Moon Atari posted:

Even people who are on the same general "side" as me politically seem pretty scary a lot of the time. There was this guy I've been following on twitter for years and suddenly he starts posting about how any one who is worried about or tries to reduce people discussing the murder of their political enemies is in fact sympathising with the enemy. That sort of talk is kind of alienating for me. I just can't feel comfortable around such explicitly violent ideology.

rudatron posted:

the comparison to the us civil war aren't too far off the mark. political polarization has just jumped up massively. see the pew poll:



http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/the-partisan-divide-on-political-values-grows-even-wider/
as you can see, this isn't a sudden, dramatic change, but the culmination of a long running trend. that also means its not going to reverse quickly.

the whole thing is a powder keg, waiting for the right crisis to set it off.

gobbagool posted:

Rudatron, forgive me for asking, but you're not American, are you? The bizarre thing about reading this thread and pretty much any thread like it in cspam or D&D is the bizarro world nature of what's actually going on in America versus what cub reporters are telling us what is happening in America. Sure, amongst people who care, liberals and conservatives are getting along terribly from a political perspective. My own father is a never trumper who is caremad all the time about Trump. The reality is though that the vast vast majority of people dont give a poo poo about politics outside of the most local concerns. 24x7 media hyping the next news story i think gives people, especially outside the US, that the US is a 'powder keg' to use your term, when on the ground most people dont want to even discuss politics because it's hella loving boring. I work in NYC but live in a deep red exurb upstate, and in my daily walk, i rarely encounter anyone who wants to discuss politics. People who do want to talk about politics are shunned, nobody wants to be around them, because inevitably, they have strident and horrible opinions, regardless of which side they're on. My primary customer in NYC is a North African Muslim appointee of Mayor DiBlasio. I'm a conservative white male. You know what we talk about? Premier league soccer.

gobbagool posted:

Rudatron, forgive me for asking, but you're not American, are you? The bizarre thing about reading this thread and pretty much any thread like it in cspam or D&D is the bizarro world nature of what's actually going on in America versus what cub reporters are telling us what is happening in America. Sure, amongst people who care, liberals and conservatives are getting along terribly from a political perspective. My own father is a never trumper who is caremad all the time about Trump. The reality is though that the vast vast majority of people dont give a poo poo about politics outside of the most local concerns. 24x7 media hyping the next news story i think gives people, especially outside the US, that the US is a 'powder keg' to use your term, when on the ground most people dont want to even discuss politics because it's hella loving boring. I work in NYC but live in a deep red exurb upstate, and in my daily walk, i rarely encounter anyone who wants to discuss politics. People who do want to talk about politics are shunned, nobody wants to be around them, because inevitably, they have strident and horrible opinions, regardless of which side they're on. My primary customer in NYC is a North African Muslim appointee of Mayor DiBlasio. I'm a conservative white male. You know what we talk about? Premier league soccer.

edit: get your news from somewhere other than gawker and slate, maybe read local newspapers instead

lollontee posted:

Sure, but not as much as you think. China is building its One Roadbelt across the Eurasian continent and integrating the whole of Africa into its supply chains and political hegemony. In a decade they'll be able to bypass any American hegemony holding them back and ship any product the rest of the world might want without going through any of the naval routes you currently control, and then what?

rudatron posted:

polite small talk isn't a sign of common identification, it's what you do when you want to avoid any possibility of conflict. you avoid any controversy, because you cannot trust that the person listening won't take offense or react negatively. any real friendship necessarily involves talking honestly to the other person, and that includes telling them things they might not want to hear. you don't do that to shallow acquaintances, because you don't really care.

the issue comes when that 'polite distance' cannot be maintained, either because it's directly related to a pressing crisis, or because a further social breakdown has occurred. you can only ignore politics for so long, before it forces itself into view, and a major crisis will do just that.

