This just continues to raise the same points I see over and over and over and over: Conservative messaging is strong, regardless of veracity in what they're saying. It resonates with people who...
This just continues to raise the same points I see over and over and over and over:
Conservative messaging is strong, regardless of veracity in what they're saying. It resonates with people who feel neglected by society.
Policy changes favor and amplify this conservative messaging, helping to spread it to more people.
Progressives seem to be ignoring or outright insulting those on the other side, alienating them. They come across as haughty elites.
Conservatives seem to be inviting and open to newcomers to their flock, bringing them into the fold. They come across as salt of the earth and straightforward.
Men especially are susceptible to all this, due to a perceived loss of status, value, worth, etc. Young men specifically are most inclined to lean right, as they receive the least support from society at large, and so are easily manipulated into believing the right will support them - because they do.
I don't really know what to do with all this information. I don't really know what progressive podcasts have the same reach and standing as the ones covered here. Long ago I used to listen to The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, which seems to fit the bill, but clearly it doesn't have the audience. I believe that it falls into the same trap of being "too elite" for the average viewer.
How do we begin changing this? Is it possible to create a progressive podcast which has the same impact? With policy and algorithms preferring rage bait and othering, how do we game the system when the message is inclusivity, equity, and diversity?
Despite its numerous flaws, I think the Harris campaign was onto something with how it positioned Walz early on. He himself isn’t without issue, but he represented the sort of self-built...
Despite its numerous flaws, I think the Harris campaign was onto something with how it positioned Walz early on. He himself isn’t without issue, but he represented the sort of self-built hard-working Everyman that Americans seem to resonate with and was able to project progressive causes through a “common sense” and “these are everybody’s problems” sort of lens that I believe brings significantly increased palatability to the masses. A figure like him becoming a mainstay in popular internet media could help bring context to the young men being misled to believe that they’re facing their challenges on their own.
I agree Waltz was a good choice, but more because he’s a fairly traditionally-masculine figure. And yeah I think the everyman aspect is important too. I think it fell a little flat, because it...
I agree Waltz was a good choice, but more because he’s a fairly traditionally-masculine figure. And yeah I think the everyman aspect is important too. I think it fell a little flat, because it doesn’t match the energy or vibes the party usually pushes out.
young men being misled to believe that they’re facing their challenges on their own.
Is it any surprise they believe they’re on their own? What messaging is the party putting out?
In the “Who We Serve” section, the DNC’s website identifies sixteen different demographic groups that the party represents. It’s a comprehensive list, with one exception. Can you guess which demographic group representing roughly half of the voting population is not included?
AFRICAN AMERICANS
AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES
ASIAN AMERICANS AND PACIFIC ISLANDERS
DEMOCRATS ABROAD
ETHNIC AMERICANS
LATINOS
FAITH COMMUNITY
LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY
NATIVE AMERICANS
RURAL AMERICANS
SENIORS AND RETIREES
SMALL BUSINESS COMMUNITY
UNION MEMBERS AND FAMILIES
VETERANS AND MILITARY FAMILIES
WOMEN
YOUNG PEOPLE AND STUDENTS
It’s difficult to believe that the exclusion of men from this list is simply an oversight. Rather, the omission of men reflects a broader divide in how partisans view the state of women and men in America today. A fascinating survey found a stark political divide between liberals and conservatives over whether boys or girls are most in need of help to become successful. Conservatives were far more worried about how boys were faring in American society than girls. Liberals, conversely, expressed greater concern about girls than boys.
I recommend reading the rest of the article. There’s some interesting statistics, such as the fact that young men, even those pushed toward the right don’t have more conservative beliefs when it comes to guns, climate change, and abortion. They dislike both parties, but only one party recognizes the challenges they face (challenges which often get rebutted with “privilege”. Recognizing privilege is important, but should not be used as a cudgel to dismiss real issues people face)
I do want to point something out, men are included in 15/16 of those. 11/16 are inclusive of white women. 10/16 are inclusive of white men. Men are indeed included throughout.
I do want to point something out, men are included in 15/16 of those.
11/16 are inclusive of white women.
10/16 are inclusive of white men.
Technically yes, but by including "women" and not "men", despite going to more specific categories and having a total of 16, there's an inferred message for men. Was there a word limit? I'll just...
Technically yes, but by including "women" and not "men", despite going to more specific categories and having a total of 16, there's an inferred message for men. Was there a word limit?
I'll just take a stance. As a man, I'm offended by that list. I would be offended if "men" was on that list and "women" was not.
In contrast, I'm not upset there's not an "Ablebodied" Democrats, Straight Democrats, Atheist Democrats, Middle-Aged Democrats, Democrats inside the USA, corporate employees and other non-small...
In contrast, I'm not upset there's not an "Ablebodied" Democrats, Straight Democrats, Atheist Democrats, Middle-Aged Democrats, Democrats inside the USA, corporate employees and other non-small business owner Democrats, Anglo Democrats, Non-indigenous Democrats, Non-Union Democrats or White Democrats categories.
I'm white, we're not a marginalized group, for example, my needs are spoken to in the other categories.
I understand you being offended, but I disagree that men are not included, because white people are also included. And this is probably a fundamental value difference that we've seen throughout - Does advocating for the rights and needs of others equate to taking pieces out of my pie, or do we all benefit when others do better?
I empathize with the emotional response, but I hate "but where's mine" mentality. (Plus during the campaign, men specifically were targeted and marketed to with the same zoom meetings that other groups had. ) Personally I think a lot of anger is directed at minorities, women and the left when wealthy, college educated (conservative or willing to flipflop on a dime) white men are nearly universally responsible for keeping everyone including the men that don't fit into this category down.
It feels far more insulting to me that those people tell men (and poor/working class/rural/etc. people in general) what they want to hear while undermining the jobs/economy/benefits/etc that they rely on.
But I'm not a man, I'm just equating it to the same thing when it comes to whiteness. White supremacy is just as crab-buckety.
It's the wrong comparison to be making. It's when there's a direct comparison ("men" vs "women") being drawn that the lack of one is an obvious indicator. Not only that, but we've started seeing...
It's the wrong comparison to be making. It's when there's a direct comparison ("men" vs "women") being drawn that the lack of one is an obvious indicator. Not only that, but we've started seeing more and more young men of Gen Z struggling to find their place in this world. Even if you don't believe that "men" needed to be on the list, this list existing was an own goal on the Democrats. Which voter on the fence found this list and then voted Democrat because of it? It was a strategic blunder if nothing else.
The struggles of being male and the struggles of being white are very different here.
White men with no non-white ancestry, who live in the US, have no disabilities, are over 18, no longer in school, are atheistic or agnostic, live in cities, are below 65ish, don’t own or work for...
White men with no non-white ancestry, who live in the US, have no disabilities, are over 18, no longer in school, are atheistic or agnostic, live in cities, are below 65ish, don’t own or work for small businesses, are not in unions and have no family in unions, are not in the military, don’t have family in the military, and are not gay, bi, or trans.
It’s a non-zero amount of people, but I don’t think it’s all that large. Starting with white middle age men, adding the faith community should cover a large swath. Military should cover another large swath (with some overlap). Rural will cover another good chunk. Union members will sweep up a small bit. And disabilities, especially if you include temporary disabilities, will cover some more.
The math geek in me wants to estimate that population cross section, but I was never much good at complex counting problems.
That isn't how that list should be interpreted under the argument being made. You're saying white men are accounted for in all of those things, but aren't women also accounted for in all of those...
That isn't how that list should be interpreted under the argument being made. You're saying white men are accounted for in all of those things, but aren't women also accounted for in all of those things? Yet "Women" is specifically called out in the list in addition to everything else that would also apply to women. You can pick out specific identities in there and say they're already covered and yet they also got specifically named too. The fact that men don't get a specific call out like everyone else in there sends a message that men don't face any issues that are outside of the other things mentioned, but other groups do.
There’s a deep irony in worrying about how not to be condescending while we’re talking about the need to convince people to accept objective, provable reality that they’re currently denying in...
There’s a deep irony in worrying about how not to be condescending while we’re talking about the need to convince people to accept objective, provable reality that they’re currently denying in favour of fantasy. The belief that we know more is baked right into the fact we’re even having this conversation.
That doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong: quite the opposite, I think we need every psychologist and marketing expert we can find to figure out what it takes to package factual information in a way that has any hope of countering misinformation. Whatever tone actually works is the tone we should adopt.
But the underlying truth of the matter is that we are saying that people aren’t capable of figuring things out for themselves, because if they were we’d be disagreeing on policy rather than trying to explain that letting a billionaire felon loot the country while imposing tariffs on every major trading partner will not, in fact, reduce the price of eggs.
And yes, I am well aware my phrasing is patronising as hell and is probably exactly what you were objecting to - I’m never going to be the voice we need and I understand that - but I hope my point still comes across here, to an audience that largely understands the fundamentals already. Condescension is the natural consequence of one side being, just… wrong, and avoiding it will be an active and delicate effort.
The issue is that progressives can be broadly correct, but wrong enough that it scares people from wanting to take that step towards voting D. There is objective, provable reality that R voters...
There’s a deep irony in worrying about how not to be condescending while we’re talking about the need to convince people to accept objective, provable reality that they’re currently denying in favour of fantasy.
The issue is that progressives can be broadly correct, but wrong enough that it scares people from wanting to take that step towards voting D. There is objective, provable reality that R voters live that D's are burying their heads in sand over. I've had so many conversations over the last 2 years watching former Democrat voters become unable to vote D this time around. Thankfully, they still detest Trump, but they became those missing voters this year. You can only tell someone so many times to ignore their personal experiences before they stop believing you.
That totally makes sense, and to be clear my point wasn’t party political in favour of the Democrats per se. If someone had a principled objection and chose not to vote, that’s a perfect example...
That totally makes sense, and to be clear my point wasn’t party political in favour of the Democrats per se. If someone had a principled objection and chose not to vote, that’s a perfect example of who I’d put in the “we’d be disagreeing on policy” bucket (or in this case potentially even agreeing on policy but disagreeing on the action to take) - I believe their decision was unacceptably dangerous in the sense that it increases the chance there won’t be a free and fair vote at all next time, regardless of how much there is to legitimately dislike about the Democratic party, but there are plenty of ways they could have come to that decision reasonably and simply disagree with me on the risk.
Progressives, pro-corporate liberals, the more radical left, disillusioned Democrats, and never-Trump Republicans are all examples of people who I’d broadly trust to inhabit a shared reality, even if there isn’t a shared idea of how to navigate it and all you get from putting them in the same room is a blazing argument.
Anyone who looked at Trump the first time around and voted for him again with the belief that he will somehow improve their lives, beyond the tiny handful of them that are actually part of his grift, isn’t in that same reality. Those are the people I was talking about above.
You either have to not be condescending, or be downright mean in such a way that the person just sorta drops out of political participation entirely. Condescension (or the perception of it) can be...
You either have to not be condescending, or be downright mean in such a way that the person just sorta drops out of political participation entirely. Condescension (or the perception of it) can be a motivator for voting.
Right, I think we all saw a lot of speculation that both of those things happened in either 2020 and 2024. Some people felt like "they'll win anyway, why bother voting" and that affected voter...
Right, I think we all saw a lot of speculation that both of those things happened in either 2020 and 2024. Some people felt like "they'll win anyway, why bother voting" and that affected voter turnout. Other's felt "we have to vote otherwise they really will win" and turnout increased.
But ultimately this comes down to personalities of individual humans and what motivates them. Both of those two groups will always exist. And swing voters (like people who voted for Obama and then Trump) will also exist.
I think in the end, morally, politics shouldn't focus so much on trying to get people into one group or the other (shutting out the opposition has its perks, but breeds resentment). Instead they should focus on addressing public misconceptions and build policy based off of "you folks were told X, but the way to solve the problem is with Y." And don't make it "political," establish a no-bullshit air of "common sense."
I think that Is still going to come off as being condescending. People hate being told they are wrong, and it comes off as being told what to do by someone else. I think for many issues, things...
I think that
you folks were told X, but the way to solve the problem is with Y
Is still going to come off as being condescending. People hate being told they are wrong, and it comes off as being told what to do by someone else.
I think for many issues, things need to be more deliberative. Get folks together in a room and talk things out. While you may not be able to iron out every single issue, you can likely make a lot of progress through deliberation and consensus-based politics.
I could've expressed that better, but yes that's more along the lines of what I meant. On the other hand, people need to also learn to accept other points of view. There is a lot of resonance...
I could've expressed that better, but yes that's more along the lines of what I meant.
On the other hand, people need to also learn to accept other points of view. There is a lot of resonance around the idea that certain political groups are being "talked down to" ... while they spout bigoted and factually incorrect information. They can't make shit up and expect to win every argument. They certainly shouldn't expect to act like assholes and not be called out. But yeah, talking things out in a folksy way would go a long way for the normal folks.
Edit: Just to add that a lot of left-wing groups in many countries have been giving people a lot of space to express their views. Those people need to accept the fact that that space has been made for them in the discussion. They haven't been shut out. Then they turn around and claim they're not being listened to. They can't have it both ways and trying to have it both ways has often been the route of authoritarians, even back to the Roman Republic's Senate.
Basically (and I’m not endorsing this, mind you), you bully them in such a manner that they drop out of political participation (including voting). If less Trump-adjacent voters are voting for...
Basically (and I’m not endorsing this, mind you), you bully them in such a manner that they drop out of political participation (including voting). If less Trump-adjacent voters are voting for Trump, he has less voters and a higher victory hurdle to clear.
The majority of American already say Democrats are unlikeable, elitist and out of touch. Relentlessly bullying people and hoping they decide not to vote sounds like a guaranteed losing strategy.
The majority of American already say Democrats are unlikeable, elitist and out of touch. Relentlessly bullying people and hoping they decide not to vote sounds like a guaranteed losing strategy.
Like I said previously, in such a way. It’s the kind of solution where there’s a 90% chance of blowback. FWIW, I think that not being condescending has a much better chance of succeeding.
Like I said previously, in such a way. It’s the kind of solution where there’s a 90% chance of blowback. FWIW, I think that not being condescending has a much better chance of succeeding.
When you talk down but make people happy, you're a leader. When you talk down but make people sad or mad or anything else, you're "bossy". In my eyes, it's less about the action and more about the...
When you talk down but make people happy, you're a leader. When you talk down but make people sad or mad or anything else, you're "bossy". In my eyes, it's less about the action and more about the reaction.
But Progressive narratives are all about "there is bad stuff in society, and we're contributing to it. we need to change". Which is always a harder message than "there is bad stuff in society, we need to kick it out". Progressing ourselves vs. conserving the status quo. Many people across the aisles want change, but few want to change.
