I have some friends who get their news from tiktok and generally don’t get news, who don’t engage with any line of thought that smells liberal because nowadays liberals seem lame according to most ppl’s snarky IG feeds.

I noticed a common thread with these friends is that they reject analysis of evidence and instead go by the cultural vibes of their larger social circle/social media algorithms. It’s hard bringing up evidence/research to them because they sometimes tune out.

They are also really bad at evaluating whether something is fake news or an obvious right-wing ploy (and isn’t a well-constructed analysis of a topic).

Has anyone been able to get through to these people? I know I know it’s probably a lost cause. But if this feat has ever been achieved, I really want to know how.

For context, I am a former registered Republican and I am a Latino male. I vote blue, but I predicted on here Kamala would lose, most of you disagreed, then after election night I posted a few points of why Kamala lost.

Anyways... so many of you have disagreed with me, but now a lot of you are starting to see the light. The problem isn't just having crappy candidates; but the white progressives.

Here's what I mean.

White progressives completely ignored men, masculinity, and our issues. These white progressives decided to fully focus on women and LGBTQ+ ONLY. Men? Fuck men, they're all toxic incels.

I see Senator Fetterman gets it and he's absolutely right. Kamala just focused on women's issues, which are valid, but completely ignored us men.

As a straight Latino male, this is what was ignored about us men:

• A lot of us have been lumped with toxic masculinity and incels. Everywhere in the media it seems like we're the problem with everything. Granted, some are problematic, but not all of us. We're paying for the sins of our fathers and the sins ones that are actually toxic like some of the ultra right-wingers.

• Males of all ages have the highest mental health problems and suicide rates.

• Men are incarcerated at an alarming rate.

• Less men are getting educated and are falling behind majorly compared to past generations.

• At least to me, seems like masculinity is frowned upon and LGBTQ+ males are celebrated more often.

• Relationship-wise, dating age men seem to be extremely lonely and have lost all ability to make a female partner and keeping her. Hate to say it but the #metoo movement got us all terrified to approach any women.

THIS is why men of all ethnicities went with Trump. Trump represents masculinity. As ridiculous as it sounds, Kamala being a woman plus her focusing mostly on women issues lost her a lot of male votes. I said she would lose due to this and I was right. Again, we needed someone like Josh Shapiro to run.

In brief: I feel much that same as I did on November 8th. My feelings are largely unchanged. The electorate that settled for Trump is largely nasty, ignorant, mean, and unbecoming of what it means to be American. They are anti-democracy and clearly very uneducated. This is the centrist view. This is my view as a former Republican that finds my party to be (yes): a basket of deplorables. Hey, she tried to tell you.

And I'm sick of people suggesting to me that by pointing all of that out, I am simply driving them further away.

I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry that my facts have to get in the way of their feelings. What do you want me to do? Pretend they didn't just vote in an ill-tempered, convicted felon, autocrat? It is not my job to hold American's hands and coddle them like 5 year olds while they make poor decisions. I'm tired of the double standard that the Dems have to be near Angelic while the GOP can corrupt itself under this madman and get the benefit of the doubt.

I remember being 19 years old and upon reading up on Agenda 21, I was terrified. Well, years later, Agenda 21 still hasn't happened.

Project 2025 is looking alot like that. Alot of posturing, but I think it's highly doubtful it actually comes to pass. Just like Agenda 21.

Do y'all feel the same way? Or do you feel Project 2025 actually carries some weight?

Donald Trump just nominated Kash Patel to replace Christopher Wray as the director of the FBI. But we can stop Congress from nominating him. I encourage all of you to contact or email all your senators and representatives to tell them not to nominate him, or Hegseth, or Gabbard, or any of Trump's dangerous picks. I also encourage you to contact Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer. If we can contact them, we can protect the rule of law, and prevent any of these dangerous picks from joining Trump in the White House. Let's do this and contact these people!

The title says it all, so recently California voted overwhelmingly fora bill that is tough on crime

California voters recently approved Proposition 36, a measure that increases penalties for certain theft and drug-related offenses, including those involving fentanyl.

Compared to 2020 when everyone was all about defund the police and ACAB

Liberals were talking about how Trump's tarrifs were a gift to the rich and how they oppressed the middle class and poor people.

