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I read a tweet claiming that TV producers had politics indistinguishable from Ronald Reagan. This seems totally wrong to me, but I want to see what the best arguments there are that elites don't lean democratic. It seems obvious to me that they do, is this a controversial opinion? More specifically, on any issue where most republicans believe something and journalists say its disinformation, bigoted, or dangerous to democracy, the opinion of political and economic elites is far closer to that of democrats that republicans. I'm not that interested in arguing about whether they're right (or perhaps should be even harder on the republicans), at least until its established that they do in fact lean democratic. . I intuitively accept the whole Trumpist narrative that big tech is biased against conservatives, that intelligence agencies targeted Trump because he was outside the neoliberal consensus, and that the media and local governments have covered for Antifa violence against Trump supporters. It honestly has shocked me to hear people claim that social media companies are biased for conservatives because their algorithms boost them or that CRT bans show that conservatives are more intolerant of dissenting opinions, that James Comey was biased against Hillary Clinton, or that BLM protestors were treated more harshly than Jan. 6 protestors. But I know there are arguments for these positions and I can't prove them wrong. Proving bias is tough because no two situations are identical. But are there any counter arguments to the claim that elites lean democratic regardless of whether this represents bias or not. What elites are there besides the rich, donors, corporations, the media, the professional-managerial class, and government agencies? Of these overlapping groups, I think the rich are a wash and the rest lean democratic. Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology has an interesting graph on page 813 (figure 15.5 here. It shows that in 1980 less than 20% of voters in the top 5% and 1% of income who voted for one of the two major parties voted democrat. In 2000 it was around 30%. But in 2016, 60% of voters in the top 10%, 5%, and 1% of income voted democrat. This contrats with the figures in this article which say that voters making over $200,000 (the top 7-10%) were about evenly split in 2016 and 2020. Piketty's next graph shows that Republicans still had a 4% advantage among the wealthiest 10% in 2016, but this advantage was down from over 20% in 2000. According to opensecrets, Biden raised $1,044,187,828 to Trump's $773,954,550 and Trump got 49% from small donors, while Biden got 39% from small donors. Clinton did even better among donors, raising almost twice as much. Corporations seemed to unanimously come out in favor of the Black lives Matter movement, which 87% of republicans oppose and which has as much support as opposition among the general population. They've also come out against Trump's election claims, republican voting rights legislation, and republican legislation on LGBT issues. Commentary on this phenomenon usually points out that this is new behavior for corporations and they usually don't like to comments on contentious political issues outside of economic policies narrowly relevant to their industry. This suggests they see these issues as apolitical matters of decency, implying that disagreement is illegitimate. Also, a bunch of corporations cancelled Trump right at the beginning of his campaign in 2015. The media seems to have obviously been anti Trump and pro BLM. Lots of political commentary seems to take for granted that the PMC leans left. Employees of government agencies seem to be heavily democratic considering D.C. went around 94% for Biden and there were all those narratives about agency employees "resisting" Trump. What are the counter arguments?
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Apr 25, 2022 03:30
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Aramis posted:This is a basic, demonstrable, fact. Can you demonstrate it? I think that extremely destructive riots were allowed to go on which police could have suppressed, and that Ashley Babbitt was shot when she clearly didn't meet the standard for an imminent threat that cops are supposed to go by. Do you really think there was as much of an effort to track down people who had rioted over the summer than on Jan.6? I said it was an example of something I believe but couldn't prove, not something that supports my point. I do take it as undeniable that elites overwhelmingly supported the cause of BLM and opposed the cause of overturning the election results. Also that the rioting on Jan.6 was directed at extremely powerful people and that the rioting over the summer was directed at regular people. This doesn't itself prove that the Jan. 6 rioting was treated more harshly. The counter arguments I'm aware of are that some of the Jan. 6 trespassers were allowed in by the police and that in some cases BLM protests were declared illegal assemblies and the police used tear gas and other heavy handed tactics to break them up. I doubt you'll make an argument that demonstrates your opinion anymore than I'll make one that demonstrates mine, because the two situations are resistant to apples to apples comparisons. It just seems to me like the failure of the police to suppress riots represented new norms which were a result of the overwhelming elite support for the cause the rioters were supporting. I heard a lot about how violence shouldn't be used to protect property. Aren't there a lot of socialists on this forum? Would they say that this has been an established norm in capitalist America? Conversely, the idea that being approached by a mob that's trespassing gives you the right to start shooting didn't seem to be in play in the summer of 2020. It does seem undeniable that the media was very biased against Jan.6 protestors, with lots of highly publicized claims that turned out to be false, like the trespassers coming with guns or zip ties or killing Sicknick with a fire extinguisher. Conversely, stuff like "mostly peaceful" becoming the standard way to say "not peaceful" suggests a strong bias in favor of BLM protests.
