Things progressives get wrong
Two things to get out of the way in advance... First: Some of this post is US-centric but the issues apply to much of the western world. Second: I'm a progressive. What that means to me is that we should strive for tolerance, compassion and equality in culture and in our systems. We should use more of the excess production afforded by technology to take care of people than we currently do. Capitalism should be kept in check by strong state regulation. I'm not a communist, until we come up with a better economic solution which hasn't failed repeatedly in the past I believe capitalism is our best option. It just needs guardrails, some of which are socialist.
I don't mean for that to be an exhaustive description of progressivism, I just want to make it clear where I stand before I say things that, in my experience, often evoke big feelings
Big enough feelings that, somewhat often here at Tildes, I've seen posts interpreted in remarkably uncharitable ways. That's part of the motivation for my disclaimer, but not this whole post. My goal is to talk about things I believe are genuinely important if our aim is to make a better world.
As a whole, Tildes is one of the kindest and most emotionally intelligent forums I've experienced, which is why the areas where that slips are notable and speak to some of the failings of progressives at large.
One of the ideas I've seen repeated here and elsewhere which I believe is a problem:
- In reference to the far right: "Fuck them they need to meet us halfway. Or at least make some sort of good faith effort".
It turns out they don't need to do that. They just needed to vote for Trump and MAGA representatives.
They don't need to check their privilege. That's what we want. They don't really understand what we're even talking about. They don't feel lucky, they feel like their life is hard and no one is going out of their way to give them anything. They've just lived through a couple of decades of progressive social wins culminating in a widespread, ad hoc, campaign to loudly and self righteously shout down any viewpoint that doesn't conform to the new progressive gospel. That left them feeling like there wasn't a place for them in this new culture. It left them feeling marginalized.
At this point some reading this are likely having big feelings. Straight white men can't be marginalized! I don't disagree. But I didn't say they were marginalized, I said they felt marginalized. Their feelings matter. Or they should matter.
And it's not just straight white men, convenient as that would be. We know this from the last election. It's women and brown people too. Immigrants even. There were a lot of surprising demographic shifts to the right. The backlash to progressivism is real and widespread. I believe it's a big part of how we got here, with MAGA in full control of the government.
I know this isn't new information, we've been talking about it since 2016, but I'm not sure it's really sunk in yet.
Because here's the thing: In a way the people that have recently been voting for far right representation actually are marginalized. Many of them are financially insecure. A lot of them are socially insecure. That's a type of marginalization that spans demographics. And yes, groups like LGBTQ+ people, members of disfavored racial and ethnic groups and so on have it much worse. But they don't understand that because, like everyone, they're just trying to survive their own lives.
And we've been telling them, as they go bankrupt trying to keep their sick child alive in a broken medical system, that they need to recognize their privilege. We haven't tried, in any meaningful way, to have compassion and help them understand where we're coming from. We're just throwing these ideas at them, completely failing to understand they they have no context for making sense of them. Historically speaking these are pretty new ideas, they require completely reframing concepts that the western world has taken for granted for decades. That takes time.
They're struggling to pay bills and feed their families while we tell them that it's really important for people who feel like they were born into the wrong body to have support and medical care and use women's bathrooms. Step back and think about how much of a shock that is in a world that has recognized exactly two genders, determined by birth, for all of its history. It takes time for new ideas that big to digest. But, riding the aforementioned wave of progressive cultural wins, not realizing it had already peaked and was about to start receding, despite copious evidence, we just tried to ram it home. And now we lament the results and are reluctant to learn from our mistakes.
We want to create national change. Global change. But we choose niche issues and put them front and center in our messaging. And we do it without even a nod toward empathy for the majority of the population which hasn't had time to consider or digest this new information. We skipped the education step entirely. We're idiots.
I firmly include myself in that we. In 2016 I drew a line. I said, I may not have all the answers but if you can't see Trump for the bigoted, emotionally stunted, narcissist that he is then there is something wrong with your basic understanding of humanity and I have no use for you. I was an idiot.
It's not enough to be morally right, and there putting aside that morality will always be subjective. Politics is about strategy. Population level change is about strategy. Winning hearts and minds across large and varied populations requires easy to digest messaging. The right understands this. It may not be the world that we want to live in, but it's the world that exists. I saw this quote in a blog post, and then again recently on Tildes, no idea where it originally came from:
If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just…” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At no time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.
Change takes time and work and we tried to skip ahead because we were so sure that we were right. And here I want to circle back to my disclaimer: I believe we were right. That we live in a world where we have to fight for the rights of people to live however they choose to live, when they're hurting no one, is maddening. It's just fucking nuts. I wholeheartedly support the rights of marginalized people. I wish the human race wasn't inherently bigoted, that we didn't have this built in tribal impulse to draw us versus them lines, that we didn't recoil from things we don't understand.
But we can't ignore history. The human race has always been like this and it has always taken time to change things. Social change is a slow process. Just like women's rights were a slow process. Just like ending slavery was a slow process. And neither of those fights are over.
We pushed too hard, too fast, and this is the result. Brexit, Trump, Austria’s (Nazi) Freedom Party, far right gains all over Europe.
