_ykl9

It's something I would take note of every once in a while, but I would have to think and/or research to come up with more than one or two examples offhand. The biggest one that immediately comes to mind is the infamous "very fine people on both sides" quote.

I've watched and read the full context[1]. He's not saying that all people on the neo-Nazi side are good, but that some of them were there only to peacefully protest in support of the legacy of Robert E. Lee. It's like the difference between Archie Bunker (a bigoted goofball, but mostly just an earnest guy struggling to deal with changes in society) and a literal militant Klansman/neo-Nazi.

That sentiment may be distasteful in itself to many people (I personally think Lee is just as undeservingly venerated as Rommel), but it's far less extreme than what he's been presented as having said. I'm not even saying that Trump's statement was necessarily correct; I'm saying that if he misrepresented the facts on the ground, and/or if what he (actually) said was arguably a dog whistle, that's what he should have been criticized for.

I'm a huge fan of Joe Biden these days, and it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth that during the campaign he cited that out-of-context quote as his motivation for running.

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1: https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trump...

Comment · 5 years ago

It's an interesting idea. So much of the US is just uninhabited land. I could see such policies not leading to overcrowding, but rather to increased development and economic growth across the country, particularly if combined with something like the Homestead Act.

Comment · 5 years ago

Both sides have a tendency to cry wolf. Bush was awful, but he wasn't Hitler. Romney was treated particularly unfairly during his presidential run.

Regardless of one's feelings on Trump, it's clear that he wasn't treated entirely fairly by the media from the start. Sure, for a while they would tiptoe around calling him out for outright lies, but I also saw how his words and actions would at times be twisted and presented with with bad faith or the worst possible meaning taken as a presumption.

He may have been extraordinarily corrupt, and a constant embarrassment to the country on Twitter, but in terms of policy he was a relatively vanilla conservative. I've even given him credit for being the first president to enter office supporting same-sex marriage, and more broadly I don't dislike the libertarian-ish element of his base that also supports that in addition to legal weed.

None of the above negates the fact that Trump and his allies spent at least the second half of 2020 attempting to subvert our electoral process, came very close to succeeding, and then attacked the United States with intent to violently usurp control of the government. It doesn't negate that Trump-inspired white nationalist militias are currently the greatest domestic terror threat in America, while Trump continues to stoke their anger with lies. Whether his coup was "fascist" or parallels the actions of 34-year-old Adolf Hitler is irrelevant. I'll criticize the left for crying wolf as loudly as anyone; it doesn't logically follow that wolves don't exist.

Comment · 5 years ago

It’s frankly exhausting to have discussions when both sides live in their own worlds.

It is indeed.

You sound arrogant, “only one side is correct and it’s my side”

I have very little patience for dishonesty. If that makes me seem "arrogant" to peddlers of disinformation, so be it.

BLM and Antifa caused billions in damages

Sure. That was terrible and uncalled for. Lots of bad ideas and movements come from the grassroots left, like "Defund the Police" and "All Cops are Bastards". I don't recall this being sanctioned or incited by Joe Biden or the Democratic Party, and it wasn't a coup d'etat.

in some places this is leading to the reintroduction of segregation

I didn't see where your source made a connection between these events. Either way, if you think that a racist principal imposing segregation in their school somehow vindicates right-wing insurrectionists, I don't know what to tell you.

FBI spied on trump on Clinton and Obama’s behalf. Utilizing a known fabricated document

This is an article about two British citizens independently making a decision to attempt to influence our election in a small way. I find that objectionable for the same reason as Russia's larger-scale election interference, but I don't see how it relates to the conspiracy theory of Obama spying on Trump.

election laws were changed last minute, broken among other things to effect a coup and they brag about it

Can you be more specific? All I'm seeing from an initial pass is that an effort was made to respond to right-wing voter suppression efforts and disinformation leading up to the election.

more people voted in 2020 than were registered in 2016 or 2018. With a 93% then out rate.

That was pretty cool. I'm not sure what you're suggesting it has to do with right-wing beliefs.

here’s a couple video explaining some of their concerns about the election

Sure, I'm aware that Trump and his allies claim to have concerns. That's what we're discussing here. Do you have more specific points and sources that aren't videos?

