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Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I dunno if people are joking, but I unironically think that IronStache's tweets towards Mensche are largely motivated by him wanting to bone her. They remind me of nerds posting comments on cute girls' youtube videos/whatever.

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Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I like the part where he goes "I wonder if this is what democracy in ancient Greece was like"

In the sense that a bunch of wealthy people made decisions without the input of all the proles, yeah, I guess it's kinda similar.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

zegermans posted:

I dunno maybe we should be on the side of the folks who don't want thousands more to die and pick the fight about the thousands they let die due to single payer opposition for a different time through political activism and replacing of the dem party structure from the ground up with progressives

This only really applies to voting. I agree that people should ultimately make the practical best choice in the voting booth, but I can't think of many benefits to clamping down on criticism of Democrats (which is what you seem to be implying here with this "be on their side" stuff). It's not like non-Republicans saying "grrr I hate Republicans/the AHCA" on Twitter is going to somehow hamper their efforts to pass the AHCA. The only real potential result from people expressing their opinions like this is to generally signal the opinions of the population as a whole (or Democrats as a whole), and while there's a non-zero chance that Democrats might care about millions of Democratic voters saying "I am very unhappy with your behavior", there's definitely zero chance that Republicans will give a poo poo about millions of Democrats voicing their opposition to the AHCA (and it's not like there's any dearth of that to begin with).

Like, I just can't really see what the harm is to leftists verbally attacking Democats. If a leftist says they won't vote for a Democrat (in a remotely contested area, at least), there's some grounds for argument there, but I can't really think of anything tangibly negative that would result from a bunch of Democrats signalling their displeasure with the party.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Frijolero posted:

lol he actually thinks the Jane Sanders investigation is a thing :laffo:

What exactly is the d/l on this whole situation? From what I could tell from googling it seems fairly plausible that Jane Sanders did actively misrepresent some stuff in the loan application, though I'm not sure how bad what she may have done personally is. From what I understand there's not really anything specifically implicating Bernie as being involved, other than some allegations his office may have pressured the bank to approve the loan. He lawyered up, but I don't think he's under investigation (yet at least).

I also read that the guy making the case is some Republican operative, but just because the accusations are clearly politically motivated doesn't necessarily mean they're false.

I mean, on a personal level I don't really give a poo poo if she defrauded a bank, though it was dumb of her if she did.


Who is this quoting? I'm guessing it's someone before the Hillary Toxx went into effect?

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Condiv posted:

if bernie was truly anti-iraq war he would've voted to fruitlessly kill soldiers

oddly enough, this is also what he would do if he were pro-iraq war

If Bernie was truly anti-Iraq, he would have travelled to Iraq and fought American soldiers himself.

What a chickenhawk.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Not a Step posted:

E: So does this make Macron France's Obama equivalent? A clean cut genial technocrat who will oversee the decay of his party, do little to nothing for his people, and then usher in a right wing lunatic?

He comes off as even worse, at least as a person. I also don't remember Obama aggressively attacking labor and making the status quo much worse, even though he wasn't an ally.

Honestly I have trouble thinking of a worse politician that doesn't already explicitly define themselves as right-wing/conservative. It's like he's some living avatar of all the worst stereotypes leftists have of centrists/whatever. Like, for a while I thought "I'm not a big fan but maybe he's not really that terrible" but nope he really is that awful.

Macron is basically a perfect example of how "being verbally opposed to Trump/Republicans" is plenty to earn a politician "liberal cred" in the eyes of a large portion of American liberals, because in terms of his actual personal and political beliefs the man is a loving ghoul.

edit: I think another thing that appeals to liberals is that Macron very much has a "young, clean-cut, well educated professional" look/demeanor, which is basically what liberals consider the ideal state of humanity. It seems like Jon Ossoff is the same sort of person (in the US another thing liberals really like, at least in white politicians, is having a "neutral" accent).

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 21:40 on Jun 30, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

anime was right posted:

ive said repeatedly that clinton would have been a fine president, but like, she literally never advocated for her mostly good policies which were a harder sell because

she ran on a list of terms and conditions attached to bernies platform and didn't even list off the table of contents

The thing that concerned me about Clinton is that, even though she had articulated a number of good policies (mostly on her website), her history doesn't really make her a reliable actor to implement them. I also feared that she may have only been so willing to make the concessions she did because a Congress that wouldn't be able to pass such legislation was likely to also result from the election. Like, if I put myself in the shoes of "a centrist Democrat who wants to win the votes of more leftist Democrats without scaring off my more traditional donors and supporters", she did about what I would have done - technically include some good/progressive ideas in your platform, but under circumstances where you have a ready excuse for not actually implementing them and without being particularly vocal about them (so as to not concern the aforementioned traditional donors and supporters).