I don't mean to imply that social justice is the only reason for the rise of the far right. In fact I don't even think it's the core issue. I believe the core issue is unchecked capitalism. The ever-growing wealth gap, the capture of government by wealthy industries, the rise of multibillionaires. We focus on social justice while everyone is worried about taking care of their families and we wonder why our message doesn't resonate.
We tell people that the way they see the world, the way they were raised, is wrong but we don't first help them understand why. We don't like the political reality we're living in and we blame it on half the population rather than the systems. It's easier to be mad at people than systems.
But it's the systems we need to change. Yes we need to change people too, but first we need to take care of them. People that are just trying to survive are not attuned to nuance. They're not going to take it well when you tell them about other people's problems. If you tell them that if you're not on our side, you're against us then they're going to say "fine, I'm against you". Indeed that's exactly what they've been saying lately.
We need to own that. We did that.
In a little under two years (in the US) we're going to have the opportunity to come together and swing the pendulum back the other way. Leading up to that the focus should be on things that unite us, not things that divide us. And the biggest thing that unites us is that we're tired of our capital controlled political systems. We're tired of politicians that are in it for their donors rather than their constituents. We're tired of the top .01% siphoning off more and more of the resources. That's straightforward and easy to understand and it will absolutely resonate.
And, disclaimer once more, I'm not saying we should stop fighting for people's rights, that's a fight that should never end. But the modern far right in power is a monolithic threat to people's rights and, as such, our main focus should be on solving that problem above all others. We can do that by centering our messaging on issues that resonate with everyone and by having some grace when dealing with the people that voted the right into power rather than demonizing them. We need those people as allies. We can't afford to be stubborn or small minded no matter how stubborn and small minded we think the "others" are.
I have mixed feels across the board on the sentiment, but this resonates:
I believe, some of your post aligns with a huge number of op-eds with everyone from Ezra Klein to Andrew Yang to Johnny Harris jumping on the bandwagon. "The lefties in the party are to blame for the Democrats losing the election", "progressive policies are causing our issues", etc. Gavin Newsom was so head spinningly quick to get the founder of Turning Point USA, a freaking heavily conservative propoganda machine, on is new podcast to lambast progressives and degrade trans folks. What the fuck. Sure, I agree we need to reign in some of the virtue signaling, like fuck Nancy Pelosi and her Kente Cloth. But I don't want LGBT+ rights, civil rights, or indigenous rights to be tossed out at the same time.
The core difference with your post that I really appreciate is that it identifies that we have left the majority of Americans in the lurch. Cost of living is out of control and very few people are seeing meaning wage growth. Life is getting harder, more expensive, and what were considered basics in previous generations are out of reach for many of us today. And people are blaming progressive policies like requiring environmental impact assessments are to blame for housing shortages as the driving cause of these issues.
In my mind we have two parties of regulatory capture. The Republicans and Democrats have been so utterly inundated with corporate lobbying and donations, there is no feasible way to actually improve things for average Americans. Both Harris and Trump went all in on crypto, the gig economy, and wallstreet. We heard again and again how "the economy was great!" during the Harris run for presidency, and it was, if you had capital and investing in the stock market. For those living paycheck to paycheck, for those without a 401k, for those who didn't own a home - it was rough before Trump took office when things we "going swimmingly".
I had this discussion with my own mom, who is normally very in touch. She sold the little ticky tacky ranch home in the silicon valley that she bought for $400k in 1998 for $4.5 million dollars. She is well invested in the stock market. She has a strong retirement account. Her assets have been doing nothing but ballooning in value. She was taken aback when I said I was living in a completely different world. That my cash was getting me less and less each quarter at the grocery store. That our rent DOUBLED from 2020 to 2024. That the possibility for 2 of us, working full time at good jobs, finding an affordable home to purchase in the area is extremely difficult. That I didn't feel optimistic about the future. And that by and large, nearly everyone in my circle felt similarly. And we're in our late freaking 30s, we've been working for over 15 years. And we still don't have it that bad. Income wise, my partner is in the top 5% of earners in the US and I'm in the top 10%. What the fuck is everyone in the bottom 90% feeling?
But neoliberals are still optimizing for folks with capital. Folks with assets. Folks with stock. And until that changes I don't see a real shot at actually changing how people feel about a democratic party. And how can that happen when the people running our candidates campaign are the head of legal for Uber - one of the least labor friendly companies in the US - or Amazon or Google. Hell, I don't think Lina Khan would have survived a Harris presidency.
So to the ask for policy solutions:
Reasonable
Reach
I'm not saying the above actions wouldn't be difficult to get passed. Yes, so much of our system has been subject to regulatory capture. But if you actually had a candidate - maybe even a Tim Walz - who could catalyze the working class with some of these tangible actions, I think they could get through. But if we have the lame duck response we have had in the last few months of silence followed by "I told you so", then I don't see much hope for 2026. We need money and corporate capture out of politics. We need to break up price gouging monopolies. We need to incentivize using built homes/commercial buildings and high density housing. And we need to regulate employers who don't pay a living wage.
EDIT: Just as a question. How many people actually hear about checking their privilege day to day? Like outside of academic spaces? I almost never hear about it other than from the fringiest of my fringy friends. Sometimes I think this is created as a specter to bait rage. Do people actually hear about these things with any regularity?
I don't think I've read these op-eds so I can't say if I agree with them. But if the sentiment is that the left is too far left, I disagree completely.