I don't really have any solutions to this. But that's my attempt to explain the behavior. Progressive narratives won't resonate as long as people don't/can't take the time and energy to shift their perspectives. At least not from up top. That narrative helps a lot more on the local level for tangible things you can do. e.g., you can't fix the economy, but you can clean up your local beach. Clear, concise action that helps not just yourself but others around you. It also helps build community. Then it builds up.
But that local sense of community is also devastated among the youth. So many problems.
This has literally been the case for teaching since the beginning of recorded history. If you're stance is "fuck you for not figuring out the obvious", when for the vaaaaaaaast majority of history...
There’s a deep irony in worrying about how not to be condescending while we’re talking about the need to convince people to accept objective, provable reality that they’re currently denying in favour of fantasy.
This has literally been the case for teaching since the beginning of recorded history. If you're stance is "fuck you for not figuring out the obvious", when for the vaaaaaaaast majority of history people weren't even educated, then you get nowhere. It has almost always been acknowledged that if you want to convince people of something "lol you're a fucking idiot" doesn't do that.
I would absolutely love for this to just be a matter of teaching people who haven’t figured things out for themselves - that implies a straightforward absence of knowledge, a space for a...
I would absolutely love for this to just be a matter of teaching people who haven’t figured things out for themselves - that implies a straightforward absence of knowledge, a space for a conclusion that just hasn’t been reached yet.
The problem is year after year after year of explaining and pointing out evidence being rebuffed as “fake news” or “deep state conspiracy” or “actually that wasn’t a Nazi salute”. It’s not teaching that’s needed, it’s deprogramming.
I think it’s actually a pretty serious false equivalence to imply that it’s just a question of people not having figured things out independently, and to compare it to education in general. The stance isn’t “fuck you for not figuring out the obvious” it’s “well of course you got hurt from doing <obvious thing>, we all told you it was dangerous but you just smirked and called us brainwashed”, often with a side of “I do not know how to explain to you that you should care about other people”.
I think framing it as something else is only setting yourself up for failure. People, throughout history, have gained opinions and behaviors through a variety of means. It'd be nice (maybe) if...
It’s not teaching that’s needed, it’s deprogramming.
I think framing it as something else is only setting yourself up for failure. People, throughout history, have gained opinions and behaviors through a variety of means. It'd be nice (maybe) if everyone just followed the scientific method, but it's hard to look at any landscape in time and say that people shouldn't have some level of skepticism either.
When your stance is "we need to deprogram you from what your loved ones taught you" you have already started an uphill battle by somehow implying they require "deprogramming", a word with some horrific connotations. People can learn, and can be willing to. People have been doing "dumb obvious thing" since forever. Hell it's not like one side has a monopoly on people doing that. They just both act like it.
It really feels like we’re talking past each other here. I’m watching large swathes of America make apologies and excuses for a man who embraced Nazi symbolism on stage, at the same time as the...
It really feels like we’re talking past each other here.
I’m watching large swathes of America make apologies and excuses for a man who embraced Nazi symbolism on stage, at the same time as the actual self-professed neo-Nazis weigh in with their support for what he did.
I’m watching people call for the deportation and/or death of a leader in their own claimed religion for saying the following:
In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.
And then going on to explicitly say that some LGBT+ people and immigrants in particular are afraid for their lives.
I watched an attempt at a violent coup four years ago, and I’m watching people cheer as the perpetrators are pardoned this week.
So yes, I invoked the language of dealing with those indoctrinated into cults. Maybe my word choice was wrong, maybe it wasn’t, I honestly don’t know. But I stand by my meaning.
I said it in the context of those things, immediately after calling out the Nazi apologism, and your reply is to frame their behaviour as “what [their] loved ones taught [them]” and then throw in a mention that both sides do dumb things (which, yes, of course - my point isn’t about “dumb” it’s about “wilfully destructive to themselves and others based on a deeply held belief in misinformation”).
I’m not the voice we need. I said that in my first post and I meant it. I’m scared, I’m angry, and I’m tired, none of which are conducive to getting my point across well - or at all, to those who aren’t already at least somewhat aligned.
But I stand by my meaning, and I do not accept that support of a literal fascist platform can be downplayed as a mere teachable moment, on par with any other. I don’t object to you saying education is needed, that’s clearly true. I object to drawing an equivalence between simple ignorance and active defence of hateful lies.
To be fair plenty of liberals don’t care about conservatives. You can say they deserve it. But you have to admit we’re not perfect ourselves. There are a few true “centrists” out there. I see them...
To be fair plenty of liberals don’t care about conservatives. You can say they deserve it. But you have to admit we’re not perfect ourselves.
There are a few true “centrists” out there. I see them as remnants left behind by the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party. They’re worth winning over. They don’t need deprogramming like the MAGAs do. If you can get them and all of the Dems on board you’ll have a strong supermajority.
Oh for sure - I actually mentioned never-Trump Republicans further up as an example of people who just disagree on the path rather than the underlying facts, and in the immediate term it makes...
Oh for sure - I actually mentioned never-Trump Republicans further up as an example of people who just disagree on the path rather than the underlying facts, and in the immediate term it makes sense to reach out to anyone who’s likely to listen.
And yeah, I see plenty of shitty and illogical behaviour from people with progressive politics too; I’m not suggesting we’re some shining beacon here, just that there’s a huge gulf from where we are (and where many traditional conservatives are/were) to the outright reality denial of MAGA.
I’ve taken a heavy tone in my replies here partly because the jumping off point was MAGA-promoting influencers specifically, partly because I’m quite seriously shaken about the mask-off use of Nazi symbolism this week and the amount that’s being downplayed, and partly because even pulling together a supermajority leaves tens of millions of actively pro-fascist true believers and that scares the shit out of me.
I think some of the denials come down to an unwillingness to acknowledge what’s happening. You can literally see for your yourself that Musk’s actions are almost certainly a Nazi salute. Why lean...
I think some of the denials come down to an unwillingness to acknowledge what’s happening. You can literally see for your yourself that Musk’s actions are almost certainly a Nazi salute. Why lean so heavily into remote possibilities that it’s something else? For some there is malicious incentive to deny. For others it could simply be too frightening to acknowledge. Many of those people will be won over soon enough. The people in Charlotte that Trump praised back in 2017 were wearing swastikas and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” It’s only a matter of time before those people stand up again and start getting more explicit direction from the administration.
I read a book called Deep Survival by Gonzalez. It tells the stories of a number of disasters and what the survivors did to survive. One thing that the author mentioned that always stuck with me...
I read a book called Deep Survival by Gonzalez.
It tells the stories of a number of disasters and what the survivors did to survive.
One thing that the author mentioned that always stuck with me is that on every sudden sinking of a large ship with passengers, a significant percentage don't act to increase their chances of survival. Some passengers will climb to the top of the ship to avoid or reduce time in the water. Others freeze or act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening.
This isn't wrong but it's frustrating to hear when conservatives the world over are declaring their aim to "eradicate the woke mind virus" and insisting being gay or trans is a social contagion....
This isn't wrong but it's frustrating to hear when conservatives the world over are declaring their aim to "eradicate the woke mind virus" and insisting being gay or trans is a social contagion. Or all the fantasies about mass arrest of ""Communists"" or conspiracy theories about whatever political party they don't like being child traffickers.
What is that if not insulting to everyone they disagree with, to the point of pathologising it? Yet nobody is tutting about the Right's attitude problem.
Liberals and Progressives are constantly held to a standard that the right is not held to. Even in left leaning or leftist spaces people constant act like conservatives have no agency and aren't...
Liberals and Progressives are constantly held to a standard that the right is not held to. Even in left leaning or leftist spaces people constant act like conservatives have no agency and aren't responsible for their reprehensible rhetoric or their harmful actions. "Why didn't democrats prevent this" is a constant refrain when people like Trump are hurting others. I understand that the left could be more effective, but we've reached a point where no one expects the right to behave like responsible members of society, and only those left of center are held to any kind of standard.
The lesson I'm taking from this is we need to be more aggressive. If there was any meaningful opposition to their bullshit, everyone in the world would be laughing at the clowns that whine "free...
The lesson I'm taking from this is we need to be more aggressive. If there was any meaningful opposition to their bullshit, everyone in the world would be laughing at the clowns that whine "free speech" at criticism while openly calling for suppression of dissent as a "mind virus". We should be advertising that. But nobody wants to play offense.
Agreed. It looked for a second like Walz was trying that with the "weird" comments, but as soon as it started having any impact it just stopped. And that was so mild it barely qualified as...
Agreed. It looked for a second like Walz was trying that with the "weird" comments, but as soon as it started having any impact it just stopped. And that was so mild it barely qualified as aggressive or insulting. Conservatives have no problem throwing around "pedo" or other insults, even though they're almost always complete bullshit, but democratic politicians are too scared to ever do anything remotely similar when it's actually true.
We're constantly giving agency to conservative voters. Basically all of Tildes has been cursing conservative voters for the consequences of their actions lately. If we weren't ascribing agency to...
We're constantly giving agency to conservative voters. Basically all of Tildes has been cursing conservative voters for the consequences of their actions lately. If we weren't ascribing agency to conservatives, we wouldn't be blaming them. What we're not doing to conservatives is saying "this is what they should do next" because Tildes is a predominantly leftist space, so that would reach no ears. And it would also be ineffective given no one who just "won" would think they need to change.
It's not that the left is being held to a higher standard so much as a desire to not wallow in shit and have people hurting while we wait for the Other Side to come around.
Many people claim they want to make things better at any cost, and they often mean to imply violence or personal inconvenience by that. However if the actual way is to just speak reasonably to...
Fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter how sensible and beneficial progressive ideas are if we are incapable of explaining and promoting them in a normal, non-accusatory way.
Many people claim they want to make things better at any cost, and they often mean to imply violence or personal inconvenience by that.
However if the actual way is to just speak reasonably to people who might be against you, you quickly find out who actually believes in making things better and who just wants an excuse to be an asshole.
I can't prove it, but after watching how the internet has developed over the last decade, I believe that the algorithms for most platforms are tweaked to promote right wing reactionary content for...
I can't prove it, but after watching how the internet has developed over the last decade, I believe that the algorithms for most platforms are tweaked to promote right wing reactionary content for similar reasons that Fox news promotes right wing positions. I know engagement is also important and rage bait gets clicks but left wing extremist content is not being promoted in the same way and I believe that is by design.
However, I do think left leaning podcasters could succeed and thrive. John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver are all successful on television. Podcasting is a newer format but I believe it can and should be done.
Yeah I agree that progressives often talk down or have less clear messaging (because the truth is not cut and dry) but I think Trumps second victory is more a consequence of a decade plus of right...
Yeah I agree that progressives often talk down or have less clear messaging (because the truth is not cut and dry) but I think Trumps second victory is more a consequence of a decade plus of right wing media building to a fever pitch without anything close on the left.
Leftist slogans are generally awful and require a lot of sanewashing to make sense. The best examples are "defund the police" or "from the river to the sea" requiring copious amounts of...
Leftist slogans are generally awful and require a lot of sanewashing to make sense. The best examples are "defund the police" or "from the river to the sea" requiring copious amounts of explaining. If you need a compound sentence or two to explain what your slogan actually means, you've already lost the median voter.
Strategy tip, don't adopt slogans used by horrible groups. I don't get how you can "sanewash" a hamas slogan. Fucking pick something else. This one in particular is "no not that swastika" levels...
"from the river to the sea" requiring copious amounts of explaining.
Strategy tip, don't adopt slogans used by horrible groups. I don't get how you can "sanewash" a hamas slogan. Fucking pick something else.
This one in particular is "no not that swastika" levels of stupid in the best cases.
Just... recognize that anything related to the Israel/Palestine conflict on Wikipedia is basically under a continual edit war. And there are a hell of a lot more people out there who are Arab or...
Just... recognize that anything related to the Israel/Palestine conflict on Wikipedia is basically under a continual edit war. And there are a hell of a lot more people out there who are Arab or passionate about Palestinians than there are Jews.
Hamas, as part of its revised 2017 charter, rejected "any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea", referring to all areas of former Mandatory Palestine and by extension, the end of Jewish sovereignty in the region.[3][37][38][39] Palestinian Islamic Jihad declared that "from the river to the sea – [Palestine] is an Arab Islamic land that [it] is legally forbidden from abandoning any inch of, and the Israeli presence in Palestine is a null existence, which is forbidden by law to recognize.[40] Islamists have used a version "Palestine is Islamic from the river to the sea".[41]
That doesn't contradict what I was espousing. The Wikipedia page indicates the long history of the phrase, dating back to the 1960s. It has only much later been co-opted by hamas. Its usage far...
That doesn't contradict what I was espousing. The Wikipedia page indicates the long history of the phrase, dating back to the 1960s. It has only much later been co-opted by hamas. Its usage far exceeds that narrow scope and definition.
For example, I don't believe a plurality amongst the tens of thousands of liberal minded folks marching in the uk - using that very refrain - are advocating for violence against Jews or Israel. Rather they're marching for a peaceful solution.
Its a quagmire I don't see any solution to myself, so I don't hold strong opinions on how to resolve any of it. But I don't think it's accurate to prescribe hamas' interpretation of the phrase's usage as the definitive one, or to condemn people who use it as aligned with hamas when many who use it are evidently not.
This feels to me like a consequence of the discussions spawning these terms taking place entirely within (mostly online) leftist circles. There’s a lot of similarities to how niche online...
This feels to me like a consequence of the discussions spawning these terms taking place entirely within (mostly online) leftist circles. There’s a lot of similarities to how niche online communities inevitably produce a ton of jargon that is at best meaningless or at worst alarming when taken at face value by someone without context.
It’s difficult to avoid though, because your average Joe isn’t likely to find their way into these discussions and probably wouldn’t appreciate being roped in.
Twitter and its consequences on leftist discourse. Historically, the left everywhere has always split over the smallest things, so it could be argued it's a consequence of leftist ideology.
Twitter and its consequences on leftist discourse. Historically, the left everywhere has always split over the smallest things, so it could be argued it's a consequence of leftist ideology.
I can mostly speak from a European perspective, but some of the dynamics are similar with regards to right wing parties. They are generally very inclusive and open to almost anybody that want in....
I can mostly speak from a European perspective, but some of the dynamics are similar with regards to right wing parties. They are generally very inclusive and open to almost anybody that want in. You are not going to get excluded from having the wrong opinion about the war in Gaza for example. The barrier for getting accepted in left progresives circles seems unattainable high for young men that aren't in academic circles.