Comment · 5 years ago

This is implying that default mail-in voting was a way to get Democrats elected in the first place.

No it isn't. Don't be obtuse.

Challenging elections integrity in the courts are what insure the process is transparent and followed in the first place.

Filing dozens of frivolous lawsuits and aggressively pressuring state government officials to help overturn election results isn't normal.

Democrats got unlucky on the retirement / death draw

https://www.npr.org/sections/death-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg/20...

[1/6 was] not a coup by any stretch of the imagination (no weapons)

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/977879589/yes-capitol-rioters...

I get it that you are not familiar with Bush v. Gore

Yup, this is the first I've heard of George Bush and Al Gore. Thanks for letting me know about them.

It's easy to pick a random clown in a camp and then zoom 1000x to paint a bad picture

Sure. I agree with that. I'm not claiming that this is the official platform of the GOP, simply that it's a radical and dangerous element of society that Trump and his wing of the party are actively cultivating by continuing to promote lies.

And the "voter suppression" are a joke

Sure. They didn't work in the end, but they made it a lot closer than it would have been. The new ones may work or they may not, but we shouldn't tolerate any voter suppression in America.

showing ID with proof of your address

No one is opposed to requiring an ID to vote. The For the People Act included a voter ID provision, with alternative documents such as utility bills allowable as a fallback.

If you want to require IDs without that fallback, how about we make federal voting IDs available to everyone in the country at no cost and with minimal hassle or time investment? If the intent isn't voter suppression, this should be perfectly agreeable.

Comment · 5 years ago

Sure both sides are claiming it, but only one side is correct.

On the right, we have:

* USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election

* Post-election soft coup attempt via the courts (including having broken precedent to rush a SCOTUS appointment during the election, which could have changed the outcome of the coup attempt in a different timeline)

* 1/6

* Ongoing propagation of the "big lie" and scheming to overturn the election (https://news.yahoo.com/bizarre-seven-point-plan-reinstate-14...), alongside continuing implementation of state-level voter suppression measures and gerrymandering

And the left has:

* Failed to advocate for open source voting systems (which isn't a widely known or politically relevant issue on either side at present)

* Pushed for stronger voting rights and increased voter participation — both uncontroversially positive properties of a democracy, but also happen to benefit the Democratic Party at the current moment

* Proposed measures in the For the People Act that were arguably overly ambitious or aggressive in the current political environment, such as stricter campaign finance regulations, which were promptly renegotiated within their own party ranks

To frame these as comparable is borderline gaslighting.

Comment · 5 years ago

To be more specific, I was referring to:

* USPS sabotage and state-level voter suppression measures in urban areas leading up to the 2020 election

* 1/6

Comment · 5 years ago

I was with you until this somehow turned into "both sides are equally bad". We should absolutely push for greater transparency and verifiability into the internals of such critical infrastructure.

The fact that one side has not prioritized this isn't similar to the other side's repeated attempts to overthrow our government.

Comment · 5 years ago

This is an idea I've been interested in since it came up last month (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27582145), but I don't personally feel strongly enough yet to land on either side.

That being said, for all its faults, I would expect that reddit does indeed have more productive discourse than most other (non-HN) social media platforms, particularly Twitter with its enforcement of shallow/short-form comments. /r/the_donald is obviously an extreme example of an alt-right cesspool, but it's not obvious that it was less polite or constructive than the equivalent communities on other platforms.

Comment · 5 years ago

Agreed. I think it's a major issue in political discourse when people begin to identify with labels and slogans, and treat them as prescriptive (ideals to be adhered to) rather than descriptive (approximate reflections of one's current general beliefs).

Surveys consistently show that most of us agree on far more than we disagree when questions are phrased in politically neutral terms. People quickly realize when they actually talk to other people that most are fairly reasonable and relatable, even if they have good faith disagreements on particular points, but social media being optimized for maximum engagement with shallow/short-form discussion just results in seeing the most extreme elements of society talk over each other and largely fail to come to a common understanding.