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Apr 25, 2022 06:18
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:OP has just taken for granted that breaking into a government building to overturn an election openly stated their plan was to take senators hostage is equivalent to protests and riots against police brutality. Riots over the summer of 2020 involved burning down police stations, sustained attacks on federal buildings, and establishing autonomous zones. So the Jan. 6 riot was distinguished by an attempt to take over a more important government building. Maybe that justified a more serious crackdown, but its hard to disentangle from "targeted more elite people." You also imply that the cause of the jan.6 rioters was less justified than the cause of the previous summer's rioters, so the two reasons you give for why the Jan. 6 riot was worse seem pretty close to the two reasons I gave for why I'd expect a harsher elite response (it targeted elites and elites overwhelmingly supported the cause). If you're conceding that the Jan. 6 crackdown was harsher but it was justified because the riot was worse, that goes with what I was saying about the two situations being resistant to apples to apples comparisons. SMEGMA_MAIL posted:
He didn't come in with them. He took them from the police who were using them to block doorways. This article claims that his prosecutor conceded this. quote:But on January 21, the “zip-tie man’s” own prosecutors admitted none of that was true. He did not take zip-ties with him from home or carry them into the Capitol. Instead, he found them on a table, and took them to prevent their use by the police: toterunner fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 06:51
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:Ignoring that “he stole them from the police” therefore somehow BLM was ~more violent~ than Jan 6 people let’s pretend that makes sense and do this one Okay. quote:(A second man whose photo with zip-ties later surfaced similarly told Ronan Farrow that he found them on the floor, and the FBI has acknowledged it has no evidence to the contrary).
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Apr 25, 2022 07:15
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Aramis posted:The court filing paints a rather different picture than "He took them from the police who were using them to block doorways." Ok. He took them from the police who were using them to block doorways and said "I got to get me some of them motherfuckers." Are you implying that because he pointedly and enthusiastically picked them up that he was planning to use them to kidnap people? Does it matter that, as far as I know, no evidence of any plot to harm politicians has emerged and nobody has been prosecuted for anything like that?
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Apr 25, 2022 07:25
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:There’s so much bullshit packed into OPs posts like pretending “CRT bans” not being anything other than race baiting or just the entire premise of this being made up. Say what? quote:A recent Gallup poll shows that 28% of Americans identify as Republicans, 27% identify as Democrats and 42% identify as independents. Our billionaire cohort skewed farther right: 43% Republicans, 24% Democrats and 33% independents. Yet they’re swaying blue. Nearly half, or 48%, say they’re casting a ballot for Biden, compared to 40% for Trump. That tracks with the larger population, which favors Biden to Trump 51-42
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Apr 25, 2022 07:27
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:The source you just posted It just says a prosecutor accused him of that, and that he was released (and charged with misdemeanors). Is that what they'd do with someone who was definitely planning to take senators hostage? I couldn't find information about his ultimate fate from quick googling but that would be interesting. quote:In wielding the restraints, Larry Brock "means to take hostages. He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer.
