barely managed it. Western society will never be willing to exert the control necessary to effectively manage online speech. There are simply too many members of the alt right, creating too much demand, for them to be effectively cut off from communication platforms. Trying will likely be counterproductive. It will balkanize the internet into more ideologically extreme and insular networks where "responsible adults" have less influence. It will feed a sense of paranoia and persecution. Over time it will lead them to harden their platforms and improve their tactics of evasion making it more difficult to monitor them and exert any kind of control.

We also have the very significant problem of where to draw the line. Now that the big tech platforms have decided to remove political speech that they believe is dangerous, there will be a lot of pressure on them to keep going. "If you removed $X for $I why are you now giving a platform to $Y to say $J?" There is going to be a lot of discussion in the coming months about what kind of opinions should lead to deplatforming, not all of it is going to be productive.

There is no easy solution and deplatforming is probably part of the answer. I believe a larger part will (or at least should) be finding more effective ways to reach out and influence opinions when possible. The Capitol police being caught so unprepared shows the urgent need for effective intelligence and responsive protection strategies. If deplatforming is used in an excessive or capricious manner it is likely to make any kind of effective action much more difficult.

Different poster, but I share the same hope. Most people won't put their life on the line for the revolution if their life is sufficiently comfy. Revolutions only happen when people have no other choice. When it's revolt or die, you revolt. When it's revolt or watch netflix, most people watch netflix.

We'll see if it's different this time, but I bet this time will end up like all the other times it has felt like "the end of civilized society". Society just keeps putting along.

Thanks for sharing. Some thoughts/rebuttals:

- what if “society just keeps putting along” only until it stops? I heard somewhere that complex empires historically have a life expectancy of ca. 300 years.

- I also heard somewhere that the Arab Srping revolutions took off in full only when the panicked government shut down social media. True or not, it’s an insteresting “what if”. The “panem et circenses” government should maybe think twice about turning off Twitter (in practice) for these subjects, no?

- life looks to be getting less comfy, with COVID. A year ago I would feel more at home in the comfy prosperity argument but today that rings hollow

> - what if “society just keeps putting along” only until it stops? I heard somewhere that complex empires historically have a life expectancy of ca. 300 years.

Yup, that's the worry.

> - I also heard somewhere that the Arab Srping revolutions took off in full only when the panicked government shut down social media. True or not, it’s an insteresting “what if”. The “panem et circenses” government should maybe think twice about turning off Twitter (in practice) for these subjects, no?

I had not heard that. I think it's a bit unfair to compare people being oppressed by an actual dictator in a relatively poor country to people who live in one of the richest countries in the world. All these people had the means to pay for transport across this massive country and pay for lodging. If you're really struggling can you afford to buy a round trip plane ticket and a hotel?

Also Twitter hasn't been turned off for the people, just for the leaders and presumably instigators. They're still all gonna be able to freely talk shit about Biden and libtards, they just won't be getting orders from the top.

> - life looks to be getting less comfy, with COVID. A year ago I would feel more at home in the comfy prosperity argument but today that rings hollow

True, COVID has caused a decrease in the QOL. But on a macro level, there is still enough food, shelter, healthcare, and Call of duty to go around. I think it's enough to keep a large chunk of the population from seriously considering taking up arms.

Much of my opinions on this topic come from this video, I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs.

Ahh was waiting for the CGP Grey reference. It's a great video.

It's easy: this is a Trump phenom, and not an ideological or cultural phenom, mostly.

Trump has no ideology, he used Twitter, FB and mass media to lie to the masses, and a certain group believed him.

Once he has less power, he'll have less influence.

FoxNews commenters became rabidly in favour of he $2K stimulus checks when Trump announced it.

It was pretty funny watching thousands of Fox commenters, normally screaming at the hint of 'Socialism' - backing up Trump's $2K checque claims and how 'people are having a hard time these days, they need the money'.

It's really sad how they will flip ideologies to be consistent with whatever he says.

Once Trump has moved on, then there will be other priorities.

Just a nitpick but not "half of the US population" follows Trump.

Not even getting into the fallacy of attributing more than can be to participants of a binary choice dilemma, the American Republic presidential elections are not "1 person 1 vote" like most other democratic Republics.

Hahaha, America is never going to treat it's citizens well no matter who you put in as president. The owners will never allow it..

> I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels

Why do you think this?

Racism was the absolute norm in the US until ~not that long ago. It’s literally written into the constitution and it took literal bloodshed to change that. And then when we did, there was massive pushback in the form of Jim Crow laws.

Statistically you’d expect half of people to be dumber than average. Our (non-higher) education system in the US is nothing to be proud of and wildly inconsistent at best.

Add in politician deliberately lying (e.g. republicans ignoring climate change, republicans denying covid while adjusting their portfolios to take advantage) and stupidity is clearly the norm.

Where is racism "literally written" into the constitution?

edit: look I know it's bad form on here to complain about being downvoted, but I was asking an honest question. Chill, people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise

The Three-fifths Compromise was a compromise reached among state delegates during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. Delegates disputed whether and how slaves would be counted when determining a state's total population, as this number would determine a state's number of seats in the House of Representatives and how much it would pay in taxes. The compromise counted three out of every five slaves as people...

In the US Constitution, the Three-fifths Compromise is part of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3:

    Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons [italics added].[2]

Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 is even more damning I think. Basically saying that importation of slaves must be allowed for at least the first 19 years of the country's existence.

> The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

How is that damning? The alternative was to create the union without the south. Then slavery would have continued much longer in the south. How would it have been better for the north to refuse to compromise? The constitution brought the end of slavery. It didn’t prop it up.

Ok - but that expired a long time ago, and the Civil Rights act was passed in 1964.

Is the complaint that we haven’t erased the slavery related stuff from the record?

What has this got to do with people being racist now?

> the Civil Rights act was passed in 1964.

A Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.

Civil Rights Acts were also passed in 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1968, and 1991.

But the passage of a Civil Rights Act is not, in and of itself, an indication of the end of systemic racism.

What evidence would prove that systemic racism doesn't exist?

“But the passage of a Civil Rights Act is not, in and of itself, an indication of the end of systemic racism“

Systemic racism is rampant in every country I have lived in, the US included.

But you are changing the subject.

The question is about why it matters that it was once part of the constitution if it is no longer?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise

I guess I am conflating the history of slavery in the US with racism.

Racism was already codified into the American institution of slavery before the revolution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_United_States

At the time of writing the constitution, slavery was expressly racist.

Probably putting the comment too deep to be noticed but racism (or xenophobia) has always been there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_Polish_craftsmen#Str...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1619_Jamestown_craftsmen_strik...

The Jamestown craftsmen's strike of 1619 took place in the settlement of Jamestown in the Virginia colony.[1] It was the first documented strike in North America.[2] Skilled craftsmen were sent by the Virginia Company to Jamestown to produce pitch, tar, and turpentine used for shipbuilding.[3] When the colony held its first election in 1619, many settlers were not allowed to vote on the grounds that they were not of English descent, and they went on strike.[2] Due to the importance of the skilled workers in producing valuable naval stores for the colony, company leaders bowed to labor pressure and gave full voting rights to continental workers.[1]

I assume he is talking about the 3/5 compromise.