Biden has maintained most of them and in some ways has gotten worse.

He increased Tarrifs on Chinese EVs and solar pannels which undermines his supposed fight on climate change.

He passed the chips act which subsidizes the unethical failing companies of texas instruments and intel

I don't get why people defend the chips act when it shells out billions in government money to big corporations.

How do liberals defend this ?

Idiocracy

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl

This movie imagined a future where intelligence was undervalued, big companies controlled every aspect of life, and leaders chosen based on popularity rather than their ability to lead.

Unfortunately, this dystopian satire feels strikingly similar to the direction the U.S. is heading today. People are increasingly ignoring scientists and experts, even on critical issues like climate change or public health, and instead gravitate toward whoever speaks the loudest or appeals to their emotions. This rejection of expertise mirrors the movie's world, where problem-solving and critical thinking are abandoned in favor of convenience and entertainment.

Big corporations in Idiocracy dominate the government, making harmful decisions like watering crops with energy drinks instead of water, all for profit. In reality, corporations in the U.S. wield massive power, often influencing politicians through lobbying and campaign donations. This results in laws and policies that benefit businesses while harming regular people and the environment. Climate change, for instance, is often downplayed or ignored because addressing it would challenge powerful industries, even though the consequences of inaction are becoming impossible to ignore.

Leadership in the U.S. is also becoming more about popularity and showmanship than competence, much like President Camacho in Idiocracy, a former wrestler who prioritizes entertainment over effective governance. Politicians today often focus on their media presence and public image rather than tackling serious issues. Meanwhile, public conversations have shifted away from meaningful topics like healthcare, education, and economic inequality, instead centering on scandals, outrage, and trivial distractions.

Trust in institutions like schools, courts, and the government is also declining, as these systems increasingly fail to serve everyday people. Just as the institutions in Idiocracy collapse due to neglect and incompetence, many Americans feel that their institutions are broken or corrupt.

If this trajectory continues, the U.S. risks resembling the chaotic, ignorant society depicted in the film—a world where critical thinking, responsible leadership, and long-term planning are abandoned, leaving no one capable of fixing the growing problems.

The movie, while comedic, was a dire warning about the consequences of ignoring these trends.

The title is the simple question I've been thinking on lately.

Most of the alternative media landscape is filled with pundits who simply do reaction content to the news actual journalists have put the effort into uncovering or reporting.

For as much as many people in modern times distrust legacy or mainstream media...I wonder how many folks have taken the time to think where their news would come from without those sources.

Really, if someone could "Thanos-snap" their fingers, and make all legacy media go poof...how many outlets are leftover that would actually be doing breaking on-the-ground reporting, investigative journalism or factually sharing current events?

Yesterday I made a post that trans people need to be more vocal that extreme people don’t speak for us, and went into detail and in depth about exactly what that meant and entailed.

I want to say right now, I was not doing appeasement or respectability politics. I understand that for some people nothing you say will ever be good enough to appease them and get them to back off.

I was in no way saying that trans people should just stay in the shadows and be invisible, and only speak up if it’s “against our own”.

We will fight for our right to exist when it comes under threat. At least I will.

What I was referencing was blue maga, and their insistence that certain things that happen, however rare, don’t actually happen at all and that concerned parents or conservative voters are just making them up.

I read the story about the trans teacher in Canada with the obnoxiously big fake boobs, who taught elementary students. We should be calling that out. Not saying it didn’t happen.

I read the story of the kid in California who said she wanted to be a girl, and people tried to make things happen to get her on puberty blockers without her mom finding out (but she still did). We should be calling that out. Not saying it didn’t happen.

I read the story of the kid who said he was trans so he could go in the girls bathroom at school, and then assaulted a girl in there and then did the same thing at a different school they moved to after that. We should be calling that out. Not saying it didn’t happen.

Are stories like these rare? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Yes. Does pretending they didn’t happen instead of calling them exactly what they are and prosecuting them hurt our cause and make it look like we’re being nefarious and trying to cover things up, alienating good and well meaning people who otherwise WOULD HAVE BEEN on our side? Also yes. Unequivocally.