Moreover, I wouldn't say that progressive policies are a problem. It's the messaging that has backfired.
To clarify, my intent was to talk about our collective approach, and discourse, rather than about politicians on the left. I agree completely that politicians on both sides are working for (largely) the same monied interests.
Your point that the political left kept trying to tell people everything was great while their lived experience said otherwise is exactly right. The fact that the right has been loudly saying things aren't ok, even if it's a cynical ploy rather than a true stance, is enough to motivate a lot of votes when the alternative isn't addressing those concerns at all.
Which is ultimately where I've landed, we need to rally around the one set of issues that are guaranteed to resonate with majority of the population and support any non MAGA candidate who even claims to care. Both locally and nationally.
Right now the republicans, and Musk, are doing a fantastic job of showing the people that they only care about their own socioeconomic class. Meanwhile the democrats are unlikely to put forth candidates who speak to issues like legislative capture and wealth inequality unless the public is very loudly demanding it. Bernie is out there trying to rally support for exactly that, we just have to listen and respond.
I don't know, perhaps not specific phrases, like "check your privilege" but I only used the concept of privilege as one example of whole genre of things. It's the vibe of discourse that includes all sorts of ideas that only make sense if you already understand the nuance, along with a lot of overt and implicit judgement.
It's also a lot of vitriolic talk about Trump voters, and conservatives in general, even when the numbers tell us that there's a big chunk of those voters who are not part of the base. People who are more likely to change their support if we stop alienating them.
Amen.
Ah, sorry, it's been in my purview a lot recently and I just got triggered. My partner's dad is a classic republican - read current democrat - and he sends all of this "I'm a progressive and we are the problem" shit our way. Sorry for jumping the gun there.
I think you're right, we're squarely on the same page. The virtue signaling does nothing for any cause. It allows folks to pretend they are supporting a group, cause, or policy without actually doing anything. And for the most part it does nothing to move the needle.
I can actually understand the vitriolic talk and feelings towards Trump supporters, not that I endorse it. I'm on our local planning commission and I get yelled at every single meeting by 2 members of the public for a grand total of 15-30 minutes a night about the democratic dictatorship we live in. We had a truck with a 6x10 foot banner parked outside city hall that read "the city manager fletches (which is eating cum out of someone's asshole) for the gay agenda" because we got a rainbow crosswalk in town. And a council member who released the contract info and address of the members of the DEI committee with a note to "let that bitch know what we think about her in our town". When it came to light nothing happened and he kept his position. All of this is happening in a fairly progressive coastal California town. Not to say I don't want to win them over, but I understand the rage. I indulge in it myself for about 20 minutes when I come home from the meetings.
My last thought is that we need a movement to politically diversify all levels of government outside of the executive. It's already happening to a degree with the democratic socialists, but it would be great if AOC could actually run as a Democratic Socialist and participate as part of a collation government. That and if we could get ranked choice voting.
Thanks for starting the discussion, it's been cathartic!
Oh me too, especially the extreme ones. The true MAGAs are straight up bigots, or many of them anyway. They just don't represent everyone on the right, or so I like to believe. I think there's solid evidence for that in the numbers, even if I don't know many of them personally.
I think regardless of how many of them are truly hateful, it's still a mistake to group and judge people.
That's fucked up. And judging individual actions is a completely different story.
She seems to be the heir apparent. I hope she turns out to be as true and unshakeable a believer as Bernie.
Edit: @rosco I just noticed what may be a typo in your post. The term for eating cum out of assholes would be "felches" after "felcher" (looked it up to be sure) but you wrote "fletches" as in "fletcher".
I really hope the typo was on the signboard and not just your post, and I hope the arrows being fletched for the gay agenda are cupid arrows and 10 to 1 odds that at least one of the signboard makers is in deep denial about how badly they want to get hit with one of those arrows.
If your party supports Nazis, at some point, continuing to support that party makes you a Nazi. It's not a lot more complicated than that.
Before I even evaluate whether this claim is correct, I’m pushed away by the absolutism inherent to the faux “simplicity” you’ve suggested here
And this is the reaction coming from someone who probably already aligns with your own opinions, which I hope gives more weight to the idea that you should re-evaluate your messaging to understand whether it achieves what you’d like it to achieve
I hear you, but I'm not giving them any more grace. They burned it all up.
If you're ignorant (by "you" I mean the hypothetical Republican voter), fine, and it'll piss me off that you decide not to care enough, but I do understand that. Depending on if I have the space for it, I can attempt a reasonably adult conversation from this context.
But unless you're voting out of ignorance, you are giving your support for a party that is specifically and vocally aligned with the worst parts of Nazi ideology.
If you sign off on something - if you give it your support - it isn't up to me to come up with the ways that it's not your fault. You're explicitly stating that you're good with it, and I can't have a grown up conversation with someone who refuses to accept that by supporting a party you are explicitly supporting that party?
And I get that the left is demonized in right circles. But if you're a grown up adult human, and you look at the state of things, and you truly believe that the left is the party of Icky Trans Weirdos, you are still choosing actual Nazis over those "weirdos", and that's a willful decision.
I have no respect for them. They have lost that right. They get to live out their childish dreams for a little while and everybody suffers (aside from the exceedingly rich). They are either making that decision with their eyes open, and therefore deserve no respect, or they are doing so out of absolute ignorance, which I guess is better, but harder and harder to argue.