I think if there is any forward, it is as simple as going back to the roots. Remove the academic elitism, talk like normal people, aim for regular workers and support unions. Historically here in Denmark, and I guess in several other European countries, the center left has always had a strong tie to unions rather than corporations. The Democratic Party still seems to be under heavy influence of corporate interests. The MAGA party is too, but they have a special skill to somehow make it matter less. But they do have that straight talk that people understand, and I think left wing parties used to have the same kind of no non-sense politicians that could inspire regular working class. The academization of politics is pushing people away. It may be technically correct to say that the inflation numbers countrywide look good, but it doesn't make sense for people struggling to pay for food hearing that the numbers in the big Excel-sheets in the ministry of finance is looking great.
This matches with the largest polarization in American politics being along educational lines. I don't think universities are indoctrination factories, but the college educated have many...
This matches with the largest polarization in American politics being along educational lines. I don't think universities are indoctrination factories, but the college educated have many "enlightened" opinions which set them apart from blue collar workers.
This is a whole lot to dive into, but I do think this is the real reason the Left is split on stuff. The left subtly split off from that mid-left union supporting faction for 30 years into into...
The Democratic Party still seems to be under heavy influence of corporate interests.
This is a whole lot to dive into, but I do think this is the real reason the Left is split on stuff. The left subtly split off from that mid-left union supporting faction for 30 years into into this form of neoliberalism. Which despite "liberalism" reflects some core points of the Right (I'll emphasize "elite right" here) that simply doesnt resonate with the Left. Privatization, deregulation, price controls removal, etc. It keeps a lot of the social stances while not really doing anything to stop a lot of the big economic problems. We do need a strong government willing to control the marketplace and crush monopolies and provide safety nets. Neoliberalism disagrees.
I don't think the strategy is to dumb down the message. We need to properly realign and actually listen to what the people want, not the DNC donors. Sanders has done this his whole life and as a surprise he resonated even with some Republicans who don't actually like either D nor R's economic policies (and we've had official confirmation for a while that the DNC wanted to hard wall him out as a candidate. He may be D, but the wrong kind of D to donors). Walz seems to follow in Sander's footsteps, but who knows if he'd even have a chance in 2028 with current DNC administration.
While we're not forgetting that the DNC had it out for Bernie, let's also not forget that Michael Bloomberg repeatedly put it out there that he was seriously considering running as what would...
and we've had official confirmation for a while that the DNC wanted to hard wall him out as a candidate
So he was basically threatening Democratic Party voters with a lost election to sway voters in the primary against Bernie with his threat of running as an independent.
There are a lot of good answers to this already in the thread so I'll try to focus on some that I didn't see mentioned. I know the context of your question is podcasts and algorithms but I think...
Exemplary
How do we begin changing this?
There are a lot of good answers to this already in the thread so I'll try to focus on some that I didn't see mentioned. I know the context of your question is podcasts and algorithms but I think the answers are larger scale.
Compassion and empathy
We don't just need to be less condescending, we need to allow for the possibility that the concerns of less wealthy, less educated and less progressive people are legitimate. We need to understand what the world looks and feels like to them. Not just understand, but then incorporate that understanding into our messaging.
Putting aside that the science behind the Dunning-Kruger effect has some issues, the left suffers from the the colloquial reverse Dunning-Kruger issue of not grasping that a lot of our messaging isn't as self evident as we think it is from our position of fluency.
The truth is the left is its own kind of toxic. For example, one of the left's rising heroes, AOC, was famous for dunking on small minded people in the pre Musk twitter era. The things she said were mostly right, but the tone was childish. It assumed absolute right and wrong. Good guys and bad guys. She wasn't the problem, she was just one of many serving the demand for self righteousness. The demand is the problem.
It's hard because the natural response to this is that there should be some lines we don't cross as a society. There should be no tolerance for bigotry of any kind in the modern world. Nazis should be treated with no respect. I agree. But what happens when potentially well meaning people say things we know to be dog whistles for abhorrent viewpoints that they don't necessarily share or even care about? What about otherwise well meaning people that are misled or confused? Currently what we do is try to shout them down. We don't reflect, we don't check our own childish impulses, we just shout.
We need to grow up and accept that strategy isn't working.
Cancel culture is another example, but I won't waste words on it since it's been talked about a lot.
Stop being utopian idealists
Much of the left wants to fast forward to a world that very clearly doesn't exist yet. We want the human race to be better than it is. That whole bit about understanding history seems to be lost on the left. Change happens slowly. We've made a lot of progress but we're not at some magical tipping point where we can brute force change the rest of the way.
We need to wake up from the delusion that a world where there is true equity for everyone is right around the corner. We have a long way to go.
Stop believing in the democratic party
They are very nearly as bought at paid for by the 1% as the republicans. Being "not Trump" isn't good enough. The left bought the establisment lie that Bernie Sanders couldn't win because they didn't understand that the source of that sentiment was not practicality, it was that money didn't want a Sanders administration.
The next time around we need to support the politician that genuinely cares about the masses no matter what the propaganda says.
Jettison identity politics
It's not wrong, it's just crap messaging. We should keep fighting for the rights of marginalized people of all kinds. However, right now the biggest problem facing modern western civilization is the corrupting influence of capital. We need to go all in on that. We can fight for minority rights at the same time but the primary message should be anti-corporation (so to speak) pro everyone else. That's something pretty much everyone can get behind.
Keep it simple
That's what the right does better: Clear messaging. It means you have to stop trying to account for everyone by adding new letters to acronyms. Not because it isn't right to do that, but because it doesn't work for a mass audience. The left needs to learn to talk to humanity as it is, not as we want it to be.
It's cynical, but at some point we're going to need to accept it. The majority of people aren't going to make the effort to unpack the nuance, they have more important concerns. Our messaging needs to understand that. Focus on simple things people care about.
Bonus: stop and think about the pithy phrase before we amplify and spread it. If a lot of people are responding to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter then the answer is not to try to explain to them why they're stupid and wrong. It doesn't matter that they may in fact be stupid and wrong. What matters is that we're stupider for not understanding that feedback is telling us the messaging isn't working. The left is tone deaf to everyone but the choir.
Right and wrong isn't good enough. It should be, but we're living through evidence that it isn't. The question is whether we can swallow that bitter pill and learn from it.
I strongly disagree with this, at least in spirit. The Democratic party is essentially the only path forward in terms of advancing left-of-center politics at the national level. Perhaps there...
Stop believing in the democratic party
I strongly disagree with this, at least in spirit. The Democratic party is essentially the only path forward in terms of advancing left-of-center politics at the national level. Perhaps there needs to be a "hostile takeover" of sorts (similar to what has happened to the Republican party over the last decade), but the institution itself is indispensable.
Bernie Sanders ran as a democrat. The problem was that people believed the established democrats about his electability. We should definitely support good politicians that happen to be democrats,...
Bernie Sanders ran as a democrat. The problem was that people believed the established democrats about his electability. We should definitely support good politicians that happen to be democrats, but that doesn't mean we need to keep trying to believe the democratic party is something it isn't.
That the democratic party is somewhat less morally bankrupt isn't a reason to keep ignoring its flaws and getting in line behind what its ancient, corrupt, leaders say is the way forward. It's not working.
stopgap step: instead of being forced into 2 parties, campaign hard for states to adopt ranked choice voting. Maine has this, and various other states have it for smaller elections. THEN we can...
stopgap step: instead of being forced into 2 parties, campaign hard for states to adopt ranked choice voting. Maine has this, and various other states have it for smaller elections.
THEN we can stop believing in the DNC democratic party. Someome like Sanders running independtly has a much higher chance of winning if he's everyone's 2nd choice, instead of simply splitting the vote.
Ranked choice should have been an easy win in my blue state, but sadly it did not pass. there are groups out there spending a lot of money to stop this from happening, and some red state...
Ranked choice should have been an easy win in my blue state, but sadly it did not pass. there are groups out there spending a lot of money to stop this from happening, and some red state legislatures are preemptively banning it. I truly believe that this is the one of our best options to improve our democracy, but we’ve got a big uphill battle now that the donor class has caught on to how RCV can erode their grip on power.
Yeah, inevitably the one bipartisan issue among the elites is not giving up their power. it'll be a slow stopgap for sure. I don't know if we just need a mass movement to make them listen (for the...
Yeah, inevitably the one bipartisan issue among the elites is not giving up their power. it'll be a slow stopgap for sure. I don't know if we just need a mass movement to make them listen (for the sake of their seat) or if we simply way for rich benevolent doaners to come as more Millenial/Gen Z people tired of this grow older.
After experiencing ranked choice voting for the first time this year, I'm kind of "blackpilled" on it. Not that I think it's bad, but that it will be very difficult for the average voter to...
After experiencing ranked choice voting for the first time this year, I'm kind of "blackpilled" on it. Not that I think it's bad, but that it will be very difficult for the average voter to understand how to vote by filling in an M-by-N permutation matrix.
I personally don't think this is particularly hard to read. But if it's that bad, we can simply break it down into multiple questions: you can specify the point breakdown elsewhere, but many...
I personally don't think this is particularly hard to read. But if it's that bad, we can simply break it down into multiple questions:
Who is your FIRST choice for State Govenor
Who is your SECOND choice for State Govenor
etc.
you can specify the point breakdown elsewhere, but many people don't even really have to know that (does the average voter really understand the electoral college?). And like the rest of the ballot they can leave choices blank.
I'm of the opinion that if you limit your system by what you think the least capable people will be able to understand or by assuming the average person can't learn, then that's accepting a state...
but that it will be very difficult for the average voter to understand how to vote by filling in an M-by-N permutation matrix.
I'm of the opinion that if you limit your system by what you think the least capable people will be able to understand or by assuming the average person can't learn, then that's accepting a state of failure.
I don't think ranked choice vote is the best, I think the math complications behind how winners are determined will legitimize election conspiracies. Even having said that I'd still support it over what we have now, because clearly even in the dumbest worst system possible, even with no election fraud, people can still claim it exists and some believe it, so that among other things I don't consider to be dealbreakers of RCV.
I think score voting would be superior. And score voting has potential for misunderstandings of average voters, especially because of how review/rating systems work for common services/goods, but the short of it is, no score = no approval of candidate, low score = low approval of candidate, high score = high approval of candidate. All systems have some element of gaming that can come into play, but this one isn't that bad, especially when you realize it doesn't work like typical rating systems. Since a rating of 1 out of 5 or 10 is not disapproval, there's less incentive to provide extreme scores. You don't give Donald Trump a 1 to lower his rating and Kamala 10 on a 10 point scale. You just don't vote for Donald Trump and you give Kamala whatever you want. Now the gamification of course is that if you give Kamala a 5 and your 'political spectrum counterpart' is a Trump voter that gives Trump a 10, then you might be incentivized to just give a 10. Even in this scenario, it's not really that bad, the current system is basically equivalent to only being able to give 10s or not voting, and what's more you can only do this for one person. With score voting you can give scores to multiple candidates. If it's 2016, you can give Bernie a 10 and Hillary 7 or whatever. But in the current system Bernie can't run unless he wins the primary because he just ends up spoiling the election.
Yeah, will people misunderstand and give Trump a 1 thinking it's disapproval because that's how people disapprove of the last shitty movie they watched or the last piece of plastic garbage they bought online? Sure that is possible if the interface presented to the voter is poor and/or people aren't properly informed/educated on it. You can present people with an option to score only AFTER you ask if they would approve of this person at all, and then after they select that they would, then they can score, just an example of how to potentially change the interface to mitigate such complications.
I also think our representative system behind the voting system needs a significant overhaul, but clearly all of these things run into possibly constitutional brick walls depending on how far you go or what you do. I don't really understand the point of a representative system as we currently have it, where the representative doesn't really represent anyone. I'm not talking about corruption either, just at the base level, they represent hundreds of thousands of people and their general ideological viewpoint is reduced to two things. They're either Democrat or Republican, and they have the ideological baggage that comes with that. There's no easy way to redefine their viewpoints aside from their personal name recognition. So voters and the general public, especially those within the same 'camp' so to speak, end up having to shout constantly to their representative so that their representative can represent them, because their representative is representing too many different people, and whoever shouts the loudest wins. Ignoring the money = speech corruption part of this, this cannot be that good for the psyche of individuals that feel they're constantly competing against each other daily to get their representative to represent them because their representative is probably nothing like them and doesn't naturally share their views on specific details.
A better representative system to me starts with being able to elect people who are more innately aligned with our perspectives, so we don't have to shout the loudest to have them hear what we want. Part of this is the voting system, supporting the ability to vote for more than 1 of 2 parties, but the other part is that it should just be more proportional representation. If 5% of people are all about the environment and think the Green party is what best represents their interests, then even with a different voting system they may end up with no representation if other aspects of the system aren't tweaked. So these people may go back to feeling disenfranchised and not represented by their government, or they have to go shouting in the other party platforms to get their interests heard. If instead they get proportional representation, well the representative is elected to do a job, it's their job to do the shouting. Why are we electing people to do the work of representing us, and then because the system is so flattened they have no idea who they are representing or they're representing too diverse a group, all the people that just voted for someone to do a job of representing them have to do even more work to battle over what that representative ends up representing.
The hostile takeover of the Republican party came from outside the party apparatus. If the same were to happen to the Democratic party, I expect that it would also be due to an outsider, or...
The hostile takeover of the Republican party came from outside the party apparatus. If the same were to happen to the Democratic party, I expect that it would also be due to an outsider, or (better scenario) a group of outsiders. Insiders simply have too much to lose.
I don't think the requisite structural factors are there, though.
Are you sure you're going to like how that turns out? I'm pretty burned out on American national parties being turned into a cult of personality apparatus for one charismatic face who can solve...
Are you sure you're going to like how that turns out? I'm pretty burned out on American national parties being turned into a cult of personality apparatus for one charismatic face who can solve all the problems myself, and depending on whether the Blue Dogs come back or the Progressives try progressiving even harder than they ever have before, whoever comes out of this may not be the perfect champion that you always wanted.
Colbert had a bit about 'truthiness' (something that feels true but isn't). I think that combined with alienation from Democrats is what hooks people. eg. One party tells you nothing could have...
Colbert had a bit about 'truthiness' (something that feels true but isn't). I think that combined with alienation from Democrats is what hooks people.
eg. One party tells you nothing could have been done better, the numbers are up, we're heading in the right direction. But things aren't going as well for you as you were brought up to expect that they would at this point in your life. Then another party comes along and tells you that other countries are taking advantage of you and we just need to tariff and tax them to make things fair.
For someone in who fits that scenario, one of those parties sounds a lot more sane than the other, even if they're factually full of it and involved in all kinds of other shennanigans
of course it is. Conservative messaging is all about "this isn't your fault, blame [insert marginalized group here]. Let us fix your problems" while proceeding to never fix their problems once...
