Instead of focusing on hate, people need to be trying to court the people they’ve driven into voting for republicans in the first place; find common ground - don’t just scream at them because they might have a difference of opinion.
You think that we elected a hateful criminal predator, TWICE, primarily because Democrat supporters were not nice enough when begging them to save our country?
Hmm, though I guess it’s true that any time I’ve seen stories ranging from rolling coal in people’s faces to ripping people with brown skin out of their established communities, there are those damn leftists and progressives doing CRITICISM and even sometimes using BAD WORDS!
I think you might just be buying into some bad faith arguments rooted in the paradox of tolerance.
Subject matter: PEOPLE – who are VOTERS – WHO aren’t STAUNCH Republicans already.
HOW…HOW DO YOU ALL FAIL TO STAY ON THE SUBJECT?! How is it that you all keep making such bad faith arguments and adding context that isn’t there?! Why are you talking about morons and talk radio hosts, and politicians?!
Holy…fucking…shit. It’s like you’re not even listening to what I’m saying - you’re just stuck on the same old bullshit, repeating the same old lines, you can’t even see someone giving it an honest chance to talk about things. It’s just hyperbole after hyperbole after hyperbole…
Is it just impossible for you people to understand that there are people who exist somewhere in the middle? Do you REALLY, like ACTUALLY believe that if someone has a SLIGHTLY different opinion than you, that they can ONLY be considered the enemy?
The party of people who constantly drones on about gender being a spectrum, cannot see that political beliefs are ALSO a spectrum, and refuse to see in anything OTHER than black and white?
I am not disagreeing that it happens. I am disagreeing that it had the level of material impact you seem to think it did. (“It” being the failure of informed decent people to kindly sway undecided voters away from fascism)
And do you notice how since I disagreed with that premise, you’re looping me in with these people under the umbrella of your multi-paragraph strawman generalization?
And speaking of “HOW DO YOU ALL FAIL TO STAY IN THE SUBJECT” I don’t think I see anything in your rant that’s actually responding to what I said. You’re just yelling a bunch of “you people won’t listen.”
I was talking about real discussions, such as on here, and you’re yelling about talk radio hosts and politicians.
Homie what the fuck are you even saying here? You believe the fascists who are doing exactly fascist things aren’t fascist because the people calling them fascist must be the real fascist because they aren’t being NICE to the fascists about how fascist they fascism and that’s really why the fascist are fascisming because the fascists are calling them fascists?
Ask Gamermanh that question, I was only using his logic.
And you’re adding … what is this… your own strawman context so that your argument looks like it’s sane somehow?
I’m literally saying “Stop calling people Nazi just because they voted for an R once” and you can’t even do that for as long as it takes to write a reply. I’m saying to treat normal people like normal people and have discussions like healthy, mature adults.
But I guess that’s too much. The professional-victim approach has long sunk its teeth into you.
“Stop calling people Nazi just because they voted for an R once”
Who is doing that? Are they in this thread? Are they on Lemmy? Because I’m not seeing it here and I’ve never seen that anywhere else either. You’re not a Republican if you only vote for a Republican once. Unless maybe it’s your first time ever voting.
With that logic, you’re the nazi, because you’re perpetuating the cycle and driving more people that way.
So much wrong here but I’ll just leave it at: that’s not at all by the same logic I’m using, youre a moron pretending to have a clue what you’re on about but can’t even get your words right when trying to make a point.
By my comments logic I’m not a Nazi, because Im not doing Nazi things or voting for/supporting those who do. You seem to think that calling a spade a spade means that it’s ok for that spade to behave like the shitstain it is rather than a moment to self-reflect on why they’re being called what they are, which means you’re one of them
Dude… You’re about 10 years too late on this sentiment. We tried it before and all we got was screamed at and mocked. Patience ran out and yet more was always demanded "You shouldn’t be upset when we call you pedos, learn to take a joke, you are so weak with your mamby pamby kumbaya bullshit. Come to dinner, shut up and let us get away with ruining your mental health over and over and over… " Constantly being asked, dickered reall, to put up with this behavior and be all peace and love so that there never be any consequences.
A lot of us learned that the only way people will learn is if they stick their hand on the burner of the stove themselves. We tried dialogue, we tried appeals to empathy we tried to lead them gently away but you know what? All we did was waste our time and patience and those resources are not endless. Now after all the harm they’ve done to us directly and independently they come to us with burnt hands now that they are the ones effected and they want us to kiss it all better.
This isn’t a “difference of opinion” they fucking burnt us over and over and yes, we’ll forgive them because we need them to do something useful for a change but if they valued us and our health and well-being like we cared enough about theirs to try so hard for so damned long to get through to them then maybe they would have grace. So if you are the freshly burned, welcome to the movement, a lot of us are not interested in cooing over your wounds and making you feel good because we’re past that.