The "we're all just people" argument stops working for me when it's used in defense of people who are happy to remove the rights of people who make them uncomfortable.
Emotionally I completely resonate with this and completely agree with you.
But I still hesitate to more completely join that kind of thinking, which I think just comes from “what next?”
If I fully allow myself to agree with the point you’re making here, that the people who voted this way are irredeemable, then what steps do I take next, now that I’ve adopted this into my worldview?
(Me, personally, ThrowdoBaggins, I have the luxury of being an Australian in Australia, so I personally can’t vote in any way that shapes the US. So everything else I say here is either from the scope of “how does one influence society to be less shitty” or from a hypothetical of if I imagined I was in the US and could have any say on things.)
Because it sounds a whole lot like if those voters are irredeemable, but also outnumber the people who didn’t vote that way, then what hope is there for the country?
If I can’t understand how or why they voted the way they did, then there’s no way I can influence or change their vote in future. And since they outnumber the people who voted the other way, then I either need to start changing how people vote, or changing who votes, or leaving the country to the Nazi regime that I don’t want to associate with or live under.
And for myself personally, I think it’s currently still easier to change how people vote than it would be to leave the country, although everyone will have a different weighting of options when it comes to addressing the answer to this question.
People voted for Trump in 2024 despite knowing that he was responsible for a coup attempt. It was common knowledge, the only difference in the population being whether they thought it was a good thing or not.
Everyone who voted for Trump in 2024 is a MAGA. Any plausible deniability died with that.
This just isn't the case. Some large % sure, but everyone, no.
I've met people who've voted for Trump, both times, who would never identify as part of the "maga" crowd (if they're even aware of it).
Many are elderly and just believe what the TV tells them, or never hear certain stories at all because they're mostly watching fox news or only local stuff or some other hyper selective form of information. The fact that the president had people charge the capital, and it's not still being talked about as a massive scandal (as it would've been in their time), means that to them it must have all been overblown.
Something like 90% of them don't actually hold views that remotely line up with Trump or the Republican party. If you could convince them that the things that have happened, did happen, then in my experience they've been appalled and left the party completely.
The issue is of course a large mixture of ignorance and isolation (literally not involved in the day to day world at this point in their lives) and then some measure of pride that "i know what i'm seeing/reading/hearing. I wouldn't be fooled like that".
It's why these sweeping declarations of all Trump voters as repugnant bigots just doesn't address the reality, and worse, i think helps trump win. These people can be reached, and if you actually could sit them down, and have them tell you their values, and then blind vote based on that, would have voted overwhelmingly against trump, but instead the main message that winds up reaching them tends to be "someone out there hates you".
Edit-
Hell i think the most interesting example of a Trump voter that I've met was someone who was going to vote for RFK Jr until he dropped out and endorsed trump. He's was a self described liberal immigrant training to be a nurse. In this case they're not elderly, not white, and they're...well at least not what is normally talked about when people think of bigoted maga voters.
To be clear, I'd bet money I could convert just about every elderly trump voter I know before this person would ever entertain voting for Kamala or Biden, and yet at first glance they are a slam dunk "obvious democrat", and his entire family, professional, and friend circle was like him.
Some people live in a world of disinformation, so they did not know it was a coup. What they "know" is that the Democrats do it too, so they should as well.
I think one thing progressives do is overthink and also misunderstand the opposition. People will believe what they are told, for the most part. If they have no reason to question the authority of those doing the telling, then they won't. I think this is by and large human nature, and probably more prevalent the lower in overall intelligence you go.
If they are told things that they believe and can see with their own eyes ("Immigrants are taking your job.") followed up by things that sound plausible ("Democrats steal elections!" (This one has a bit of a confirmation bias, I'm sure everyone they know votes GOP so it should be the same everywhere and yet they still lose)) then those "truths" become combined in their minds, and become a basic part of their worldview.
Fighting this is very hard. It requires a substantial amount of education to get over the hump... and the GOP has been attacking that for decades. To be honest, progressives are so far behind in this game they have probably already lost the long term war. It's going to take a large social restructuring and another 50 years beyond that to undo it, IMO.
Haha, unfortunately the signboard was correct and my dyslexia mangled the spelling.
Just in the interest of weird slang accuracy, it should be "felches". UD does have this definition under "fletch" now too, but the vote count shows that felch is the correct usage IMO.
It'd be hilarious if the banner is wrong and is accusing the mayor of making arrows, so if so, please do with that info what you will. But I'm assuming autocorrect may also be involved.
ETA ah post_below caught it too, my bad!
I've heard it at jobs a number of times. Usually said to a man expressing their opinion about something to a woman, in the context of "mansplaining". Admittedly, I haven't heard it in a while, that idea had cultural cache about 5-10 years ago when it was really popular to call people out for it. I think it resulted in a lot of men legitimately not talking over women, but at least in my case, it resulted in me mostly not challenging ideas I thought were bad when a women proposed them, because I didn't want to rock the boat and become labeled as sexist or whatever.
Not in real life, but I remember seeing “check your privilege” in social media years ago.
I was told this, or rather something similar but much nastier, in person at least two or three times.