Saying these things is in no way an assault on trans people. I am trans myself and I’m nothing like Caitlyn Jenner. Unlike her I don’t just straight up simp for the right wing.

We can both call these things out and say they are wrong, and prosecute the actions if they are indeed illegal, instead of sweeping them under the rug, pretending they don’t happen and calling people conspiracy theorists or bigots for saying they happened, and still protect trans folks and challenge any actual opposition to our rights.

I watched a woman at a PTA meeting, who is progressive herself, get upset at a meeting because her daughter came out as trans at school and she wasn’t notified. This woman was not a bigot. She was a concerned parent who couldn’t help her child because she had no idea that was even happening. And yes I’ve seen conservative parents also get mad about it. They aren’t somehow less valid and justified in their concerns just because they vote a different way. It’s still their kid.

Abuse isn’t the only reason kids don’t come out to parents. And if abuse is a legitimate concern there are measures you can take if you aren’t fully incompetent to ensure the short and long term safety of that child.

If people read this and see it as me “speaking against the left” well then that shows the general view of how average folks view the left which is entirely my point.

We can be both respectable and sensible, call out nonsense when it happens and still protect and call for the protection of trans rights. We can both say “minors probably shouldn’t be transitioning without their parents knowing, even socially” and also say grown adults who are 34 like me can make their own decisions.

We can say that self ID has enabled predators while trying to find a better system that still helps trans people but doesn’t enable predators.

We can have an honest conversation about how to fix the sports issue, instead of just calling genuinely concerned parents bigots and Nazis for being concerned about their girl athletes.

If you read this and want to chalk me up as an appeaser and kick me out of democrat circles then I guess fine. But you’ll only be hurting yourself, you’ll only be doing what the right already accuses you of doing, which is being patently unwilling to have actual merit based discussion about the issues.

I’m a trans woman in Texas. No one stands to lose more than me if it goes badly. I know the risks and I know what we need to do. Trump won 80% of the vote in my county and I live in the smallest town in that county. And not a single person here has ever said a word to me about it in the 2 years I’ve lived here.

People voted for trump because of a number of issues. Not all of them hate trans people. Chalking it up to that is exactly why we lose, and exactly why people near the middle want nothing to do with us. Even if every single trump voter had trans issues at the top of their list, 76 million people falls well short of half the country or even a third of the country. It’s slightly less than a fifth of the country. Trump and Harris both got less votes in 2024 than Trump and Biden did in 2020. Apathy gave trump this election. Not some insane national referendum against trans people.

And yeah, the other argument is that people may not have actively voted against trans rights, but they at least didn’t care about what might happen to us as long as they got cheaper eggs.

So make them care. Show them we’re not all crazy. I’m not talking about the die hard MAGAs. Many of them short an actual personal experience in their own personal lives will never have their needle moved.

There are a lot of people who can be, so let’s show them who we are. What our real values are, and stop being so stupid.

Because I promise you, if you double down on the idea that parents don’t need to know or even don’t have a right to know what’s going on with their kids, democrats will lose a ton more voters, including lifelong democrats. People don’t play about their kids. You will ensure republicans hold onto the government for quite some time.

Or we can be sensible, and start winning some voters back.

I rarely post on Reddit so if there is a better subreddit for this question please let me know. And I will post there instead.

I feel like the two party system is quite flawed specifically because there’s never going to be a candidate that matches your views. For the last few years I’ve said I’m a libertarian or center but I’m wondering if there is a better political term that describes my beliefs? Which is the crux of my question. What party and/or political ideal matches closest to my beliefs?

I’ll go through the main talking points I’ve seen on both sides and where I fit and I’d love to get people’s opinions. Please try and keep it civil

Immigration I’m a fan of legal immigration. I think it’s important as a society to have diversity and I feel like people come to the US for a better life. That being said our immigration system needs improvement if the process was easier I feel like we’d see less illegal immigration. I do believe we should have a strong border and not let people here illegally. If we don’t have strong borders it lowers the incentive to come here legally?

