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Tulsi Gabbard Completes MAGA Makeover by Endorsing Donald Trump
(www.thedailybeast.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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politics
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So you're calling me a sealion because, after dozens of messages insulting me, I pointed out that I didn't deserve to be thus abused.
And you think my politeness is some kind of manipulation instead of, oh I dunno, maybe I just don't think getting angry helps improve the quality of discourse on the internet, and also I'm mindful of the fact that this sub has rules on civility (which no one else seems to be following, but which I'm aware could get me banned by a mod if they were looking for an excuse, as often happened on reddit).
What is wrong with you? It hasn't even crossed your mind for a second that I might be a real person expressing my real thoughts, has it?
It has! And I evaluated that thought for lots more than a single second and came to the following pair of conclusions.
I've given up assuming incompetence where there could be malice, so I'm just going straight to accusing you of being disingenuous. And I'm not the only one....that should tell you something.
So, like all of your other concerns, I'm dismissing this one.
This is the exact same conclusion I've come to after all decades online now, sifting through propaganda and misinformation on social media and spread by "official" media sources owned by billionaires and spreading the agenda that benefits their owner. It doesn't matter whether the user is part of a propaganda mill, or just a useful idiot, the end result is the same and so they deserve the same treatment.
If they don't want to be treated like a foreign agent, then they should take some time to reflect on their beliefs. See if they accidentally fell into a rabbit hole of propaganda, it happens all the time. It's the reason there is so much discord between us now, and no willingness to work together. Do real, verifiable facts actually back up their points, or are those points based what they were told to think and based solely on emotion, like fear. Did they consciously make decisions to end up with those beliefs, or did they take a couple of similar sources and internalize that. Since their beliefs match those of a foreign agent trying to sow as much discord as possible, were those sources compromised or being co-opted by that foreign power?
The Overton Window in the US has shifted so far to the right over the past few decades that we no longer actually have a left wing party. The current Democratic party is more similar to Reagan's Republican party than anything resembling left wing. Reagan, as much as the Republicans lift him up, would never even get through a primary in the current Republican party. The only things even pretending to be left wing anymore are a handful of social issues, that are obvious to most other countries in the world, and have been implemented for decades already successfully. As much as the Republicans try to pain the Democrats as radicals, there is absolutely no factual basis for this beyond their skewed perception of reality. There are a couple politicians that are further left than the party, but nothing coming from any US politician is remotely radical, most of what they're calling for has been done in Europe for decades with few issues compared to our lopsided society of embarrassed millionaires who will never get close to making the money they fantasize they will have.
There's definitely a political direction in the US, something hard-leftists don't get. Here's a set of fun polls:
All three links try to answer the painful question of: "How do American voters line up on ideologies?" Gallop finds that America as a whole identifies more Conservative (36%) than Liberal (24%), with another whole 36% saying they are neither Liberal NOR Conservative. The Other Side is divided up into 20% Very Conservative, 49% Conservative, 27% Moderate, and a tiny sliver of Liberal or Very Liberal Republicans (that surprises me all by itself! Where do they find these people?!). We here on the Left count 16% as Very Liberal, 31% as Liberal, and a whopping 45% as Moderate (and another 5% as Conservatives, but we know we have those). Unfortunately, we have to deal with the fact that we live in a country where 7 out of every 20 people say they are neither Left NOR Right and view both parties from a 'pox on both' perspective. At least they're moving to our side because Fascism Bad, amirite? :)
Gallop points out that even as people become more self-identified as liberal on social issues (33% Liberal, 32% Moderate, 32% Conservative), they remain very moderate to conservative on economic issues (23% Liberal, 35% Moderate, 39% Conservative). That's why Liberals have to focus on social issues because economic issues don't favour them. 69% of voters in the Democratic Party agree on liberal approaches to social issues, while only 49% favour a conservative approach.
But above all, the most interesting one is the YouGov poll. When people were asked about how their politics was described, 21% said "Moderate" described them well, and another 33% said it described them partially. Conservative got 28% and 25% on the same areas. Progressive only scored 18% and 24% in those areas, and Liberal scored 16% and 24%. Socialist? 7+21%. Left Wing? 11+16%. But they went further. They asked which terms used to describe the respondants, and which terms never described them. Socialist and Left-Wing shared a stat line on that response -- 51% of people said these terms NEVER described them, while another 6% said the terms used to describe them. Only Radical (64%) and Anarchist (67%) scored harder on the 'I have never been this).
I'm not sure I agree with the notion that today's Democrats are Reagan's Republicans, but as long as you keep in mind that you live in a country that over half of people polled vehemently disagreed with being labelled socialist or left-wing, and tailor your solutions to account for that, while trying to do the best to represent Progressive or Liberal goals, I won't complain hard about whether or not 2024 Dems would be at home in the 1980 RNC.
The issue with all of those polls is that the average American has been lied to about the definition of communism, socialism, fascism, etc. for decades. So unless the polls avoid using the terms directly and instead describe what they are referring to, the poll is effectively useless for these kinds of metrics.
Just look at the people that vehemently hate Obamacare, but will defend the Affordable Care Act. It's literally the same thing, but propaganda makes people think that they're not only different things, but have dramatically different thoughts about the same thing just depending on what it's called.
Fair point! Still, let's be careful with dismissing these polls. If someone can tar your policy with labels like Liberal, Socialist, or Leftist, it can turn a lot of Americans off.
Welcome to the Republican platform for the last 30+ years. They're been calling everything under the sun Communist, Socialist, and Fascist specifically so people no longer know what those words mean. Combine that with reducing both federal and state education spending whenever possible and vilifying upper education as some sort of liberal conspiracy/propaganda machine, and you're just about caught up.