I wonder if you could tell us, GP, which states wanted that number to be one and which wanted it to be zero?

Let’s put this in more context.

Of course slaves weren’t allowed to vote, and 3/5ths meant that the South would get more representation as recognition of the economic strength they were bringing to the union.

It’s not like the Northern vs Southern states were arguing about whether a slave’s vote was worth 0, 3/5, or 1. This was about ascribing more (or less) power to slave owners.

No... the 3/5 compromise reduced the power of the south, because it kept them from getting representation for those they refused to allow to vote.

The south wanted 1, the north wanted 0.

The 3/5 compromise was one of the forces that eventually brought about the end of slavery. It didn’t increase the south’s representation, it decreased it.

Oh wait... we don’t actually want to learn about history here unless it reinforces our identity politics mindset. Please remember this before posting logical, factual information.

We live in a totally post fact world. Nobody wants to hear truth, they just make up whatever story they want to believe and pretend that makes it fact.

That’s right, the south wanted 1 and the north wanted 0.

What I’m saying is that it “increased” the representation versus 0. Which is equivalent to your formulation that it “decreased” the representation from 1. In other words, 3/5 is more than zero and less than 1. No disagreement here.

My point is that it wasn’t about giving rights to black people, it was an argument about how much representation slave owners would have.

Aside from the place mentioned in numerous sibling comments, Article I Sec. 9. Cl. 1 (it's not phrased in racial terms, but it's literally Constitutional protection of the slave trade.)

You're welcome to look it up before making a flippant question next time.

If you seriously don’t know about this, then the parent poster’s comment about schooling, is completely accurate.

> Our (non-higher) education system in the US is nothing to be proud of and wildly inconsistent at best.

This is something I've had an issue with for a while. It's not a great move to assume that conservatives are dumb.

There are plenty of brilliant people who hold conservative values. Their idea of "success" may not follow the path of others who have moved from their hometown to a coast working in IT. Or the path of those who were "enlightened" with advanced degrees where the sophisticated choice is obviously to be a democrat. It's different strokes for different folks, and there are many ways to live in the United States.

A vote for Trump isn't necessarily a vote for Trump - It can be a vote for "Not Democrat." Whether or not you believe that voting "Not Democrat" is appropriate, it's a far reach to say that all, or most, of those people, are idiots with racist views. This approach discounts legitimate differences that should be open to debate and should be discussed. We can't expect the United States to last or be successful if we assume everyone in the middle of the country is an uncultured idiot who should be censored. Or assume that those who don't share the same views must be racists who just can't be reasoned with.

If Democrats somehow lost control of the primary to a less ideal celebrity candidate (and this is possible: https://www.london.edu/think/why-most-elections-are-ineffici...), there would be many democrats who choose to vote for that person because it is "Not Republican." It wouldn't matter who is on the ticket as long as it is "Not Republican" because a republican choice would be dumb, racist, and unsophisticated.

I grew up in the rust belt, I've lived in the most diverse city in the country (Houston, TX), and I've lived in Cambridge, MA. People are largely the same all over the country - they care about being left alone with the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. How they define those things differs (e.g., is a fetus "alive"?), but as long as people have those rights protected, then it's all good.

But we need laws where these rights come into conflict: if someone's pursuit of happiness involves owning slaves, this is in direct conflict with another's right to life and liberty. And they are ordered in importance - life > liberty > pursuit of happiness. So obviously, slavery should be outlawed. But other things aren't that clear. Federal legislation doesn't impact everyone evenly, and those who are impacted should have a voice. Assuming every "Not Democrat" (or "Not Republican" or "Not X") voice is a racist, dumb person who should be silenced or ignored is a fast path to division and the collapse of a functioning Democracy.

> It's not a great move to assume that conservatives are dumb, racist, and unsophisticated.

I don't love labels, but I don't think "conservatives" are simply any of those things.

This isn't an original thought, but I think they are mostly afraid of losing their community if they change their mind.

Fear of disconnection is innate and biological. When my trump supporting friends say "I believe it" to somebody suggesting that the Capitol Hill rioters were antifa pretending to be trump supporters, their lack of interest in challenging their own beliefs stems from the risk incurred with disagreeing with their friends and loved ones.

This effect is so strong that our brains give hits of dopamine whenever our beliefs are confirmed. We are not weird to change our minds.

So no. "Conservatives" aren't dumb. Just like the rest of us, they biologically afraid of social disconnection. And all that shouting across the isle makes it harder for them to see "progressives" accepting them.

I'm a conservative and it has zero to do with identifying with a certain community or concern about being rejected by them.

Republican candidates are more likely to vote on issues I care about in a way that aligns with my values. That alignment is far from perfect, but it's a lot better than it would be with a Democrat, especially a progressive Democrat.

That's why I typically vote Republican, sometimes begrudgingly. Has nothing to do with belonging to a community. In fact, the communities I am a part of rarely discuss politics. We discuss values that inform our politics, but the politics themselves are secondary.

I have absolutely no fear of social disconnection due to my political views. If I was to suddenly start voting democratic, no one in my closest circles would even need to know.

And I care nothing about whether progressives accept me. I simply have very different values and don't believe where they want our culture and country to move is healthy. So, I don't support them in elections. How they feel about me is irrelevant.

You may not want to share this but I’ll ask anyway because I’m quite interested:

1. What are important issues for you that republicans vote the right way on?

2. What are the top issues for you that republicans vote the wrong way on?

I'm not the OP but I know several voters who seem to match the OP's sentiment:

1. Abortion is simply the legally sanctioned killing of helpless human beings. I know _many_ single issue voters who begrudgingly voted for trump because of this.

2. Climate change denialism is pretty much anti common sense. Anyone who completely ignores the issue stinks of corruption.

Many complex topics with a lot of gray areas are often framed in soundbites that are extreme - you're either pro-life or pro-choice. You're either pro-Trump or anti-Trump.

A person can be a staunch supporter of women's rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness but draw the line at a woman's right to end another's life. The "all-or-nothing" approach pushes people into one of two camps that each holds extreme opposing views, and it's happening across the different issues we face today.

Take the bathroom ban in North Carolina. It got polarized into a trans/non-trans fight, where all people who supported separate gender bathrooms were dumb, transphobic people. The polarization marginalizes a legitimate argument:

Women should not have to walk into a rest stop restroom at night during a road trip, see a man, and then think about whether or not he should be there. And a man should not have the right to be there because he "identifies" as a woman when he really doesn't and is just a pervert in a rest stop bathroom. But with a new law, it then has to go through the court to prove whether he had the right to be there. The damage is done way before that day shows up.

The polarization and simplification meant that democrats couldn't vote against this because it became associated with transphobia. A vote to keep separate bathrooms would mean being canceled and losing their seat. The republicans were villainized, but they have a fairly decent point. Obviously, no one should feel uncomfortable using the restroom, but what unintended consequences come with the law? You can say perverts in bathrooms is an edge case, but I'd argue a trans person being denied a restroom is also an edge case.

Starbucks arguably came up with the best answer with gender-indifferent restrooms that are single occupancy, but this isn't always scalable. There are single occupancy family restrooms in many places, so if someone truly feels unsafe to use a restroom, they could use those. These were options that were put into place without laws.