Conservative messaging is strong, regardless of veracity in what they're saying. It resonates with people who feel neglected by society.
of course it is. Conservative messaging is all about "this isn't your fault, blame [insert marginalized group here]. Let us fix your problems" while proceeding to never fix their problems once they get in. That will always be a strong message as long as Americans cannot accept some blame on themselves, or at the very least don't introspect a bit into why [marginalized group] would be a factor in such blame for your situation. I can insert the Lyndon B Johnson quote here all day.
and of course, when you're selling a grift, your audience doesn't matter as much.
Progressives seem to be ignoring or outright insulting those on the other side, alienating them. They come across as haughty elites.
At this point of polarization, we're running into the paradox of tolerance. How do you tolerate someone who defies your whole progressive message? Especially when many don't want a nuanced discussion and long term solution. They want something here and now. You can't reason with those who don't want to be reasoned with. So by the 2020's it has indeed changed from "trying to win them over" to "trying to disassosiate completely".
Which is fine, since they are not close to the majority. But that reveals the core issue that Progressives SUCK at messaging to the undecided. And the reasons for that modern neoliberalism is a topic that is worth its own topic (jumping point: research a bit into how the DNC completely blocked out Sanders in 2016 and 2020).
Men especially are susceptible to all this, due to a perceived loss of status, value, worth, etc. Young men specifically are most inclined to lean right, as they receive the least support from society at large, and so are easily manipulated into believing the right will support them - because they do.
only if you're rich.
But yes. There's fundamental social threads being exploited here among the traditional genders. Their buying power is down because we shifted to a 2 income household. There's no "breadwinner" anymore. Blue collar work (which appeals to traditionally masculine actions) is disrespected and undervalued (this is where they grain of truth for "the Mexicans are taking our jobs" comes from. obscuring the fact that they are paid less than any American citizen can legally be paid). Schools have shifted in a way to also lean less into such male societal leanings so they get discouraged in their "2nd place" unless they are some athlete star. Which leads to less male enrollment in college as the system has fought against them to be fostered for that. And the loss of third places, especially free ones, to gather and foster a physical social network (physical being a much more important aspect to the male experience compared to women more easily gathering on social media).
And there's all kinds of micro-issues that also makes the experience worse. So I get it; hearing ANY compliment or encouragement, even one that's just a fake promise, is an oasis in an arid desert.
I don't particularly have a polite solution for men, unfortunately (except perhaps in schools). There's a lot of smaller steps we need to fight towards to get the foundations and only then could we ask the bigger questions like "how can I make a decent income to support a family". These are issues that affect men more psychologically, but are ultimately issues everyone suffers from. But that sort of messaging is exactly what some of these men revulse at.
I think that’s part of the issue. The messaging largely hasn’t been “everybody is suffering”, but rather “these groups are suffering the most”. Progressives understand that the goal is to solve...
These are issues that affect men more psychologically, but are ultimately issues everyone suffers from. But that sort of messaging is exactly what some of these men revulse at.
I think that’s part of the issue. The messaging largely hasn’t been “everybody is suffering”, but rather “these groups are suffering the most”. Progressives understand that the goal is to solve these issues for all, but the men in question are incorrectly taking it to mean “we’re interested in making things better for these groups, but not you”.
This gap in communication then gets exploited by conservative personalities who know they won’t be strongly countered by the opposition, validating these men’s misconceptions and making the problem that much worse.
I'm not entirely certain they do. As an example, reparations for slavery are extraordinarily contentious yet still got serious discussion in some progressive circles. You can also see California...
Progressives understand that the goal is to solve these issues for all
I'm not entirely certain they do. As an example, reparations for slavery are extraordinarily contentious yet still got serious discussion in some progressive circles. You can also see California creating "Ebony Alerts" and "Feather Alerts" for Black residents and Native Americans. I agree with many old-school leftists that criticize progressives for focusing too much on labels instead of economic class.
I think I may have misused the term “progressives”. The intention was to refer to “everybody left of right”. Apologies, I’m still learning how to participate in political discussion without...
I think I may have misused the term “progressives”. The intention was to refer to “everybody left of right”. Apologies, I’m still learning how to participate in political discussion without looking like an idiot.
I do agree that the particular strain of leftist being talked about has problems with obsessing over labels to the point of impeding meaningful progress. Saw a lot of that back when I lived in the SF Bay Area.
Progressive is a fuzzy label, so the confusion is understandable. I could call myself an abundance progressive because I strongly believe that the best way to solve many modern issues is making...
Progressive is a fuzzy label, so the confusion is understandable. I could call myself an abundance progressive because I strongly believe that the best way to solve many modern issues is making sure there's more than enough water, energy, and housing for everyone that needs it. Plenty of progressives would disagree with me while I'd criticize them for being everything bagel libs with no realpolitik skills. Politics isn't easy.
Do you have sources for this? I don't disbelieve you in aggregate, but I don't think there's that much of a gender difference. Perhaps there's some age-dependency involved. At least from my...
physical being a much more important aspect to the male experience compared to women more easily gathering on social media
Do you have sources for this? I don't disbelieve you in aggregate, but I don't think there's that much of a gender difference. Perhaps there's some age-dependency involved.
At least from my limited observations, men's social groups are male social groups, both on and offline. For the women in my life, there's a sharp divergence in the toxicity between their online and IRL peers (which direction is less toxic depends on the specific woman).
It's nothing as specific as "physical touch is more important to males", but it's a congregate of two factor Long researched tendencies of preferences and learning approaches among the 2 primary...
Do you have sources for this?
It's nothing as specific as "physical touch is more important to males", but it's a congregate of two factor
I suppose a better wording of that phrase is that "for societal reasons, males miss out a lot more on physical experiences, especially among other males"
At least from my limited observations, men's social groups are male social groups, both on and offline.
There is one key difference to note here: male social groups tend to more often or not be held together by "things" rather than the people themselves. So even in physical activities, there can tend to be slightly shallower experiences compared to female groups. There are less times where say, a sports group will lead up to a house gathering to just talk.
I'm not really going to say it's a bad thing, just a different thing to note. Groups can scatter easily among men when "thing" disappears.
Your comment had me reflecting on my own experience growing up. I relate to both the group identity and the physical touch aspect a lot. Below is a bit long winded reflect on my own personal...
Your comment had me reflecting on my own experience growing up. I relate to both the group identity and the physical touch aspect a lot. Below is a bit long winded reflect on my own personal experience with both of those aspects. It felt like reading your comment really nailed my own experiences growing up and my current experience of being more socially isolated in person where I'm lacking a group to belong to but get my share of my physical touch having two young boys.
While I had friends growing up on my classes the ones I tended to be closest with were the ones I would also would play basketball on the youth league. I never liked basketball but my parents thought a sport would be good and since I had friends play it each year it became a self perpetuating cycle of playing until I got into high school.
I joined the football team and that combined both the something to belong to that I shared with my teammates and the physical touch aspect. I felt like I had a great group of guys I got to spend time with throughout high school. Even though for most of them I shared little in common outside of the team I still would spend 20-25+ hours a week with them during the season and 5-10 hours a week in the off season. Working out and with the associated physicality of spotting each in weights, running drills, etc.
My fraternity was my next step in college of having something bigger than myself to be a part of and share with a group of guys, and it was an amazing experience for myself and had a lot of the same elements of my football team. A mostly seniority based hierarchy, workouts with guys who were interested, regularly scheduled events, a sense of belonging to an organization with our own chapter being nearly 100 years old when I joined and all of its associated history.
You mentioning groups scattering is dead on in my experience. I still have a core group of high school friends after all these years but my football friends all drifted a apart in the months following our final season and then even faster once graduation happened. Similarly my fraternity brothers would start drifting apart after graduation. It was common for the oldest brothers to be fairly checked out at the end of the time as an active member (myself included) as they were either burned out or focused on starting their post college life.
My fraternity didnt historical and doesn't currently have a strong alumni program with events and things to keep us in regular contact and I've been having to make an effort over the years to reach out to brothers to keep in contact with them since it's become so easy for us to not talk for years without having the chapter or other things to keep us in contact. I was shortlisted to become our chapter's alumni board president if I had ended up living in the major city near my chapter and revitalizing how we handle our alumni experience was one of my main goals.
I recently joined BlueSky, and Mark Cuban has been engaging with the community to try and figure out how to improve our democracy. One post he made was a link to a Andrew Schultz's podcast, saying...
How do we begin changing this?
I recently joined BlueSky, and Mark Cuban has been engaging with the community to try and figure out how to improve our democracy.
The comments, besides the vast majority missing the point, are full of insults on intelligence and throwing around incel as a slur. Plenty of people saying they couldn't make it through 5 minutes of the podcast because it's trash or the hosts are morons, and insulting the intelligence of people who watch the podcast.
Progressives come off as haughty elites because they often throw insults at disaffected (often white) (often cis) men. And the problem is that no-one, or few call out the disgusting behavior. If you don't denounce it, you're complicit. Call it out for what it is: bullying.
How is that different from Conservatives? How and why should I respect someone who in less than 30 seconds throws out "liberal cuck conspiracy theorist"? then 4 minutes in saying "I don't think...
Progressives come off as haughty elites because they often throw insults at disaffected (often white) (often cis) men. And the problem is that no-one, or few call out the disgusting behavior.
How is that different from Conservatives? How and why should I respect someone who in less than 30 seconds throws out "liberal cuck conspiracy theorist"? then 4 minutes in saying "I don't think any rational individual think Musk is a nazi" (emphasizing it shortly afterwards)? Throwing insults is worthless, but I simply see it as inevitably that shit slinging will result and shit slinging back on the internet. No matter the platform as long as no one's moderating it.
But sure, to get to "the point": this Schultz is clearly a modern conservative Colbert: be a wisecrack with a joke in every other sentence, talk casually, be blunt, be casual (the back and forth with hosts feels like an everyday talk with your friends), downplay your audience's politics flaws (a few minutes in, "I don't think anyone really cares about trans people... republicans just have to point and say 'that's some goofy shit'") while finding the wildest "other audience" stories to report. be charismatic. With all the classic tiktok-style edits to keep attention.
Can this match if we do it Dems style? I'm not too certain. The core difference from Colbert is that he took some time to break down his stories and supported some of his assertion with other stories. That's how you not only appeal to your audience, but even to people who normally aren't your audience.
This simply feels like a polarizer: This is made to appeal to opinions people already have, and doesn't care about (or even welcomes) attracting hate from the non-audience. It's not converting people who weren't already holding these beliefs deep down.
Yes, both parties fling insults. I’m critiquing the left with a direct suggestion because I want it to improve. If we as a party or political leaning don’t introspect, how will we improve and...
Yes, both parties fling insults. I’m critiquing the left with a direct suggestion because I want it to improve. If we as a party or political leaning don’t introspect, how will we improve and change?
The right flings insults about masculinity (cuck) because the left has rejected many forms of masculinity. Yes, there is a lot of toxic masculinity on the right but what I’m talking about is a general traditional masculinity that the left has rejected. I think there is space there for a healthy masculinity, and I think something the left tried to embrace with Waltz, but it didn’t come across as genuine.
The left flings insults about intelligence intertwined with morality, especially towards men. If you don’t agree with us the only possible explanation is you’re a moron, or immoral, or that you’re immoral because you’re a moron. (Over 50% of Americans read below a 6th grade level. That means they have low literacy. It doesn’t mean they’re dumb, and it doesn’t mean they have less worth.) Or an incel (or virgin, which is straight up misandry, which never gets acknowledged, because “it dismisses men’s innate privilege.”)
This attitude is so endemic to our culture and has been around for at least 50 years. Think of the redneck and dumb southerner stereotypes.
Yes, Andrew Schultz leans right (the amount is arguable and I’ll probably be flamed for saying “leans”), but what came first? The chicken or the egg? Are men leaving the left because of how they’ve treated men, or does the left fling these insults because men have left the party. Does it matter which came first?
If the left actually catered to some men’s issues (yes they are real), instead of tamping them down when they get brought up because they might distract from women’s or other minority’s issues, maybe we would see fewer podcasts hosted by men (that other men consume) that push them towards the right.
The reason I suggested the dems focus on one broad policy that benefits the working class is because it includes both men and minorities that need help the most
It's hard to say. I did introspect, my conclusion and main worry is whether we do things "the wrong way", all for the sake of gathering votes. I'm not sure if it's the ethical approach. Yes, that...
If we as a party or political leaning don’t introspect, how will we improve and change?
It's hard to say. I did introspect, my conclusion and main worry is whether we do things "the wrong way", all for the sake of gathering votes. I'm not sure if it's the ethical approach.
If you don’t agree with us the only possible explanation is you’re a moron, or immoral, or that you’re immoral because you’re a moron.
Yes, that sounds like what shitslinging arguments would break down to. And that's what I avoid on the internet (hence why I'm here trying to introspect and sympathize, and not on Twitter/Bluesky). I've tried fighting that for a decade. It's a futile battle and no one is winning except the elite class from that. I will leave that issue for others to solve.
Left or right, we do need to break down the issues into subtleties. In this instance, It's not that you're a moron for disagreeing with anyone. But if you spread hate, then yes: you are immoral (almost by definition) and are not worth acknowledging. "Your body my choice", all the transphobia, and the rise of racism is indeed spreading hate. you should definitely understand this by 6th grade, so education level is irrelevant unless the instigators are literally 10.
If people cannot understand that, that is beyond my scope as someone without a psychology-esque degree. For those people I will simply avoid them. They will not change their opinion from a comment on the internet.
This attitude is so endemic to our culture and has been around for at least 50 years. Think of the redneck and dumb southerner stereotypes.
try millenia. It's much more basic and comes down to people in-grouping and fighting different groups. It's never going to truly stop. It's just a shame I realized after wasting much too much time on discourse before realizing many people (left and right) don't really want to try and solve these problems.
Are men leaving the left because of how they’ve treated men, or does the left fling these insults because men have left the party. Does it matter which came first?
If I'm being real, I think the whole thing is a smoke screen. Men are just leaving politics. People see the stats and think "men moved left". But there's 3 way to increase a stat:
get more people on your side,
lose more people on your side,
both (men leave to the other side).
we seem to automatically be concluding 3), even though voter turnout was lower than 2020 and still 60-something percent of the voting population. No one looks at how more men just didn't vote this time.
IMO I feel focusing on 3) is pointless and we simply need to look at 1). So the question isn't "men going right". It's "Men not voting". As I said, Shultz is a polarizer: he's not turning men to his viewpoints, he's appealing to and energizing men who already had those thoughts deep down.
So yes, we should actually follow that mentality instead of pretending we can change minds. How do we energize the unenergized left? I think that issue lies deep in the DNC and we need to resolve that before we focus on a personality to support us. There's going to be zero energy if another Bernie-esque candidate gets screwed over for another Hilary candidate who's as pro-establishment as Trump is anyway.