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Apr 25, 2022 07:42
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:Correction to they voted Republican over Democrat. My correct claims are lies, your bias confirming errors are typos. I gotta say, I don't think that billionaires mainly identifying as Republicans (I couldn't find the part that says they are voting Republican over Democrat. Another typo?) while voting for and donating to Biden disproves my core thesis. I pointed out that the rich used to be highly republican but this has changed in the age of Trump. If you think its more correct to say that elites don't like Trump and support democrats over a Trumpist republican party than to say they lean democratic, whatever. I think the salient issue is that elites are against the right wing populism that animates one of the major parties, and that this is what's salient to the common narrative from republicans that they face double standards from a hostile establishment that is trying to suppress them. Not that the fact that elites are anti-Trump itself proves this whole narrative. quote:Also curious how chanting “hang mike pence” while kicking in the door of the Capitol building with him inside isn’t sufficient for OP as evidence You're really curious why I don't think someone (who? how many people?) chanting about doing something violent isn't evidence of a plot to do it? Is someone rioting in the Leftover Crack "Kill cops" shirt planning to kill police?
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Apr 25, 2022 08:05
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:Is OP talking about elites or (((elites))) because he really dances around that despite that being the first point someone made 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. I've been aware that some people seem to still have a narrative that elites are right wing, which I took as stubborn clinging to outdated ideas, and that tweet was just an example of that narrative I saw today and I wanted to see if there were any good arguments in support of it. My conclusion now is that nobody is seriously going to argue that elites aren't anti-Trump but they're arguably right wing in a Reganite sense. Perhaps that's more salient to leftists who espouse that narrative, where elites being anti-Trump is salient to people like me (and most republicans) who believe that elites delegitimize the existing, Trumpist republican base.
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Apr 25, 2022 08:24
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Cease to Hope posted: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. 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. These are also the issues relevant to the common republican narratives about double stan.dards and suppression. I could quibble a little about some of your other representations of my points, but overall I'm flattered about how it presents me making a bunch of clear, related claims that all point in the same direction and that would be easy for someone to pick out and criticize. I'll address some of the implicit criticisms you made. -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. -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? -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, lots of major corporations signing on to statements pressuring facebook to make its content moderation policies stricter, condemning Georgia's voter laws, and condemning Trump's election claims? -A number of corporations severed ties with Trump over comments he made when he began his campaign. 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). If I could refine my claim, it would be that big donors and corporations oppose Trump and oppose conservatives on those issues which feature in conservative narratives about cancel culture.
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Apr 25, 2022 09:00
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Cease to Hope posted:This is the sort of thing you see on any random conservative Facebook account or #maga twitter hashtag, though. That's kind of the point I'm struggling to articulate. There is a common Trumpist narrative about elite bias, that's definitely not about how elites hate Romneyism, and that at least they are definitely right about where elites side with on the relevant issues. I don't think I changed my definitions, I think you're confusing that with me readily conceding that I may have wrongly framed the issue about democrat/republican preference when its really about Biden and Clinton vs. Trump, or stances on specific issues which in the population as a whole break down along partisan lines. I think a truth brought out by this thread is that being an anti-Trump republican is common among corporate elites and billionaires, but uncommon among the general population. While I find it unpleasant to be called an idiot, liar, or acting in bad faith, and I think claims about unclear statements are almost always inconsistent pedantry, I'm glad to have my views clarified which was my point in making this thread. There are certain issues where the media (and probably academia and left liberal opinion generally) says Trump is a threat to democracy and that the republican position is bigoted or misinformation. These issues are the ones that animate the conservative narrative about a hostile elite, and they are ones where big donors and corporations have opinions far closer to democrats than republicans. That's my claim now. I'm not very interested in how much elites agree with the positions that characterized the republican party before Trump. Apparently, many of the people who think right wing underdog narratives are silly are interested in this. It makes sense, and its reassuring to see that stubborn delusions play less of a role in political discourse than I had thought. There may be good criticisms of my general narrative that aren't about how I'm not defining my terms clearly or how my initial partisan framing was misleading, like how elites that support Biden over Trump still support republican politicians who support Trump and play to populism while retaining Romneyist tendencies.
