The Two Americas Divided Over Democracy

[Stormspellz]

Given that I've insulted the GOP and Conservatives before, Idk what your position is other than to personally insult me and be very upset I am not in the DNC fandom.

My stance is pretty clear, the answer is to not do more imperialism and stay in the United States own borders. Seems kinda obvious.

I'd admit Puerto Rico and DC as states, heck grant some states a better way to split up and have greater local control, and offer territories whose absorption was a particularly unjust and vicious act, such as Hawaii the option of greater autonomy and or full succession and return to Native Hawaiian rule.

You are simply I think just here to carry water for a political party for which you are locked into a fandom for. Like people who really love Apple products or Star Wars or something.

is this your new deflection tactic? throw "DNC fandom" at everyone, and you say your stance is clear but more times then not is breaks down to you shilling for conservatives with copy paste post dumps, getting called out on your bs, then simply not responding after a few rounds that.

and for the record I don't recall you a single time of calling out/insulting the GOP

[Wilfire]

is this your new deflection tactic? throw "DNC fandom" at everyone, and you say your stance is clear but more times then not is breaks down to you shilling for conservatives with copy paste post dumps, getting called out on your bs, then simply not responding after a few rounds that.

and for the record I don't recall you a single time of calling out/insulting the GOP

It is a fandom though. It has all the hallmarks of a fandom. People who vote Democrat couldn't care less about the policies that the left wing represents. They care only about surface-level populist politics that are prominent on tumblr and twitter. Stuff like fighting for gender and racial equality. Those topics are easy to digest and don't require an actual understanding of hard politics like free trade vs. protectionism, foreign security and diplomacy. As a result only the most vapid, shallow, pandering Democrats get to run in the elections. Democrats who actually represent core left wing values - like Sanders - get shafted. Left wing should be about protecting worker's rights and yet Biden wants to screw the workers over by giving more power to multinational corporations.

Sexism, racism, LGTBQ+ etc. shouldn't be a partisan issue. And yet they are because people consistently vote in people whose only political position is man vs woman, black vs white, straight vs. gay etc.

[postman1782]

It is a fandom though. It has all the hallmarks of a fandom. People who vote Democrat couldn't care less about the policies that the left wing represents. They care only about surface-level populist politics that are prominent on tumblr and twitter. Stuff like fighting for gender and racial equality. Those topics are easy to digest and don't require an actual understanding of hard politics like free trade vs. protectionism, foreign security and diplomacy. As a result only the most vapid, shallow, pandering Democrats get to run in the elections. Democrats who actually represent core left wing values - like Sanders - get shafted. Left wing should be about protecting worker's rights and yet Biden wants to screw the workers over by giving more power to multinational corporations.

Sexism, racism, LGTBQ+ etc. shouldn't be a partisan issue. And yet they are because people consistently vote in people whose only political position is man vs woman, black vs white, straight vs. gay etc.

Like your party with Donald Trump at the helm has done NOTHING for minorities.

[Wilfire]

Like your party with Donald Trump at the helm has done NOTHING for minorities.

If you make the dividing line between two parties based entirely on culture war topics, some people with naturally side with the "evil" or the "bad" side. The dividing line will be are you evil or are you good vs. what kind of policies do you think are best for the country.

[postman1782]

If you make the dividing line between two parties based entirely on culture war topics, some people with naturally side with the "evil" or the "bad" side. The dividing line will be are you evil or are you good vs. what kind of policies do you think are best for the country.

And yet, Democrats are literally better than Republicans on just about everything. Economy? Democrats do better. Civil rights? Liberals/Democrats have been better through out history. Minority right? Same thing. Science? Democrats are better because they don't listen to morons like Trump. Foreign policy? When was the last war started by Democrats?

But please, tell me why I should I EVER vote for a Republican and align with the bigoted racist pieces of shit?