All this being said, I still would have gladly taken the small chance of her actually doing some of this stuff over Trump.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Guy Goodbody posted:

The idea that Democrats are owed votes from the American people purely because their polices are less harmful than the Republicans'. It has never worked. And it doesn't even make sense.

I don't think it's true that this strategy never works. I think it can work under certain conditions. Specifically, if a large enough portion of the American public is satisfied with the status quo, a strategy which focuses on opposition to a harmful opponent can be successful. This is because, when people are generally satisfied with their lives, they tend to be more concerned at the prospect of things becoming worse than they are interested in the prospect of making things better. I believe that a big cause of our current problems is that there's a huge disconnect between the quality of life of the types of people generally responsible for the direction of the Democratic Party (educated, well-off urban managerial-professionals, for lack of a better description) and the quality of life of a huge portion of the Democratic voter base. This disconnect has always existed to one degree or another, but it's particularly noticeable now.

A big part of me fears that societies will always tend to become reactionary once quality of life reaches a certain level; i.e. people will always start caring less about positive progress once a certain threshold of quality is reached, as we saw with Baby Boomers who were raised in a relatively prosperous country (provided you were white, at least). So, at best, a society will just fluctuate between progressive and reactionary policy.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I wonder if that "can't graduate unless you're going to college or getting a job" thing might be due to for-profit college lobbyists. It's the only special interest I can think of that really would concretely benefit from forcing students to either get a job or go to college upon graduation.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Honestly I'm a fool for having not recognized the money-making opportunity of moving to Vermont and running against Sanders.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Concerned Citizen posted:

did you know: the dscc under chuck schumer cleared the field for bernie's first run for senate so he could run as an independent without a dem splitting the vote

I'm not sure if "not doing something that would be completely malicious and do nothing but absolutely guarantee a Republican victory" is particularly praiseworthy.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

quote:

Computer generated images of the future campus show young upwardly mobile professionals mixing with families of all races in a sunny field, along a shopping street and on a public plaza.

I like how that sentence implies that the "young upwardly mobile professionals" are a separate group from the "families of all races."

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Typo posted:

Poor Trump voters love government programs like medicare, social security and at least some think income inequality is a major issue.....but don't want the government (??????) to do anything about it (???)

While the Hillary voters are generally closely bunched regardless of income, it's interesting how higher income Hillary voters tend to be a bit better on social issues but a bit worse on economic ones. I mean it's not surprising at all, but interesting to see it made explicit. I imagine you would see those gaps increase even further if you got into how much people feel should be done about issues like income inequality (because it's one thing to say "yeah it's a big problem" and another entirely to say "yeah I think taxes on the rich should be drastically hiked up to help deal with it").

edit: In general many liberals are willing to acknowledge problems but unwilling to make any significant material sacrifices to help solve them, and this is especially true for wealthier (and thus more influential) liberals.

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 06:46 on Jul 12, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

rudatron posted:

the vast majority of people are not anti-social enough to hold the kind of malicious racism that you're describing here, and i can't see this belief you have of vast swathes of white america being essentially literal nazis, extermination plans and all, as anything but a fever dream.

My dad's side of the family (minus my dad) are very stereotypical Southern conservatives, and their racism is more the sort of thing where they interpret certain things in a racist manner but don't really go out of their way to think about and express it. Like, if they see a black guy with sagging jeans they'll interpret it in a racist way, but if there's nothing specifically bothering/annoying them about a person it doesn't come up.

To be clear, this is still racist as gently caress. But I think the key difference is that folks like this don't really prioritize racism over other issues. They'll view issues involving other races through a racist lens, but it's not something they really think about otherwise. I think that people often get a distorted perception due to just seeing the internet comments and what have you of the sort of racists who feel the need to go out and express their racism.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

I've always felt that people frequently conflate household with individual income in an attempt to downplay income stagnation.