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Apr 25, 2022 09:45
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Cease to Hope posted:I don't know what you're referring to here. What major corporations were doing this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Facebook_ad_boycotts quote: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. Major, republican leaning industry associations did so in extremely harsh terms. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/business-groups-condemn-trump-led-insurrection-election-fraud-claims quote: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. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/companies-dumped-donald-trump/story?id=32162703 quote: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"? I don't think delegitimizing the views of 45% of the population is the key to an uncontroversial image. Rather than PR departments making vague statements, the CEOs of these companies have made unequivocal denunciations of views held by this portion of the population and offered unequivocal support for a movement that has as much opposition as support in the general population. Corporations wanting to be uncontroversial supports my claim that they have usually tried to avoid taking public stances on contentious issues, and that its a big deal for them to do so. You accuse me of gish gallop, but I feel I'm making a few key points that are hard to dispute -big donors strongly favored Clinton and Biden over Trump -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) -Trump and the aforesaid positions are the basis of the common conservative narrative about elite hostility -This narrative is right about where elites stand -This doesn't prove that elites are actually biased, but I personally believe they are although I'm not confident in my ability to prove it (I'm pretty confident you couldn't prove that republican narratives are hysterical lies, though) Also, while I've backed away from the claim that elites are pro-democratic rather than just anti-Trump, Piketty's graph shows that the trend for the rich to become more democratic predates Trump. In 1948, 1964, 1976, and 1980, the richest 1% went about 20% for democrats. In 2000 it was 30%, about 35% in 2004, and about 45% in 2012.
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Apr 25, 2022 18:58
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Cease to Hope posted:
What's something as egregious as the Hunter Biden laptop censorship that went the other way? quote:Social media companies' algorithms boost conservatives, but social media companies are nonetheless biased against conservatives somehow despite this. I already covered this. Its the difference between disparate impact and discrimination. quote:Intelligence agencies targeted Trump. A number of high ranking politicians and former intelligence officials said that the intelligence community would get back at Trump for dissing them. Chuck Schumer said they had "six ways from Sunday" for getting back at him. and then Russiagate happened. quote:There is antifa violence against Trump supporters (presumably because they are Trump supporters, and not because they're Proud Boys or some other white supremacist gang). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_4_Trump If your counter argument is that this Trump rally full of regular Trump supporters was attacked because there were a few Proud Boys there, remember that I just said Antifa attacked Trump supporters. I obviously wasn't excluding cases like this just because you "presumed" something I didn't say. quote:The media is covering up this violence. Media reports on Antifa violence routinely claim that its unclear which side started it. Even though Antifa and their supporters make sure to clarify that they believe in using violence to deplatform fascists, always claim that the people they fight are fascists, and every fight I've seen that has a clear instigation captured on video is always started by Antifa. I've seen reporters on twitter apologize for covering Antifa because people claimed it would expose them to harassment. I can show three incidents where the mainstream media didn't retract demonstrably wrong claims that favored Antifa, though one of these incidents involves the Proud Boys and one involves actual white supremacists. quote:Local governments are covering up this violence. Portland police had a policy of letting people fight it out and not intervene, because leftists had complained that they had previously been too heavy handed in breaking up political fights. quote:Jan. 6 protestors have been treated more harshly than BLM protestors. I've already addressed this. quote:The rich, donors, corporations, the media, the professional-managerial class, and government agencies are all biased in favor of Democrats. I started out saying that the rich were a wash in terms of partisan split, and I quickly shifted from claiming that elites were pro-democrat to saying they favored democrats over Trump. All those other groups are demonstrably democratic or anti-Trump on net, and its hard to believe that people being biased in favor of their side is a "hysterical lie." quote:A bunch of corporations cancelled Trump right at the beginning of his campaign in 2015. (It's unclear what "cancelled" would even mean in this context.) I just addressed this. If your response to my points is that maybe right wingers started those fights with Antifa, or the portland police policy benefitted the right, or that Russiagate was legitimate, remember that I said from the start that I believed these takes on intuition and couldn't prove them. I also said that you couldn't prove they were hysterical lies, which you wouldn't do by saying its unclear who started those fights etc. toterunner fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 22:15
