Reading Twitter feeds, pro-MAGA subs on reddit, etc., the MAGA is completely and dangerously unhinged right now over the election. They're calling for violence against protestors that loot, are certainly going to win the house, they're vowing retaliation against media and social media, they're falling for fascism, etc. They literally called liberals "Domestic Terrorists" at MSG.

They do not exist in the same reality as most of humanity. They seriously think Trump is completely innocent, and Dems are the ones cheating and destroying America, despite Republicans being the ones convicted for serious felonies.

This is the most dangerous group we've witnessed since Nazi Germany imo. And it doesn't seem like there's going to be anything to stop Trump this time around.

Can more be done to deprogram this cult? What can we even do to defend democracy? What can we even to do protect ourselves, or friends and our families?

I'm scared...

The election results show that people who work for a living are not content with the status quo in a big way. Nobody cares if "the economy" is doing great if they are struggling to afford food and shelter, especially while exhausted from a full work week or more.

Bernie doesn't think the left is currently doing enough for workers and the workers certainly don't think it. I myself don't feel like the left is doing anything for me as a straight white male who works for a living who will never own a house based on my age unless things change drastically. But this isn't about me.

Do you think the left doesn't anything tangible for the american worker and if so what?

Does a polling place pull aside a booth and run tests on it during the election time frame? How is there a way to test the polling machines during the time frame of the election day?

I keep hearing from some people that the 2024 election was unwinnable, that Harris had such a ditch to dig herself out of that even running a “perfect” campaign wouldn’t have put her over the top (a stark departure from the message they were peddling up until last Tuesday).

First, I fundamentally reject the notion that there was not a single qualified American adult who could sell to the majority of voters that Donald Trump - the twice-impeached, 34-time convicted felon, character-flawed controversial former president - ought to not be returned to power. That is absolutely preposterous. I do think Harris ran to the best of her abilities under the circumstances. But she also made some profound mistakes that doomed her campaign.

While there will be a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking for years to come over this election, Harris lost for a very simple reason: a solid majority of voters were unhappy with Biden, and Harris was both unable and unwilling to distance herself from him.

Her answer on The View about whether there were any decisions she would’ve made differently - that “nothing comes to mind” - was inexcusable. Not the border? Not Afghanistan? Not the Middle East conflicts? Not inflation?

The thing is, her answer, awful as it was, was an honest and profoundly telling one. She couldn’t say she would have departed from any decision of Biden’s without lying. She was in the room for every one of those. She owns it. And had she said anything differently, there would’ve been leaks from aggrieved personalities in the White House that discredited her.

But her answers going forward to “how would you be different than Joe Biden”, responding with “obviously I’m not Joe Biden, but I’m also not Donald Trump!”, was disgraceful.

This election, at the end of the day, came down to who the election was about; who was it a referendum on. Harris totally forfeited any chance to be viewed as the “change” candidate in an election where the majority of Americans wanted something different.

Had we run an outsider instead - a governor, someone who was generally supportive of Biden but had the leeway and credibility to distance themselves and even be critical where necessary - would we have fared better in your view? Was it a mistake in retrospect not to skip over the Vice-President and nominate someone who could actually campaign on substantive change?

Latinos, men generally, and even some segments of traditionally Democratic strongholds like LGBT and other minorities took a turn towards Trump. There's plenty of analyses on how things went wrong for Harris this cycle -- some controllable, some not.

Obviously there's also the question of turnout, but that tells me that Democrats simply didn't feel the same motivation they did in 2020 -- reasons are various, of course.

What I'd urge on this question is to take emotions out of it and stay practically-minded. I voted Harris but have disappointed by the blame game that has followed. I'd rather hear something more practical.

More black and Latino people voted for Democrats than they did for Republicans.

The only demographic that had more people vote for Republicans, than they did Democrats, are white people (straight cis white people to be more exact, as more white LGBTQ+ people also voted for Democrats than they did Republicans)

So why are people angry with black and Latino people, instead of straight cis white people when they’re the only ones who predominately voted for Trump?

And do you think that getting angry with black and Latino people will help gain votes in future elections, or do you think it’ll only push them even further away?

Identity politics was at the forefront of the Democratic Party's messaging. People here might not think so, but it's all about perception and optics. The right has their own version of identity politics. Let me repeat that. I know the right has their own version of identity politics.

Bernie Sanders has recently said that "It's not just Kamala. It's a Democratic Party which increasingly has become a party of identity politics."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOaqxYlVxSU

NY Democrat Ritchie Torres said a similar statement "Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like "defund the police", "from the river to the sea" and "Latinx".

https://thehill.com/homenews/4978480-torres-progressives-blame-trump/

Should Democrats stop focusing so much on identity politics? Affirmative action is gone and DEI policies are probably on the chopping block next.