I'll be curious to see how median incomes track as people who entered the workforce post-great recession become a larger and larger percent of the total workforce.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Condiv posted:

basically, companies are not beholden to racial justice or any kind of equity, and rather fire employees if it looks like they might hurt their pocketbook. doxxing and reporting racists to get them fired seems like a good idea until you realize the right is way better at cooking up outrage than the center, and will likely turn this tactic against us.

I feel like this argument would be more persuasive if there were actually a reasonable number of examples of either people being fired for saying/doing things that weren't actually terrible or the right turning this tactic against people in the method described. But in practice I'm not sure there's ever been one of these situations where 1. the person fired wasn't actually a total shitheel or 2. there was some repercussions for wrongfully terminating them.

edit: The assumption that the right would be less likely to use these tactics if the left didn't use them also seems highly questionable.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Venom Snake posted:

The donor class is very much not united right now as it dawns on them that the democrats can't actually follow up on any of their promises if they can't win

The thing many people don't understand is that while both the Democratic and Republican parties represent the interests of the wealthy, not all wealthy agree with one another. So basically Republicans are the party of "Particularly malicious/FYGM and/or socially conservative wealthy people" and Democrats are the party of "Socially liberal wealthy people who at least care about stuff like poverty on an intellectual level." Of course, it is still a huge problem that our political leadership mostly just reflects the interests of the rich, but a lot of people fall into the trap of assuming that the rich all think the same stuff.

Of course, the fact that only rich people have a heavy influence on politicians means there are certain ideas they do almost universally share, with the most obvious being an opposition to any policy that would actually significantly negatively impact them financially or threaten the position of the rich relative to the rest of society. So Democrats might be willing to increase taxes on the rich a bit, but never to the extent that would actually cause a significant shift in the portion of wealth the rich control relative to the rest of society.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

UHD posted:

maybe you are right but gently caress that eat the rich

Hey nothing I said indicates we shouldn't still eat the rich!

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

ThndrShk2k posted:

For non-essentials of worth what sort of economic system would be better while maintaining the agency of the individuals who produce this optional but in demand service or product?

Am I just confusing two different definitions for the term capitalism?

Capitalism isn't necessary for there to be markets. Market socialism (which isn't the same thing as the social democracies we see in the nordic states) generally involves all businesses being co-owned/managed, which avoid some (but not all*) of the exploitation we currently see.

A lot of people incorrectly assume that socialism necessarily means all industry being government owned/controlled (or just interpret it as "government doing things").

*Under such a system, business could still exploit other businesses, but it would at least prevent a situation where a capitalist ownership class dictates the actions of all large/powerful corporations (and thus the government as well).

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 18:35 on Jul 17, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

ThndrShk2k posted:

For market socialism with co-ownership, wouldn't that essentially be the same as the stock market today where shareholders have input on the company? There's still a market dominated by supply and demand to have people invest value in what the company produces.

Only employees of the company in question own it, not outside investors. This way, at least labor has some recourse if they're being treated poorly by the company they work for (unlike if the company is owned by a bunch of random wealthy investors). This doesn't mean labor votes on everything a company does (though I guess they could if they wanted to), but just that the employees of a company would be electing the CEO, etc and could remove him/her if they were being treated poorly.

People would still be able to freely buy the products of the company or create their own companies; it would basically just be an economy where all companies are co-ops.

The downside to this is less growth potential (since a company doesn't have the option of raising money through encouraging outside investment) but I think the upsides (greatly decreasing the aforementioned type of exploitation) are greater.

edit: My personal feeling is that market socialism of this nature is a good "safe" step that could potentially lead towards a more dramatic change to the way our economy/society works in the future. Basically, it's potentially an incremental step towards other forms of socialism. It's difficult to predict the impacts of a more extreme change to the status quo, like communism, but something like market socialism is highly unlikely to somehow result in the collapse of society (and we've actually seen it work relatively well in former Yugoslavia from what I understand).

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 18:50 on Jul 17, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005


quote:

And don’t get me started on Chelsea. Yes, she’s a highly educated, well-spoken young woman with a lifelong front-row seat to politics and governance.