Iron Twinkie posted:

On local papers, that's really only an option if you live in the New York or DC area.

https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/955465567879626752

Iron Twinkie posted:

On local papers, that's really only an option if you live in the New York or DC area.

https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/955465567879626752

gobbagool posted:

Rudatron, forgive me for asking, but you're not American, are you? The bizarre thing about reading this thread and pretty much any thread like it in cspam or D&D is the bizarro world nature of what's actually going on in America versus what cub reporters are telling us what is happening in America. Sure, amongst people who care, liberals and conservatives are getting along terribly from a political perspective. My own father is a never trumper who is caremad all the time about Trump. The reality is though that the vast vast majority of people dont give a poo poo about politics outside of the most local concerns. 24x7 media hyping the next news story i think gives people, especially outside the US, that the US is a 'powder keg' to use your term, when on the ground most people dont want to even discuss politics because it's hella loving boring. I work in NYC but live in a deep red exurb upstate, and in my daily walk, i rarely encounter anyone who wants to discuss politics. People who do want to talk about politics are shunned, nobody wants to be around them, because inevitably, they have strident and horrible opinions, regardless of which side they're on. My primary customer in NYC is a North African Muslim appointee of Mayor DiBlasio. I'm a conservative white male. You know what we talk about? Premier league soccer.

edit: get your news from somewhere other than gawker and slate, maybe read local newspapers instead

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

the question is what's the breaking point? and over what? health care? this is what i'm not seeing. the civil war was not war between parties; it was a sectional war over slavery and the pre-war parties fractured.

gobbagool posted:

This is really the question, what issue is there that average Americans, the middle 95%, are willing to fight and die over? You can forget about the kids of issues that get internet rage addicted activists worked up, the vast vast vast majority of people wont even know what you're talking about and think you're a weirdo, much less risk their well being and their families to take the torch up for some dumb cause.

gobbagool posted:

This is really the question, what issue is there that average Americans, the middle 95%, are willing to fight and die over? You can forget about the kids of issues that get internet rage addicted activists worked up, the vast vast vast majority of people wont even know what you're talking about and think you're a weirdo, much less risk their well being and their families to take the torch up for some dumb cause.

gobbagool posted:

if you're talking about hard investigative reporting, maybe, yeah. I mean a lot of news is local, and there's still plenty of papers covering local news.

http://www.timesunion.com/
https://dailygazette.com/

those are the two around here. the TU has pretty good coverage of State politics, though not all of it is on the website unless you're a subscriber.

Lightning Lord posted:

Being literally able to utter a word to someone who isn't 100% like you is no sign of political stability in any direction. I bet like, individual Irish Unionists and Republicans could have a beer together once in awhile around the time of the Easter Rising

Now I'm not saying America is even in that galaxy politically, but just because I can say "Hi" to a Republican I know without them immediately going apeshit on me doesn't mean anything.

Laphroaig posted:

the US population cares deeply and might come to violence over sports team affiliations but as a whole is totally disconnected from the ruling political class; most people don’t even vote, remember? they watch and care about sports instead with that mental energy

Mandoric posted:

And I think you're wrong about the propensity to "talk politics" around here. Especially because so many of the realities of life are intensely political. Are you sure people aren't just pegging your angle and trying not to set you off? Not even sarcastic, I'm the polar opposite of you and when I cut my hair and started dressing more professionally everyone I didn't know by sight clammed the gently caress up while randos across the midwest and south suddenly became disgustingly talkative about who they hated.

rudatron posted:

it's not about 'confronting', or 'picking a fight', it's about meaningful interaction. small talk just isn't that. suppose you have a friend acting self destructively: do you just ignore it, and only make small talk with them? no, you actively take them aside, and tell them what the problem is. now suppose they're just someone you 'know' about. how likely are you to intervene? you could, but you probably wouldn't get anywhere, and besides, it's their business, not yours - that is, it would be impolite.

In other words, politeness is the absence of familiarity, not proof of its presence. you open up with people you think you can trust, and that includes politics, though obviously people care about a lot of other things as well.

But the point is, even if form the outside, there doesn't appear to be much of anything, under the surface, inside the beliefs and thoughts of americans, big changes are happening, like volcanic eruptions at the bottom of the ocean.

gobbagool posted:

I mean, maybe you're right? At work i dress professionally, most of the time it's Jeans, Tims, and a sweater, so unless its the fact that i'm a 40 something white male and people are drawing conclusions from that? I'm still not sure you've supported the notion that violent revolution is imminent because people dont like eachother and are super caremad about Trump but i'll concede the point that perhaps people's assumptions about me based on my appearance frame the conversation?
'

Whorelord posted:

lollontee posted:

do you own a house?

gobbagool posted:

What is your evidence of 'big changes are happening' besides the fact that you are angry about America?

rudatron posted:

...did...did you see the graphs i posted? i didn't make them, they're done by pew polling. i think they're pretty interesting.

gobbagool posted:

I think that's the point I'm making. Normal people don't go apeshit over political differences. They live their lives, mostly understanding that not everybody agrees on everything. People holding differing opinions does not equal America collapsing. Not liking Donald Trump does not equal America collapsing. The rest of the thread, masturbatory fantasies of China taking over Asia, or the rest of East Asia deciding all of a sudden they really like China, is just silly. China has a herculean task in front of it to finish modernizing before their population pyramid goes tits up, Hegemony starts at home, and unless the chicoms can continue to deliver on their end of the bargain, i'd be more worried about a Chinese collapse than an American one.