At this point if supporters are still clinging to the identity they made as supporters then it’s legitimately dangerous to court them. They are authoritarians who have spent the past decade programmed to dismiss every source and citation outside their own as illegitimate and to pervert debate into stupid circus tricks. They are a waste of our time because every minute spent arguing with brick walls is a minute that could be spent bypassing them and organizing to mount a resistance.
While it’s true the best way to deradicalize is to keep a line of communication open and leave them a path out it’s only viable if they actually valued you already. If you think you can get someone out all the power to you but the time is past for new applications and appeals to be nice. Nice got us here.
Driven to vote for Trump? Is this ‘‘I’m a piece of shit because you’ve driven me to being a piece of shit and not by any means I’m accountable for’’ type of thinking? That’s wiggity wack to be honest.
Nobody said “For Trump”. Much like when Biden won, people weren’t really voting for Biden. They were voting against Trump.
Fuck it, I give up. It’s clear you’re not attempting to understand, you’re just reading in order to reply. Good luck, you’ve driven the US into this spot.
You lost all of the swing states, because of your bullshit hateful rhetoric.
Yeah, the folks who don’t want to deport people, don’t want to vilify trans people, and don’t want women to be treated like brood mares are the hateful ones 🙄
The point was, most people who voted Republican didn’t want those things either.
Trump is literally getting positive poll numbers right now because of his immigration policies. You’re just assuming things and you’re not actually bothering to check.
They haven’t even DONE them yet before you call them the enemy. But go ahead, keep losing the electorate. Stop being zealots and come back down to earth.
News flash, you aren’t arguing with Rush Limbaugh on the internet.
I’m not Rush Limbaugh, the next guy isn’t Rush Limbaugh…
AGAIN - this is NOT for people who have already chosen a “side”. I am talking about people who regularly flip between dem and republican. If voting R once EVER is enough for them to be written off forever…then that’s a losing strategy. If that’s your outlook on things, and you continue - then just understand that you should also be okay with losing those people as voters and shifting this country ever more toward the right because you can’t be calm and composed.
I mean, if they voted for republicans, they are villains in so far as one can be a villain.
But still for the sake of argument, what exactly do you count as villainization? Are we talking saying mean words or being critical of republican voters online? Are we talking about punching Nazis? Are we talking about cutting off friends and family from our personal lives for being politically repugnant?
If its the first thing, poor babies got their feelings hurt. Taking criticism or being shamed is not a reason to become worse. Thing is, the vast majority of vocal republican voters don’t even seem to indicate that they care anyway. They seem to embrace being considered bad people.
If its the second thing, maybe don’t wear Nazi uniforms, zieg heil, or draw swastikas on shit and they wont get punched. You know, stop being Nazis.
If its the final thing, we don’t owe these people our personal time. I’ve cut off my dad as much as I feasibly can and hes only a bandwagon republican rather than full MAGA. There is no chance in hell I’ll ever convince him to not vote republican. Fuck him, I don’t care if hes sad he doesn’t get to see me. Maybe he shouldn’t support fascists.
Damn okay - so no path to redemption in your book. I voted for a republican a long time go - so I’m a nazi now apparently. Well, since there’s no path to redemption, I guess I might as well continue voting for them, since voting Dem isn’t going to absolve me of anything.
(/s on my part obviously; but people seriously think this way)
I mean, if they voted for republicans, they are villains in so far as one can be a villain.
Sure, *you* didn’t in this particular scenario - but you got awfully close. That’s the point I’m making. The loud, extremist voices driving off otherwise reasonable people.
I’m ON your side. But you’re not on mine. Look at the overwhelming response here with the immediately pegging me into a “both sides” fallacy and then everyone attempting to argue me down as if that was my argument in the first place.
It’s straight up unreasonable - I’m one of the very few who will tolerate it to get my point across. Everyone else will leave much faster, and then just vote against you.
So you’re saying that most people who voted for people who have made it clear they want to take away people’s human rights, don’t want those human rights to be taken away?
That’s like hearing someone say “if I had a hammer, I’d love to start bashing people I didn’t like with it, also eggs are expensive” and the guy next to him says “don’t give that guy a hammer, he means it” and still giving them a hammer because you agree that eggs are expensive and the other guy didn’t say anything about eggs.
So you’re saying that most people who voted for people who have made it clear they want to take away people’s human rights, don’t want those human rights to be taken away?
Okay, it’s clear logic isn’t your strong point…nevermind. No idea why I fucking try.
Hmmm. One side denies that my cousin should be allowed to exist in their body. How much should credence should I lend to that opinion. One side says that my gay friends aren’t allowed to get married. One side says that the women in my family should accept rape as a “gift from god”. One side says that my neighbors belong in a tent in Cuba. One side says that vaccines cause autism/inject nanobots into your bloodstream/sterilize your testicles/poison your blood.