I guess that's my point. It feels like folks are offended by proxy as a byproduct of being chronically online or listening to the 24/7 news. I would be shocked if someone was told that by a cashier ringing them up, or a coworker, or someone on their pickup basketball league.
As a straight, white, married male working in a huge corporation (that hasn't scrapped their DEI program either) - literally never outside of complaining from conservative media. To me, it's just another scape-goat that right-wing media picked out for people to latch onto and blame their problems.
In fact, I've only ever been exposed to the idea of privilege in a professional setting because I specifically chose to take training on the subject.
I havent necessarily heard the exact phrase "check your privilege" but Ive for sure heard people talk about privilege as a way of dismissing someone elses arguments. Theres at least one such comment I can see in this thread alone further down.
While I fundamentally agree with the strategy of reduce cost of housing, this isn't all that useful. You can't tax e.g. housing that needs maintenance or is being renovated, but it's possible to fake that easily. They could also just demolish the house and rent out car parking spots, which wouldn't be useful either.
A better strategy is a Land Value Tax (LVT), which asks the question "if you demolished all buildings on the land then put it up for sale, how much would it sell for?" then charges a % of that to the owner every year. So a 400sqm-base apartment block and a 400sqm ground parking lot both pay the same LVT, but obviously the skyscraper will earn more, so people who sit on unused parking lots/houses will pay tax but earn no revenue.
LVT has its own downsides of course (like an outdated land valuation from before recent nearby developments and How Do We Decide When To Update Values), but it's way less holey and provides a positive pressure to use the land productive rather than trying to whack-a-mole every nonproductive use.
Aren’t zoning restrictions and local opposition the main things preventing more housing from being built? The profits from building apartments would be plenty if these restrictions were removed. A land value tax is an attempt to create financial incentives for developers when incentives aren’t the main problem.
Zoning restrictions are a big issue for getting certain kinds of housing built throughout the US, but they're somewhat orthogonal to LVT, as the two are related to different parts of the process that don't necessarily interact. Zoning doesn't prevent people from investing in real estate or building on their land, but limits what kinds of things can be built, and I agree that changing those regulations would do a lot of good in much of the US. But, at least in some places, there are absolutely people who buy land that could be used for housing and don't develop it, simply sitting on it waiting for it to go up in value, and this is part of what LVT is intended to address. I've passed lots like this here in Berlin, for instance, even within neighborhoods that are very in-demand to live in. I'm not enough of an expert on LVT to say if it's the best solution in the US and under what conditions, but it's a separate lever to pull than zoning when it comes to adapting regulation to make housing more available and affordable. Which particular levers are most effective at getting more affordable housing built is going to vary a lot within the US, so it can be the case that one is the biggest issue in one municipality while another is the biggest issue in another.
I suspect that the reasons why vacant lots remain vacant for decades are more complicated than "waiting for the price to go up." It would be nice to get some real data about that.
It very much is. Again a lot of the big culprits wind up being well meaning laws mean it's cheaper to leave it vacant than to risk developing it, which has a tremendous up front cost, but might not pay off.
Ironically another reason is "banks", and not in a "burn them down" way but in a "bad at this" way.
Some piece of land is owned by some person or entity that dies/folds/whatever. Bank collects it under default. Banks are NOT in the business of land and essentially see it as a problem on their books. They will then spend FOREVER trying to get rid of it because they're insanely bad at the entire process, and mire it in internal bureaucracy, unreasonable demands, and all sorts of other shit.
I don't doubt that sometimes that happens, but I do know of a vacant lot that wasn't built on for many decades, and the story behind it was quite different. (Complex family reasons.) So it would be interesting to know how common some of the different reasons are.
Yeah that's very much a thing as well, and it depends a ton on your local state or even county. New York for example is notorious for all sorts of inspections, forms, processes, etc being required, and it's very clearly past the point of reasonable and much more akin to the Taxi emblems racquet.
On the other hand there's at least a few vacant lots I'm aware of near where I grew up that were vacant because....reasons, was roughly my understanding. Owner for whatever reason never wanted to develop them, even during the leadup to 08 where they could've easily sold it all off for a fortune.
Like I said previously, there are different factors that play different parts in different locations, so there's only so much generalization that can be done even within the US (and the vacant lots I've encountered in prime areas have all been here in Germany, in Berlin and Potsdam, where the housing shortage is really quite stark when compared with most US cities). I'm sure there's a complex web of incentives that leads to landowners choosing to sit on the vacant lots rather than develop them. These obviously underutilized vacant lots are just a particularly clear example of what a Land Value Tax is aiming to disincentivize -- one of the principle reasons to enact a Land Value Tax rather than a property tax is that taxing the value of the property would disincentivize construction, wince it would increase the value of the property but not of the land in and of itself. I'm not myself wed to advocating for implementing a Land Value Tax, but I thought these types of vacant land would serve as a good example of what it's going for.
In any case, the particular vacant lots like this I've encountered have been in the middle of residential neighborhoods in cities where North American-style zoning problems definitely aren't the primary issue preventing new housing from being built (and while I can't rule out NIMBY-ism, I don't think it's a big deal here the way it is in, say, San Francisco). My main point was just that those two aren't always the only two things preventing construction of new housing.
IIRC Phoenix, Arizona has a ton of surface car parks in their CBD. That's not driven by zoning.