Title

So this question came to mind when thinking about Trump and Pence. Specially when he asked Pence to prevent the certification of the 2020 election which Pence didn’t do because, again, that’s illegal.

However, I don’t really know much about Vance I’ll admit. My main thing is since Vance is much younger and most likely wants to cater nicely to his image among GOP voters for his future in politics.

Another thing I wonder though is if Vance will personally revert to his ways of thinking about Trump as he did in the past (when he said a lot do unfavorable things about him). I think about this part due to how many people who used to work with Trump now avoid him or speak poorly of him.

Hypothetically speaking, if somehow there was a party that won an election which campaigned and vowed to re-enslave black people, should the incumbent non-slave supporting party peacefully transfer power to the pro-slavery party?

Why or why not in your opinion?

We all know that Trump won the presidency, but I'm curious as to what the breakdown of true Trump believers in the Senate and the House vs. your more establishment, or other types of Republicans that may be more moderate. If MAGA Republican's are still not the majority, could this be a silver lining of sorts?

Do you think Trump and his administration have 2 years to make the drastic changes they want or do they have a full 4 years at their disposal? Or, do you actually think the GOP will create a stronghold for years and years to come?

I personally only think they have 2 years. I believe wholeheartedly that voters will return the House of Representatives to the Democrats in 2026 by a very wide margin. I highly doubt we can retake the Senate (but who knows).

So, again, I ask you: 2 years, 4 Years or more?

With Trump and co planning to cut funding to Ukraine substantially, how do we help Ukraine as private citizens? Are there any options?

Why are we insistent on calling these billionaires and CEOs "tech bros"? These are grown men who have decided to put their absurd wealth into tipping the scales in our county. They aren't young men, they aren't just some group of guys. They are a very small group of powerful people who decided they are going to push their weight around for less regulation.

I know this seems petty, but the constant talk of "tech bros'" influence on the election needs to be reframed, these are tech oligarchs, tech CEOs, tech billionaires. Can we please call them what they are?

Trump's first term was endless infighting and the Republican Majority has been its worst enemy. Who are Republicans figures worth paying attention too who can help keep Americans in a good place until the next set of major elections?

There has been a little talk around Trump possibly keeping Lina Khan. Vance particularly has praised her, and has said that he would try to convince Trump to keep her. It's still pretty unlikely, but if he does, how would you feel about it?

I think one of the things that's not controversial to say is the Liberal presence online is pretty much garbage.

And I have no clue why.

The Internet today particularly gaming has the largest share of people watching its content whether that be streaming, gaming, reading forums and social media. All other forms of media such as Radio and Television are not even close.

Yet these days our establishment democrats don't really poke that much into the internet or if they do, its very tepid and flimsy at best. There are exceptions of course and those exceptions have really worked wonders such as the Fetterman campaign who was won in a place he was projected to lose. (As a aside... roasting Oz as a New Jerseyian as a New Jerseyian myself is rather funny to me.)

Instead they invest heavily in traditional media like billboards, television adds, phone calls, Canvasing etc. Don't get me wrong that's important... but times are changing. More and more people are online and we need to move there.

As proof, I could name 5 conservative youtubers right now quite easily. Clownfish TV, Razorfist, TheQuartering, EDEMIYON, Timpool. All house hold names with LARGE swaths of followers ready to eat up their conservative views on gaming.

I can't really say the same for liberal youtubers. Maybe Behind the Bastards... and that's all I can come up with.

The gains we can make here are massive.

One thing that tipped this election in Trumps favor is that Trump and his entire operation have a god tier understanding of the internet and how to make it work for them. They worked on this starting all the way back 9 years ago during Gamergate abiet clumsily at first. They didn't start the movement BUT... they tried tapping into it.

And as time wore on, they grew a understanding of the internet and how to make it work for them. Fueling them further were various failures of the democratic party to take care of average people needs such as kitchen table economics. Or other failures born of liberal party arrogance particularly in gaming which further chased potential voters away. And we can really see its payed off for him.

Joe Rogan I believe has 20 million viewers off the top of my head, some ridiculous number. Regular media, not so much anymore.

Furthermore the voices we do seem to have on the internet are heavily corporate and not grassroots. We have alot of voices from mega-corporations like Sony, EA, Blizzard, Activision, Ubisoft.

All of them with honestly checkered pasts and hypocritical inauthentic messaging.

Meanwhile many of the above youtubers have a aura or air of the average everyday man living pay check to pay check working hard for a living. Some of them maybe lying of course (See Timpool who gets millions of dollars from Russia propogandists) some may be telling the truth.