No thanks. We’re in this mess because we keep pandering to the left side of the intelligence bell curve. We should tell these people that they are stupid and bigoted. Their caveman brains quite literally can’t comprehend the basic human decency and logic that refutes their ideas about society.
You’re so damn steeped in this that you aren’t seeing that this isn’t talking about “THE SIDES!”
This is talking about you failing to court people in the center who weren’t ON a side, and causing them to go Republican.
Swing voters determine elections. But when you keep calling them Nazis, and *-phobes, and claim they are the cause of everyone’s problems – THEY are GOING to vote for the party NOT calling them those things!
You can’t interact with the people who haven’t decided which way to vote and go “If you don’t vote for me you’re a fascist piece of shit, now vote for me”. That doesn’t work.
I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything except for to stop getting off topic. And to not call everyone Nazis just because they didn’t suck your dick, take the abuse, and ask for more after.
I am not talking about actual Nazis. There are plenty of those fucks in the areas I live in already. I’m talking about this black and white thinking that if someone thinks …I dunno - something innocuous like “Spending 200k on an Anthony Fauci Museum probably isn’t warranted”; and you blast off and immediately start lobbing accusations that they’re secretly a Trump supporter.
OK so in case my message wasn’t clear, it was that it doesn’t make much sense to criticize how people make everything about sides, then immediately follow that with “now let me tell you why YOUR side is to blame.”
It can lead people reading to think that you are either a conservative who doesn’t want to admit it, or are a so-called “enlightened centrist.”
But honestly, it sounds like this is about your personal experiences with assholes online. And obviously yes, people should not make assumptions about your opinions and definitely not be assholes about it.
One thing to note though, is that people who are very active in political discussions may have heard certain arguments many times before. They may already consider them debunked or they may know of some bad faith origins in the argument. This does NOT excuse their behavior, but it might you help make sense of why people jump down your throat on certain issues. (Which again they should not do)
Edit to add: The underlying problem here IMO is the artificial “bundling” of ideas you get with a two-party system. It’s why I’ve always refused to register for a political party.
They have to pick a side, so you court the center, by showing them that the SIDES aren’t event close to the same. Most most of the people here have no life savings, no hope for retirement, shit jobs that don’t pay living expenses… You know what the Republican messaging was this election? Hatians are going to eat your pets, trans people are going to assault your daughter in the bathroom, and FEMA is going to take your house. Meanwhile Dems were pitching home buying assistance, expanding healthcare, and fortifying human rights.
Turns out, we needed to call out the lying theiving bigots for being lying theiving bigots, otherwise the dumber half of the population is willing to vote for them. Full stop. End of story.
I voted for Harris, and encouraged everyone around me to vote for her too, but I’m tired of the whole “reaching across the aisle” approach when the other side of the aisle very publicly doesn’t seem interested in working together.
It’s also incredibly ironic that you haughtily preached civility and not “screaming” at people who disagree with you and then immediately resorted to insults and blame in response to a meme.
Dude, I read everything that you wrote here. Every one of your replies. It’s so sad to see that no one, literally no one, has actually agreed with what you said here.
It’s scary how extreme left the whole community of Lemmy is. I’m not even a US citizen, and even if I were a US citizen, I wouldn’t be a conservative by any means. I wouldn’t be a full on extreme left winger eaither though. And it’s just really confusing how the left, the side that is supposed to be empathic and understanding, scientific and logical and level headed, fails so hard to see how they come off to someone who hasn’t taken a side. The leftists think of themselves as logical and sane and moral, while they see the other side as pure evil, and pure insanity, stubbornness and stupidity. Not realizing that at least, at least some of the things that they do and say, are extremely immoral, stupid, and illogical.
The left usually claims moral superiority, but I really don’t think that’s how they’re coming off AT ALL to the average person or any neutral person at this point. They ALSO come off as immoral and evil. They ALSO come off as stupid and crazy.
It’s from a conservative tech blogger, talking about just how many tech projects and communities are explicitly banning, and straight up silencing ANY opinion that differs from them. You don’t have to be into tech at all to sympathize with the message of his videos.
In one of his videos he talks about how some people that threatened to literally kill him, were given a pass because they had otherwise the “Politically Correct” opinion, while people who even just questioned the choice of moderators, and how they were allowing these death threats to “Evil Right Wingers” to continue, were getting banned and silenced, having their messages being deleted.
It is horrifying, horrifying how the left who was once the party who would hear you out, listen to you, and empathize with you, has become the party that silences and advocates for extreme censorship of opinions. The party who has become so obsessed with creating echo chambers where everyone just agrees with each other and no mental exercise of any kind is needed. Echo chambers don’t improve the situation. They only serve to radicalize you, and make you mentally lazy and impatient with any opposing opinion.