I think very little of this is relevant to The Democrats' loss in the election. Sure, yes, language-policing is a poor vehicle for change, and trans rights make a great wedge issue for the right, but I don't think The Democrats' actions related to either of those are why Trump won and Harris lost. If anything, Harris distanced herself from "The Left" whenever possible during her campaign.
The only clear and consistent message I got from The Democrats this year was "we're not Republicans," and even that was rather unclear. They chose to run a lukewarm, uninspired campaign rather than propose something bold that people will get excited about, and that shows in the voter turnout.
Say what you will about the substance of his policies, but Trump's "Mass Deportations Now!" got voters excited. Maybe if Harris championed something like "Feed Our Children Now!" she would've fared better.
Yep, the dems are frequently making a mess of their presidential campaigns.
Hillary Clinton was wildly unpopular. Even without Trump's frequent absurdism sound bites (insert "but her emails" meme here), she wasn't the best choice. I'm not going to pretend that if the DNC stood behind Bernie Sanders that the dems would have certainly won, but he seemingly tapped into a "new demographic," the youth vote, which consistently has low turnout.
And then this last election, changing the candidate with roughly a month before voting day, is insane. Kamala Harris needed much more time to build a clear message that would resonate with more voters, especially when she was hit with all kinds of attack messaging prior to becoming the presidential candidate. (Anecdotal, but I heard many concerns of people not wanting to vote for Biden because he could die of old age, and then the "extremely liberal" / "communist" Harris would take over.)
And then there's the endless repetition of spineless acts. The dems didn't have to just give up and sign off on the latest budget. But they did.
Even many voters who had concerns about Trump voted for him. But I try to remind people that they weren't necessarily backing Trump. They were really voting for "not democrat." Regardless of the reason - fear of excess taxation, ethical or religious disagreement on abortion policies, unfounded concerns about transgender individuals assaulting women in bathrooms, anger about the (mostly unlikely) possibility of having their guns taken away, or any other single issue - those are all reasons people voted "not democrat."
Also anecdotal, an acquaintance once told me that he voted for Obama in one election, and Trump in another. Why? Because he is swayed by strong messaging. Obama's messaging on change won him over, while Trump's messaging on border security was compelling to him. While this concept was initially baffling to me, I've come around to seeing that this likely isn't uncommon. Think about how many people are influenced by brand recognition- they'll buy a $1.50 product in the grocery store even when a generic is right next to it for half the price.
It's not a meme. I don't get how people can still say this. Hilary Clinton, had she been any other "grunt", would have had her clearance revoked and possibly wound up in prison. The fact people still act like it's some sort of joke continues to just spit in the face of the people who do take this stuff seriously, and who's lives can depend on it.
So yes, I was pissed when she did, when she had the gall to a act like she didn't know what wiping a server was, and when she got a slap on the wrist for it. As was basically everyone I've ever known with any sort of military clearance.
Likewise, I, and those same people, are 100% livid at everything going on right now. We were also pissed that previous admins had done it.
The sad part is that more people should be pissed, because ignoring the opsec side of it, it's also a complete violation of all the laws that exist so that you can have accountability in government. These private servers are NOT being recorded and not going through the usual government process to archive them.
I doesn't matter if Hilary herself purposefully did this to try and get around these rules, or was just ignorant, because it's breaking the goddamn law, and as someone who worked for the government for a very brief stint, it was drilled into me that I was not to do anything off approved hardware because of it.
I mean fucking hell this is literally from Comey's statement on the investigation:
How comfortable would you be reading that about Trump? Comey goes on to say that he doesn't think it was intentionally malicious, but, in my opinion, it never should have been possible in the first place and it is a gross misbehavior of a high ranking official in charge of extremely sensitive information.
Again, from the same thing:
Oh boy can't wait to hear the same line for team trump when we figure out that we still can't hold powerful rich people responsible.
And finally:
In light of current political matters I highly recommend people read the entire thing and not just the parts I found relevant in this moment, https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system.
We have been playing favortism with our security for decades, and it's wildly unfair and possibly dangerous. Frankly Tulsi Gabbard didn't sound that different from Hilary Clinton on the stand with her "I didn't break the law, i'm just incompetent" routine because that's what they both hid behind.
That's a fair response, and I agree with you completely. I apologize for only referencing it as a meme and not also as something legitimate. I could have used a better example there.
I also don't forgive or ignore wrongdoings based on party. I disagreed with a handful of Obama administration decisions, including some of the drone strike activity.
It does seem like neglect of proper security protocol is becoming more rampant. I think it's fair to say that several Trump administration decisions are increasing the frequency and severity of this (such as the DOGE team). But there have been all kinds of security and sensitivity breach issues across party lines.
Yeup. I pretty much agree with most of if not all of it.
I'll throw in there, that the democratic/leftist/progressive circles went from "yeah fuck you religious right, you can't tell me what to say" to "actually we want in on that" in a BIG way and it's cost them tremendously.
Lots of people say stupid shit that might be hurtful to others. Making it your cause to police speech has never gone well, and continues to blow up repeatedly, as people feel like they literally can't talk without offending others. And while it's absolutely not all people in the party, it sure feels like both the left and the right have turned into professional victims looking for reasons to be offended, rather than any reasonable discussion, empathy, or understanding.
