Comment by Tokkemon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tokkemon | Hacker News Reader

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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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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