Often Abbreviated posted:

itt an incredibly rarefied wealthy suburbanite from McMansion Hell, NY informs us that history is over, actually and everything will be fine forever, just like it is right now

gobbagool posted:

Rudatron, forgive me for asking, but you're not American, are you? The bizarre thing about reading this thread and pretty much any thread like it in cspam or D&D is the bizarro world nature of what's actually going on in America versus what cub reporters are telling us what is happening in America. Sure, amongst people who care, liberals and conservatives are getting along terribly from a political perspective. My own father is a never trumper who is caremad all the time about Trump. The reality is though that the vast vast majority of people dont give a poo poo about politics outside of the most local concerns. 24x7 media hyping the next news story i think gives people, especially outside the US, that the US is a 'powder keg' to use your term, when on the ground most people dont want to even discuss politics because it's hella loving boring. I work in NYC but live in a deep red exurb upstate, and in my daily walk, i rarely encounter anyone who wants to discuss politics. People who do want to talk about politics are shunned, nobody wants to be around them, because inevitably, they have strident and horrible opinions, regardless of which side they're on. My primary customer in NYC is a North African Muslim appointee of Mayor DiBlasio. I'm a conservative white male. You know what we talk about? Premier league soccer.

edit: get your news from somewhere other than gawker and slate, maybe read local newspapers instead

gobbagool posted:

Yes? Do you?

gobbagool posted:

Finicums Wake said it better than i did. Sure, people have divergent opinions on politics, and might even get mad when they see something in their facebook feed about Trans bathrooms, or DACA, but they're not about to march in the street about it. Most normies are more angry that the Pats are in the Super Bowl again than they are about the breathless 24x7 RUSSIA COLLUSION story

Finicums Wake posted:

while a ton of americans are tuned out or disengaged with the political process right now, i'm wary of projecting that, say, 20 years into the future. from what i can tell, long term economic trends, if they continue, will hollow out the middle class. that plus political polarization will create the conditions in which an otherwise fixable crisis—another 2008 style financial collapse, for example—forces these problems to be confronted, since they're so clolsely coupled. whether that'd cause a full scale civil war, or just a period more like the america of the 1920s

quote:

This is the crisis facing Western democracies: we don’t know what failure looks like anymore and we have no idea how much danger we are in. The language of failed states doesn’t fit the present moment because it conjures up images that are completely inappropriate for a society like the contemporary United States. There will be no widespread civil conflict, no tanks in the streets, no generals on television announcing that order has been restored. Trump’s victory has been greeted with some haphazard protests around the country, accompanied by sporadic violence. Had he been narrowly defeated, and then refused to concede, the story might have been different. But even then I find it hard to believe that civic order in the US would have broken down. The violence would doubtless have been greater and much of it would have been hateful. But widespread armed resistance to the regime is still very difficult to imagine. The US is nothing like the societies where we know what happens when politics falls apart, including Europe in the 1930s, which is often held up as a warning for what might be around the corner. Contemporary America is far more prosperous than other states where democracy has failed in the past, however unequally that prosperity is distributed. Its population is much older. Civil disorder tends to happen in societies where the median age is in the low twenties; in the US it is close to forty. Its young people are far better educated, or at least educated for much longer. Its levels of violence, though high by 21st-century European standards, are low by any historical measure. Its frustrations are those of a country where all this is true and yet still things are going badly wrong. These are First World problems. That doesn’t make them any less serious. It just makes it much harder to find historical precedents for what comes next.

DiscountDildos posted:

Lol loving bullshit

"My rich, white NYC rear end is feeling pretty comfortable and I interact with a Muslim so it's all good"

Lol

Then I just repeatedly call everyone who expresses discontent a jealous bum like I'm some chud troll

Lol

gobbagool posted:

Yeah, and ITT people who society left behind hope and pray for some kind of karmic justice where society burns to the ground and point at their own feelings as evidence it's about to happen