The party who was once about listening to different opinions and ways of living, has become the party that advocates for echo chambers. I have witnessed so, so many conservatives being banned from communities, and somehow, I REALLY haven’t experienced the same phenomenon in right wing communities. They allow people who disagree with them to the community (eg. Trans people). Do they fight and argue with them? Yes. Do they call them names? Yes. But most of them actually don’t kick the person out of the community just because they disagree with them. The left though? Absolutely. Somehow, having the slightest difference of opinion gets you kicked out of left wing communities.
The party who was once about being inclusive, has become about being extremely exclusive.
It’s just so sad to see. I value free speech and agency above anything else. I don’t care how “stupid” or “evil” your voice is. You should be allowed to talk. We shouldn’t just grab stupid people by the throat and pull their vocal cords out with bare hands. Somehow though, something tells me that a dangerous portion of the Democratic party, now wants to do exactly that. If there was a button that you could push to just kill right wingers on the spot and erase them from the world, something tells me that a DANGEROUS portion of these empathic, understanding, logical, and level headed people, would instantly push the button. And that’s horrifying, and very, very sad and disappointing to see.
And before anyone replies with a “But what about the paradox of tolerance!!!”, let me say, the whole idea behind it is wrong. It essentially conveys that good people, should make bad people behave, otherwise bad people will hurt everyone and everything.
That’s good and all, but firstly, how are you a 100% sure that you are on the good side of absolutely EVERYTHING??? Do you have knowledge of the future? Do you even know absolutely everything about anything RIGHT NOW?? If not, then silencing the opposing opinion, rejecting the mental exercise of arguing with people who would otherwise end up agreeing with you, and just silencing them in the name of the good, is exactly something that a fascist would do. I don’t think any evil person thinks that they’re evil. Almost every evil real life person, when asked, would tell you that they did what they did for the right reasons and because they genuinely thought that it was something that had to be done.
Secondly, it goes completely against free speech. I don’t want anyone to silence bad, evil people, even if they are (somehow) objectively deemed as bad and evil. And no, claiming that free speech is allowed but that you’re not exempt from the consequences of what you said, is again, something that a dictator, a fascist would say.
I appreciate you taking the time to write all that, I read the whole thing. However, I have to disagree with your take. You are making sweeping generalizations about online communities. I know for a fact that countless people have been banned from r/conservative, as a counter example to your claim that you only see leftist communities banning people they don’t want to tolerate.
You’re also making huge generalizations about the left in general, a famously fractured part of the political spectrum. I think these echo chambers you’re describing are a natural result of people trying to find a safe harbour to congregate in the face of all the vitriol between the sides of the political spectrum.
That’s a nice anecdote about the conservative tech blogger. Most reasonable people would agree that death threats are bad, I’ve never seen the point. I think it’s disengenuous to claim that the left is equally crazy, stubborn, stupid, or whatever because some guy got a few death threats and kicked out of tech communities.
Zooming out, in my view the modern conservative ideology is one based on telling people how to live their life and depriving people of rights. If subscribing to that way of thinking gets you booted from a tech project, then boo hoo. If someone subscribes to modern conservatism and has no interest in budging on their opinion what value is there in giving them a platform? Sure, there are probably communities out there that are too heavy handed in how they moderate discourse, but that’s inevitable regardless of political leaning. Humans are flawed beings and moderation is always a balancing act.
I think many leftists are happy to have discussion, but not when it’s pointless. I think blindly saying ‘free speech’ is being infringed when comnunities moderate discussion is bad. With the internet, it’s no longer someone preaching on a street corner, you have much more reach now. I think that means communities have more of a duty to chose who gets to stand at the pulpit. No one is pulling anyone’s vocal chords out, they are free to share their opinions elsewhere.
Anyway, those are just some thoughts from a leftist who should be more informed on these matters. Also, please don’t conflate the Democratic party with leftism.
Instead of focusing on hate, people need to be trying to court the people they’ve driven into voting for republicans in the first place; find common ground - don’t just scream at them because they might have a difference of opinion.
Divorcing someone is not the same as screaming at them. Cutting toxic people out of your life is always a good idea.
You think that we elected a hateful criminal predator, TWICE, primarily because Democrat supporters were not nice enough when begging them to save our country?
Hmm, though I guess it’s true that any time I’ve seen stories ranging from rolling coal in people’s faces to ripping people with brown skin out of their established communities, there are those damn leftists and progressives doing CRITICISM and even sometimes using BAD WORDS!
I think you might just be buying into some bad faith arguments rooted in the paradox of tolerance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
…how do you still not get it?
Subject matter: PEOPLE – who are VOTERS – WHO aren’t STAUNCH Republicans already.