I like when you see stuff like this pop up. For all their rhetoric about caring about the poor, what liberals really like more than anything is general upper-class indicators. To a liberal, the ultimate person is a rich person who has pity and compassion for those worse off (though just feeling it is enough, no need to do something extreme like pay higher taxes). When a liberal thinks of the type of person they like, the image of a well-dressed, wealthy (or at least upper-middle class) looking person with a "neutral" American accent who speaks in the way you would normally expect highly educated professionals to speak comes to mind. Even if they might say otherwise, stuff like accents (or anything that might indicate someone didn't grow up in an wealthy coastal liberal enclave) is viewed negatively.

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 21:55 on Jul 19, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

^^^ Nah, people say this but it's more that the West Wing was reflecting attitudes that already existed. It didn't create those attitudes.

Maarek posted:

It's been said before but it's impressive how someone without any personality whatsoever was able to develop such a strong personality cult.

Hillary has the type of personality that is very appealing if you're an upper class managerial-professional liberal. In the same way as someone talking with a Southern/Texan accent and referencing Americana appeals to more rural Americans, Hillary's general demeanor appeals to liberals of material means.

Maarek posted:

I think it goes beyond that. She is beloved by a very specific social caste that has a ton of people in it who work in the media and/or tweet a lot. When she lost the election to a fat idiot they (correctly) took this as a personal rejection and lots of them just doubled down on Her instead of being furious that she hosed up the entire country.

Yeah, this (I hadn't seen this post yet when I replied above). I have a bunch of friends/acquaintances from high school and college who are consultants, lawyers, financial analysts, etc and they're big fans of Hillary. She basically sends "I'm from a similar background to you" messages to them.

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 22:04 on Jul 19, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Troy Queef posted:

whoa, mama, there's a lot to unpack about this article: http://www.theroot.com/bernie-sanders-black-women-problem-1796995081#_ga=2.184892448.821971625.1500235604-581843810.1476425799

first and foremost the guy who wrote it is tight with Ukrainian fascists and thinks that Stalin considered himself black, and he published it on The Root, which has had some...interesting takes lately.

I mentioned in the D&D Democrats thread that the article misinterprets some statistics showing that a higher percent of black people voted than non-hispanic whites as meaning that black people flat out outvoted whites (which it should be trivially obvious is false).

edit: Specifically, it says this: "some voter turnout experts argue that black people overall outvoted white men and women in 2008."

I mean, unless you interpret "outvoted" as just "had a higher percent vote", but that's irrelevant to the greater "we can't win without all of this demographic" point.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Jeet Heer strikes me as someone who means well but is just too deeply submerged in status quo political "common sense." It's like he rationally realizes the extent to which mainstream liberalism is bad, but on an emotional level can't fully accept it.

By the way, my dad gave a really good example of typical baby boomer liberal racism earlier. He was reveling in how the lady who tried to send Obama ricin in the mail got 18 years in prison, followed by saying "I hope she enjoys her time with the big ole black bitches in prison!"

This is the sort of racism that exists all over the mainstream Democratic Party, particularly among older voters, but for some strange reason the media only seems to care about what comparatively little racism against on the left.

(Any time I try to say "that's racist as gently caress dad" it turns into a huge argument where he flips his poo poo at the very prospect of him being called racist.)

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

SHY NUDIST GRRL posted:

Also McCain is the age that people drop dead why is anyone devastated

Because by acting devastated, liberals can show how compassionate and unbiased they are. It's basically real life "virtual signalling."

What I find gross about this sort of thing is that it basically reveals just how low the stakes are for these people. To them, politics is just an intellectual exercise, so they view not caring about McCain's cancer in the same way they would view someone not caring about a colleague at work they disagree with getting cancer. They never have to internalize the fact that the actions of people like McCain cause millions of people to suffer and die.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

That article brings to mind MLMs more than normal second jobs. It even refers to using your social media to try and sell poo poo to all your friends and family.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Shear Modulus posted:

have you seen the marketing for MLMs? they prey on people who are trying to have a "small business" side gig

It's been really sad watching my cousin get involved with this poo poo while her poor husband is constantly trying to politely persuade her it's a bad idea. It seems like many women get involved in MLMs in situations similar to her; they have a child, go on maternity leave, and the idea of having a job they can continue to work from home while being with their kids is appealing.

There's also definitely some appeal to being an "entrepeneur" (though lol at calling someone doing an MLM that), though I think that this sort of thing is mostly the result of our garbage economy where people can't rely on making enough money with "normal" jobs to meet their needs.