This to me, although is not the shitslinging that you've mentioned, has the same energy of calling anyone who disagrees on any of these topics as dumb. And I think the big obfuscator is that I...
Left or right, we do need to break down the issues into subtleties. In this instance, It's not that you're a moron for disagreeing with anyone. But if you spread hate, then yes: you are immoral (almost by definition) and are not worth acknowledging. "Your body my choice", all the transphobia, and the rise of racism is indeed spreading hate. you should definitely understand this by 6th grade, so education level is irrelevant unless the instigators are literally 10.
This to me, although is not the shitslinging that you've mentioned, has the same energy of calling anyone who disagrees on any of these topics as dumb. And I think the big obfuscator is that I think a lot of these people don't necessarily have corrupt morals, but are deeply misunderstood. There are of course, some people who are morally bankrupt. But to put forward my shitty analogy of the day, it's as if a lot of people have a compass that is properly calibrated to point north, but are being misled by a magnet of disinformation. And avoiding misinformation or information that is designed to feed your emotions for engagement is incredibly difficult. I'd be lying if I haven't fallen for ragebait disinformation recently.
And while the specific things you mentioned are clearcut morally, I don't think most people give credit to how nuanced related topics can be.
And that's what I avoid on the internet (hence why I'm here trying to introspect and sympathize, and not on Twitter/Bluesky)
I sympathize with this so much, and waver between just avoiding those parts of the internet altogether, or trying to detoxify them but it feels like a drop in the ocean. I think there's so much to gain from amplifying and manufacturing toxic voices so that people shout past each other to distract from the real issues, and it feels impossible to fight.
try millenia. It's much more basic and comes down to people in-grouping and fighting different groups.
I agree, that a lot of problems come down to our human psychology and tribal tendencies. If that's something that we can't change, should we just shrug our shoulders at instances of it and say we can't do anything about it?
So the question isn't "men going right". It's "Men not voting". As I said, Shultz is a polarizer: he's not turning men to his viewpoints, he's appealing to and energizing men who already had those thoughts deep down.
And that's why I (and I believe Cuban) brought up this podcast. It gives apolitical (mostly) men some info on politics. I'm not here to argue the slant of those politics because I'm not arguing that Schultz's podcast in particular is important.
And for the term "polarizer," it assumes that there's a center point that can be identified and anyone who falls to either side of that falls deeper into whatever side of the centerpoint they are. But what determines that centerpoint? Does that centerpoint even exist? Why haven't we seen so many of these apolitical podcasts that polarize men to the left? Some of it can be explained by things like amplification and funding by Russia, but I don't think that's the only reason. Why haven't we seen these pop up for the left? What's stopping the left from financially supporting these types of podcasts that push people left?
There's going to be zero energy if another Bernie-esque candidate gets screwed over
I think this solidifies that we're on the same page, even if we disagree how to get there. Which brings me back to your first statement.
It's hard to say. I did introspect, my conclusion and main worry is whether we do things "the wrong way", all for the sake of gathering votes. I'm not sure if it's the ethical approach.
And it's hard to say how to approach things ethically. I think what should be the main issue (class) is hard to focus on when minority rights are facing active attacks of legislation.
I would argue that the "most wrong way" to do things is in a way that never gets us to our goal.
Ultimately I think too many people are struggling, which makes it hard for them to focus on minorities' rights if they're not personally affected. If you're struggling and you're able to maintain that focus, that's amazing and fantastic! But I don't think we can condemn those that don't have that capability. By prioritizing class first we can give those people the breathing room they need to put their attention on those topics, so we can give minorities the protections that they need and deserve.
perhaps, but note that I never brought educational levels into the conversation. If that's going to be a rationale, I'll work with that lens and still suggest why it's a poor argument. I like to...
This to me, although is not the shitslinging that you've mentioned, has the same energy of calling anyone who disagrees on any of these topics as dumb
perhaps, but note that I never brought educational levels into the conversation. If that's going to be a rationale, I'll work with that lens and still suggest why it's a poor argument. I like to think I am civil, but there's only so many ways I can disagree with someone politely before I conclude that the act of disagreeing makes some individuals feel dumb. That's a problem in and of itself but I digress. I can forgive a lot of things, but not hate. Paradox of tolerance.
I think the big obfuscator is that I think a lot of these people don't necessarily have corrupt morals, but are deeply misunderstood.
I do (perhaps naively) still think most people are "good" as a character. But I can only have so much influence on a person through a screen, with text, and a pseudonym. And they have to be willing to hear other perspectives to begin with. I don't have the tools to understand them ( and if we're talking twitter standards, they aren't trying to be understood that deeply anyway Once againm any nuance on those mainstream platforms are drowned by the extremes being liked and pushed up).
But I can point at resources that can. But that's all I can do: point. They would need to take the time to follow, find help, and listen to that help. Outside of that I am literally incapable of helping or understanding every individual lashing out on the internet. For my own mental health I simply have to dismiss people after a few low quality replies. I can't save the world that way.
should we just shrug our shoulders at instances of it and say we can't do anything about it?
People who can do something about it either don't to make more money (platform owners) or are currently fighting in real time in politics about it. There's not much I can do on those ends with billions thrown around. I lack the expertise nor money to make an impact. I learned long ago that trying to change minds with words is of little effect on such platforms.
Things are being done, but slowly. I simply took my ball and went to a less tribalist forum.
it assumes that there's a center point that can be identified and anyone who falls to either side of that falls deeper into whatever side of the centerpoint they are. But what determines that centerpoint?
political spectrum is a bit useless to define (again, people been trying for decades). Since the goal is address apolitical, I see it more as polarizing them to think or talk more about the politics around them. So "I don' care about any poliics" is he counterpoint in this circular specrum of beliefs and ideaologies. So how you polarize and what resonates with you will ultimately come down to your base beliefs, as well as fears, insecurities, and aspirations.
And that's what makes me a bit worried about a left podcast trying to polarize. polarizing means resonating with many ideas that have to do with the collective. That's simply harder to self-reflect on than being told "this sucks. it's not your fault. blame [other group]". your point of
Ultimately I think too many people are struggling, which makes it hard for them to focus on minorities' rights if they're not personally affected
is sadly true in the current environment. But I'm also not confident repackaging into a universal message would be much more effective. at lest if we're focusing on "polarization" instead of educating. educating means being willing to learn and also better yourself, even if your're struggling. Polarizing simply needs to comfort you and shift that blame away; any personal solution is fluff, if not outright non-existant .
I would argue that the "most wrong way" to do things is in a way that never gets us to our goal.
I'd argue that outright lying and deceiving is the "most wrong way". That's not how you foster a commmunity trustful of its leaders. I've seen enough republicans outright say they don't trust Trump that much to begin with but that he's simply less shitty than Harris in their eyes. So neither party really has a lot of good rapport with the working class.
If you're struggling and you're able to maintain that focus, that's amazing and fantastic! But I don't think we can condemn those that don't have that capability.
Well I'm both. I'll spare my personal story, but a small part of the struggle all my life was indeed from being put down by those very people. Some who always struggled but wanted to feel powerful. Some who fell into struggling after abusing any power they had previously. So if you sense any ire in my responses, you know where it's coming from.
But I learned over time to channel most of that anger to the top, the people that put all of us here to begin with. The other bullies were annoying but didn't lay me off the first chance they got to make their quartery earnings feel better. Those people didn't double rent in 5 years. Once the very basics are addressed I can return to micro-socioevonomic issues again.
so I agree. But if we're polarizing it needs to be towards the right people. And be truthful (which is pretty easy. No one's hiding anything anymore). Regardless of polical leaning I hope we agree that Schultz angle is very much not trying to direct all the chaos in the world towards the rich.
To be clear I don't think outright lying and deceiving is the way either. I think our wires got a bit crossed there. But thanks for the thoughtful conversation. We could probably go back and forth...
To be clear I don't think outright lying and deceiving is the way either. I think our wires got a bit crossed there.
But thanks for the thoughtful conversation. We could probably go back and forth forever, but after the past few days, this small back and forth has given me some hope for the world, so keep on doing you!
This just continues to raise the same points I see over and over and over and over:
I don't really know what to do with all this information. I don't really know what progressive podcasts have the same reach and standing as the ones covered here. Long ago I used to listen to The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, which seems to fit the bill, but clearly it doesn't have the audience. I believe that it falls into the same trap of being "too elite" for the average viewer.
How do we begin changing this? Is it possible to create a progressive podcast which has the same impact? With policy and algorithms preferring rage bait and othering, how do we game the system when the message is inclusivity, equity, and diversity?
I'm terrified for my children.
Despite its numerous flaws, I think the Harris campaign was onto something with how it positioned Walz early on. He himself isn’t without issue, but he represented the sort of self-built hard-working Everyman that Americans seem to resonate with and was able to project progressive causes through a “common sense” and “these are everybody’s problems” sort of lens that I believe brings significantly increased palatability to the masses. A figure like him becoming a mainstay in popular internet media could help bring context to the young men being misled to believe that they’re facing their challenges on their own.
I agree Waltz was a good choice, but more because he’s a fairly traditionally-masculine figure. And yeah I think the everyman aspect is important too. I think it fell a little flat, because it doesn’t match the energy or vibes the party usually pushes out.
Is it any surprise they believe they’re on their own? What messaging is the party putting out?
From https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/have-democrats-given-up-on-men/
I recommend reading the rest of the article. There’s some interesting statistics, such as the fact that young men, even those pushed toward the right don’t have more conservative beliefs when it comes to guns, climate change, and abortion. They dislike both parties, but only one party recognizes the challenges they face (challenges which often get rebutted with “privilege”. Recognizing privilege is important, but should not be used as a cudgel to dismiss real issues people face)
I do want to point something out, men are included in 15/16 of those.
11/16 are inclusive of white women.
10/16 are inclusive of white men.
Men are indeed included throughout.
Technically yes, but by including "women" and not "men", despite going to more specific categories and having a total of 16, there's an inferred message for men. Was there a word limit?
I'll just take a stance. As a man, I'm offended by that list. I would be offended if "men" was on that list and "women" was not.
In contrast, I'm not upset there's not an "Ablebodied" Democrats, Straight Democrats, Atheist Democrats, Middle-Aged Democrats, Democrats inside the USA, corporate employees and other non-small business owner Democrats, Anglo Democrats, Non-indigenous Democrats, Non-Union Democrats or White Democrats categories.
I'm white, we're not a marginalized group, for example, my needs are spoken to in the other categories.
I understand you being offended, but I disagree that men are not included, because white people are also included. And this is probably a fundamental value difference that we've seen throughout - Does advocating for the rights and needs of others equate to taking pieces out of my pie, or do we all benefit when others do better?
I empathize with the emotional response, but I hate "but where's mine" mentality. (Plus during the campaign, men specifically were targeted and marketed to with the same zoom meetings that other groups had. ) Personally I think a lot of anger is directed at minorities, women and the left when wealthy, college educated (conservative or willing to flipflop on a dime) white men are nearly universally responsible for keeping everyone including the men that don't fit into this category down.
It feels far more insulting to me that those people tell men (and poor/working class/rural/etc. people in general) what they want to hear while undermining the jobs/economy/benefits/etc that they rely on.
But I'm not a man, I'm just equating it to the same thing when it comes to whiteness. White supremacy is just as crab-buckety.
It's the wrong comparison to be making. It's when there's a direct comparison ("men" vs "women") being drawn that the lack of one is an obvious indicator. Not only that, but we've started seeing more and more young men of Gen Z struggling to find their place in this world. Even if you don't believe that "men" needed to be on the list, this list existing was an own goal on the Democrats. Which voter on the fence found this list and then voted Democrat because of it? It was a strategic blunder if nothing else.
The struggles of being male and the struggles of being white are very different here.
White men with no non-white ancestry, who live in the US, have no disabilities, are over 18, no longer in school, are atheistic or agnostic, live in cities, are below 65ish, don’t own or work for small businesses, are not in unions and have no family in unions, are not in the military, don’t have family in the military, and are not gay, bi, or trans.
It’s a non-zero amount of people, but I don’t think it’s all that large. Starting with white middle age men, adding the faith community should cover a large swath. Military should cover another large swath (with some overlap). Rural will cover another good chunk. Union members will sweep up a small bit. And disabilities, especially if you include temporary disabilities, will cover some more.
The math geek in me wants to estimate that population cross section, but I was never much good at complex counting problems.
That isn't how that list should be interpreted under the argument being made. You're saying white men are accounted for in all of those things, but aren't women also accounted for in all of those things? Yet "Women" is specifically called out in the list in addition to everything else that would also apply to women. You can pick out specific identities in there and say they're already covered and yet they also got specifically named too. The fact that men don't get a specific call out like everyone else in there sends a message that men don't face any issues that are outside of the other things mentioned, but other groups do.
There’s a deep irony in worrying about how not to be condescending while we’re talking about the need to convince people to accept objective, provable reality that they’re currently denying in favour of fantasy. The belief that we know more is baked right into the fact we’re even having this conversation.
That doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong: quite the opposite, I think we need every psychologist and marketing expert we can find to figure out what it takes to package factual information in a way that has any hope of countering misinformation. Whatever tone actually works is the tone we should adopt.
But the underlying truth of the matter is that we are saying that people aren’t capable of figuring things out for themselves, because if they were we’d be disagreeing on policy rather than trying to explain that letting a billionaire felon loot the country while imposing tariffs on every major trading partner will not, in fact, reduce the price of eggs.
And yes, I am well aware my phrasing is patronising as hell and is probably exactly what you were objecting to - I’m never going to be the voice we need and I understand that - but I hope my point still comes across here, to an audience that largely understands the fundamentals already. Condescension is the natural consequence of one side being, just… wrong, and avoiding it will be an active and delicate effort.
The issue is that progressives can be broadly correct, but wrong enough that it scares people from wanting to take that step towards voting D. There is objective, provable reality that R voters live that D's are burying their heads in sand over. I've had so many conversations over the last 2 years watching former Democrat voters become unable to vote D this time around. Thankfully, they still detest Trump, but they became those missing voters this year. You can only tell someone so many times to ignore their personal experiences before they stop believing you.
That totally makes sense, and to be clear my point wasn’t party political in favour of the Democrats per se. If someone had a principled objection and chose not to vote, that’s a perfect example of who I’d put in the “we’d be disagreeing on policy” bucket (or in this case potentially even agreeing on policy but disagreeing on the action to take) - I believe their decision was unacceptably dangerous in the sense that it increases the chance there won’t be a free and fair vote at all next time, regardless of how much there is to legitimately dislike about the Democratic party, but there are plenty of ways they could have come to that decision reasonably and simply disagree with me on the risk.