[Elegiac]

It is a fandom though. It has all the hallmarks of a fandom. People who vote Democrat couldn't care less about the policies that the left wing represents. They care only about surface-level populist politics that are prominent on tumblr and twitter. Stuff like fighting for gender and racial equality. Those topics are easy to digest and don't require an actual understanding of hard politics like free trade vs. protectionism, foreign security and diplomacy. As a result only the most vapid, shallow, pandering Democrats get to run in the elections. Democrats who actually represent core left wing values - like Sanders - get shafted. Left wing should be about protecting worker's rights and yet Biden wants to screw the workers over by giving more power to multinational corporations.

Sexism, racism, LGTBQ+ etc. shouldn't be a partisan issue. And yet they are because people consistently vote in people whose only political position is man vs woman, black vs white, straight vs. gay etc.

Pretty sure they are partisan issues because one party is consistently trying to deny and restrict rights based on those identity groups and not because people up and decided to run on labels one day.

Y’all really out here repeating right wing taking points like bitching about identity politics and then presume to have the clout to lambast others for not being true scotsmen... I mean leftists.

[Wilfire]

Pretty sure they are partisan issues because one party is consistently trying to deny and restrict rights based on those identity groups and not because people up and decided to run on labels one day.

Y’all really out here repeating right wing taking points like bitching about identity politics and then presume to have the clout to lambast others for not being true scotsmen... I mean leftists.

Exactly. If you want to have your interests represented in the government, you have to either be a majority, be a huge corporation and buy out politicians or subsist on the majority's goodwill to give you rights. Minority groups fall squarely in category 3. When times are good no one is bothered by it. When times are bad (recession after recession, limited job opportunities, skyhigh property prices), the goodwill of the majority quickly dries up when they see their interests being shafted time after time while minorities get stimulus packages and affirmative action programs.

[Felya]

Exactly. If you want to have your interests represented in the government, you have to either be a majority, be a huge corporation and buy out politicians or subsist on the majority's goodwill to give you rights. Minority groups fall squarely in category 3. When times are good no one is bothered by it. When times are bad (recession after recession, limited job opportunities, skyhigh property prices), the goodwill of the majority quickly dries up when they see their interests being shafted time after time while minorities get stimulus packages and affirmative action programs.

Is that why a billionaire is spending millions to override the majority and electoral votes? Is that why the same billionaire launched an investigation into the popular vote in 2016? Is that why Trump’s cabinet is nothing, but lobbyists and family? You think Trump and his 750$ in taxes are going to pay for the trillions this billionaire spent?

- - - Updated - - -

If you make the dividing line between two parties based entirely on culture war topics, some people with naturally side with the "evil" or the "bad" side. The dividing line will be are you evil or are you good vs. what kind of policies do you think are best for the country.

What if people say a NYC oligarch, with a 40 year history of ripping off the working class, from bankruptcy to eminent domain claims, obviously never give a shit about the working class... but, without any reason to the contrary, believe that pointing out he doesn’t give a shit about anyone, but him self... is getting interpreted as a side attacking American workers. Is the refusal to give American workers relief during covid, without removing liability of employers, something that helps workers? Did subsidizing big energy and manufacturing to prep for automation, actually help workers? Last I checked, they were still laying people off, while announcing new innovations in IT that lead automation.

By the way... when Trump attacks big tech in his bid to destroy them... How many jobs is that? With recent lay offs, coal is now around 40k jobs in the entire country. IT represents 23% of all employment in the US. How many American workers Trump attacking?

[Endus]

It is a fandom though. It has all the hallmarks of a fandom. People who vote Democrat couldn't care less about the policies that the left wing represents. They care only about surface-level populist politics that are prominent on tumblr and twitter. Stuff like fighting for gender and racial equality. Those topics are easy to digest and don't require an actual understanding of hard politics like free trade vs. protectionism, foreign security and diplomacy. As a result only the most vapid, shallow, pandering Democrats get to run in the elections. Democrats who actually represent core left wing values - like Sanders - get shafted. Left wing should be about protecting worker's rights and yet Biden wants to screw the workers over by giving more power to multinational corporations.

Sexism, racism, LGTBQ+ etc. shouldn't be a partisan issue. And yet they are because people consistently vote in people whose only political position is man vs woman, black vs white, straight vs. gay etc.

