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toterunner posted:I read a tweet claiming that TV producers had politics indistinguishable from Ronald Reagan. You read a tweet by some guy, so you registered a brand new account on an entirely different website to ramble about how the "elites" have it out for Trump because they're supposedly in the tank for antifa and BLM. Why not post on your main account?
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Apr 25, 2022 07:46
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 16:26 |
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Anyway setting aside the fact that the OP is an obvious rereg, he's making a bunch of unrelated claims and tying them all together as a bundle to prove that a nebulous group of elites all favor Democrats and disfavor Republicans. A non-exhaustive list of claims made:
The bulk of these claims are specious gish gallop nonsense. Some of them are not even clear enough to be intelligible. Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 08:22
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toterunner posted:That person said I could retroactively change the definition of elite to suit my argument. I challenge anyone to offer a definition of elite whereby they don't support Biden and Clinton over Trump. You keep retroactively changing your definitions even now. You have variously claimed that groups are all pro-Democratic because they were nominally opposed to some view that you hold as essentially Trumpian, be it supporting Republicans financially, being part of a shadowy conspiracy to cover up the supposed malfeasance of Black Lives Matter and antifa, or simply making bland corporate statements in favor of civil rights. But that doesn't mean that someone is essentially pro-Democratic at all; for example, just recently you have the case of the whole Disney mess, where the issue was that Disney was saying on one hand that they supported gay people while financially supporting the Republicans passing anti-LGBT laws. Does that mealy-mouthed corporate message make Disney "pro-Democratic" on the whole? Is a Republican who simply finds Trump to be too vulgar "pro-Democratic"? Is a leftist who despises both parties as captured by capital "pro-Democratic"? All you've noticed is that Trump is largely unpopular, and you've built up a whole Democratic-BLM-antifa conspiracy web to explain it. (Or, honestly, you've simply internalized the Fox/Newsmax/OANN narrative of that web, judging by some of the things you're claiming as obviously true.) You seem to have divided the world into two camps, the "right wing" that agrees with Trump on all factors or at least does not vocally disagree with him, and the "pro-Democrats", which includes everyone who has ever wronged Trump or expressed an opinion in support of groups that Trump considers his opponents. Your thinking does not seem to include the idea that "elites" can be right-wingers and still oppose Trump, or make mealy-mouthed statements in support of civil rights, or simply point out that BLM-antifa conspiracy theories are nonsense. Trump's entire campaign has been based on describing anyone he wanted to demonize as in league with the shadowy group of "elites" arrayed against him. Nobody can reason you out of that sort of conspiratorial thinking, so long as you subscribe to it for unreasonable reasons. This is the sort of thing you see on any random conservative Facebook account or #maga twitter hashtag, though. The only outlier is the PMC stuff, which isn't typical Fox News uncle stuff. Where'd you come by that? And how did you end up here, I wonder? Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 08:31
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I hate split-quotes, but this is gish-gallop posting, so the only way to interrogate it is point by point.toterunner posted:I'm not saying that journalists delegitimize the main issues held closely by republicans, but that when there is an opinion held by republicans that journalists delegitimize, elites overwhelmingly side with the journalists over the republicans. This is not a commentary on "elites" so much as it is a commentary on Republicans' lack of credibility outside of their own propaganda fever swamp. The people who think Trump is the hero of a war against the elites all working together against him are a minority of a minority. You are noticing that most people disagree with you, which is true, and reading into that a conspiracy. You are doing this because Republicans have, for decades now, claimed that anyone who reported on their falsehoods was only doing so because they were biased against Republicans rather than being biased against falsehood. It's self-serving