Progressives, pro-corporate liberals, the more radical left, disillusioned Democrats, and never-Trump Republicans are all examples of people who I’d broadly trust to inhabit a shared reality, even if there isn’t a shared idea of how to navigate it and all you get from putting them in the same room is a blazing argument.
Anyone who looked at Trump the first time around and voted for him again with the belief that he will somehow improve their lives, beyond the tiny handful of them that are actually part of his grift, isn’t in that same reality. Those are the people I was talking about above.
You either have to not be condescending, or be downright mean in such a way that the person just sorta drops out of political participation entirely. Condescension (or the perception of it) can be a motivator for voting.
Right, I think we all saw a lot of speculation that both of those things happened in either 2020 and 2024. Some people felt like "they'll win anyway, why bother voting" and that affected voter turnout. Other's felt "we have to vote otherwise they really will win" and turnout increased.
But ultimately this comes down to personalities of individual humans and what motivates them. Both of those two groups will always exist. And swing voters (like people who voted for Obama and then Trump) will also exist.
I think in the end, morally, politics shouldn't focus so much on trying to get people into one group or the other (shutting out the opposition has its perks, but breeds resentment). Instead they should focus on addressing public misconceptions and build policy based off of "you folks were told X, but the way to solve the problem is with Y." And don't make it "political," establish a no-bullshit air of "common sense."
I think that
Is still going to come off as being condescending. People hate being told they are wrong, and it comes off as being told what to do by someone else.
I think for many issues, things need to be more deliberative. Get folks together in a room and talk things out. While you may not be able to iron out every single issue, you can likely make a lot of progress through deliberation and consensus-based politics.
I could've expressed that better, but yes that's more along the lines of what I meant.
On the other hand, people need to also learn to accept other points of view. There is a lot of resonance around the idea that certain political groups are being "talked down to" ... while they spout bigoted and factually incorrect information. They can't make shit up and expect to win every argument. They certainly shouldn't expect to act like assholes and not be called out. But yeah, talking things out in a folksy way would go a long way for the normal folks.
Edit: Just to add that a lot of left-wing groups in many countries have been giving people a lot of space to express their views. Those people need to accept the fact that that space has been made for them in the discussion. They haven't been shut out. Then they turn around and claim they're not being listened to. They can't have it both ways and trying to have it both ways has often been the route of authoritarians, even back to the Roman Republic's Senate.
Not sure what you mean by this or how you think this would be an effective strategy
Basically (and I’m not endorsing this, mind you), you bully them in such a manner that they drop out of political participation (including voting). If less Trump-adjacent voters are voting for Trump, he has less voters and a higher victory hurdle to clear.
The majority of American already say Democrats are unlikeable, elitist and out of touch. Relentlessly bullying people and hoping they decide not to vote sounds like a guaranteed losing strategy.
Like I said previously, in such a way. It’s the kind of solution where there’s a 90% chance of blowback. FWIW, I think that not being condescending has a much better chance of succeeding.
When you talk down but make people happy, you're a leader. When you talk down but make people sad or mad or anything else, you're "bossy". In my eyes, it's less about the action and more about the reaction.
But Progressive narratives are all about "there is bad stuff in society, and we're contributing to it. we need to change". Which is always a harder message than "there is bad stuff in society, we need to kick it out". Progressing ourselves vs. conserving the status quo. Many people across the aisles want change, but few want to change.
I don't really have any solutions to this. But that's my attempt to explain the behavior. Progressive narratives won't resonate as long as people don't/can't take the time and energy to shift their perspectives. At least not from up top. That narrative helps a lot more on the local level for tangible things you can do. e.g., you can't fix the economy, but you can clean up your local beach. Clear, concise action that helps not just yourself but others around you. It also helps build community. Then it builds up.
But that local sense of community is also devastated among the youth. So many problems.
This has literally been the case for teaching since the beginning of recorded history. If you're stance is "fuck you for not figuring out the obvious", when for the vaaaaaaaast majority of history people weren't even educated, then you get nowhere. It has almost always been acknowledged that if you want to convince people of something "lol you're a fucking idiot" doesn't do that.
I would absolutely love for this to just be a matter of teaching people who haven’t figured things out for themselves - that implies a straightforward absence of knowledge, a space for a conclusion that just hasn’t been reached yet.
The problem is year after year after year of explaining and pointing out evidence being rebuffed as “fake news” or “deep state conspiracy” or “actually that wasn’t a Nazi salute”. It’s not teaching that’s needed, it’s deprogramming.
I think it’s actually a pretty serious false equivalence to imply that it’s just a question of people not having figured things out independently, and to compare it to education in general. The stance isn’t “fuck you for not figuring out the obvious” it’s “well of course you got hurt from doing <obvious thing>, we all told you it was dangerous but you just smirked and called us brainwashed”, often with a side of “I do not know how to explain to you that you should care about other people”.
I think framing it as something else is only setting yourself up for failure. People, throughout history, have gained opinions and behaviors through a variety of means. It'd be nice (maybe) if everyone just followed the scientific method, but it's hard to look at any landscape in time and say that people shouldn't have some level of skepticism either.
When your stance is "we need to deprogram you from what your loved ones taught you" you have already started an uphill battle by somehow implying they require "deprogramming", a word with some horrific connotations. People can learn, and can be willing to. People have been doing "dumb obvious thing" since forever. Hell it's not like one side has a monopoly on people doing that. They just both act like it.
It really feels like we’re talking past each other here.
I’m watching large swathes of America make apologies and excuses for a man who embraced Nazi symbolism on stage, at the same time as the actual self-professed neo-Nazis weigh in with their support for what he did.
I’m watching people call for the deportation and/or death of a leader in their own claimed religion for saying the following:
And then going on to explicitly say that some LGBT+ people and immigrants in particular are afraid for their lives.
I watched an attempt at a violent coup four years ago, and I’m watching people cheer as the perpetrators are pardoned this week.
So yes, I invoked the language of dealing with those indoctrinated into cults. Maybe my word choice was wrong, maybe it wasn’t, I honestly don’t know. But I stand by my meaning.
I said it in the context of those things, immediately after calling out the Nazi apologism, and your reply is to frame their behaviour as “what [their] loved ones taught [them]” and then throw in a mention that both sides do dumb things (which, yes, of course - my point isn’t about “dumb” it’s about “wilfully destructive to themselves and others based on a deeply held belief in misinformation”).
I’m not the voice we need. I said that in my first post and I meant it. I’m scared, I’m angry, and I’m tired, none of which are conducive to getting my point across well - or at all, to those who aren’t already at least somewhat aligned.
But I stand by my meaning, and I do not accept that support of a literal fascist platform can be downplayed as a mere teachable moment, on par with any other. I don’t object to you saying education is needed, that’s clearly true. I object to drawing an equivalence between simple ignorance and active defence of hateful lies.
To be fair plenty of liberals don’t care about conservatives. You can say they deserve it. But you have to admit we’re not perfect ourselves.
There are a few true “centrists” out there. I see them as remnants left behind by the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party. They’re worth winning over. They don’t need deprogramming like the MAGAs do. If you can get them and all of the Dems on board you’ll have a strong supermajority.
Oh for sure - I actually mentioned never-Trump Republicans further up as an example of people who just disagree on the path rather than the underlying facts, and in the immediate term it makes sense to reach out to anyone who’s likely to listen.
And yeah, I see plenty of shitty and illogical behaviour from people with progressive politics too; I’m not suggesting we’re some shining beacon here, just that there’s a huge gulf from where we are (and where many traditional conservatives are/were) to the outright reality denial of MAGA.
I’ve taken a heavy tone in my replies here partly because the jumping off point was MAGA-promoting influencers specifically, partly because I’m quite seriously shaken about the mask-off use of Nazi symbolism this week and the amount that’s being downplayed, and partly because even pulling together a supermajority leaves tens of millions of actively pro-fascist true believers and that scares the shit out of me.
I think some of the denials come down to an unwillingness to acknowledge what’s happening. You can literally see for your yourself that Musk’s actions are almost certainly a Nazi salute. Why lean so heavily into remote possibilities that it’s something else? For some there is malicious incentive to deny. For others it could simply be too frightening to acknowledge. Many of those people will be won over soon enough. The people in Charlotte that Trump praised back in 2017 were wearing swastikas and shouting “Jews will not replace us!” It’s only a matter of time before those people stand up again and start getting more explicit direction from the administration.
I read a book called Deep Survival by Gonzalez.
It tells the stories of a number of disasters and what the survivors did to survive.
One thing that the author mentioned that always stuck with me is that on every sudden sinking of a large ship with passengers, a significant percentage don't act to increase their chances of survival. Some passengers will climb to the top of the ship to avoid or reduce time in the water. Others freeze or act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening.
This isn't wrong but it's frustrating to hear when conservatives the world over are declaring their aim to "eradicate the woke mind virus" and insisting being gay or trans is a social contagion. Or all the fantasies about mass arrest of ""Communists"" or conspiracy theories about whatever political party they don't like being child traffickers.
What is that if not insulting to everyone they disagree with, to the point of pathologising it? Yet nobody is tutting about the Right's attitude problem.
Liberals and Progressives are constantly held to a standard that the right is not held to. Even in left leaning or leftist spaces people constant act like conservatives have no agency and aren't responsible for their reprehensible rhetoric or their harmful actions. "Why didn't democrats prevent this" is a constant refrain when people like Trump are hurting others. I understand that the left could be more effective, but we've reached a point where no one expects the right to behave like responsible members of society, and only those left of center are held to any kind of standard.
The lesson I'm taking from this is we need to be more aggressive. If there was any meaningful opposition to their bullshit, everyone in the world would be laughing at the clowns that whine "free speech" at criticism while openly calling for suppression of dissent as a "mind virus". We should be advertising that. But nobody wants to play offense.
Agreed. It looked for a second like Walz was trying that with the "weird" comments, but as soon as it started having any impact it just stopped. And that was so mild it barely qualified as aggressive or insulting. Conservatives have no problem throwing around "pedo" or other insults, even though they're almost always complete bullshit, but democratic politicians are too scared to ever do anything remotely similar when it's actually true.
We're constantly giving agency to conservative voters. Basically all of Tildes has been cursing conservative voters for the consequences of their actions lately. If we weren't ascribing agency to conservatives, we wouldn't be blaming them. What we're not doing to conservatives is saying "this is what they should do next" because Tildes is a predominantly leftist space, so that would reach no ears. And it would also be ineffective given no one who just "won" would think they need to change.
It's not that the left is being held to a higher standard so much as a desire to not wallow in shit and have people hurting while we wait for the Other Side to come around.
Many people claim they want to make things better at any cost, and they often mean to imply violence or personal inconvenience by that.
However if the actual way is to just speak reasonably to people who might be against you, you quickly find out who actually believes in making things better and who just wants an excuse to be an asshole.
I can't prove it, but after watching how the internet has developed over the last decade, I believe that the algorithms for most platforms are tweaked to promote right wing reactionary content for similar reasons that Fox news promotes right wing positions. I know engagement is also important and rage bait gets clicks but left wing extremist content is not being promoted in the same way and I believe that is by design.
However, I do think left leaning podcasters could succeed and thrive. John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver are all successful on television. Podcasting is a newer format but I believe it can and should be done.
Yeah I agree that progressives often talk down or have less clear messaging (because the truth is not cut and dry) but I think Trumps second victory is more a consequence of a decade plus of right wing media building to a fever pitch without anything close on the left.
Leftist slogans are generally awful and require a lot of sanewashing to make sense. The best examples are "defund the police" or "from the river to the sea" requiring copious amounts of explaining. If you need a compound sentence or two to explain what your slogan actually means, you've already lost the median voter.
Strategy tip, don't adopt slogans used by horrible groups. I don't get how you can "sanewash" a hamas slogan. Fucking pick something else.
This one in particular is "no not that swastika" levels of stupid in the best cases.
It's not really a hamas slogan, though they are one of the groups that use it, loaded with their own interpretation of it.
Just... recognize that anything related to the Israel/Palestine conflict on Wikipedia is basically under a continual edit war. And there are a hell of a lot more people out there who are Arab or passionate about Palestinians than there are Jews.
From the link
That doesn't contradict what I was espousing. The Wikipedia page indicates the long history of the phrase, dating back to the 1960s. It has only much later been co-opted by hamas. Its usage far exceeds that narrow scope and definition.
For example, I don't believe a plurality amongst the tens of thousands of liberal minded folks marching in the uk - using that very refrain - are advocating for violence against Jews or Israel. Rather they're marching for a peaceful solution.
Its a quagmire I don't see any solution to myself, so I don't hold strong opinions on how to resolve any of it. But I don't think it's accurate to prescribe hamas' interpretation of the phrase's usage as the definitive one, or to condemn people who use it as aligned with hamas when many who use it are evidently not.
This feels to me like a consequence of the discussions spawning these terms taking place entirely within (mostly online) leftist circles. There’s a lot of similarities to how niche online communities inevitably produce a ton of jargon that is at best meaningless or at worst alarming when taken at face value by someone without context.
It’s difficult to avoid though, because your average Joe isn’t likely to find their way into these discussions and probably wouldn’t appreciate being roped in.
Twitter and its consequences on leftist discourse. Historically, the left everywhere has always split over the smallest things, so it could be argued it's a consequence of leftist ideology.
I can mostly speak from a European perspective, but some of the dynamics are similar with regards to right wing parties. They are generally very inclusive and open to almost anybody that want in. You are not going to get excluded from having the wrong opinion about the war in Gaza for example. The barrier for getting accepted in left progresives circles seems unattainable high for young men that aren't in academic circles.
I think if there is any forward, it is as simple as going back to the roots. Remove the academic elitism, talk like normal people, aim for regular workers and support unions. Historically here in Denmark, and I guess in several other European countries, the center left has always had a strong tie to unions rather than corporations. The Democratic Party still seems to be under heavy influence of corporate interests. The MAGA party is too, but they have a special skill to somehow make it matter less. But they do have that straight talk that people understand, and I think left wing parties used to have the same kind of no non-sense politicians that could inspire regular working class. The academization of politics is pushing people away. It may be technically correct to say that the inflation numbers countrywide look good, but it doesn't make sense for people struggling to pay for food hearing that the numbers in the big Excel-sheets in the ministry of finance is looking great.
This matches with the largest polarization in American politics being along educational lines. I don't think universities are indoctrination factories, but the college educated have many "enlightened" opinions which set them apart from blue collar workers.
This is a whole lot to dive into, but I do think this is the real reason the Left is split on stuff. The left subtly split off from that mid-left union supporting faction for 30 years into into this form of neoliberalism. Which despite "liberalism" reflects some core points of the Right (I'll emphasize "elite right" here) that simply doesnt resonate with the Left. Privatization, deregulation, price controls removal, etc. It keeps a lot of the social stances while not really doing anything to stop a lot of the big economic problems. We do need a strong government willing to control the marketplace and crush monopolies and provide safety nets. Neoliberalism disagrees.