It's not "right or wrong" or "black and white" on nearly any issue we face today. It's complex, and federal laws, given they impact 330 million Americans, have more unintended consequences than laws enacted at the local or state level. And that's what the republican, conservative party wants - less "big laws" with fewer unintended consequences in favor of state laws that allow people to govern themselves at the local level. It's also why any vote to undermine a State's right to certify its election results flies in the face of conservatism.

Votes in a functioning democratic society are anonymous. You can vote one way and tell folks you voted another to "fit in".

But people become who they hang around. So if they are in a vacuum and they only hear that the election was stolen, anything else is fake news, and the president is telling them this, they may seriously believe that democracy is under siege.

Amp it up with technology echo chambers and reinforcing behaviors and you wind up with extreme situations where a group of people storms the capitol.

It's when people don't believe they can end up with similarly distorted views on a topic that they are susceptible to this themselves. This is along the lines of the Lucifer Effect.

Conservatives are in no way synonymous with Trump Republicans. Many of the stalwarts of conservatism have not just disavowed Trumpism, but have worked actively against it. Much of the discussion in modern (Trump) Republican circles would be unrecognizable to self-identified conservatives of 20, 30, 40 years ago.

I think we're in agreement here. Maybe it would have been better to say "republicans" than conservatives. But the point stands that not all Trump voters are Trump supporters that OP identified as racists with below-average intelligence. They may just be voting "not-democrat" on a ticket with two sub-optimal choices.

> Racism was the absolute norm in the US until ~not that long ago.

The racists during the time of slavery and Jim Crow made no attempt to deny their racism. The large majority of Republicans, including Trump, denounce racism.

The news will find every schmuck with a confederate flag and put them on the TV, but that doesn't explain why a Republican majority Senate passed criminal justice reform and Trump signed it.

> Statistically you’d expect half of people to be dumber than average.

The implication being that one major political party constitutes the entire lower half of the distribution?

You seem to be contributing to the discussion, but people are downvoting without actually voicing any disagreement.

This seems to be common when you take the conservative "side" even if it's not really a partisan position you take, simply disagreeing with implications that the entire right are dumb racists.

> You seem to be contributing to the discussion, but people are downvoting without actually voicing any disagreement.

downvotes are the voice of the unheard.

> This seems to be common when you take the conservative "side" even if it's not really a partisan position you take, simply disagreeing with implications that the entire right are dumb racists.

its common on both sides because its part of the human condition. However hn is one of the few places on the internet where it is even possible to achieve this, despite the downvotes.

I'm starting to believe down-voting has gotten more useless and should be removed. Perhaps up-voting is sufficient, but maybe not.

Unfortunately, Facebook demonstrates that only positive feedback tends to cause problems.

I do agree that downvoting (especially on political threads) is not working very well.

I’ve been on HN for years and still can’t downvote.

I believe your "karma" has to be above 500.

Maybe list of downvoters and upvoters should be public

> This seems to be common when you take the conservative "side" even if it's not really a partisan position you take, simply disagreeing with implications that the entire right are dumb racists.

I don't even want to be doing this. Trump supports coal. Ajit Pai. He's a pathological liar. Trump sucks.

But a lot of the things he gets wrong actually help him in swing states. There is a lot of coal in Pennsylvania. So lazy opponents can't easily use those things to attack him because it would only get him more votes in places that matter.

And then we end up in a situation where the majority of people hate Trump for reasons that are actually lies, because the truth translates inconveniently to the electoral map and too many people care more about winning no matter the cost.

The implication is that one major political party has eaten of the forbidden fruit of no-bottom populism. Power at any cost, and who cares if it means we rile up rubes by telling them whatever they want to hear - sympathising with whatever dumbass thing they believe in (without actually saying we believe it too). Everyone in the RNC that went along had the delusion that they could control this golem of their own making. Recent events provend them wrong, and a whole bunch of them just had their "oh shit" moment. So no, the Republicans aren't dumb. They just got too greedy. Gerrymandering wasn't enough. Voter disenfranchisement laws weren't enough. They had to " go there" - where many, many other political movements have gone before. Take one poor, struggling, powerless mass of people, and relentlessly feed their ignorance, victim-hood, desire for some control in their lives. And do so dishonestly, carelessly and with no thought for the outcome or those people themselves.

As a long-time Black Sabbath fan, the RNC's actions in recent days remind me of the lyrics of this song: https://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/black+sabbath/too+late_2001932...

EDIT: It occurs to me that the DNC has done this _to an extent_ with people of colour. However I do believe there is a qualitative difference. Think Bolsonaro vs Ardern.

I appreciate your honesty and I will attempt to explain, briefly, so you might understand better.

1. Most people on the right are against abortion for the reason that it is against their particular religion, which declares it as murder and murder is wrong. But, the others don't care at all about a woman's right to choose, they just don't want their tax dollars paying for that choice instead of other things they want. It really is that simple. As far as the court goes, that is completely different. The saying goes "you can indict a ham sandwich ", and that is largely true. Courts all over the nation entertain frivolous actions on a daily basis, people love this (Judge Judy), but when cases are preliminary dismissed without the "day in court" faith in the court will be quickly lost by those who believed win or lose, it should have been heard. Each person reading this was raised in a time when they were taught every vote counts, your opinion matters, and to stand up for what you believe in while respecting the opinions of others. The opinion of one side is no longer even listened to, let alone respected. How many of you have ever genuinely tried to explain to someone with a different opinion why you disagree with them? I don't see that much anymore. Not everyone with a different opinion is set in their beliefs. Some may welcome your perspective and shift their viewpoint to yours. It's worth a try, right? Apparently not for most. Instead, the right is vilified, insulted, and they believe they are treated differently and unfairly from the left. Their voices are being systematically taken away through deplatforming. They are being stereotyped and lumped into a single category along with extremists. So, the logical conclusion is that if you isolate, disparage, and discourage someone enough, they will become you've now convinced them they are. Multiply that by 70 million. Instead, try talking to people with the goal of explaining your point of view and why you feel that way. It certainly can't hurt more than what's happening now.

But your own post makes clear the problem with your logic. This isn’t about convincing people. It’s about the fact that people’s political views are guided by gut, instinct and the bubbles they’re in instead of by critical thinking. These people believe abortion is killing an innocent baby. They don’t want their tax dollars spent on thing X. They believe the election was rigged — evidence doesn’t come into it. How do you change what people believe? I think we’ve tried rational debate. God knows I have. It’s frustrating to be told over and over, “well, if you just explained better...” when the people I’m trying to convince aren’t interested in learning. They’re happy with their beliefs, their beliefs work for them. And that’s a pity, because their beliefs are destructive and increasingly inhumane. That’s my belief, obviously, but I think it’s one supported by facts: abortion is wrong but you can cage Mexican children. The Jews control the government. Voter suppression is a reasonable response to higher turnout in urban centers. Chinese students shouldn’t be able to go to grad schools in the US. I could go on.

At a certain point, just take the hit. I’m sorry, but one side has more moral politics than the other. I don’t see how this is a debate at this point, and I’m honestly frustrated that people like you keep asking us to have the debate. If anything, it’s the right that keeps crying that they’ve been deplatformed when they’re doing it to themselves by having horrific opinions.