So my question to you all is... how do we change that?

Me personally I think we need to start to encourage people to open up youtube channels and in general get out onto the open internet outside of our bubbles of corporate approved internet places to hear potential voter issues. There's alot of neutral non-voters out there that I feel we can convinced to vote for us if we would get out there and listen to their problems and offer solutions that don't go against our values.

I hear alot of liberals say that many of these youtubers are only great because they were given money. Thats not quite true. Don't get me wrong its true when you want to grow your channel beyond a certain subscriber limit... but just starting out is flat out false. All the guys I just mentioned, mostly started from nothing.

So I don't think lack of money really is a excuse, at least starting out.

I also don't think its a problem with our collective values either.

But I'll turn it over to you guys.

https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fmap-shows-voter-id-laws-state-1950691&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl1%2Cagsadl6%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4

Wondering what you guys think of this map. It appears all the states with voter I, d, with Republican in states without voter. I d all with democrats.Why do you think this happens?

First, let me set the stage with quotes from Why Does No One Understand the Real Reason Trump Won?

Today, the right-wing media—Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more—sets the news agenda in this country.

...

Allow me to make the world’s easiest prediction: After 12:00 noon next January 20, it won’t take Fox News and Fox Business even a full hour to start locating every positive economic indicator they can find and start touting those. Within weeks, the “roaring Trump economy” will be conventional wisdom.

Researchers paid Fix viewers $15/hour to watch CNN. When Fox News viewers flip to CNN, their opinions shift too, study finds

After nearly four weeks of watching CNN in September 2020, the Fox News regulars remained firmly conservative. Still, the study found, they were more supportive of voting by mail, less likely to believe that Democratic candidate Joe Biden wanted to eliminate all police funding, and had less positive evaluations of then-President Donald Trump and other Republican politicians.

The effect, however, was short-lived. Two months after the study period ended, most of the participants had abandoned CNN, and the changes in their opinions had faded away

This was even though the paid watchers were "more likely to agree that if Trump made a mistake, Fox News would not cover it."

I don't have evidence, but my personal opinion is that all Fox News watchers have, at some point, been forced to realize that they were being manipulated. A friend or relative presented them with irrefutable facts that Fox News was wrong about a topic. However, like the study participants, they didn't care and willingly went back to the propaganda channel.

Do you agree that many in the right wing bubble made a conscious decision to stick with their flawed sources?

Why do you think they made that choice? Do you think they are satisfying an emotional need, such as the need to feel superior, to hate others, or to feel outrage?

Does knowingly seeking out lies to feed a dark emotional need make them bad people?

Massachusetts is in general a progressive state, for example it was the first state in the US to legalise same sex marriage over 20 years ago now. But when the issue of progressive drug reform and legalisation of psychedelics was put to the population this election cycle, 57% of voters rejected it. Turnout was high as well it being during a presidential election cycle. So why is this the case?

Many of those voters would probably self identify as liberals or progressives aswell and Democrats dominated over the GOP on the same ballot so why are they so conservative on this issue?

It seems like the #1 factor this election was inflation. The thing is that while minimum inflation feels better at the store, the US economy was at its best in years.

Both with unemployment rates of sub 4% which is unheard of and the fact wages were rising above inflation levels, the latter being the most important part. I wonder if the last part was lost on people. Even though visually they could see higher prices at the store, they were more able to afford it but maybe that didn't register at that moment they were paying the bills.

I wonder if maybe, it's not the health of economy that matters to voters but the literal rate of inflation.

liberals view on voter initiated referendums in the United States?

We all know of the history taught in textbooks, the social justice movements of the past are regarded as brave, heroic and almost universally seen as good in the modern teachings.

But as social progress is made over the generations, the targets of the fight become more and more abstract.

How do you think historians will look back on the social justice movements when hindsight is no longer escaping us?

With the internet, every misstep, every unpleasant interaction is documented for the world to see forever.

In a media landscape where the good word should be spread easier than it ever has, that same word has been allowed to be split into myriad interpretations by dozens of groups, each having their own prominent voices, such as TERFs.

And so I’d like to ask you; how will history view the 2000’s era social justice movements?

-Will the modern social justice movements be seen as a golden age of progress? Or will it be seen as a poor imitation of the heroes of the past? Will this be viewed as the weakest wave?

-Will the controversy and splintering be a prominent theme in textbooks?

-Will the social justice movements of today be viewed as a success?

-look at your peers; the users next to you who share your beliefs; will history remember them kindly?

