Beyond Red vs. Blue: the US Political Typology | Hacker News Reader

Beyond Red vs. Blue: the US Political Typology

pewresearch.org

10 pointsthrow0101d5 comments

This paints everyone as right or left, which I don’t find accurate or helpful. I think other labels even if they meant the same category, to be more helpful.

A couple of things stood out to me.

One was the number of people who think that violent crime is a huge problem. It's clear from actual crime statistics that violent crime is way down from what it was when I was young. Maybe it's just "if it bleeds it leads" news, or maybe it's certain people in the media-sphere harping on the topic, I don't know.

The other is the faith based conservatives' support of Trump. He is everything they claim to hate, but they still support him. I know part of it is his support of Israel, and the premillennialist beliefs that are currently popular in some of the evangelical denominations, but is that the whole thing?

> This paints everyone as right or left, which I don’t find accurate or helpful.

I’d argue it’s incredibly helpful.

I live in a state with a couple contentious elections coming up. Something I’ve noticed is no one seems to have anything to say regarding these elections.

It’s fucking bleak. Every discussion I see ends with swaths of old boomers stating how they know absolutely nothing about the candidate, their positions or views, but intend to vote for them simply because of the associated “blue” or “red”. It’s “vote blue no matter who” or “trvst the plan” low IQ idiocy.

I hate the left/right, blue/red, whatever dichotomy. I think it’s weak and it’s rarely held when having real discussions with real people, but when it comes to voting I don’t think anything but that dichotomy matters anymore.

Electoral politics in the US is pretty bad. Maybe it's the same everywhere, I don't know.

We just had the primary where I live last month. Along with that were several local nonpartisan elections: school board, Mayor, City council, etc. It's almost impossible to determine what the candidates actually want to do once elected. It's all buzzwords, and the most bland garbage statements.

What does "we need to deal with the homelessness crisis" mean? Does it mean we need to round up the homeless and ship them out of town, or does it mean we need to make it easier to build more homes? Or does it mean "once I'm elected I'll start studying it"? No way to tell from what the candidates say.

I'd love to find out what candidates actually think about the various issues, and what they plan to do once in office, but party affiliation is pretty much all we have most of the time.

The phrase "vote blue no matter who" is explicitly calling for people to vote for the lesser of two evils despite them probably having some unfortunate beliefs based on which industry and/or country is funding them.

It's not an endorsement of not knowing what people stand for.

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