AND the right doesn’t even argue in good faith! Like they just make stuff up. For instance, about ANTIFA being behind the attempted coup on Wednesday. You want us to argue with that?

Just wanna add that the left seems to believe what institutions and the legacy media tell them, at face value.

Many on the right use critical thinking, however they seem to believe that numbers and “science” can be spun into any narrative the gatekeepers want (whoever they may be).

Most of the schism really seems to be based on trust. Left trusts by default, the right does not. The left trusts that the government knows best, the right does not. The right believes in personal responsibility for running your life (not trusting it to any other party), the left does not, requiring collectivism and social programs.

From my experience, the right is terrible at judging who to trust (i mean most people are really). They mistrust the government for instance, and rightly so, for you should have a healthy distrust of the government. However, they then go and trust absolute quacks like anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, Trump, etc. ???

I've seen some of the links shared in right wing forums (I used to frequent one a few years ago), and the sources they link scream "bullshit" to me, and not because I disagree with what they say. It's just that life experience of identifying what is BS and what is not necessarily BS. Some people just will not believe authority, but will believe the first thing they see that goes against mainstream.

> trust absolute quacks like anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, Trump, etc. ???

PR agencies send their love

Maybe unrelated, but there's actually largely even distribution of anti-vaxxers between left and right. It's not an issue split by political affiliation. You could say the same about conspiracy theorists, but it'd probably be more difficult to poll/test.

Yes, the left trusts “science”, broadly. That’s because when we see 99% of scientists in a field claiming something, we don’t pretend we know better than them. We respect science, we understand on some level the work that goes into good science, and so we aren’t arrogant arses.

> we understand on some level the work that goes into good science

Meanwhile people who are informed on the state of actual science say "50% of published research is false."

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

I mean, as the paper says:

> Second, most research questions are addressed by many teams, and it is misleading to emphasize the statistically significant findings of any single team. What matters is the totality of the evidence.

I think few people would refute this.

> What matters is the totality of the evidence.

If half of the evidence contradicts the other half would it be fair to conclude that we don’t know much about the things we have researched?

93% of surveyed geneticists and behavioral psychologists claim that the black-white IQ gap has a non-zero genetic component. Do you know better than them?

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.0039...

I'm inclined to believe them, but not rule out the possibility it was their bias speaking. Historically doctors have believed a white woman's pelvis is better for child bearing, whereas a black woman's is better for hard labor. That has since been proven wrong. There is no discernable difference between the races in the pelvic area.

Regardless, the argument against discrimination is that one has no CHOICE what race they are born with. Because there is no choice, race does not reflect their invididual merits or lack thereof, and one should not be awarded or punished based on that factor alone. There is also significant variation within a race with regard to IQ or otherwise, that exceeds the difference of the mean value between races

> Many on the right use critical thinking [...] Left trusts by default, the right does not.

LOL. Only 4 percent of the nonreligious people who participated in the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey voted for Trump. 4 fucking percent.

https://www.baylor.edu/baylorreligionsurvey/index.php?id=942...

And what percentage of religious people voted for HRC?

All I see are people listening. Scores of legal professionals, attorneys, and judges have read through thousands of pages of serious arguments made by the right. Election officials have burned the midnight oil over and over again searching for issues after listening to complaints from the right. Journalists have spent countless hours chasing down people to listen to, only to find deception. After all of this listening, all we ever seem to find is deception. If the right doesn’t change their tune, then all the listeners can do is see them as a group he’ll bent on deception. You make your bed, and you sleep in it. Period.

And yet if we look at it objectively, the right is clearly overrepresnted in our political system. Republicans lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. In the next presidential election there will be many eligible voters who weren't even born last time they won. The Senate gives a seven point advantage to Republicans. So please, explain to me where you get this idea that the right is "treated unfairly," because it's getting very hard to see how this argument is being made in good faith.

7 of the last 8 elections. And yet they are the ones “out of touch”

Thanks for the correction!

Also, SCOTUS has had a conservative majority (except during a vacancy) since 1989.

The first time SCOTUS has had a conservative majority since the 50s was when Amy Barrett was confirmed last year.

Maybe your definition of conservative is not the same as most conservatives, but that’s just how it is.

How about instead we say, "appointed by a Republican president," so we don't get bogged down in semantics? Since Heller, Citizens United, Bush v Gore etc were clearly the products of partisan Republican justices.

Sorry to be blunt but this just goes to show how often your "feelings" diverge from objective reality.

One can be moderately conservative and still conservative. If you look at the court's decisions, the only time in the last one hundred years SCOTUS has had a sustained liberal streak was in the 1960s.

> And yet if we look at it objectively, the right is clearly overrepresnted in our political system.

That isn't nearly as clear as it seems, because of the incentives the electoral college creates.

Republicans could pick up a lot more votes in places like California or New York if they had any reason to try, but none of those votes help them if they can't flip the state. Spending resources campaigning in California so that it goes to the Democrats by 54 to 46 instead 65 to 35 is a losing strategy, so they don't.

But then that's why the popular vote numbers come out the way they do. If you actually abolished the electoral college, suddenly the foregone conclusion states would matter, everybody's campaign strategy would change and so would all the numbers.

The people the electoral college actually underrepresents are the people of California and Massachusetts. But also Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, etc. The people it overrepresents are the people of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. The swing states. Because they're the only people whose vote can plausibly change the outcome, so they're the only people whose concerns politicians care to address.

Which means you can pretty easily end up in a situation where people from deep red states feel underrepresented, because in practice they are. The same as the people from deep blue states.

Thanks for your reply. Let me start by saying that I agree the numbers would look completely different if it weren't for the Electoral College. That is because the Republican platform has consistently failed to win over a majority of Americans: absent the EC, the Republican Party would have to recalibrate its platform in order to remain competitive. This feedback mechanism is essential to a functioning democracy, and it's currently broken, because Republicans still have a decent shot at winning nationally thanks to the bias in the EC.

With respect to your argument that the EC actually overrepresents swing states, you may be correct. However, the EC bias clearly favors Republicans over Democrats. In 2020, that bias was 3.9% in favor of Republicans, although it varies from election to election[0]. When the size of the bias exceeds the margin of victory for the winner of the popular vote, the popular vote loser takes the EC, as in 2016.

Furthermore, you didn't actually address the most antidemocratic institution of all: the Senate. The Senate is heavily biased towards small states; California (pop 39m) and Wyoming (pop < 1m) each have two senators. The average state is currently much more Republican than the average American, amounting to 6.6% bias[1]. That is to say, Democrats could win by five points nationally (a huge victory given current polarization levels) and still not control the Senate.

Finally, I'm sure that you can end up with a situation wherein conservatives "feel" underrepresented; my whole point is that they objectively are not, so this whole persecution complex evinced by some is completely ridiculous. People are entitled to their feelings; they should also be willing to look at facts and adjust their reactions accordingly.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-22/republ...

[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-...

> absent the EC, the Republican Party would have to recalibrate its platform in order to remain competitive.