Edit, forgot I wanted to comment on this:
Ohhh how I wish people would just internalize this. Government (and arguably religion) exists to deal with the fact that people do not get along, will not always do what's in their best interests, and should ideally have some outlet other than "fuck it, lets kill each other" to resolve issues.
If you're imagining a government for a group of people who don't have those problems then you don't need a government. This is right up there with "well we'll just pick the right people" on the "if we could do it we wouldn't need it" scale in my eyes.
I think a lot of the issues we face with bridging the political divide is due to the decrease in in-person social interaction and the move from social media connecting you to your friends to connecting you with influencers.
Back in the early 2010s, I was subject to the same gamergate and anti-feminism content that lots of young guys were exposed to. I truly bought into it and nothing a random person on the internet said was going to change my point of view. My way out was connecting with some girls in school over a shared music taste. They were part of the feminism club and gay straight alliance in school and invited me into their circle. Having real people that I considered friends treat me with kindness and bring me into spaces where I could hear real people share their experiences showed me that what I heard online was wrong. If they had attacked me for having the “wrong” views and shunned me, I would likely be in the same place I was back then.
Online spaces are good for indoctrination, but it’s first mover’s advantage on the internet. If you can’t get in a 7 year old’s YouTube feed, you aren’t going to win. Offline interaction and experiences are the only way to expand someone’s understanding of others’ experiences.
Thanks for posting your story, it's a great example.
I think there's opportunity for people to come in from the cold online too, especially if online spaces were kinder to people who say the "wrong" things. Easier said than done, of course, but worth trying for. I've read a few stories of people who were deradicalized in online spaces
I agree, though, that there's no substitute for actual in person connection.
Your confidence in the continued integrity of federal elections is much greater than mine. I already have serious doubts that Mr "Find me 10,000 votes" won legitimately, but I also know that's more of a vibe than any confirmed reality.
I honestly don't believe that to be true. I think it is one of those self-fulfilling prophecies where growing up in a system that has incredibly powerful people that became that way because of that narrative have a vested self-interest to protect that, and are willing to use every dirty trick in the book to stop progress in the name of keeping things the same.
We went from "It's controversial to support being openly gay in the military" to "gay marriage is legal" inside of 10 years. By and large, homophobia is a fraction of what it was circa 1995. Turns out progress can be done very quickly presuming it is not against the will of the rich and powerful.
But you'll notice the poor are still as poor as ever, especially along racial lines. Because disrupting that status quo hurts the bottom line in a huge way.
Be fair, that was the culmination of a lot of very slow progress, the biggest step of which was going from gay sex being outright illegal to it no longer being a crime. And even now that progress has only happened in some parts of the world.
They started criminalizing homosexuality in Europe in the middle ages (when they would kill you for it) and, using the US as an example, only started decriminalizing it in 60's and 70's, culminating in the supreme court decision in the early 2000's declaring sodomy laws unconstitutional. That's an example of progress that took centuries.
Sometimes apparent change can happen quickly, but the vast majority of the time it takes a lot of time, and work, to reach the critical mass for the flashpoint change to become possible.
I really want to stress my rejection of this in particular, because to believe this is to give up on changing it.
I used to think so; about 22 years ago when I was a recovering conservative. "Capitalism is good because humans are greedy and a system that rewards greed will attain the best result." has that same echo to it: By fostering support for capitalism and suppressing communist regimes, it insures that communism does not arise from a position of political stability with a peaceful transition of power. As well as insuring that communist regimes fail before they are able to attain peaceful transitions of power. Would Cuba have been continually poor and oppressive if the United States had not waged perpetual economic war? Anyhow, I'm digressing from my real point.
As I aged, and especially as I had kids, I realized: These are not innate human traits. They are traits that are fostered by the system. Particularly when popular support shifts and the powerful risk becoming less-so. My child had no real concept of racism from a young age. Played with kids of different skin colors, languages, etc, with no discernible preference when groups of children were available for play. Their first exposure to the concepts of racism was, ironically, PBS shows talking about how people are subjected to it. It was incomprehensibly foreign to them. The human race is not, at its core, bigoted. Bigotry is a learned trait. One that fades with solidarity and exposure, and becomes worse when being told that it is your path to attaining and keeping well-being.
I've witnessed rapid change. Generally it was towards the right, what with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. I saw my father fade from a socially neutral libertarian (I don't like homosexuality, but it's not my business) around 1994 to "Gay people are an anathema to society" by 1999. "I don't like Trump but I can't vote for a Democrat" in 2015 to "Trump is the greatest thing since Reagan" by 2019. Went on to support him in both 2020 and 2024. This kind of change is both rapid and refutes the idea that humans are always like this.
Rapid progressive change occurs when the narrative of the rich and powerful no longer becomes relatable to the common person. And conversely, the people who benefit from conservative policy are more likely to be swayed to regressive policy by the implication of them losing those benefits with progress. Progress in labor rights accelerated quickly when racists set aside their racism and worked in unity with black folk. It's no coincidence that this shift occurred with the greatest speed in the 1930s, when everyone in the lower class was suffering after economic collapse.