propaganda. toterunner posted:Social media algorithms aren't discriminating on the basis of political ideology. They're promoting content that gets a lot of engagement or has the qualities they expect to get engagement. Apparently, this is disproportionately conservative content. This doesn't prove anything about their content moderation policies, which is what the Trumpist narrative is about. Why it is disproportionately conservative "content" is meaningful, though. One hypothesis: hysterical lies are very good at driving engagement, possibly the best strategy of doing so, and Republican propaganda is largely based on hysterical lies. For example, hysterical lies like "the media and local governments have covered for Antifa violence against Trump supporters" or "intelligence agencies targeted Trump because he was outside the neoliberal consensus." "Engagement" is entirely a metric created by social media sites. When they found out it mostly measured the effectiveness of hoaxes and hate, why didn't they change it? (PS: it's because powerful conservative interests complained.) toterunner posted:More elite employees of federal government agencies are more likely to live in Washington D.C. , but yeah, that was probably a bad argument. But do you really think that all the narratives about the federal bureacracy clashing with Trump compared to other presidents are wrong? I think they are widely exaggerated, as much by liberal wishful thinking as by conservative conspiracy-mongering. But I also think there are obvious reasons why Trump, who largely dismantled bureaucracy even when it meant that the government ceased to function correctly, might be opposed by bureaucrats other than bureaucrats being "pro-Democratic". And characterizing government employees as "elites" is ridiculous. It's just repurposing similar "deep state" conspiracies. toterunner posted:How have you not heard about companies boycotting states because of legislation they passed on gay and trans issues in large enough number to get them to change it I think it's telling on yourself that you describe boycotts caused by anti-LGBT legislation as "anti-Trump". How do you feel about LGBT people, OP? toterunner posted:lots of major corporations signing on to statements pressuring facebook to make its content moderation policies stricter, I don't know what you're referring to here. What major corporations were doing this? toterunner posted:condemning Georgia's voter laws, This is similar to the anti-LGBT legislation. Georgia's voter laws were blatantly racist voter suppression. Is blatantly racist voter suppression a core part of Trumpism? Does opposition to blatant racism make you no longer right-leaning? toterunner posted:and condemning Trump's election claims? Which corporations did this? A number of press reports did report on the fact that these were lies, but I don't recall major corporations commenting on this. toterunner posted:-A number of corporations severed ties with Trump over comments he made when he began his campaign. I think it would make your argument a lot clearer if you were more specific about what comments. Because the only thing that fits the bill that I can recall is a few corporate social media comments mocking his vulgar misogyny. toterunner posted:A number of the things you list are things I said I can't prove but believe intuitively. Basically, I believe the whole right wing narrative intuitively and wanted to see if there was some some chunk of it that could be proven/nobody would disupute (I think its clear there is but maybe I should've phrased it differently as being about Trump/certain culture war issues rather than about republican/democratic lean). Corporations largely want to have uncontroversial, inclusive images, and Trump is a vulgar and noisy bigot. Making vague statements of inclusivity doesn't mean those corporations are "pro-Democratic" or "anti-Trump", but merely want to score some cheap good PR. But corporate PR departments aren't "elites", and generally do not reflect the personal politics of the (largely conservative) people who own those corporations, or have actual power in them. Are PR departments "elite"? For that matter, why did you bring up "the PMC"? How are salaried middle managers and people with professional jobs "elite"? Do you feel like adjunct professors, tax accountants, and pharmacists have some sort of elite status in American society? You are stewing in a fever swamp of propaganda of people telling you that all of the elites hate you for supporting Trump, and that everyone who dislikes anything Trump wants is an elite. The vast majority of your specific factual claims are either blatantly false or simply not provable. How did you end up on Something Awful, OP?