Absent the EC, both parties would have to recalibrate their platforms in order to remain competitive. It would completely upturn the map. You would see Republicans campaigning in New York and Democrats in Texas. Wall St. and Big Oil and Hollywood would gain influence, retirees in Florida and auto workers in the rust belt would lose it. It would redraw all the lines and fundamentally change both of the parties.

I think that's really where you're going wrong. Treating the members of each party as two different species, as though every voter for a given party has uniform shared interests with all the others. There is no such thing as "Republicans" being over-represented. Pennsylvanians are over-represented, which influences the party platforms of both the Republicans and the Democrats. Which allows them both to ignore California and Texas and New York, but also the entire dozen odd little deep red states that are supposed to be the most "over-represented" despite not being competitive at all and consequently being totally ignored by both parties.

> The average state is currently much more Republican than the average American, amounting to 6.6% bias

The obvious flaw in the party-based analysis being that we're currently going into a legislative session in which the Democrats control the Senate, which they do approximately half of the time. Because they adjust their policies to the map.

Also, the purpose of the Senate is to be this way, in the same way that Justices of the Supreme Court are not elected. Senators were not originally elected, they were appointed by the state legislatures. It's by design as a check on the populist tendencies of the House, and causing Senators to be directly elected has only made everything worse by depriving the states of their voice in the federal government and the destroying the restraint on federal power that once implied.

> Treating the members of each party as two different species, as though every voter for a given party has uniform shared interests with all the others. There is no such thing as "Republicans" being over-represented. Pennsylvanians are over-represented, which influences the party platforms of both the Republicans and the Democrats.

For the reasons I've outlined above, Republicans are overrepresented. To reiterate, it takes more Democratic votes to achieve a majority than it does Republican votes. This is a matter of fact.

> The obvious flaw in the party-based analysis being that we're currently going into a legislative session in which the Democrats control the Senate, which they do approximately half of the time.

But Republicans have controlled the Senate even when Democratic Senators have gotten more votes and represent more people. So Democrats are forced to adjust their policies while Republicans are under much less pressure to do so.

> Also, the purpose of the Senate is to be this way, in the same way that Justices of the Supreme Court are not elected.

When the Senate was created, the difference in population between the largest and smallest states was 12x. Today it is 68x. If you still think this is a feature rather than a bug, you and I have fundamentally different ideas about what democracy should be.

This will be my final comment as all those who keep telling me that it's my duty as a liberal to engage in dialog with the other side also seem to downvote my comments to oblivion when I try. Ciao.

> I find it implausible half the population is dumb

Half the population is dumber than average.

Yes, but the average person is smart. For instance, if I average 95, 95, and 95, then the average is 95. If I average 94, 94, 94, 95, 95, and 95 and the average is 94.5, does that mean the other half is stupid? Of course not, which is why people who keep saying this over and over are below average. You can tell because they aren't saying anything important.

It's highly improbable that the right wind of politics solely resides within the lower half of the bell curve, or that there is even a strong correlation.

No, it's not, because it's a self-association. You might as well say it's highly improbable that the lowest income are also the least educated -- nothing says these variables are independent, and it's highly likely that they are, in fact, linked.

Let me put it this way: there not a strong correlation, and the relationship is too complicated to support nice, self-serving narratives.

depends on how you calculate average. More than half the population could be dumber than the mean intelligence. Intelligence is not a normal distribution, but skewed left.

In my view, ever since the "deplorables" gaffe, the left has been bending over backwards to pretend to take the "base" seriously instead of just dismissing them as cretins. Naturally the leaders of the "base" are going to take advantage of this.

Is it really that implausible that half the population isn't willing to think critically about a nuanced problem, or to accept evidence that contradicts their desired narrative?

Statistics aren't always reliable, but somewhere around 1/3 of American adults believe that climate change is a hoax, and evolution is a lie.

Fine, but do their hair-brained ideas and failure to think critically merit shutting them out of public discourse?

They're clearly not shut out. There are major news outlets that represent them, and their voices are heard loud and clear all over the internet. One of them was elected president FFS.

If they can't stop threatening people, yes.

If they're shut out of public discourse, why do we keep hearing about them?

They aren’t shut out. It’s not a left vs right thing. Whether your ideas are hairbrained or not, left wing or right wing — if you incite violence they should take away your account.

Let's assume that all the issues are binary (i.e. you are either for or against a proposition). But there are a large number of them. Humans are lazy. We try to use few categories to organize people we come into contact with (e.g. left or right, colored or white).

What will happen next? We feel that "the other side" seems to be all around, almost half the population. Example: many who oppose abortion probably also believe Black Lives Matter.

What is the point of your post? The post you are replying to cited a specific law regarding specific threats.

What does that have to do with what most people believe or whether most people are dumb or not?

I recommend reading a history book of any country. It's unfortunately been proven to be plausible over and over...

> or because the other side has been repeatedly discouraged from adding their two cents in those communities.

They have been discouraged from making threats, being racist, etc. If that is their two cents, it's not worth two cents. If they can't have a civil discussion without threats, racism, bigotry, etc, again, it's not worth two cents. This is they key, they KEEP coming back with vile speech. No one deplatforms them for simply having DIFFERENT opinions, they're deplatformed for having violent, racist, bigoted opinions. You can't equate silencing dissent from not tolerating hate speech.

I think what really annoys the far right is how the far left seems to get an easy ride.

There's plenty of left-wing conspiracy theories. The current ones seem to be that the Capitol Police were allowing it to happen (not just through incompetence). This is given a huge amount of credence, but I'm willing to bet that it will mostly be proven to be conspiracy thinking and hysteria.

It's actually a bit exhausting.

It's not at all clear that the police are "opening gates" on that one shakey zoom shot (hundreds of people, but it's just one zoom shot that shows it, hmmm). It looks to me like an officer has their hand forced aside as a large number of protesters push the barrier, which looks a bit like they are "opening the gate" (it's not a gate). And they do abandon the post once they're outnumbered and no longer have a barrier, so what? If there's a shot from another angle that makes the police look better, I expect very few people on the left will want to share it.

I don't expect any real thanks for pointing this out. Rather, like hysterical conspiracy theorists, I expect people will then say "Yeah, well ... how about the selfie?" (You mean, the cop who was encouraging criminals to post evidence of their crime?). That's what conspiracy theorists do, they don't stop and critically reassess their position when they're shown that a piece of evidence is weak. They don't realise that they're caught in a bubble where poor evidence is amplified as long as it supports their position, they just assume that the debunker is a bad guy and reach for a new piece of evidence to use as a weapon.

I agree with you that left wing logic doesn’t get attacked as ferociously as right wing logic does.

Having said that, the blame for that in my view lies with the right - where else is the critique going to come from?

The far left doesn’t seem to get an easy ride when it comes to the street: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo...

> I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels.

The reality is that most Trump supporters are focused on economics and governmental overreach, not race. They are angry that businesses are shut down, and people are unemployed. They are angry that, over the past several decades, production in this country has dropped to near-nonexistence. They are angry that the lockdowns have made it impossible, even in small towns and other places without significant Covid problems, to simply work and live their lives semi-normally.