HOW…HOW DO YOU ALL FAIL TO STAY ON THE SUBJECT?! How is it that you all keep making such bad faith arguments and adding context that isn’t there?! Why are you talking about morons and talk radio hosts, and politicians?!
Holy…fucking…shit. It’s like you’re not even listening to what I’m saying - you’re just stuck on the same old bullshit, repeating the same old lines, you can’t even see someone giving it an honest chance to talk about things. It’s just hyperbole after hyperbole after hyperbole…
Is it just impossible for you people to understand that there are people who exist somewhere in the middle? Do you REALLY, like ACTUALLY believe that if someone has a SLIGHTLY different opinion than you, that they can ONLY be considered the enemy?
The party of people who constantly drones on about gender being a spectrum, cannot see that political beliefs are ALSO a spectrum, and refuse to see in anything OTHER than black and white?
I’m highly amused you think voters will ever matter again in America.
I am not disagreeing that it happens. I am disagreeing that it had the level of material impact you seem to think it did. (“It” being the failure of informed decent people to kindly sway undecided voters away from fascism)
And do you notice how since I disagreed with that premise, you’re looping me in with these people under the umbrella of your multi-paragraph strawman generalization?
And speaking of “HOW DO YOU ALL FAIL TO STAY IN THE SUBJECT” I don’t think I see anything in your rant that’s actually responding to what I said. You’re just yelling a bunch of “you people won’t listen.”
I was talking about real discussions, such as on here, and you’re yelling about talk radio hosts and politicians.
That’s not how it works
Yep, there it is. Most of these people don’t believe your rhetoric. Calling them a Nazi just makes you look crazy.
And to be fair – you are. Nobody fucking thinks like this except for the massively insulated perpetually online communities like this one.
With that logic, you’re the nazi, because you’re perpetuating the cycle and driving more people that way.
See how stupid that sounds? Because it is.
Homie what the fuck are you even saying here? You believe the fascists who are doing exactly fascist things aren’t fascist because the people calling them fascist must be the real fascist because they aren’t being NICE to the fascists about how fascist they fascism and that’s really why the fascist are fascisming because the fascists are calling them fascists?
Ask Gamermanh that question, I was only using his logic.
And you’re adding … what is this… your own strawman context so that your argument looks like it’s sane somehow?
I’m literally saying “Stop calling people Nazi just because they voted for an R once” and you can’t even do that for as long as it takes to write a reply. I’m saying to treat normal people like normal people and have discussions like healthy, mature adults.
But I guess that’s too much. The professional-victim approach has long sunk its teeth into you.
You’ve gotta chill, man. Disagreements are fine here, but hostility isn’t something we tolerate. And some of your more recent replies are hostile.
Keep it civil.
Who is doing that? Are they in this thread? Are they on Lemmy? Because I’m not seeing it here and I’ve never seen that anywhere else either. You’re not a Republican if you only vote for a Republican once. Unless maybe it’s your first time ever voting.
So much wrong here but I’ll just leave it at: that’s not at all by the same logic I’m using, youre a moron pretending to have a clue what you’re on about but can’t even get your words right when trying to make a point.
By my comments logic I’m not a Nazi, because Im not doing Nazi things or voting for/supporting those who do. You seem to think that calling a spade a spade means that it’s ok for that spade to behave like the shitstain it is rather than a moment to self-reflect on why they’re being called what they are, which means you’re one of them
Dude… You’re about 10 years too late on this sentiment. We tried it before and all we got was screamed at and mocked. Patience ran out and yet more was always demanded "You shouldn’t be upset when we call you pedos, learn to take a joke, you are so weak with your mamby pamby kumbaya bullshit. Come to dinner, shut up and let us get away with ruining your mental health over and over and over… " Constantly being asked, dickered reall, to put up with this behavior and be all peace and love so that there never be any consequences.
A lot of us learned that the only way people will learn is if they stick their hand on the burner of the stove themselves. We tried dialogue, we tried appeals to empathy we tried to lead them gently away but you know what? All we did was waste our time and patience and those resources are not endless. Now after all the harm they’ve done to us directly and independently they come to us with burnt hands now that they are the ones effected and they want us to kiss it all better.
This isn’t a “difference of opinion” they fucking burnt us over and over and yes, we’ll forgive them because we need them to do something useful for a change but if they valued us and our health and well-being like we cared enough about theirs to try so hard for so damned long to get through to them then maybe they would have grace. So if you are the freshly burned, welcome to the movement, a lot of us are not interested in cooing over your wounds and making you feel good because we’re past that.
At this point if supporters are still clinging to the identity they made as supporters then it’s legitimately dangerous to court them. They are authoritarians who have spent the past decade programmed to dismiss every source and citation outside their own as illegitimate and to pervert debate into stupid circus tricks. They are a waste of our time because every minute spent arguing with brick walls is a minute that could be spent bypassing them and organizing to mount a resistance.