I don't think the strategy is to dumb down the message. We need to properly realign and actually listen to what the people want, not the DNC donors. Sanders has done this his whole life and as a surprise he resonated even with some Republicans who don't actually like either D nor R's economic policies (and we've had official confirmation for a while that the DNC wanted to hard wall him out as a candidate. He may be D, but the wrong kind of D to donors). Walz seems to follow in Sander's footsteps, but who knows if he'd even have a chance in 2028 with current DNC administration.
While we're not forgetting that the DNC had it out for Bernie, let's also not forget that Michael Bloomberg repeatedly put it out there that he was seriously considering running as what would effectively be a spoiler if Bernie was nominated in 2016. He waited until AFTER super tuesday before dispelling with the idea that he wouldn't do it.
So he was basically threatening Democratic Party voters with a lost election to sway voters in the primary against Bernie with his threat of running as an independent.
There are a lot of good answers to this already in the thread so I'll try to focus on some that I didn't see mentioned. I know the context of your question is podcasts and algorithms but I think the answers are larger scale.
We don't just need to be less condescending, we need to allow for the possibility that the concerns of less wealthy, less educated and less progressive people are legitimate. We need to understand what the world looks and feels like to them. Not just understand, but then incorporate that understanding into our messaging.
Putting aside that the science behind the Dunning-Kruger effect has some issues, the left suffers from the the colloquial reverse Dunning-Kruger issue of not grasping that a lot of our messaging isn't as self evident as we think it is from our position of fluency.
The truth is the left is its own kind of toxic. For example, one of the left's rising heroes, AOC, was famous for dunking on small minded people in the pre Musk twitter era. The things she said were mostly right, but the tone was childish. It assumed absolute right and wrong. Good guys and bad guys. She wasn't the problem, she was just one of many serving the demand for self righteousness. The demand is the problem.
It's hard because the natural response to this is that there should be some lines we don't cross as a society. There should be no tolerance for bigotry of any kind in the modern world. Nazis should be treated with no respect. I agree. But what happens when potentially well meaning people say things we know to be dog whistles for abhorrent viewpoints that they don't necessarily share or even care about? What about otherwise well meaning people that are misled or confused? Currently what we do is try to shout them down. We don't reflect, we don't check our own childish impulses, we just shout.
We need to grow up and accept that strategy isn't working.
Cancel culture is another example, but I won't waste words on it since it's been talked about a lot.
Much of the left wants to fast forward to a world that very clearly doesn't exist yet. We want the human race to be better than it is. That whole bit about understanding history seems to be lost on the left. Change happens slowly. We've made a lot of progress but we're not at some magical tipping point where we can brute force change the rest of the way.
We need to wake up from the delusion that a world where there is true equity for everyone is right around the corner. We have a long way to go.
They are very nearly as bought at paid for by the 1% as the republicans. Being "not Trump" isn't good enough. The left bought the establisment lie that Bernie Sanders couldn't win because they didn't understand that the source of that sentiment was not practicality, it was that money didn't want a Sanders administration.
The next time around we need to support the politician that genuinely cares about the masses no matter what the propaganda says.
It's not wrong, it's just crap messaging. We should keep fighting for the rights of marginalized people of all kinds. However, right now the biggest problem facing modern western civilization is the corrupting influence of capital. We need to go all in on that. We can fight for minority rights at the same time but the primary message should be anti-corporation (so to speak) pro everyone else. That's something pretty much everyone can get behind.
That's what the right does better: Clear messaging. It means you have to stop trying to account for everyone by adding new letters to acronyms. Not because it isn't right to do that, but because it doesn't work for a mass audience. The left needs to learn to talk to humanity as it is, not as we want it to be.
It's cynical, but at some point we're going to need to accept it. The majority of people aren't going to make the effort to unpack the nuance, they have more important concerns. Our messaging needs to understand that. Focus on simple things people care about.
Bonus: stop and think about the pithy phrase before we amplify and spread it. If a lot of people are responding to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter then the answer is not to try to explain to them why they're stupid and wrong. It doesn't matter that they may in fact be stupid and wrong. What matters is that we're stupider for not understanding that feedback is telling us the messaging isn't working. The left is tone deaf to everyone but the choir.
Right and wrong isn't good enough. It should be, but we're living through evidence that it isn't. The question is whether we can swallow that bitter pill and learn from it.
I strongly disagree with this, at least in spirit. The Democratic party is essentially the only path forward in terms of advancing left-of-center politics at the national level. Perhaps there needs to be a "hostile takeover" of sorts (similar to what has happened to the Republican party over the last decade), but the institution itself is indispensable.
Bernie Sanders ran as a democrat. The problem was that people believed the established democrats about his electability. We should definitely support good politicians that happen to be democrats, but that doesn't mean we need to keep trying to believe the democratic party is something it isn't.
That the democratic party is somewhat less morally bankrupt isn't a reason to keep ignoring its flaws and getting in line behind what its ancient, corrupt, leaders say is the way forward. It's not working.
edit: typo
stopgap step: instead of being forced into 2 parties, campaign hard for states to adopt ranked choice voting. Maine has this, and various other states have it for smaller elections.
THEN we can stop believing in the DNC democratic party. Someome like Sanders running independtly has a much higher chance of winning if he's everyone's 2nd choice, instead of simply splitting the vote.
Ranked choice should have been an easy win in my blue state, but sadly it did not pass. there are groups out there spending a lot of money to stop this from happening, and some red state legislatures are preemptively banning it. I truly believe that this is the one of our best options to improve our democracy, but we’ve got a big uphill battle now that the donor class has caught on to how RCV can erode their grip on power.
Yeah, inevitably the one bipartisan issue among the elites is not giving up their power. it'll be a slow stopgap for sure. I don't know if we just need a mass movement to make them listen (for the sake of their seat) or if we simply way for rich benevolent doaners to come as more Millenial/Gen Z people tired of this grow older.
After experiencing ranked choice voting for the first time this year, I'm kind of "blackpilled" on it. Not that I think it's bad, but that it will be very difficult for the average voter to understand how to vote by filling in an M-by-N permutation matrix.
I personally don't think this is particularly hard to read. But if it's that bad, we can simply break it down into multiple questions:
you can specify the point breakdown elsewhere, but many people don't even really have to know that (does the average voter really understand the electoral college?). And like the rest of the ballot they can leave choices blank.
I'm of the opinion that if you limit your system by what you think the least capable people will be able to understand or by assuming the average person can't learn, then that's accepting a state of failure.
I don't think ranked choice vote is the best, I think the math complications behind how winners are determined will legitimize election conspiracies. Even having said that I'd still support it over what we have now, because clearly even in the dumbest worst system possible, even with no election fraud, people can still claim it exists and some believe it, so that among other things I don't consider to be dealbreakers of RCV.
I think score voting would be superior. And score voting has potential for misunderstandings of average voters, especially because of how review/rating systems work for common services/goods, but the short of it is, no score = no approval of candidate, low score = low approval of candidate, high score = high approval of candidate. All systems have some element of gaming that can come into play, but this one isn't that bad, especially when you realize it doesn't work like typical rating systems. Since a rating of 1 out of 5 or 10 is not disapproval, there's less incentive to provide extreme scores. You don't give Donald Trump a 1 to lower his rating and Kamala 10 on a 10 point scale. You just don't vote for Donald Trump and you give Kamala whatever you want. Now the gamification of course is that if you give Kamala a 5 and your 'political spectrum counterpart' is a Trump voter that gives Trump a 10, then you might be incentivized to just give a 10. Even in this scenario, it's not really that bad, the current system is basically equivalent to only being able to give 10s or not voting, and what's more you can only do this for one person. With score voting you can give scores to multiple candidates. If it's 2016, you can give Bernie a 10 and Hillary 7 or whatever. But in the current system Bernie can't run unless he wins the primary because he just ends up spoiling the election.
Yeah, will people misunderstand and give Trump a 1 thinking it's disapproval because that's how people disapprove of the last shitty movie they watched or the last piece of plastic garbage they bought online? Sure that is possible if the interface presented to the voter is poor and/or people aren't properly informed/educated on it. You can present people with an option to score only AFTER you ask if they would approve of this person at all, and then after they select that they would, then they can score, just an example of how to potentially change the interface to mitigate such complications.
I also think our representative system behind the voting system needs a significant overhaul, but clearly all of these things run into possibly constitutional brick walls depending on how far you go or what you do. I don't really understand the point of a representative system as we currently have it, where the representative doesn't really represent anyone. I'm not talking about corruption either, just at the base level, they represent hundreds of thousands of people and their general ideological viewpoint is reduced to two things. They're either Democrat or Republican, and they have the ideological baggage that comes with that. There's no easy way to redefine their viewpoints aside from their personal name recognition. So voters and the general public, especially those within the same 'camp' so to speak, end up having to shout constantly to their representative so that their representative can represent them, because their representative is representing too many different people, and whoever shouts the loudest wins. Ignoring the money = speech corruption part of this, this cannot be that good for the psyche of individuals that feel they're constantly competing against each other daily to get their representative to represent them because their representative is probably nothing like them and doesn't naturally share their views on specific details.
A better representative system to me starts with being able to elect people who are more innately aligned with our perspectives, so we don't have to shout the loudest to have them hear what we want. Part of this is the voting system, supporting the ability to vote for more than 1 of 2 parties, but the other part is that it should just be more proportional representation. If 5% of people are all about the environment and think the Green party is what best represents their interests, then even with a different voting system they may end up with no representation if other aspects of the system aren't tweaked. So these people may go back to feeling disenfranchised and not represented by their government, or they have to go shouting in the other party platforms to get their interests heard. If instead they get proportional representation, well the representative is elected to do a job, it's their job to do the shouting. Why are we electing people to do the work of representing us, and then because the system is so flattened they have no idea who they are representing or they're representing too diverse a group, all the people that just voted for someone to do a job of representing them have to do even more work to battle over what that representative ends up representing.
There's gotta be some senator or governor who is capable of performing a hostile takeover.
The hostile takeover of the Republican party came from outside the party apparatus. If the same were to happen to the Democratic party, I expect that it would also be due to an outsider, or (better scenario) a group of outsiders. Insiders simply have too much to lose.
I don't think the requisite structural factors are there, though.
Are you sure you're going to like how that turns out? I'm pretty burned out on American national parties being turned into a cult of personality apparatus for one charismatic face who can solve all the problems myself, and depending on whether the Blue Dogs come back or the Progressives try progressiving even harder than they ever have before, whoever comes out of this may not be the perfect champion that you always wanted.
I don’t need perfect. I need “not a fascist”. I would take W Bush at this point.
Colbert had a bit about 'truthiness' (something that feels true but isn't). I think that combined with alienation from Democrats is what hooks people.
eg. One party tells you nothing could have been done better, the numbers are up, we're heading in the right direction. But things aren't going as well for you as you were brought up to expect that they would at this point in your life. Then another party comes along and tells you that other countries are taking advantage of you and we just need to tariff and tax them to make things fair.
For someone in who fits that scenario, one of those parties sounds a lot more sane than the other, even if they're factually full of it and involved in all kinds of other shennanigans
of course it is. Conservative messaging is all about "this isn't your fault, blame [insert marginalized group here]. Let us fix your problems" while proceeding to never fix their problems once they get in. That will always be a strong message as long as Americans cannot accept some blame on themselves, or at the very least don't introspect a bit into why [marginalized group] would be a factor in such blame for your situation. I can insert the Lyndon B Johnson quote here all day.
and of course, when you're selling a grift, your audience doesn't matter as much.
At this point of polarization, we're running into the paradox of tolerance. How do you tolerate someone who defies your whole progressive message? Especially when many don't want a nuanced discussion and long term solution. They want something here and now. You can't reason with those who don't want to be reasoned with. So by the 2020's it has indeed changed from "trying to win them over" to "trying to disassosiate completely".
Which is fine, since they are not close to the majority. But that reveals the core issue that Progressives SUCK at messaging to the undecided. And the reasons for that modern neoliberalism is a topic that is worth its own topic (jumping point: research a bit into how the DNC completely blocked out Sanders in 2016 and 2020).
only if you're rich.
But yes. There's fundamental social threads being exploited here among the traditional genders. Their buying power is down because we shifted to a 2 income household. There's no "breadwinner" anymore. Blue collar work (which appeals to traditionally masculine actions) is disrespected and undervalued (this is where they grain of truth for "the Mexicans are taking our jobs" comes from. obscuring the fact that they are paid less than any American citizen can legally be paid). Schools have shifted in a way to also lean less into such male societal leanings so they get discouraged in their "2nd place" unless they are some athlete star. Which leads to less male enrollment in college as the system has fought against them to be fostered for that. And the loss of third places, especially free ones, to gather and foster a physical social network (physical being a much more important aspect to the male experience compared to women more easily gathering on social media).
And there's all kinds of micro-issues that also makes the experience worse. So I get it; hearing ANY compliment or encouragement, even one that's just a fake promise, is an oasis in an arid desert.
I don't particularly have a polite solution for men, unfortunately (except perhaps in schools). There's a lot of smaller steps we need to fight towards to get the foundations and only then could we ask the bigger questions like "how can I make a decent income to support a family". These are issues that affect men more psychologically, but are ultimately issues everyone suffers from. But that sort of messaging is exactly what some of these men revulse at.
I think that’s part of the issue. The messaging largely hasn’t been “everybody is suffering”, but rather “these groups are suffering the most”. Progressives understand that the goal is to solve these issues for all, but the men in question are incorrectly taking it to mean “we’re interested in making things better for these groups, but not you”.
This gap in communication then gets exploited by conservative personalities who know they won’t be strongly countered by the opposition, validating these men’s misconceptions and making the problem that much worse.
I'm not entirely certain they do. As an example, reparations for slavery are extraordinarily contentious yet still got serious discussion in some progressive circles. You can also see California creating "Ebony Alerts" and "Feather Alerts" for Black residents and Native Americans. I agree with many old-school leftists that criticize progressives for focusing too much on labels instead of economic class.
I think I may have misused the term “progressives”. The intention was to refer to “everybody left of right”. Apologies, I’m still learning how to participate in political discussion without looking like an idiot.
I do agree that the particular strain of leftist being talked about has problems with obsessing over labels to the point of impeding meaningful progress. Saw a lot of that back when I lived in the SF Bay Area.
Progressive is a fuzzy label, so the confusion is understandable. I could call myself an abundance progressive because I strongly believe that the best way to solve many modern issues is making sure there's more than enough water, energy, and housing for everyone that needs it. Plenty of progressives would disagree with me while I'd criticize them for being everything bagel libs with no realpolitik skills. Politics isn't easy.