Then, the straw that I believe broke the camel's back, is the way most conservatives view taxes and the "stimulus"

In short, the conservative view is that the US government took $2700 from every citizen (much more if you look at the long-tail economic effects) and 'gave back' $600. At the same time, even a cursory read of the omnibus spending would be enough to make anyone's blood boil, let alone someone who feels like they, or people they care about, have lost (or are losing) everything. It's easy to see how the phrase 'Taxation is theft' is picking up so much steam right now.

The entire time they are dealing with this, people call them a Nazi or White Supremacist. They get banned on Social Media for sharing (now verified by left-of-center Media) stories about Hunter Biden, or concerns about the election. To them, it feels like they are being silenced and oppressed. When the media/social media censors stories and information (and even raw footage) it increases tensions. 'Over the target' has become a phrase in common use for when someone is banned or a story gets censored that seems to go against the mainstream narrative.

The Hunter Biden story is one such example. When that story launched it was discredited and called fake news, today the same institutions who called it a lie are publishing that there is an FBI investigation into Hunter Biden. Many saw that story, saw the leaked photos (many of which are extremely unsettling), and then saw the story getting silenced and discredited.

Looking at comments on HN, a site where the average commenter has far above average education and income, it is easy to find people openly commenting that they do not care about the opinions of these people. They openly comment that 'anyone who would storm the capital is an idiot' or that these people are racist.

Finally, after all is said and done, the reaction from the left in Washington isn't to reduce tensions and try to reach peace. Nor is it to address the concerns of the people publicly. Instead, they are ramping up the tensions and saying that people are guilty of treason - a crime punishable by death. You have elected officials calling everyone who was there, whether they were violent offenders (criminals) or not, terrorists. Now, they're calling this riot 'as bad as 9/11' where thousands of Americans were killed.

It’s possible to both think that the Capitol Riots were absolutely treasonous and an attempt to subvert the constitution, and agree that reflexively calling people Nazis, White Supremacists, or Racists, for expressing totally legitimate views had a lot to do with why they were angry enough to do it.

Just to be clear - I don’t think the capitol rioters views were legitimate, but I do think the views of a lot of people on the right are, and the rioters thought they were acting with their support.

Fair. It worth pointing out the 'stimulus' bill included next years government budget as well. So its not as simple as taking 2700 and giving 600 back. Most years they'd be taking 2100 and give nothing back. This year they decided to take 2100, borrow 600 from the central bank, and giving that 600 back

I excluded the omnibus spending from that number. Most folks, including myself, are appalled at how irresponsible the spending is. However, it would be intellectually dishonest to combine them to make that argument.

The stimulus component was roughly 900B, of which each American (there's roughly 330M of us) will only receive $600. Of course, this is all accomplished by [0]printing obscene amounts of USD and saddling Americans with a debt that will likely never be repayable. [1]At present, the debt to GDP ratio exceeds 130%.

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/money/2020/05/12/coronavir...

[1] https://www.usdebtclock.org/

>> It seems much more likely that I don't fully understand their perspective.

I think two things are going on here: 1.) There is a radicalized minority of conservatives that believe in Q, storm the capital, etc etc. I think this minority is growing in size, as their publicity alone is lending them credence. It's easier to get someone to believe what they want to believe, than the truth if it goes against their world view, etc etc.

2.) The large majority of R voters are not off the wagon lunatics, and many claim they liked trump the least of all the R cannidates in 2016. But I think huge portions (*of both sides*) are so conditioned to whatever group of beliefs they hold, that they will never switch or compromise. So now we have a bat shit crazy president, because he out primaried several indistinguishable moderate opponents in 2016, and the whole R side (that is not stark raving mad) went with him, purely because they couldnt even start to entertain the thought of ever voting for a D. And now some of them are becoming radicalized, and it's kinda scary when people you know to be rational are asking you about election fraud... remember, its easy to believe what you want to believe... Below is something I posted some time ago, where I tried to outline how I thought many trump voters rationalized voting for him.

>>. What I fail to understand, as a foreigner, is how someone can vote for a president who is an outright liar. Look no further than his last tweets as of right now.

I don't fully understand it myself, but as it's been explained to me by trump supporters is: "don't listen to what he says, look at all the good policy, look at how hard he is on China, look at how many jobs there were pre covid, etc etc". Whether or not you see his policy as good, some people do, and they are willing to overlook his madness because they think he is achieving good things. (actions speak louder than words, etc) Some of his supports do bring up his appointing of tons of federal judges, and this what I would probably consider the most valid reason for voting for him (if one is aligned to a more conservative viewpoint), as his judges are more likely to enforce (or not) the laws that align with "traditional" republican political ideals, and that's the what matters to the voters.

Or also because they've always voted R, and Biden= socialism (which is worse than satan worship according to some people's moral codes..), or Biden= Let our cites get burnt down by rioters. This goes back to the, it's easier to vote against someone than for someone. And now that I put this all in words, this second justification is probably what I heard the most during trumps 4 years, some peoples defense of trump always came down to, "but hillary would be way worse". Some level of cognitive dissonance definitely plays into it.

Also having some subset of the population support a populist, pathologically lying sociopath is not necessarily a new or uniquely American problem. It's just that the problems seem to be amplified when they are American, cuz everyone is watching.

"I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels. "

No - they aren't.

The answer is very easy: They believe Donald Trump.

Trump has credibility in their minds, and when he repeats the lie, over and over - that 'the election was stolen' - they believe it.

On election night - he literally came out and said 'If you count the fake votes, Biden won' - declaring mass fraud, without any evidence.

His followers believe him.

Contemplate the implications of that.

These people do not watch CNN, they watch Fox, OAN, Breitbart etc. where the falsehoods are propagated, or at least never debunked.

They are simply misinformed.

On CNN they were interviewing quite a number of protesters and unanimously 'they believed the election was stolen'.

A close observer will have noticed that the court cases were thrown out, that Homeland Security and the DoJ cleared it etc. - but that truthful information is not passed on to people in the Trump Bubble.

Trump's base don't get their news from sources that will explicitly and clearly debunk the conspiracies.

It's important to contemplate what this means: it's almost entirely not a political divide - it's mostly a divide based on what the facts are.

Consider the corollary: Trump won the election, but there was point-blank, irrefutable evidence that he rigged it. The DoJ, Homeland Security - everyone - points out his fraud.

Trump could merely deny the allegations, declare that he is 'under attack' and rally people to his cause on Twitter and Facebook.

His followers would believe him.

Meanwhile - how would you feel? Literally the election was stolen by Trump. Point-blank evidence.

Would you hit the streets in protest?

Would you 'occupy DC'?

Millions would be enraged, we'd see protests like we've never seen before.

So just contemplate that a considerable number of Americans are completely misinformed and deeply believe the election was stolen and that the Republic is being usurped.

From that perspective, their actions seem more rational.

I've been watching the right-wing media carefully - and while Fox mostly doesn't openly support Trump's claims, they don't spend a lot of time debunking, and they 'go along with it' in a sneaky way by saying 'Millions feel there was fraud and their voices must be heard' - essentially avoiding taking the position that Fox agrees there was fraud, but rather sympathizing with the angry masses who they darn well know are misinformed.

FYI it's actually considerably easier to 'cast doubt' on elections where there is always some small degree of fraud whereupon the tiniest case can be used as 'evidence'.