In her case, the MLM involves a thing you wrap around your stomach that is supposed to destroy fat, lol. At least some MLMs have an actual product, even if it's overpriced, but this is something pseudo-scientific thing that doesn't even work.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

GalacticAcid posted:

the idea that better jobs are available but left unfilled due to a deficit in 'skills' is empirically false

This is the funniest thing; that message transparently, on a basic logical level, makes no sense. Even if you assume that more high-skill jobs exist or can be created, it presumes that all current low paying jobs will be worked by ??????? after their current employees move on to greener pastures. Like, in the absolute best case scenario this approach accomplishes nothing but shuffling around who's rich/poor a bit.

The problem is that, to the sort of people who come up with these ideas, they see all the educated, well-spoken, sharply dressed people they work with and aren't willing to admit that maybe they aren't actually of a "better breed" than the proles.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Haha I was looking at that OZY website and found this article: http://www.ozy.com/true-story/got-voter-anger-issues-theres-an-app-for-that/77242

Way to go donating money to some rich Stanford brat with an orthopedic surgeon for a father so he can make an app. Dude could have easily afforded to spend a few months writing code because, you know, he's rich, but it's important that we donate money to him so his family doesn't have to marginally decrease the rate at which their wealth increases.

edit: I mean seriously, what kind of trash person do you have to be to think "hmm who needs this money the most" and choose another rich person.

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 04:26 on Jul 23, 2017

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

SKULL.GIF posted:

Someone younger and more lefty is going to pop up eventually and they're going to get my vote most likely

Uhhh, I definitely wouldn't count on this happening in time for the 2020 election.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

zegermans posted:

for reals though I've had a post or two that I deleted halfway through because I was like "uh is this antisemitic?"

Generally speaking (as someone also Jewish of course), unless the listener is explicitly pro-Israel/Zionist (in which case that's what's driving their interpretation more than being Jewish), it's just sorta obvious if someone talking about Israel is antisemitic. It's usually indicated more by the sort of language a person uses (like if they start calling Israelis "dogs" or something) than the criticism itself. Criticism that extends to Jewish non-Israelis is also obviously something indicating antisemitism.

It's the sort of thing where "if you have to ask, it's actually probably not antisemitic" (because if you're asking it means your intentions probably aren't bad).

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Concerned Citizen posted:

if you want to argue that it is not sufficiently broad or exciting as the first item to be rolled out for the jobs portion of the proposal, i would agree. if you want to argue that it's a pile of centrist lanyard garbage, well, i guess blame bernie for it since he wrote it.

A lot of "centrist lanyard garbage" as you put it is stuff that is technically good in the sense that it will help some people, but woefully insufficient to begin to address the problems our nation faces.

As an exaggerated analogy, it's sorta like if you promised to give $100 to every person making under $30k/year. That is undeniably better than nothing, but it's also hilarious to act like it will even begin to put a dent into the greater problems Americans are facing.

edit: Basically liberals often pull this rhetorical game where they go "SO ARE YOU SAYING WE SHOULDN'T DO THIS THING THAT IS HELPING PEOPLE?!" when people are more upset about what Democrats aren't doing (especially if the policy in question is some lesser replacement for something we actually need).

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Venom Snake posted:

Not to sound like the gorilla cum man but the democrats have a big "mindset" problem where they cannot conceive of a world where sweeping change and progress is possible. Big ideas like restructuring the healthcare industry or new social welfare programs are scary to them because they have been mentally conditioned to think such things aren't possible

I think it's more that, when your life is already comfortable, the idea of significant change carries more risk than benefit (to you and the people you know and care about, who are likely also wealthy professionals). From their perspective, there's no need to rock the boat, so to speak.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

his democratic opponent is also for single payer so :shrug:

I'm actually gonna agree with WJ here. I think that many of the folks in this thread sometimes become overly enthusiastic about certain candidates (like Buttigieg or Bullock*), and Bryce's Democratic opponent seems to share most of the same positive traits that he does.