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Apr 25, 2022 09:26
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Let's take one example from OP's sort of rambling list of stuff: Delta CEO Ed Bastian, who issued a public memo to Delta employees that Georgia's voter suppression law was "unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values". Since 2013, he has donated about $37K to Republican candidates, $0 to Trump, and $2500 to Democratic candidates. Of that $2500, $1500 went to Kyrsten Sinema, the right-leaning Democrat in a state where he doesn't live. (He did, however, choose not to meet with Trump in a meeting about international trade law and national airline subsidies in other countries, in favor of going on vacation.) Is this someone fairly described as "pro-Democratic"? toterunner posted:There are certain issues where the media (and probably academia and left liberal opinion generally) says [...] that the republican position is bigoted or misinformation. These issues are the ones that animate the conservative narrative about a hostile elite It's possible that this is because the media and academics are all biased against Republicans, or it could be because Republican positions are bigoted and based on misinformation. The fact that Republican positions are bigoted and based on misinformation might even be a reason why people whose jobs are based on telling the truth and being taken seriously are largely biased against Republicans. Do you think professors and reporters hold an "elite" status in American society? If so, where did you come by that idea? quote:the media (and probably academia and left liberal opinion generally) says Trump is a threat to democracy OP, do you think Trump lost the election in 2020? One of the big reasons people hold that Trump is a threat to democracy is because he's refused to accept the results of the election. That's one of the places where he largely breaks from the politicians who preceded him, even those politicians who had a much stronger claim to dispute the way the election was resolved. quote:Apparently, many of the people who think right wing underdog narratives are silly are interested in this. The idea that right wing narratives are "underdog" is propaganda, OP. It's why Trump presents himself as under siege from "elites", to make you think he's fighting for the little guy (you) rather than lining the pockets of his billionaire self and people like him. Who's more elite: the billionaire real estate mogul with the open-ended line of credit from international banks, or street-fighting leftists? quote:Romneyist What are the chief differences between "Trumpism" and "Romneyism"? Because I've never heard of "Romneyism", even in fever swamp commentary. Also, how did you end up on Something Awful, OP? I can't help but notice you keep not answering that question. Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 09:46
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toterunner posted:many large corporations have said or implied that positions held by a large majority of republicans are illegitimate ("unacceptable" in the words of the CEO you quoted do you think "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" is an acceptable sentiment, OP? do you think it's acceptable to a large majority of republicans? if yes to either, do you think the shrinking popularity of trump might be related to that sort of blatant racism? my counterfactual is that trump's strictly minority appeal is chiefly caused by the vulgarity of his bigotry, not "elites" ganging up on him. many of the groups you've identified are definitely not elites, like leftist demonstrators (BLM-antifa! in fever swamp parlance) and middle managers (the PMC, which i guess you picked up from the post-left somewhere? you never did tell me). whether the vulgarity or the bigotry is more important (and whether the objections are principled or simply practical politics) depends on the particular political inclinations of the varied groups who dislike trump but also dislike each other, many of which rarely make much common cause on anything else. quote:I'm pretty confident you couldn't prove that republican narratives are hysterical lies, though sure, here's a handy list of specific factual claims you've made that are hysterical lies.
also, how did you end up on SA, OP? Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 19:27
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It's funny how the New York Times just published a feature on Tucker Carlson. Among other things, Carlson's list of "elites" and their interests mirrors the OP's almost exactly.   THE ELITES is just standard us-versus-them with the implication that "us" is the underdog, and it shows up in pretty much all American political rhetoric. The specific takes and topics are striking, though. I still wonder how someone ended up registering for the Something Awful forums in 2022 just to post bog-standard Fox News stuff though.
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May 1, 2022 08:45
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toterunner posted:So I'd say its not controversial that big donors and corporations lean anti-Trump and their advocacy on culture war issues leans left. I think it says a lot about where American conservatism is today that you're describing "racism is bad" as "advocacy on culture war issues" that "leans left."
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May 1, 2022 16:53
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toterunner posted:The very dubious BLM narrative is not just saying "racism is bad." But the corporate statements in support of Black Lives Matter protestors have not been anything more than "racism is bad". In fact, they often don't even say that. Where did you get the idea that corporations were doing more in support for "BLM"? What do you think "BLM" is, other than something Tucker Carlson tells you is coming for you? toterunner posted:Saying Breonna Taylor was murdered is disinformation. Do you feel that the police should be allowed to break into people's homes without announcing themselves and kill the occupants with impunity? Do you think this is a mainstream conservative position? Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 19:09 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 2, 2022 19:07
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 16:26 |
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TheNamedSavior posted:The Elites (I'm assuming we mean megarich people who own corporations) it's whoever you want it to mean, and never the same people twice. this thread is never going to be anything but people yelling past each other and i dunno why it hasn't just been gassed
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Aug 20, 2022 03:47
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