-How will the opposition be remembered? ‘Jim Crow laws’ have been coined as almost a universal thing to refer to when referring to racism and evil. How will MRA’s be remembered?

Can't blame Harris, or Biden, or Obama, who they're still blaming sixteen years later if Trump and the republicans make everything worse. What's the excuse going to be, that two guys got married in Vermont and that's why tariffs hurt American business? NOPE, own it.

I'm having trouble articulating the response to this when I try to explain to people why 4 more years of this asshole will be so bad amid all the things he's said he's going to do.

Since the end of the election all I've been watching is Bob Roberts directed by Tim Robbins. Looking for political films or documentaries. Anything made in the last 20 years is perfect. Thanks. 🏴🏴🏴

I am genuinely curious why y’all abhor the thought of a secure border. What got me thinking about this was this article.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/10/trump-wins-arizona-completing-sweep-of-all-seven-battleground-states-ap-reports

“However Republicans appear close to clinching control of the US House of Representatives, in addition to control of the Senate, which they have already won, meaning Republicans will have sweeping powers to potentially ram through a broad agenda of tax and spending cuts, energy deregulation and border security controls.”

It is worded as if it is a bad thing to have better border security, as if preventing unlawful actions is wrong? I am trying to understand why one would oppose upholding the law.

Please no whataboutisms regarding Trump. I’d prefer this to be a productive discussion relating to the subject matter. It clearly isn’t that Democrats want to break the law so I’d like to understand what they mean by this.

So, two of the figureheads of neoconservatism, Liz and Dick Cheney, campaigned for the Democrats this cycle. Lots of 'Never Trump' Republicans also indicated they would vote for Harris and against the MAGA coalition that had gained ascendancy within the GOP, though of course they were unsuccessful in the end.

With the news that the Trump administration has rejected having Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo involved in Trump's second term, and a more isolationist, less militaristic, less interventionist foreign policy on the agenda - would neoconservatives now be more at home with the 'establishment' Democrats than in the revamped GOP?

(FYI, also made a similar post on AskConservatives to get their views)

This is inspired by the recent doxing of Fuentes, though I don't just want to focus on that individual situation. I've seen many people in multiple places on reddit say "This is good, he's a Nazi, he deserves it", and while I agree he is a Nazi and a terrible person, I'm a bit torn about the idea that his character somehow makes doxing him morally right ("Two wrongs don't make a right" is probably the simplest way to phrase my objections)

For those who do believe that doxing him or some extremists is the correct/moral move, what specifically do you believe to be the line between "it's morally wrong to dox randos on twitter" and "it's morally right to dox this specific person"?

One person told me it was because Fuentes had a "platform all about hurting others", but that seems too vague to me to be a great metric. (e.g. is any platform that is for animal testing of cosmetics similarly worthy of being doxed? Would being both pro-Ukraine and anti-Ukraine arguably both fall under that, depending on your lens?)

Personally, I don't see any obvious situation where doxing is the morally correct response. Either they are encouraging violence to the point they should be reported to law enforcement, or their views should fall under free speech, however heinous that speech and however justly they should be shunned and lambasted for it. I don't think putting them in (fear of) personal danger through leaking personal addresses, etc. is the right way to respond.

For those who do think doxing is the correct moral response sometimes, help me understand when it is okay and how you personally believe we should know when it is moral or immoral to do so.

(FYI, this post is not meant to be an encouragement to violence, doxing, or other acts that may break the TOS)

This episode of This American Life sounded extremely interesting. I am slow to feel hope after all of the struggle and set-backs that we've experienced, but I can help but feel that perhaps this holds some part of the way through.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/845/a-small-thing

In the first story they describe how a couple, husband Republican and wife Democrat, could not talk to each other about politics. The biggest problem is that they could not even agree on a source to listen to -- he would only hear out Breitbart, she would only listen to The Atlantic, and similar media.

I forget how, maybe it's in the story, but they came across Tangle News. It tries to put its corrections at the top of the page in large print. It advertises its bias and recognizes them as such.

But then it goes on to try to really give an honest assessment of liberal and conservative stories. It does not dismiss and laugh down conservative stories, narratives, or arguments.

At least this couple and one other in the story found that they could actually talk about what was in there, because they both though it was giving all ideas a fair shake. And it showed the husband just how much his right-wing media was lying to him, that it convinced him to at least not vote for Trump.

I'm absolutely certain that this is not a panacea. But two thoughts: Could this be an important component of a way to get back to having healthy political conversation? Would it at least allow people on the left and right who are acting in good faith, to agree on the facts?

Also, are there lessons about what Tangle News is doing which could be exported to make other relationships between the left and right more productive and healthy?