While it’s true the best way to deradicalize is to keep a line of communication open and leave them a path out it’s only viable if they actually valued you already. If you think you can get someone out all the power to you but the time is past for new applications and appeals to be nice. Nice got us here.
Driven to vote for Trump? Is this ‘‘I’m a piece of shit because you’ve driven me to being a piece of shit and not by any means I’m accountable for’’ type of thinking? That’s wiggity wack to be honest.
Nobody said “For Trump”. Much like when Biden won, people weren’t really voting for Biden. They were voting against Trump.
Fuck it, I give up. It’s clear you’re not attempting to understand, you’re just reading in order to reply. Good luck, you’ve driven the US into this spot.
Removed by mod
Yeah, the folks who don’t want to deport people, don’t want to vilify trans people, and don’t want women to be treated like brood mares are the hateful ones 🙄
The point was, most people who voted Republican didn’t want those things either. But your villianization of them is what drove them that way.
Trump is literally getting positive poll numbers right now because of his immigration policies. You’re just assuming things and you’re not actually bothering to check.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-approval-opinion-poll-2025-2-9/
If they don’t want to be villainized for those things they should stop doing them.
It’s like someone punching you in the face and then punching you harder when you ask them to stop.
They haven’t even DONE them yet before you call them the enemy. But go ahead, keep losing the electorate. Stop being zealots and come back down to earth.
I’m sorry, but which side has turned insulting and demeaning the other side into a multi billion dollar industry?
I still remember listening to Rush Limbaugh call my parents traitors for being Democrats way back in the 90s.
So GTFO with the “they haven’t done anything.”
News flash, you aren’t arguing with Rush Limbaugh on the internet.
I’m not Rush Limbaugh, the next guy isn’t Rush Limbaugh…
AGAIN - this is NOT for people who have already chosen a “side”. I am talking about people who regularly flip between dem and republican. If voting R once EVER is enough for them to be written off forever…then that’s a losing strategy. If that’s your outlook on things, and you continue - then just understand that you should also be okay with losing those people as voters and shifting this country ever more toward the right because you can’t be calm and composed.
I mean, if they voted for republicans, they are villains in so far as one can be a villain.
But still for the sake of argument, what exactly do you count as villainization? Are we talking saying mean words or being critical of republican voters online? Are we talking about punching Nazis? Are we talking about cutting off friends and family from our personal lives for being politically repugnant?
If its the first thing, poor babies got their feelings hurt. Taking criticism or being shamed is not a reason to become worse. Thing is, the vast majority of vocal republican voters don’t even seem to indicate that they care anyway. They seem to embrace being considered bad people.
If its the second thing, maybe don’t wear Nazi uniforms, zieg heil, or draw swastikas on shit and they wont get punched. You know, stop being Nazis.
If its the final thing, we don’t owe these people our personal time. I’ve cut off my dad as much as I feasibly can and hes only a bandwagon republican rather than full MAGA. There is no chance in hell I’ll ever convince him to not vote republican. Fuck him, I don’t care if hes sad he doesn’t get to see me. Maybe he shouldn’t support fascists.
Damn okay - so no path to redemption in your book. I voted for a republican a long time go - so I’m a nazi now apparently. Well, since there’s no path to redemption, I guess I might as well continue voting for them, since voting Dem isn’t going to absolve me of anything.
(/s on my part obviously; but people seriously think this way)
Did I say you were Nazi?
Also I specified a starting point to redemption: Not voting republican.
Sure, *you* didn’t in this particular scenario - but you got awfully close. That’s the point I’m making. The loud, extremist voices driving off otherwise reasonable people.
I’m ON your side. But you’re not on mine. Look at the overwhelming response here with the immediately pegging me into a “both sides” fallacy and then everyone attempting to argue me down as if that was my argument in the first place.
It’s straight up unreasonable - I’m one of the very few who will tolerate it to get my point across. Everyone else will leave much faster, and then just vote against you.
This is a fucking moronic take.
So you’re saying that most people who voted for people who have made it clear they want to take away people’s human rights, don’t want those human rights to be taken away?
That’s like hearing someone say “if I had a hammer, I’d love to start bashing people I didn’t like with it, also eggs are expensive” and the guy next to him says “don’t give that guy a hammer, he means it” and still giving them a hammer because you agree that eggs are expensive and the other guy didn’t say anything about eggs.
Okay, it’s clear logic isn’t your strong point…nevermind. No idea why I fucking try.
Hmmm. One side denies that my cousin should be allowed to exist in their body. How much should credence should I lend to that opinion. One side says that my gay friends aren’t allowed to get married. One side says that the women in my family should accept rape as a “gift from god”. One side says that my neighbors belong in a tent in Cuba. One side says that vaccines cause autism/inject nanobots into your bloodstream/sterilize your testicles/poison your blood.