Because the alternative option is a party that opposes fair treatment on those grounds. Which supports and fosters abuses and harm on those grounds.

Issues have different priorities. Debating exactly which economic approach maximizes GDP most effectively given current circumstances, when both options are useful and have justifications, that's simply a lower priority issue for most people than "can black people be freely slaughtered by the police, or not?"

You say these things shouldn't be partisan issues. But they are. That's the problem. Maybe the debate should be about those more nuanced issues, but the USA can't ever get around to that, because the big glaring surface issues keep getting people killed or harmed on a regular basis and there isn't even agreement on those.

Exactly. If you want to have your interests represented in the government, you have to either be a majority, be a huge corporation and buy out politicians or subsist on the majority's goodwill to give you rights. Minority groups fall squarely in category 3. When times are good no one is bothered by it. When times are bad (recession after recession, limited job opportunities, skyhigh property prices), the goodwill of the majority quickly dries up when they see their interests being shafted time after time while minorities get stimulus packages and affirmative action programs.

This simply isn't how people think, in a general sense. Some people, sure. The self-absorbed who lack compassion and empathy, sure. Those people exist, but they aren't the majority.

I can tell you quite handily that difficult economic times aren't going to suddenly make me racist just because there are programs that address societal inequities. Because I'm not a racist. If pressures like that would make you racist, it's because you were always racist, you just had it stuffed down deep where you ignored it. "My interests" are not harmed in any way by societal inequities being fixed for someone else; an equitable and fair society is my interest. I don't demand a position of privilege that is predicated on the suffering of others. Which, fundamentally, is the only alternative.

Your problem here is that you fundamentally see society as a collection of disparate groups, and you want to enforce "us vs them", where your "us" is some sub-group within that society. You see those others as an enemy who must suffer, for your group to gain. A lot of the rest of us don't see a "them". It's all "us". I'm a cishet white dude. I may have a different outlook than a gay black woman, but my vision of society fundamentally considers her part of my "us". When she's treated badly by society, that hurts me, indirectly (though not as badly; I'm expressing solidarity, not that my pain at her victimization is as important/big as her own). Having her rights and equity protected is not an attack on me nor the society I want to build. That you think it must be is oh so telling of your own views.

[Endus]

It has nothing to do with "being racist", stop throwing that word around at everyone every time you're in disagreement.

The fact is that if you're one of the millions upon millions of poor white people who can't find a job, can't make ends meet, can't provide for your family, can't get medical care, and so on...and then you hear politicians telling you that your privilege is too great, that you need to sacrifice opportunities to other people, that you need the government to take from you and give to them...it becomes hard to support those politicians.

You've managed to misinterpret what "privilege" means in this context, and imagine up a whole suite of entirely imaginary harms against you, specifically, to justify why you support policies that foster and encourage racist prejudice and harm.

Nothing you said in there is reasonable. No one is having their opportunities "sacrificed". The people facing hardship aren't the ones the government is "taking from". You're making shit up to try and justify being racist. There is no defense.

Yeah, it's more complex than that - and the GOP certainly isn't *actually* looking out for the interests of those people. But when one party says they represent you and the other party sounds like they only want to represent others at your expense, it's easy to see how people with less understanding pick one side over the other.

If you see disadvantaged minorities treated poorly, and think that's okay because at least you're better off, you're racist. It's that simple. If you oppose seeing them treated equitably and fairly because it won't benefit you directly, that's because you're racist. That's what the word means.

It isn't complex at all.

And thinking that equitable, fair treatment comes "at your expense"; you're so close to understanding the concept of racial privilege but you won't acknowledge what the term actually means for some reason.

It's a branding problem mostly, because most democrats refuse to address the issues in depth and instead go for the low hanging fruit that makes for good sound bites. Guys like Andrew Yang and Bishop Barber of the Poor People's Campaign do a good job of pointing out that the problem is economic, not just race vs. race or gender vs. gender. But most democrats can't seem to stop reaching for the sound bites.

