The Media Still Doesn’t Get Biden Voters
A good in-depth discussion of media bias in political reporting, or why is it that Biden voters are encouraged to understand an empathize with Trump voters but Trump voters are never asked to understand Biden voters?
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ITT: A bunch of liberals who think they're much more open-minded than Trump-supporters, making blanket statements and stereotype-fomenting comments about Trump-supporters. This is the real-world equivalent of Obi-Wan Kenobi complaining that "Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" and it's just as cringe-worthy.
As a Trump-hating liberal, I won't pretend to understand what makes Trumpers love him. I admit, I've tried, and it eludes me. They don't seem like bad people to me, but their political views are often based on faulty information, they have a misplaced distrust of government institutions, and some of them seem to think that science requires faith, because laypeople have to "trust the scientists." So, I don't get them, and I think it's an important question, but one thing's clear: they're not evil, cartoonish Bond minions. Those people here, pushing these caricatures of them, are just trying to make themselves feel better in the face of their own failure to understand their compatriots. They don't like not having an explanation, like all pattern-seeking primates, and prefer a bad explanation to none. It's intellectually lazy and deserves downvoting.
Meh. Republicans spent the past several years trying their best to convince me that they are a bunch of crazy bigots who will destroy civil liberties, destroy our educational system, and ban any history or books that they deem as undesirable. I have chosen to believe them.
Those Republican voters who claim not to be those things are still voting for and supporting people who are.
What else do I need to understand?
What else do I need to understand?
Why they’re acting the way they are. Your explanation is “they’re crazy bigots.” Well, their explanation for your political alignment is you’re a freedom-hating communist. So your explanation of them has all the nuance and intellectual strength that theirs does if you.
But hey, you can’t find it in yourself to rise above that bullshit, I’m not sure I can help you.
The difference is that it's very easy to point to examples of them destroying civil liberties (abortion), education (defunding schools), and banning books (homosexuality as a topic in particular), and history (teaching the upsides of slavery). Whereas they never have any actual examples of the left hating freedom or being communist.
Whereas they never have any actual examples of the left hating freedom or being communist.
Spoken like someone who has never bothered to ask one of them why they think this. You're just proving my point.
Feel free to provide some examples then, otherwise quit with the both-sides bullshit.
And no, kitty litter in classrooms isn't a good example
Gun control, higher taxes, more regulations
Trump did more to enact gun control than Biden has thus far or have you forgotten "'Take the guns first, go through due process second"?
OK and?
But hey, you can’t find it in yourself to rise above that bullshit, I’m not sure I can help you.
If you think the only difference between what Republicans and Democrats are doing with the country right now is a matter of perspective, I'm quite sure I can't help you.
And yet, it's apparently more socially acceptable for the MAGA crew to screech and throw feces, and less socially acceptable for rational people of any political stripe to stand up to screeching and feces throwing by pointing out the extent of MAGA lunacy.
You're right that most of the MAGA crew aren't "evil, cartoonish Bond minions," but some of them, especially those at the top, are evil, cartoonish Bond villains. And some of them are minions: right-wing militias, and the rest who stormed the Capitol on Jan 6 sure the hell are. There are more waiting in the wings to take insurrectionist action, above and beyond simple lunacy.
Your second paragraph is a far better take than the comments in the rest of the thread. Trumpers make the same sort of blanketed statements about us, and all it does is create another obstacle to reasonable discourse and increases polarization.
I’m telling people not to sink to their level, even if they continue to do so.
Ok, seriously though, the “they go low, we go high” tactic was incredibly stupid when it was suggested back in 2016, and it’s only gotten more stupid. When you’re playing poker and someone pulls a knife, you’re not playing poker anymore; to pretend otherwise is effectively self-sabotage.
This take is pretty inaccurate. You’re basically trying to say that any criticism of right wingers is unwarranted. Nothing over the top is being expressed in these comments and trying to tell us you’re a trump hating liberal is coming off as disingenuous. Fact is that anyone who is still even considering trump as an option is either a cartoonish bond minion or a complete buffoon.
You’re basically trying to say that any criticism of right wingers is unwarranted.
Nope, not at all, try again.
trying to tell us you’re a trump hating liberal is coming off as disingenuous.
Maybe to you. And that’s your problem. I am what I am and I’m being honest about it. Take a look at my comment history if you’re skeptical, but I really don’t care what you believe.
Cherry picking a comment for points you can argue and not addressing the entire thing, once again, comes off as disingenuous. You also don’t get to decide how you come off to other people. You have no control over how someone will receive your comments. Trying to argue that you don’t come off a certain way shows a complete lack of empathy and understanding. Maybe don’t make blanket statements about people in a thread chain complaining about them making blanket statements. When I got to this thread there was 1 out of 12 comments that could have been interpreted as what you originally complained about, and you are so quick to defend the trump movement that it was the obvious conclusion that you were lying about being a trump hating liberal. All the evidence needed was here already that it didn’t warrant going into your history, and now I won’t even bother because I don’t want to be subjected to bad takes and illogical arguments. Maybe you should take your own advice and try again.
I put people who are overtly, shamelessly, intransigently racist into the “cartoonish evil” bin. Sure, fine, yes - they’re that way largely because of their childhood and how they were raised. But that doesn’t make them less racist, nor does it make them good people. They deserve to be shunned and ridiculed in polite society. And fascists - which now compose a meaningful percentage of the Republican base - deserve far worse than that.