No thanks. We’re in this mess because we keep pandering to the left side of the intelligence bell curve. We should tell these people that they are stupid and bigoted. Their caveman brains quite literally can’t comprehend the basic human decency and logic that refutes their ideas about society.
You’re so damn steeped in this that you aren’t seeing that this isn’t talking about “THE SIDES!”
This is talking about you failing to court people in the center who weren’t ON a side, and causing them to go Republican.
Swing voters determine elections. But when you keep calling them Nazis, and *-phobes, and claim they are the cause of everyone’s problems – THEY are GOING to vote for the party NOT calling them those things!
You can’t interact with the people who haven’t decided which way to vote and go “If you don’t vote for me you’re a fascist piece of shit, now vote for me”. That doesn’t work.
Do you see how your first paragraph:
…followed immediately by your second paragraph:
…might not be super convincing?
I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything except for to stop getting off topic. And to not call everyone Nazis just because they didn’t suck your dick, take the abuse, and ask for more after.
I am not talking about actual Nazis. There are plenty of those fucks in the areas I live in already. I’m talking about this black and white thinking that if someone thinks …I dunno - something innocuous like “Spending 200k on an Anthony Fauci Museum probably isn’t warranted”; and you blast off and immediately start lobbing accusations that they’re secretly a Trump supporter.
OK so in case my message wasn’t clear, it was that it doesn’t make much sense to criticize how people make everything about sides, then immediately follow that with “now let me tell you why YOUR side is to blame.”
It can lead people reading to think that you are either a conservative who doesn’t want to admit it, or are a so-called “enlightened centrist.”
But honestly, it sounds like this is about your personal experiences with assholes online. And obviously yes, people should not make assumptions about your opinions and definitely not be assholes about it.
One thing to note though, is that people who are very active in political discussions may have heard certain arguments many times before. They may already consider them debunked or they may know of some bad faith origins in the argument. This does NOT excuse their behavior, but it might you help make sense of why people jump down your throat on certain issues. (Which again they should not do)
Edit to add: The underlying problem here IMO is the artificial “bundling” of ideas you get with a two-party system. It’s why I’ve always refused to register for a political party.
They have to pick a side, so you court the center, by showing them that the SIDES aren’t event close to the same. Most most of the people here have no life savings, no hope for retirement, shit jobs that don’t pay living expenses… You know what the Republican messaging was this election? Hatians are going to eat your pets, trans people are going to assault your daughter in the bathroom, and FEMA is going to take your house. Meanwhile Dems were pitching home buying assistance, expanding healthcare, and fortifying human rights.
Turns out, we needed to call out the lying theiving bigots for being lying theiving bigots, otherwise the dumber half of the population is willing to vote for them. Full stop. End of story.
I voted for Harris, and encouraged everyone around me to vote for her too, but I’m tired of the whole “reaching across the aisle” approach when the other side of the aisle very publicly doesn’t seem interested in working together.
It’s also incredibly ironic that you haughtily preached civility and not “screaming” at people who disagree with you and then immediately resorted to insults and blame in response to a meme.
In their defense, the meme is also insulting
Definitely, but I’m not the one insisting “we just need to talk it out and then everything will be perfect”.
What is the alternative? Tens of millions of people are voting for nazis because of propaganda
I dont think constantly insulting them makes them stop voting for nazis
Collective action. But apparently that is too hard for most Americans.
But how do you convince people to do that?
I’m not saying insulting people will convince them of anything, but I don’t think trying to talk it out works either. I don’t know the solution.
The funny thing is you called them dumb, which is their own strategy to get you to agree with them. Surely they will agree with you now!
At this point I’m pretty convinced the DNC wants to lose. Constructed opposition. Like they can’t be this stupid.
Dude, I read everything that you wrote here. Every one of your replies. It’s so sad to see that no one, literally no one, has actually agreed with what you said here.
It’s scary how extreme left the whole community of Lemmy is. I’m not even a US citizen, and even if I were a US citizen, I wouldn’t be a conservative by any means. I wouldn’t be a full on extreme left winger eaither though. And it’s just really confusing how the left, the side that is supposed to be empathic and understanding, scientific and logical and level headed, fails so hard to see how they come off to someone who hasn’t taken a side. The leftists think of themselves as logical and sane and moral, while they see the other side as pure evil, and pure insanity, stubbornness and stupidity. Not realizing that at least, at least some of the things that they do and say, are extremely immoral, stupid, and illogical.
The left usually claims moral superiority, but I really don’t think that’s how they’re coming off AT ALL to the average person or any neutral person at this point. They ALSO come off as immoral and evil. They ALSO come off as stupid and crazy.