Where did you ever get the idea that race issues in the USA aren't deeply tied into economics? They have been rooted in economic exploitation for over 400 years. That's the root of the entire legacy of American racism. Nobody's ignoring economic angles when it comes to race issues; they're one of the prime issues being looked at.

[Stormspellz]

It is a fandom though. It has all the hallmarks of a fandom. People who vote Democrat couldn't care less about the policies that the left wing represents. They care only about surface-level populist politics that are prominent on tumblr and twitter. Stuff like fighting for gender and racial equality. Those topics are easy to digest and don't require an actual understanding of hard politics like free trade vs. protectionism, foreign security and diplomacy. As a result only the most vapid, shallow, pandering Democrats get to run in the elections. Democrats who actually represent core left wing values - like Sanders - get shafted. Left wing should be about protecting worker's rights and yet Biden wants to screw the workers over by giving more power to multinational corporations.

Sexism, racism, LGTBQ+ etc. shouldn't be a partisan issue. And yet they are because people consistently vote in people whose only political position is man vs woman, black vs white, straight vs. gay etc.

This is a joke right? trying some time of satire? or you willfully ignoring the very split you try to use as an example between the different factions of the "left", how Pelosi had to do a "grand bargain" within the democrats ranks specifically the progressives caucus to keep speaker ship, or how this entire election was "well biden isn't trump", and so on.

As for "surface level" issues, holy pot kettle, don't think anyone will say the general public is well informed on nuance and complicated topics but trying to call the Democrat voters as stupid in a nice word salad when you know republicans exist, who scream fake news at a literal recording of Trump saying something they say he didn't say, is truly laughable

And yet they are because people consistently vote in people whose only political position is man vs woman, black vs white, straight vs. gay etc.

you mean like the racists and American Talaban, that make the core of gop base?

[Endus]

Jesus fucking christ, put the crusader sword down and stop tilting at racist windmills for one second and try READING a response for once.

You're always so eager to virtue signal by way of starting fights against everyone that doesn't toe the line exactly how you do that it makes you literally incapable of processing what you read or having an actual discussion. It's just straight to, "I'm going to misrepresent what you said to call you racist!"

And yet, you can't explain what I "misrepresented". You're just making up nonsense about "virtue signalling", which I'm not doing. I'm not claiming to be some paragon, and thinking that I am pretty badly mistakes what I've been talking about.

[Wilfire]

snip

Let's clear up my views once and for all. I believe that some humans are born evil and they are evenly distributed across all ethnicities, genders and whatever other categories can be made to sort humans. I know that in the past humans visited great evil upon each other in the name of nominally noble goals. As such, I see every social, political and/or economic movement as a potential threat. Sure, they might be fighting for their rights right now but who's to say they won't be hijacked by bad actors fighting for dominance and superiority tomorrow? To minimize that risk, I will always support the underdog group to make sure that all those disparate groups keep fighting each other and none of them ever comes out on top. That means when the right wing is losing, I support right wing. When left wing is losing, I support left wing. It's not "my group" vs "other groups". It's me and my closest friends and relatives vs. everyone and no one.

A world where left wing ideology becomes completely dominant might be better but I'm not willing to take that risk. I prefer a world where all those disparate groups keep struggling and fighting each other and don't have the resources to realize their views on a global scale.

[Endus]

Um, incorrect?

I was literally talking about the branding issue that the democrats have from the perspective of the people I talked about. I'm not one of those people, and that was extremely clear to anyone not desperate for a virtue signaling battle.

I did not - as you seemed to suggest - say that those were beliefs that I personally held. You literally ignored all of it and jumped to calling me racist twice in the first two sentences of your reply. Not only that, but you also completely misrepresented the beliefs as I described them anyway, so you were simply being dishonest from several angles for the sake of fighting.

I'm gonna point out that you need to go back and read that post again, because it was written as a contradiction of the arguments you raised. There were qualifiers included, with the explicit intent of making that clear.