This insurrection is not about racism or any of that (these things overlap obviously) it's an election based on Fake News.

I know that HN is pretty serious about 'Free Speech' - but folks - Twitter is Trump's primary tool of misinformation - it's his daily dose of koolaid and falsehoods to quite a few million who absolutely take his word for it.

And finally - the opposite is also true: these followers assume that CNN, NBC, NPR etc. are entirely made up of lies. Nothing on those channels has any credibility in their eyes.

This is a revolution based on Fake Information.

The thing I find interesting, seeing distant relations on Facebook talk about this, is that they tend to hold seemingly mutually-contradictory views and spout them in a span of minutes.

e.g. "I was there, and it was antifa dressed as Trump supporters that broke into the Capitol. We believe in law and order and would never do anything like this ..." followed by statements saying that they are going to take over buildings in DC again on January 19th.

There's something deeper here, among many of them, than simply consuming different media.

People need to think intelligently and everything requires context.

There are 1000 random people at an event, there's no doubt that there were a few ANTIFA interlopers there, but that doesn't really mean anything.

A single cop 'opening a gate' doesn't mean much either.

Neither does the Republican guy who tried to prove electoral fraud by himself, committing a single act of voter fraud.

Most of the mainstream media is highly credible. Biased - but credible.

The fact that a few individuals maybe planned on doing something 'really crazy' doesn't actually mean there's a larger movement there either.

That's why we depend on the press to try to get a generally factual and broad view of the situation. Watching a mix of CNN, PBS, Fox, NBC etc. will give most people a rounded purview of the situation, even if there is a lot of bias.

Watching Fox since the election has been a very interesting experience because they cannot support Trump's false claims they have to have 'integrity'. But what some of them are doing (Ted Cruze as well) is saying 'people feel the election was stolen and they have a right to be heard' - basically they've taken the line of sympathizing with people who are angry, though they full well know the anger is based on absolute falsehood. Fox has been losing viewers to OAN where they take a 'hardcore Pro-Trump' position no matter the facts, which is what many want to hear.

On many Fox articles, the comments are split 50/50 with many hating on Trump, many supporting him. OAN and Breibart however, it's full on Trump. The language is scary, many calling for violence against Pence etc. as a 'traitor' for literally not committing Sedition and overturning the election on behalf of Trump.

So 'the truth' is going to be a real problem for the next little while.

To be fair, CNN has proven multiple times in the last few years that their credibility is worth very little. They have a VERY extreme slant to the left, so much so that news casters were even becoming anti-vaxxers against the Covid-19 vaccine simply because Trump was the president at the time trying to push for people to take it. Their handling of Covid-19 early on was also atrocious. I don't mean to demean them if they're your favorite news source, but they've lost a lot of faith in the past few years.

The others, NPR, NBC, etc, I think you'd be surprised how many Republicans watch them for a differing point of view. There are many republicans who are more libertarian, classical liberal, or independent leaning than classically conservative leaning.

That's part of the problem though with this argument, is that the "right" or "conservative" or "republican" can actually be very different things. It seems that most people on hacker news lump them all into the same category.

Also, not every conservative is an over-the-top Trump supporter. I'm definitely not. It doesn't mean I don't like some of the things he did, but he's got a lot of issues and was FAR from my ideal candidate.

CNN is a biased, but highly credible source, there is a difference.

We're not talking about 'Conservatives' or 'Republicans' because Trump is none of that, this has nothing to do with ideology.

Trump is neither a Conservative nor a Republican really.

Hardcore Trump fans are Trump fans, not ideological fans.

It's a cult of personality.

His words are the source of Truth to most supporters and that's that.

They believe him when he cast doubt on the election, and enough of them believe him completely.

That's not a 'left/right' or ideological issue.

I can tell you from my experience that, regardless of forum, I feel rarely given the chance to even give a perspective that I feel is taken seriously, because the immediate assumption is that anyone who has opinion "x" on subject "y" must be a bigot and/or uneducated (and therefore should not be listened to), and, using circular logic, they know this because opinion "x" is a bigoted or uneducated opinion.

I have highly conservative economic policy views, and they are the result of both education and personal experience.

I grew up in increasing poverty as a kid, culminating in facing homelessness in the 2008 housing crisis. I saw the effects first hand of several policies sold by "progressive" politicians to me and my family as instruments of change that would expand the welfare of the nation to us, and for several years hoped they actually would.

Yet each policy meant to help us, only ever seemed to do the opposite. I drove a car that I was lucky if I could get started each day to go to college and to work, yet the liberal "cash for clunkers" program meant to give people an opportunity to buy a new vehicle meant that not only could I not afford a new car even after the additional "cash", but now the used car parts market was so expensive because of the sudden destruction of "clunkers", it also made keeping my car running nearly impossible.

A healthcare bill that I hoped would fund my parent's healthcare needs ended up giving us a choice - pay for a plan we couldn't afford with deductibles so high we would never be able to use it, or take our chances that the IRS would never collect on the individual mandate.

Each step of the way, liberal politicians would pass something on the notion that it was to help people like me, only for it to hurt me, but even worse, I was now "racist" and "dumb" for opposing them.

I reached a point where I no longer wanted government to help me be "equal", I just wanted them to leave me alone and stop making it harder than it already was. Yet I kept being told this elitist group of leaders in Washington knew better than me, even as with each "experiment" they were left completely unaffected by the consequences that I was left with.

After 4 years of college towards a computer science degree, I'm incredibly grateful for my education, and I have since been able to do incredible things for my family with my income from a career I love.

I now have the freedom to advocate for the same liberal policies my co-workers advocate for, knowing that whether they work or not, I will be wholly unaffected. This way, I could be easily accepted and free to voice my political opinion along everyone else, without fear of being called a bigot.

But my experience growing up is exactly why I believe what I believe, and I can promise anyone willing to listen that, for as strongly as you believe you are representing the welfare of the poor, or of minorities, so do I. Not out of racism or ill intent, but precisely the opposite - my own experience, and my desire to help others with what helped me.

My education served to expand my mind to be open to everyone's perspective in a way that I feel gave me empathy. Empathy to see that, while my experience drives me to conservative fiscal policy and socially libertarian policy, I would never want to judge someone else's motives based solely on their political persuasion. Others likely had different life experiences that I would do well to learn from.

To me, the goal of an education is the ability to have empathy for multiple, potentially conflicting views at once, and make decisions based on that. I really struggle with the notion that many seem to have that, instead, being educated seems to mean "empathize with a single viewpoint, and make decisions for everyone based on that, with the assumption that I must be more correct in my assertion than the people for whom I'm deciding, because I'm educated and they are not".

Thank you for your comment. It's thoughtful and insightful. And while we could argue some of the points (e.g. health-care - my view is Obamacare was hobbled). If I may however, I'd like to point out how unlikely it is that anyone making this exact comment would ever be banned from any platform. Given the topic of this post, this is an important point. And by the way, it's this quality of post that keeps me coming back to HN. So, thank you and best of luck to you. Please continue contributing to the commons with your comments.

“ If I may however, I'd like to point out how unlikely it is that anyone making this exact comment would ever be banned from any platform.”

They might not literally be banned from Twitter, but I have seen many people attempt to make reasoned comments like this be effectively deplatformed, shunned, and shamed for making such comments.