Like here, just watch these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueoYTPnxPMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GHVJv8tSyo
It’s from a conservative tech blogger, talking about just how many tech projects and communities are explicitly banning, and straight up silencing ANY opinion that differs from them. You don’t have to be into tech at all to sympathize with the message of his videos.
In one of his videos he talks about how some people that threatened to literally kill him, were given a pass because they had otherwise the “Politically Correct” opinion, while people who even just questioned the choice of moderators, and how they were allowing these death threats to “Evil Right Wingers” to continue, were getting banned and silenced, having their messages being deleted.
It is horrifying, horrifying how the left who was once the party who would hear you out, listen to you, and empathize with you, has become the party that silences and advocates for extreme censorship of opinions. The party who has become so obsessed with creating echo chambers where everyone just agrees with each other and no mental exercise of any kind is needed. Echo chambers don’t improve the situation. They only serve to radicalize you, and make you mentally lazy and impatient with any opposing opinion.
The party who was once about listening to different opinions and ways of living, has become the party that advocates for echo chambers. I have witnessed so, so many conservatives being banned from communities, and somehow, I REALLY haven’t experienced the same phenomenon in right wing communities. They allow people who disagree with them to the community (eg. Trans people). Do they fight and argue with them? Yes. Do they call them names? Yes. But most of them actually don’t kick the person out of the community just because they disagree with them. The left though? Absolutely. Somehow, having the slightest difference of opinion gets you kicked out of left wing communities.
The party who was once about being inclusive, has become about being extremely exclusive.
It’s just so sad to see. I value free speech and agency above anything else. I don’t care how “stupid” or “evil” your voice is. You should be allowed to talk. We shouldn’t just grab stupid people by the throat and pull their vocal cords out with bare hands. Somehow though, something tells me that a dangerous portion of the Democratic party, now wants to do exactly that. If there was a button that you could push to just kill right wingers on the spot and erase them from the world, something tells me that a DANGEROUS portion of these empathic, understanding, logical, and level headed people, would instantly push the button. And that’s horrifying, and very, very sad and disappointing to see.
And before anyone replies with a “But what about the paradox of tolerance!!!”, let me say, the whole idea behind it is wrong. It essentially conveys that good people, should make bad people behave, otherwise bad people will hurt everyone and everything.
That’s good and all, but firstly, how are you a 100% sure that you are on the good side of absolutely EVERYTHING??? Do you have knowledge of the future? Do you even know absolutely everything about anything RIGHT NOW?? If not, then silencing the opposing opinion, rejecting the mental exercise of arguing with people who would otherwise end up agreeing with you, and just silencing them in the name of the good, is exactly something that a fascist would do. I don’t think any evil person thinks that they’re evil. Almost every evil real life person, when asked, would tell you that they did what they did for the right reasons and because they genuinely thought that it was something that had to be done.
Secondly, it goes completely against free speech. I don’t want anyone to silence bad, evil people, even if they are (somehow) objectively deemed as bad and evil. And no, claiming that free speech is allowed but that you’re not exempt from the consequences of what you said, is again, something that a dictator, a fascist would say.
I appreciate you taking the time to write all that, I read the whole thing. However, I have to disagree with your take. You are making sweeping generalizations about online communities. I know for a fact that countless people have been banned from r/conservative, as a counter example to your claim that you only see leftist communities banning people they don’t want to tolerate.
You’re also making huge generalizations about the left in general, a famously fractured part of the political spectrum. I think these echo chambers you’re describing are a natural result of people trying to find a safe harbour to congregate in the face of all the vitriol between the sides of the political spectrum.
That’s a nice anecdote about the conservative tech blogger. Most reasonable people would agree that death threats are bad, I’ve never seen the point. I think it’s disengenuous to claim that the left is equally crazy, stubborn, stupid, or whatever because some guy got a few death threats and kicked out of tech communities.
Zooming out, in my view the modern conservative ideology is one based on telling people how to live their life and depriving people of rights. If subscribing to that way of thinking gets you booted from a tech project, then boo hoo. If someone subscribes to modern conservatism and has no interest in budging on their opinion what value is there in giving them a platform? Sure, there are probably communities out there that are too heavy handed in how they moderate discourse, but that’s inevitable regardless of political leaning. Humans are flawed beings and moderation is always a balancing act.
I think many leftists are happy to have discussion, but not when it’s pointless. I think blindly saying ‘free speech’ is being infringed when comnunities moderate discussion is bad. With the internet, it’s no longer someone preaching on a street corner, you have much more reach now. I think that means communities have more of a duty to chose who gets to stand at the pulpit. No one is pulling anyone’s vocal chords out, they are free to share their opinions elsewhere.
Anyway, those are just some thoughts from a leftist who should be more informed on these matters. Also, please don’t conflate the Democratic party with leftism.