The only statements I made that were directly personal where that your misunderstanding of what "racial privilege" is and what it means, and your claim that it's "about economics, not race", citing Yang and Barber, when that's a false dilemma because racism in the USA has always been about economics, and even there, that was an accusation that was directed at your sources as much as yourself.

For someone who's attacked me pretty hard, you need to not take things so personally.

[Endus]

Let's clear up my views once and for all. I believe that some humans are born evil and they are evenly distributed across all ethnicities, genders and whatever other categories can be made to sort humans. I know that in the past humans visited great evil upon each other in the name of nominally noble goals. As such, I see every social, political and/or economic movement as a potential threat. Sure, they might be fighting for their rights right now but who's to say they won't be hijacked by bad actors fighting for dominance and superiority tomorrow? To minimize that risk, I will always support the underdog group to make sure that all those disparate groups keep fighting each other and none of them ever comes out on top. That means when the right wing is losing, I support right wing. When left wing is losing, I support left wing. It's not "my group" vs "other groups". It's me and my closest friends and relatives vs. everyone and no one.

A world where left wing ideology becomes completely dominant might be better but I'm not willing to take that risk. I prefer a world where all those disparate groups keep struggling and fighting each other and don't have the resources to realize their views on a global scale.

I'm just gonna say it's really frickin' weird to take a stance on left-wing principles, and try and use that to defend why you support right-wingers as much as left-wingers, depending on who's "winning".

Also, the "I agree with X on their principles, but what if things change in the future?" isn't an argument. On any level. Political affiliation is something you can reconsider at any moment, and nobody suggested it was a lifetime thing. You're stating that you make that affiliation not on principle, but just on empty opposition, however. You're clearly stating here that you don't have principles, just self-interest.

Which is fine, but don't act like that's a strong political viewpoint from which anything productive can be distilled.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, you were totally addressing the topic and not me personally here.

So full of shit, and you evade when presented with the facts of it. Every single time.

I specifically said I stood by my personal accusation that you do not understand what "privilege" means in this context.

Which I stand by. And which you've done nothing to demonstrate otherwise.

What I did not do, at any point, was call you, personally, "racist".

[Wilfire]

Which is fine, but don't act like that's a strong political viewpoint from which anything productive can be distilled.

It is productive. Much like mutually assured destruction, you know that neither side can enact a purge of the other side when the split in power is close to 50/50%.

[Veggie50]

Republicans are marketing geniusses with a crappy product.

Democrats expect their good product to sell without much marketing.

Keeps them competing with eachother. If Democrats figure out how to brand their product better republicans are finished.

[unfilteredJW]

It is productive. Much like mutually assured destruction, you know that neither side can enact a purge of the other side when the split in power is close to 50/50%.

I can't imagine what living with this much fear is like.

It's pitiable.

[shimerra]

It is productive. Much like mutually assured destruction, you know that neither side can enact a purge of the other side when the split in power is close to 50/50%.

It's definitely not productive at all. Sounds more like an excuse to justify your own shitty views/beliefs or an admission that you're not smart enough or determined enough to come up with/defend your own convictions.

You're basically the political equivalent of two people arguing over if 2+2=4 or if 2+2=6. Your answer being to split the difference at 5, thereby in your mind hedging your bets. It's not helpful. In fact it's stupid and dangerous. To Godwin this do you think the answer was to only oppose Hitler halfway rather than 100% of the way to achieve your non-sensical and completely subjective view of balance?

I can't imagine what living with this much fear is like.

It's pitiable.

The best part is his post ranting about how left wing voters are just suckers about race or whatever is almost a perfect caricature of his own posting/expressed views. He's basically a right wing version of the left wing person he made up in his mind he claims to hate.

Yeah, you were totally addressing the topic and not me personally here.

So full of shit, and you evade when presented with the facts of it. Every single time.

Seems like most of us his meaning. No need to get pissy because you can't.

[Felya]

It is productive. Much like mutually assured destruction, you know that neither side can enact a purge of the other side when the split in power is close to 50/50%.

You are afraid of the purge, as we discuss healthcare for all.