Do you have sources for this? I don't disbelieve you in aggregate, but I don't think there's that much of a gender difference. Perhaps there's some age-dependency involved.
At least from my limited observations, men's social groups are male social groups, both on and offline. For the women in my life, there's a sharp divergence in the toxicity between their online and IRL peers (which direction is less toxic depends on the specific woman).
It's nothing as specific as "physical touch is more important to males", but it's a congregate of two factor
Long researched tendencies of preferences and learning approaches among the 2 primary genders: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334671202_KEY_DIFFERENCES_IN_BOYS%27_AND_GIRLS%27_LEARNING
even pre-pandemic we've had a steady decline of physical contact. Particulaly among males. I can only imagine how much worse it got over the pandemic https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/07/crisis-touch-hugging-mental-health-strokes-cuddles
I suppose a better wording of that phrase is that "for societal reasons, males miss out a lot more on physical experiences, especially among other males"
There is one key difference to note here: male social groups tend to more often or not be held together by "things" rather than the people themselves. So even in physical activities, there can tend to be slightly shallower experiences compared to female groups. There are less times where say, a sports group will lead up to a house gathering to just talk.
I'm not really going to say it's a bad thing, just a different thing to note. Groups can scatter easily among men when "thing" disappears.
Your comment had me reflecting on my own experience growing up. I relate to both the group identity and the physical touch aspect a lot. Below is a bit long winded reflect on my own personal experience with both of those aspects. It felt like reading your comment really nailed my own experiences growing up and my current experience of being more socially isolated in person where I'm lacking a group to belong to but get my share of my physical touch having two young boys.
While I had friends growing up on my classes the ones I tended to be closest with were the ones I would also would play basketball on the youth league. I never liked basketball but my parents thought a sport would be good and since I had friends play it each year it became a self perpetuating cycle of playing until I got into high school.
I joined the football team and that combined both the something to belong to that I shared with my teammates and the physical touch aspect. I felt like I had a great group of guys I got to spend time with throughout high school. Even though for most of them I shared little in common outside of the team I still would spend 20-25+ hours a week with them during the season and 5-10 hours a week in the off season. Working out and with the associated physicality of spotting each in weights, running drills, etc.
My fraternity was my next step in college of having something bigger than myself to be a part of and share with a group of guys, and it was an amazing experience for myself and had a lot of the same elements of my football team. A mostly seniority based hierarchy, workouts with guys who were interested, regularly scheduled events, a sense of belonging to an organization with our own chapter being nearly 100 years old when I joined and all of its associated history.
You mentioning groups scattering is dead on in my experience. I still have a core group of high school friends after all these years but my football friends all drifted a apart in the months following our final season and then even faster once graduation happened. Similarly my fraternity brothers would start drifting apart after graduation. It was common for the oldest brothers to be fairly checked out at the end of the time as an active member (myself included) as they were either burned out or focused on starting their post college life.
My fraternity didnt historical and doesn't currently have a strong alumni program with events and things to keep us in regular contact and I've been having to make an effort over the years to reach out to brothers to keep in contact with them since it's become so easy for us to not talk for years without having the chapter or other things to keep us in contact. I was shortlisted to become our chapter's alumni board president if I had ended up living in the major city near my chapter and revitalizing how we handle our alumni experience was one of my main goals.
I recently joined BlueSky, and Mark Cuban has been engaging with the community to try and figure out how to improve our democracy.
One post he made was a link to a Andrew Schultz's podcast, saying "This is the type of content young men are consuming. Watch it and take notes."
The comments, besides the vast majority missing the point, are full of insults on intelligence and throwing around incel as a slur. Plenty of people saying they couldn't make it through 5 minutes of the podcast because it's trash or the hosts are morons, and insulting the intelligence of people who watch the podcast.
Progressives come off as haughty elites because they often throw insults at disaffected (often white) (often cis) men. And the problem is that no-one, or few call out the disgusting behavior. If you don't denounce it, you're complicit. Call it out for what it is: bullying.
How is that different from Conservatives? How and why should I respect someone who in less than 30 seconds throws out "liberal cuck conspiracy theorist"? then 4 minutes in saying "I don't think any rational individual think Musk is a nazi" (emphasizing it shortly afterwards)? Throwing insults is worthless, but I simply see it as inevitably that shit slinging will result and shit slinging back on the internet. No matter the platform as long as no one's moderating it.
But sure, to get to "the point": this Schultz is clearly a modern conservative Colbert: be a wisecrack with a joke in every other sentence, talk casually, be blunt, be casual (the back and forth with hosts feels like an everyday talk with your friends), downplay your audience's politics flaws (a few minutes in, "I don't think anyone really cares about trans people... republicans just have to point and say 'that's some goofy shit'") while finding the wildest "other audience" stories to report. be charismatic. With all the classic tiktok-style edits to keep attention.
Can this match if we do it Dems style? I'm not too certain. The core difference from Colbert is that he took some time to break down his stories and supported some of his assertion with other stories. That's how you not only appeal to your audience, but even to people who normally aren't your audience.
This simply feels like a polarizer: This is made to appeal to opinions people already have, and doesn't care about (or even welcomes) attracting hate from the non-audience. It's not converting people who weren't already holding these beliefs deep down.
Yes, both parties fling insults. I’m critiquing the left with a direct suggestion because I want it to improve. If we as a party or political leaning don’t introspect, how will we improve and change?
The right flings insults about masculinity (cuck) because the left has rejected many forms of masculinity. Yes, there is a lot of toxic masculinity on the right but what I’m talking about is a general traditional masculinity that the left has rejected. I think there is space there for a healthy masculinity, and I think something the left tried to embrace with Waltz, but it didn’t come across as genuine.
The left flings insults about intelligence intertwined with morality, especially towards men. If you don’t agree with us the only possible explanation is you’re a moron, or immoral, or that you’re immoral because you’re a moron. (Over 50% of Americans read below a 6th grade level. That means they have low literacy. It doesn’t mean they’re dumb, and it doesn’t mean they have less worth.) Or an incel (or virgin, which is straight up misandry, which never gets acknowledged, because “it dismisses men’s innate privilege.”)
This attitude is so endemic to our culture and has been around for at least 50 years. Think of the redneck and dumb southerner stereotypes.
Yes, Andrew Schultz leans right (the amount is arguable and I’ll probably be flamed for saying “leans”), but what came first? The chicken or the egg? Are men leaving the left because of how they’ve treated men, or does the left fling these insults because men have left the party. Does it matter which came first?
If the left actually catered to some men’s issues (yes they are real), instead of tamping them down when they get brought up because they might distract from women’s or other minority’s issues, maybe we would see fewer podcasts hosted by men (that other men consume) that push them towards the right.
The reason I suggested the dems focus on one broad policy that benefits the working class is because it includes both men and minorities that need help the most
It's hard to say. I did introspect, my conclusion and main worry is whether we do things "the wrong way", all for the sake of gathering votes. I'm not sure if it's the ethical approach.
Yes, that sounds like what shitslinging arguments would break down to. And that's what I avoid on the internet (hence why I'm here trying to introspect and sympathize, and not on Twitter/Bluesky). I've tried fighting that for a decade. It's a futile battle and no one is winning except the elite class from that. I will leave that issue for others to solve.
Left or right, we do need to break down the issues into subtleties. In this instance, It's not that you're a moron for disagreeing with anyone. But if you spread hate, then yes: you are immoral (almost by definition) and are not worth acknowledging. "Your body my choice", all the transphobia, and the rise of racism is indeed spreading hate. you should definitely understand this by 6th grade, so education level is irrelevant unless the instigators are literally 10.
If people cannot understand that, that is beyond my scope as someone without a psychology-esque degree. For those people I will simply avoid them. They will not change their opinion from a comment on the internet.
try millenia. It's much more basic and comes down to people in-grouping and fighting different groups. It's never going to truly stop. It's just a shame I realized after wasting much too much time on discourse before realizing many people (left and right) don't really want to try and solve these problems.
If I'm being real, I think the whole thing is a smoke screen. Men are just leaving politics. People see the stats and think "men moved left". But there's 3 way to increase a stat:
we seem to automatically be concluding 3), even though voter turnout was lower than 2020 and still 60-something percent of the voting population. No one looks at how more men just didn't vote this time.
IMO I feel focusing on 3) is pointless and we simply need to look at 1). So the question isn't "men going right". It's "Men not voting". As I said, Shultz is a polarizer: he's not turning men to his viewpoints, he's appealing to and energizing men who already had those thoughts deep down.
So yes, we should actually follow that mentality instead of pretending we can change minds. How do we energize the unenergized left? I think that issue lies deep in the DNC and we need to resolve that before we focus on a personality to support us. There's going to be zero energy if another Bernie-esque candidate gets screwed over for another Hilary candidate who's as pro-establishment as Trump is anyway.
This to me, although is not the shitslinging that you've mentioned, has the same energy of calling anyone who disagrees on any of these topics as dumb. And I think the big obfuscator is that I think a lot of these people don't necessarily have corrupt morals, but are deeply misunderstood. There are of course, some people who are morally bankrupt. But to put forward my shitty analogy of the day, it's as if a lot of people have a compass that is properly calibrated to point north, but are being misled by a magnet of disinformation. And avoiding misinformation or information that is designed to feed your emotions for engagement is incredibly difficult. I'd be lying if I haven't fallen for ragebait disinformation recently.
And while the specific things you mentioned are clearcut morally, I don't think most people give credit to how nuanced related topics can be.
I sympathize with this so much, and waver between just avoiding those parts of the internet altogether, or trying to detoxify them but it feels like a drop in the ocean. I think there's so much to gain from amplifying and manufacturing toxic voices so that people shout past each other to distract from the real issues, and it feels impossible to fight.
I agree, that a lot of problems come down to our human psychology and tribal tendencies. If that's something that we can't change, should we just shrug our shoulders at instances of it and say we can't do anything about it?
And that's why I (and I believe Cuban) brought up this podcast. It gives apolitical (mostly) men some info on politics. I'm not here to argue the slant of those politics because I'm not arguing that Schultz's podcast in particular is important.
And for the term "polarizer," it assumes that there's a center point that can be identified and anyone who falls to either side of that falls deeper into whatever side of the centerpoint they are. But what determines that centerpoint? Does that centerpoint even exist? Why haven't we seen so many of these apolitical podcasts that polarize men to the left? Some of it can be explained by things like amplification and funding by Russia, but I don't think that's the only reason. Why haven't we seen these pop up for the left? What's stopping the left from financially supporting these types of podcasts that push people left?
I think this solidifies that we're on the same page, even if we disagree how to get there. Which brings me back to your first statement.
And it's hard to say how to approach things ethically. I think what should be the main issue (class) is hard to focus on when minority rights are facing active attacks of legislation.
I would argue that the "most wrong way" to do things is in a way that never gets us to our goal.
Ultimately I think too many people are struggling, which makes it hard for them to focus on minorities' rights if they're not personally affected. If you're struggling and you're able to maintain that focus, that's amazing and fantastic! But I don't think we can condemn those that don't have that capability. By prioritizing class first we can give those people the breathing room they need to put their attention on those topics, so we can give minorities the protections that they need and deserve.
perhaps, but note that I never brought educational levels into the conversation. If that's going to be a rationale, I'll work with that lens and still suggest why it's a poor argument. I like to think I am civil, but there's only so many ways I can disagree with someone politely before I conclude that the act of disagreeing makes some individuals feel dumb. That's a problem in and of itself but I digress. I can forgive a lot of things, but not hate. Paradox of tolerance.
I do (perhaps naively) still think most people are "good" as a character. But I can only have so much influence on a person through a screen, with text, and a pseudonym. And they have to be willing to hear other perspectives to begin with. I don't have the tools to understand them ( and if we're talking twitter standards, they aren't trying to be understood that deeply anyway Once againm any nuance on those mainstream platforms are drowned by the extremes being liked and pushed up).
But I can point at resources that can. But that's all I can do: point. They would need to take the time to follow, find help, and listen to that help. Outside of that I am literally incapable of helping or understanding every individual lashing out on the internet. For my own mental health I simply have to dismiss people after a few low quality replies. I can't save the world that way.
People who can do something about it either don't to make more money (platform owners) or are currently fighting in real time in politics about it. There's not much I can do on those ends with billions thrown around. I lack the expertise nor money to make an impact. I learned long ago that trying to change minds with words is of little effect on such platforms.
Things are being done, but slowly. I simply took my ball and went to a less tribalist forum.
political spectrum is a bit useless to define (again, people been trying for decades). Since the goal is address apolitical, I see it more as polarizing them to think or talk more about the politics around them. So "I don' care about any poliics" is he counterpoint in this circular specrum of beliefs and ideaologies. So how you polarize and what resonates with you will ultimately come down to your base beliefs, as well as fears, insecurities, and aspirations.
And that's what makes me a bit worried about a left podcast trying to polarize. polarizing means resonating with many ideas that have to do with the collective. That's simply harder to self-reflect on than being told "this sucks. it's not your fault. blame [other group]". your point of
is sadly true in the current environment. But I'm also not confident repackaging into a universal message would be much more effective. at lest if we're focusing on "polarization" instead of educating. educating means being willing to learn and also better yourself, even if your're struggling. Polarizing simply needs to comfort you and shift that blame away; any personal solution is fluff, if not outright non-existant .
I'd argue that outright lying and deceiving is the "most wrong way". That's not how you foster a commmunity trustful of its leaders. I've seen enough republicans outright say they don't trust Trump that much to begin with but that he's simply less shitty than Harris in their eyes. So neither party really has a lot of good rapport with the working class.
Well I'm both. I'll spare my personal story, but a small part of the struggle all my life was indeed from being put down by those very people. Some who always struggled but wanted to feel powerful. Some who fell into struggling after abusing any power they had previously. So if you sense any ire in my responses, you know where it's coming from.
But I learned over time to channel most of that anger to the top, the people that put all of us here to begin with. The other bullies were annoying but didn't lay me off the first chance they got to make their quartery earnings feel better. Those people didn't double rent in 5 years. Once the very basics are addressed I can return to micro-socioevonomic issues again.
so I agree. But if we're polarizing it needs to be towards the right people. And be truthful (which is pretty easy. No one's hiding anything anymore). Regardless of polical leaning I hope we agree that Schultz angle is very much not trying to direct all the chaos in the world towards the rich.
To be clear I don't think outright lying and deceiving is the way either. I think our wires got a bit crossed there.
But thanks for the thoughtful conversation. We could probably go back and forth forever, but after the past few days, this small back and forth has given me some hope for the world, so keep on doing you!
Mirror: https://archive.is/LINKc