Social issues such as lgbt+, interracial marriage, abortion etc I don’t think the government should have a big impact on people’s personal lives. If everything is between two consenting adults it doesn’t matter who you sleep with or marry or what you do in the bedroom (as long as everyone is able to consent and consents)

With trans individuals. Once you are an adult you can do whatever you want. I think more research needs to be done before puberty blockers are available to children. (Except rare medical situations such as when a child begins puberty too early) But I think they should be able to socially transition just nothing that’ll permanently change them before they are old enough to fully understand what they are committing to.

I think abortion should be legal up until a certain point (honestly not sure what that point is). Regardless as to how someone got pregnant. Meaning not just in cases of rape and incest. I think late term abortions are rare and if there is a significant risk to the mother it should be up to the mother and doctors on if a late term abortion is necessary . Late term abortions should not be illegal across the board (just only allowed in very rare circumstances)

Welfare programs I think these programs can be good and should be around. However, they can be abused and it seems that with how some of them are ran you are incentivized to not try and get off the programs. I think they should be re-evaluated to still be available but make it so there are incentives to get off the programs. An example is when I was younger I looked into lower income housing. To qualify you couldn’t be full time students or full time workers. How is someone expected to get out of that housing if they can’t work full time?

Economy I would love to see more manufacturing in the US. I feel it is important to be as self sufficient as possible. This will take time and there isn’t a quick fix. I feel as if the US should incentivize corporations to start manufacturing more in the US. I need to look into the CHIPS act more but from what I’ve heard it appears it’ll help bring chip manufacturing to the US which I think is good.

With taxes the only really way they can be lowered is if spending is also cut. I do not realistically know what should be cut but I do think government spending should be looked at. And that we should not spend more than what comes in and should be able to pass an audit.

Corporations Corporations should pay a fair wage and have good working conditions. I don’t believe the way to do that is by increasing minimum wage. I believe the way to do that is to have competition in the workforce where corporations need to compete with other corporations to keep employees. This would encourage better wages and working conditions. I think the main way to do this would be to have as many jobs in the US as we can (bringing manufacturing back could be a way to help with this)

I am torn on corporations and taxes. The reality is corporations are going to do whatever they need to get the same level of profit. So if taxes are raised on them they will pass that cost onto the consumer, and price control feels like a slippery slope where there could be very bad consequences. It would probably decrease wages and working conditions. I don’t have a good solution to these issues.

2nd amendment I do not believe the government should try and ban guns. I understand not allowing felons to own guns when they did a violent crime. However I think there could be room to allow non-violent former drug addicts to have guns after a certain amount of time being recovered. (Several years in my opinion like 10+). I think we should have more education on gun safety as well as mental health programs to help prevent gun violence.

Decriminalization of drugs I think marijuana should be legal across the board. And I believe as far as crimes go we should be arresting drug dealers not users. If a drug user did something illegal outside of using they should be penalized for this crimes but they should be sent to jail for using. They should be sent to rehabilitation programs instead. Our criminal justice program needs reform but that would be best talked and it a dedicated discussion)

Religion. People should be free to practice their religion as long as they are not hurting anyone. Religion in schools and politics should remain fully separate. Separation of church and state is important to me

I think that covers most of the hot issues but if I missed any please feel free to ask and I’m happy to talk about it.

trump is selling tchotchkes.

Right now, as his administration is assuming power, trump is spending significant amounts of time and energy selling coffee mugs, watches, Bibles, guitars, and other junk emblazoned with his name.

trump should be spending every second of every day doing the job he campaigned to get, but instead he is enriching himself.

Most companies have policies that their salaried employees are not permitted to have an outside job, because they believe that the company deserves 100% of their employees' energy. I believe the same thing about the presidency.

The US presidency is among the most difficult jobs on the planet. The 334,000,000 citizens of the US have a right to expect that the one person we elect to the job of the presidency will actually devote 100% of their energy to it during the 4 years of their term.

trump campaigned, begged for, demanded the job, so trump should do the job. trump should not be enriching himself instead of working for us. Even 1 second of self-enrichment rather than working for the American people is grotesque.

Republicans, you are the ones who have to stop this. You have to contact your Senators and your Representatives and tell them to force trump to do the job he was elected to do and put aside his day gig as an Uber driver for the next 4 years.