This is the best comment I’ve read here for years.

> I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels.

The GOP is only 29% of the electorate by party ID, 31% by share of eligible population voting for their 2020 Presidential nominee. Not “half of the population”.

But whether the members of the GOP are “dumb, racist, and all those other labels” kind of has nothing to do with what you quoted, which is about whether lawsuits filed by a narrow segment of the party in this cycle are overwhelmingly legally without merit or are somehow being systematically reject by rampant conspiracy or bias against the President in both state and federal judiciaries, which in the relevant states and the Federal system lean significantly Republican, and where many of the specific decisions have been handed down by Republican judges (some appointed by this Administration.)

That's not a question about whether the GOP membership as a whole racist, stupid, or whatever else, but whether a present President and his allies are filing lawsuits in bad faith as part of propaganda campaign to publicly discredit their defeat in the election.

> I find it somewhat implausible that half the population is dumb, racist and all those other labels.

Have you met people? How would credit card companies, casinos and multi level marketing have a business model if that was not the case?

The problem is that you have a two party system, so all viewpoints have to fit into one of those parties. Democracy is a spectrum running from North Korea to Scandinavia.

I.e from Dictatorship > One party > Two party > De-facto Two party (first past the post Parliamentary) > Coalition government with proportional representation.

The huge advantage of coalition government being that unless you have extreme views, your politicians are always at the table so your views are never completely ignored for 4 or 8 years. So yes I’m arguing that the US is actually quite undemocratic compared to other first world countries, and the U.K. where I am is not much better.

95% of the country was racist 100 years ago. Why would things change so fast? And for dumb... remember Carlin’s observation: think about how dumb the average person is, then realize that half of them are dumber than that.

Here's some perspective.

A man was shot and killed by the police in a town not far from me. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/man-shot-by-newton-poli...

So of course the circus shows up https://patch.com/massachusetts/newton/newton-residents-prot...

There were certainly failures that led to this man's death, but all of the failures happened before he picked up the knife and went downstairs to the candy shop. I don't see how protesting the police helps.

Also the MSM seems intent on telling me the only acceptable thought is that Bruce Jenner is a proud, strong, beautiful woman. I don't think I want them as the arbiters of reality.

> Also the MSM seems intent on telling me the only acceptable thought is that Bruce Jenner is a proud, strong, beautiful woman

This is weird, because while I’ve seen this specific complaint with alight variation in wording enough to think it must be a potent right-wing meme (in the Dawkins replicating unit to of behavior) sense endemic among a certain segment of the right, I've never actually encountered anything in the MSM approximating what it describes, and, despite that segment of thr right’s frequent use of it to paint the media as allies with the Left, also don't find that it describes the Left, either, which while it tends to accept that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman, isn't particularly inclined to agree with any of the other descriptors. (And is, in fact, attacked by a different segment of the Right for that, since Jenner is politically conservative Republican Christian trans woman.)

Not so literally. The complaint is that 'Trans' is even a thing, that it seems the push isn't even to just tolerate the crazy but to celebrate it and it's being peddled to kids.

Pretending illegitimacy

Have you read the actual lawsuits which were filed? You are aware the "60 lawsuits being dismissed" is a lie right? Trump campaign only filed 5 lawsuits. The Georgia lawsuit still hasn't even had a judge assigned even though it was filed on December 4th. The TX lawsuit to the SCOTUS - they refused to even hear it.

So how exactly can you say "illegitimate claims been promoted as legitimate"?

Thousands of dead people, illegals, underage voters, poll watchers getting kicked out etc and they still want people to believe everything is normal?

Here's an entire list of dead voters from Michigan alone and their obituaries:

https://justpaste.it/8zt04

Can easily be verified here:

https://mvic.sos.state.mi.us/Voter/Index/#yourclerk

--------

EDIT:

It seems like HN has banned me from commenting replies to the reply to this comment.

They have deleted the evidence now. 1 month ago when I tested this, it worked and it specifically gave me this:

CATHERINE,KELLY,1915,48708

Month: April

and it worked:

Absentee ballot Election date 11/3/2020

Application received 10/6/2020

Ballot sent 10/6/2020

Ballot received 10/13/2020

Here's the obituary:

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/catherine-kelly-obitu...

It sounds like MI has now purged the data to hide evidence. Here's the data which was even retrieved using a script.

https://pastebin.com/XEi5Uy6t

I even have saved messages of me showing this to multiple friends of mine.

No, the two dead voters you mentioned is firstly NOT from Michigan, it's from Georgia. Also that two dead voters is also wrong. It's thousands in Georgia but the SOS (who is a Trump hater) refused to even give the list of voters. So they expect the public to just take their word without showing the actual voter rolls. "Trust me, everything's fine, nothing to see here, move along".

A random check of about a dozen names from the pasted list found that the voter either did not exist, or was no longer registered to vote on account of being dead...

There were two people who had obituaries that showed up in the voter rolls...twice. In both cases, a quick lookup in the phone book suggests that two people with the same name (but different initials) live in the state.

So, thanks for the example that the Michigan election rolls are correct?

I'm not in a place to practice google-fu, but if I'm remembering correctly, wasn't the Texas lawsuit not heard by the USSC because they didn't follow the protocol necessary to have a case heard by the USSC?

> because they didn't follow the protocol necessary

Texas followed the protocol, which included filing a motion for leave to file a bill of complaint in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, however denied the motion.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/do...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p86...

Interesting, I thought all appeals to the USSC required moving through the federal court system first.

This was original jurisdiction. Cases between states start here.

The supreme court in fact ruled against Texas in dismissing the suit, by mkaing it clear that each state has sole discretion on how to run their own elections, as prescribed by the Constitution. Whether state elections laws were followed was for state courts to decide, not Texas and not the federal supreme court

States can run their own elections. So long as they abide by Article2, which indisputably, PA, MI, WI, GA did not. NV did use their legislature to make the changes which is why they weren’t a defendant. Texas’s position was that they states didn’t follow the constitution and the winner of these federal elections would effect rule and law in Texas.

It's uncommon, but the Supreme Court also has original jurisdiction, "In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party." U.S. Const. Art. III. Here, Texas attempted to sue four other states over how they conducted their elections, so it fell under original jurisdiction.

Here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p86...

155, ORIG. TEXAS V. PENNSYLVANIA, ET AL.

The State of Texas's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.

Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.

Saying the Trump Campaign only filed five suit begs to split hairs. Many of the suits haven't technically included Trump personally, or his campaign entity, as a party. However, they seek precisely the same results, and recycle many of claims in suits he has filed in his own name.

Example: The Texas motion to the Supreme Court to bring a case against Pennsylvania and other battleground states did not include Trump or his campaign as a plaintiff. Trump did, however, seek permission to join the lawsuit. That was doubly odd, considering the reason the states thought they could go directly to the top court was its "original jurisdiction" for suits between states.

Either way, does the defeat of the states' petition to the Supreme Court count toward the number of suits lost?

I believe the source for "more than fifty lawsuits" is Marc Elias, an admittedly left-leaning lawyer who's been keeping track. You might prefer to cast off his conclusion based on who he bats for. But you could also search for him and find his list.

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