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Ograbme posted:If the elites are overwhelmingly pro BLM, then why haven't any of BLM's goals been addressed? Like what? A common criticism of BLM is that they don't make concrete demands. The two responses to this I see are that they are making the clear demand to stop killing black people, or provision of lists of hundreds of demands, neither of which is helpful. It seems plausible that policy demands associated with BLM are unpopular with the electorate (defunding the police polls terribly but I've heard its substance isn't so unpopular when phrased differently) and its also plausible that accomodating BLM leads to increases in crime since both eruptions of the movement happened concurrently with spikes in the murder rate. Its also plausible that police officers who kill black people are more likely to be charged that they were a few years ago and that there have been changes in how police operate (there are studies claiming that police have become more passive to avoid situations where they'd have to defend themselves). So I doubt there is any evidence from supposed lack of response to BLM's demands that proves elites aren't overhwlmingly pro BLM. If elites are just paying lip service to BLM, then why are they doing this despite the movement not being particularly popular and the narrative being really easy to criticize? What I mean by the narrative being really easy to criticize is that black people account for less than 30% of fatal police shooting victims, but around 40% of cop killers and violent criminals in general. These numbers don't prove that police shootings are racially unbiased (I've seen a number of arguments about why this is, some better than others) but its suspicious that they're rarely mentioned, given that Trumpists are accused of being disinformers. Perhaps more importantly, well over 90% of police shooting victims whose names become well known are black. I've heard a number of explanations for this and the only one that isn't obviously flawed or doesn't involve a conscious attempt to amplify stories of black victims is that whites are more likely to be shot by police in rural areas. Why do mainstream media and corporate takes on BLM act like the narrative is obviously true, and never point out that media coverage wildly overrepresents the portion of victims who are black? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) toterunner fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Apr 28, 2022 |
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Apr 28, 2022 02:25
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Jaxyon posted:Its neat that you posted numbers but no sources This shows that 1595/5950 ~ 27% of police shooting victims between 2015 and 2022 were black. This says that 224/563 ~ 40% of cop killers from 2005-2014 were black (afaik this is the last time this data were published) and this says that 36.4 % of violent criminals in 2019 were black.
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Apr 28, 2022 11:19
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Cease to Hope posted: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. I wanted to see what the best arguments against my take were. You know how I've said over and over that I have a bunch of impressions I can't prove? I hardly ever see an argument that I think proves something regarding a controversial issue, so I wanted to see if there were some takes that were unconctroversial so I could be highly confident in them. It seems like the counter to my claim is that big donors and corporations lean anti-Trump but not liberal or democratic, and their advocacy on culture war issues leans left but its just lip service. So I'd say its not controversial that big donors and corporations lean anti-Trump and their advocacy on culture war issues leans left. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 1, 2022 16:10
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quote:Elites are those who have vastly disproportionate access to or control over a social resource From here My original post was wrong to imply that government bureaucrats or the PMC were elites. Harold Fjord posted:Weird how you call it lip service then immediately turn around to say it's not controversial to treat it as legitimate. Seems a bit contradictory. I said their advocacy leans left. Lip service is advocacy. Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:there is some degree of honesty in that, as long as you assume toterunner has been sufficiently broken by modern politics that he genuinely cannot comprehend the idea of support that extends beyond lip service. I never said that I agree their support is just lip service. There are the state laws on LGBT issues that corporate boycotts torpedoed. The amount this article claims that corporations pledged to BLM was greater than the combined amount raised by the Trump and Biden campaigns at that point. Cease to Hope posted: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." I suspect that corporations frame their advocacy this way too., which means they are delegitimizing those they disagree with. Lets say you're also right that American conservatism is characterized by illegitimate positions. If elites are saying that 45% of the country has illegitimate politics, that's important whether or not they are right. Plus, censorship and cancel culture are areas in which they're acting on their stated beliefs. The very dubious BLM narrative is not just saying "racism is bad." And cancel culture exists for alleged disinformation, not just alleged bigotry. A lot of the debunkings of specific claims regarding the 2020 election (note: I don't think there is evidence that the 2020 election was stolen) are so bad as to be disinformation. Saying Breonna Taylor was murdered is disinformation.
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May 2, 2022 18:52
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