Some guy is on X, and sees some radical trans activist saying something stupid and ridiculous, and since he doesn’t know any trans people in real life, it’s easy for him to think “that’s the community”. Same goes for YouTube.

It is then easy for the trump campaign to run ads like “Kamala Harris is for they them, Donald Trump is for you”, and they are hyper effective, because almost nobody knows a trans person in real life (or at least they don’t know they do) but almost everyone HAS seen those idiotic morons on X and YT.

We don’t need to get them to understand the ins and outs of gender dysphoria, and what constitutes as a therapist, and what exactly HRT does, although those things would certainly be helpful.

We need to take a real stand and be extremely vocal against people with extreme leftist views regarding gender, and at least be willing to have the conversation about sports.

We need, and I know this is gonna hurt, to start going out of our way to introduce ourselves and have conversations with conservatives. I have started doing this, and I’ve moved the needle on quite a few people. It’s easy to not see a certain group as even human when you don’t know anyone from that group. It’s easy to think they’re all deviants when you’ve never even talked to one. Sarah McBride being in congress and literally just doing her job and not giving into the troll bait is helping that cause, but it won’t be enough.

Yes, I am aware that the people wanting to transition kids without parental consent etc are an extreme fringe minority of an extreme fringe minority, but THEY don’t know that. Because some YouTuber with 500k subscribers who they think speaks for the whole community said it.

I don’t even know how much some of these people even actually care about trans issues. I really think some of them just latched onto a movement and try to say the most outlandish things possible to get rich off it. The point is they don’t speak for us, and people need to know that.

As long as trans people only hang out with and talk to other trans people or people who are already allies, the general image society has of us won’t improve. We need a real grassroots sort of movement.

We need people to come out and say we don’t support pronouns laws or fining or jailing people for either mistakenly or on purpose not identifying us the way we want to be. We already know we’re not for it, but alot of conservatives genuinely think we are.

Propaganda is most effective when it can lie to you about a small group that can’t defend itself on its own and who most people don’t know a single one personally. It could be Muslims, trans, immigrants, black people or what have you.

We defeat propaganda by being diverse which is another reason they hate it.

College and university isn’t “woke”. What happened was your precious little girl left her small town and for the first time in her life met and hung out with people different from her, people from all walks of life and backgrounds, and finally saw that the lies and fear you’ve been feeding her for 18 years were a mountain of bs.

The propaganda people want us to be scared and stay hidden. Because that gives them the license to increase it and make it worse. You only defeat darkness by shining a light on it, and we can’t do that by hiding in our bedrooms. We need to exist, loudly, visibly, and show people, people who don’t already know it, that we’re not so different from them. A lot of us value and care about the same things they do, and are scared of the same things they are. And when I say exist loudly, I just mean exist as visibly trans people. Stop hiding ourselves and who we are. I am certainly not saying to just go walk up to random people start lecturing them. That’s how we got here in the first place.

Most people genuinely didn’t care if you were trans even 10 years ago. Hell even in 2016 Donald himself said it’s not an issue, let them use the bathroom they want.

This culture war has gone entirely off the rails and only we ourselves can get it back on track. Or we can just continue to let people lie on us while we stay hidden and not speaking up. Blue maga is a very real problem. People who insist “that’s not happening” no it has happened. It might not be a common occurrence but it has happened and we need to disavow it strongly when it does. Pretending it didn’t happen makes us no better than red maga, and also makes people less likely to want to communicate with us and learn anything. To them it reinforces that we’re deviants which they already thought.

We need to strongly disavow the radical left, and when I say the radical left I mean the real radical left, not what Trump means when he says it, which is just anyone who doesn’t like him including other republicans.

I have seen people in various news media ask how can we make the trans community look more favorable. One thing I noticed that really sticks out to me in those conversations is it’s almost never a trans person that they’re asking.

This is relevant to the dicussions around class,populism and cost of living that are a bigger issue in the electionRecent data indicates that Texas cities, particularly Austin and San Antonio, have experienced some of the most significant declines in rent prices across the United States. From May 2023 to May 2024, Austin's average rent prices decreased by 9.3%, marking the largest drop among the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas. San Antonio followed closely with an 8.2% decline during the same period.

So what did Texas do right ?