*Not saying there's anything wrong with these guys, but I think that they're often portrayed as more leftist than there's any reason to believe they actually are (this is more the case with Buttigieg, since I think there aren't many people saying Bullock is actually leftist so much as preferable in his state.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Jesus, that Facebook article. This is probably the most hosed up part to me:

quote:

Facebook recently held a “Bring your kids to work” day, but cafeteria workers’ children were not allowed.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

SHY NUDIST GRRL posted:

I can't wait for everyone who utters the word bipartisan in the primary gets loving dumpstered

We need to insert some sort of genetic killswitch into humans that causes them to die if the frequency at which they think about bipartisanship exceeds a certain value.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Iron Twinkie posted:

Liberals are fundamentally incapable of understanding the degree to which the people that have been exploited by the system that they personally benefit from have been radicalized. Particularly millennials. We have no other context for the world other than the systematic abuses of capitalism. I'm on the tail end of being a millennial and I watched the Berlin wall fall in elementary school. The specter of communism as a boogie man means almost nothing to me. My whole life has been watching capitalism take the poor and huddled masses yearning to breath free, drilling new holes into them, and loving them to death.

I think that, for older Americans of means (which doesn't necessarily mean rich, but just "being financially secure"), they view what's currently happening as just a temporary phase. There are a variety of reasons this is the case, but I think the biggest one is simply that people want to defend a system that allows them to live comfortably, even if countless other people suffer. For a well-off baby boomer Democrat, their opinion basically amounts to "well yes, there are definitely problems, but we shouldn't get hasty and do anything too drastic." They don't want to risk ending a status quo that is working for them.

I feel like it might be another decade+ until demographics change enough to truly force the Democrats to change, but I believe that it's definitely inevitably going to happen at some point. The difference between the political views of younger and older Democrats is enormous, and the portion who favor someone like Bernie Sanders is only going to continue to increase relative to older Democrats who are still living in the past. I disagree with some leftists regarding how fast that'll happen (I have no faith it'll happen by 2020, for example), but it'll happen eventually.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Concerned Citizen posted:

single payer doesn't happen without majority support. we're not there yet. but grassroots movements have been successful in the past, and they will be successful again in the future. i think the democratic leadership needs to be bolder and willing to back things people don't want, but that doesn't mean it's a prerequisite for victory.

I understand the point you're trying to make, but I feel like the part you're missing is that peoples' opinions are also heavily influenced by the opinions expressed by their politicians. Your rationale seems to assume something along the lines of "people have opinions, and politician then act based upon those opinions", but it ignores the fact that people are actually quite flexible about most topics and usually (with the exception of the few issues that are specifically important to a person) just base their opinions on what they feel (for example) "a liberal should believe." So if Democratic politicians and advocacy groups suddenly started talking about how supporting single payer is an important "liberal issue", you'd probably see support increase dramatically. The reason it's been low until recently isn't because Americans are naturally more conservative, but because they've constantly been exposed to messaging telling them "this idea is fringe and unrealistic and/or bad." If anything, the fact that we've seen such a big upswing in support for single payer despite that is a sign of how strong its support is.

I would actually go as far as to say that the views expressed by politician and the media have a bigger impact on peoples' political opinions than anything else (again with the exception of wedge issues like abortion or something).

This issue is actually a good example of the issue I frequently see with the way mainstream Democrats analyze problems. They attempt to derive some sort of useful information from statistics/polls, but then they do a poor job of interpreting them (usually in the form of operating with faulty assumptions).

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005


There are a non-negligible number of people in that twitter thread who unironically seem to believe the "Bernie wing" is mostly Russian bots. Those people are no less crazy than conservatives who thought Obama was a secret Muslim. Heck, if anything they're more crazy, because the idea of millions of people actually being fake is a lot less plausible than a person having secret religious beliefs.

Breakfast All Day posted:

if only berniebros would stop pointing out all the problems with our candidates, it'd be like they didnt have any problems!

From their perspective, the mainstream Democratic Party is a bunch of smiling, well-educated people trying to solve problems, and they view leftists as someone bursting in and creating a ruckus over nothing (or worse, they view them as a malicious actor, since they've learned to frame everything in terms of "us versus the bad conservatives").

Ytlaya has issued a correction as of 17:52 on Aug 1, 2017

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Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

ex post facho posted:

wheres axeil to defend the purity of our financial institutions

The thing about finance is that it's very much a "banality of evil" situation where, for the people working in the field, it's just a bunch of normal people involved with the normal operation of their firms. The end result of the whole system is terrible, but for the people deeply involved in it it's very difficult to actually see. So when they see people speak poorly of finance, their instinct is to feel defensive, because they know that their coworkers are all normal people and they don't seem to be doing anything evil/harmful.

(I say this as someone who was once one of those people.)

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