It is the reason that when progressive change does begin to happen rapidly (ala Reconstruction Era and Civil Rights era), the people enabling it get targets on their back. It's no coincidence that Reconstruction policies were enabled by popular support, but in the wake of Lincoln's death, Andrew Johnson pardoned thousands of Confederates (sound familiar?) and enabled the South to suppress the new population of voting black men. The Reconstruction Era was born out of reaction to this, and enacted sweeping progressive change overriding presidential vetoes over the course of about 12 years. The damage had been done though, and the movement fell apart as the systems enabled by Johnson began to take force en mass.
There is a reason that all progressives that become prominent enough to affect change get FBI profiles and are assassinated at much higher rates than the equivalent regressive.
Why does business suppress unions so hard if unions are genuinely so bad for workers? If they were genuinely bad, the business would allow the union to form and then fail. But unions don't fail, at least not at the frequency the narrative would tell you. It is for that same reason progressives who attain popular support, whom are able to sway the narrative away from the regressive powerful narrative, are the most dangerous. BLM leaders got doorknocks from police, yet Tea Party leaders did not.
That is not itself insurmountable, but becomes harder with each further consolidation of power. When the powerful consolidate media and unify its message against progress, progressive messages are harder to spread. When the powerful are able to suppress all dissident by force, it makes it harder for people to push for progress, both peacefully and by force.
The fact that it is possible to make rapid change at all after building popular support over years demonstrates it is not impossible to make rapid change. People are happy to embrace progressive change even on short notice. But the important part that the progressive message must resonate with those people, strongly enough to overcome the regressive messages being sent out by the powerful: Progress will threaten what you have, and you must resist it.
It is this accumulation of capital and power which enables the enforcement of regressive behavior. The banning of homosexuality in the Middle Ages did not arise out of some random outburst of bigotry: It was a consolidated effort by the theocracies that arose out of the fall of the Roman Empire. The theocracies which were incredibly hierarchical and had the means and motivation to instill their propaganda for hundreds of years. "Witches" were not evil sorceresses: They were women whom did not adhere to the strict rules of the hierarchy, and thus were dangerous to it.
Is it really a coincidence that the Middle Ages ended with the spread of the printing press? It democratized the ability to spread messages in a way that was previously more-or-less controlled by The Church. Our modern ability to communicate quickly is simultaneously our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. We can get progressive messages out quicker than ever, but so can regressives put out propaganda that progress will harm more than help. Echo chambers that form from self-selection do not help, as it causes bubbles of language and philosophy which makes it impossible to properly communicate with each other.
Of course we can change. We used to murder each other at much higher rates, for example. The drives and impulses that caused us to do that are still in us, but we've learned to handle them differently. The same is true for tribalism and all manner of other things.
The point is not that humans are static, it's that humans are humans. Animal drives mitigated by modern forebrains. Accepting the former, rather than wishing it were otherwise, makes the latter easier.
No it is not. It is to recognize that change is going to be a very gradual and difficult process, and that ignoring it is the quick track to failure.
Not really, it's an arbitrary date about two centuries wide, so people pick an explanation based on what looks not-medieval.
The other obvious choice would be guns.
What people don't pick is the rise of professional armies (which displaced vassalage), and the black death's resulting labor shortage and resulting peasant revolutions that ended serfdom (they weren't successful everywhere, of course, and the resulting tenant farms weren't necessarily better). Neither of these is technological though, which makes them seem weird and out-of-nowhere.
Yep. People have very unreasonable timeframes for change.
The sad but simple truth is the biggest motivator for change is death. The old guard dies, the new guard steps in, the new paradigms shifts. Mom and dad hated X, i don't care much about X/know people who do X and they seem ok, why do we have laws against X again?
This is why divisive and exclusionary talk and measures are so damning to progress. I'm sorry to say that yes, if you're reading this, you're probably not seeing utopia in your lifetime, but plenty of people fought for the ability for people to even speak about this issues equally for decades without ever seeing much progress, and hoping the next generation would continue.
If you want a MUCH more obvious timeline, the emancipation proclamation was 1863, one civil war and 100 years later, they passed the civil rights act in 1964. Rights for women has all sorts of fights that have been ongoing for centuries.
Is that ok? God no. Will progress always take that long? Hopefully not, especially in an age where it's so much easier to spread information. Should we magically expect that to change and demand perfection? No, because IF you can somehow gain ground faster, i'd bet money it's easier to lose it faster.
I don’t see a contradiction between “it has always taken time” and gay rights improving so much in 10 years. A decade can be considered a pretty long time, depending on your perspective.
I have no idea where the US will be in ten years. Maybe all this will be behind us?
Frankly, I don't think it's a "vibe" at all - we already know for a fact that the election was affected by illegal actions from Republicans. From using an illegal lottery to buy votes in Pennsylvania to the Texas AG raiding and seizing over 100 phones and computers from a county Democratic Party office.
So much happened right in front of our eyes, I can only imagine what happened behind the scenes.
The only real question is, "Was that enough to tip the scales?"
If I were to really boil it down it seems like the old rallying cry of "no war but the class war" is overly reductive, but placing the culture war above the class war is counterproductive. The question that leaves me with, and one I genuinely don't know the answer to, is whether putting the former over the latter is actually happening and if so why?
Is it that progressive voters are genuinely more concerned by social issues than broad economic reforms? Is it that the media just makes it seem that way by what they choose to highlight? Or is it that voters have no meaningful option to vote for broad economic reform anyway, so the best they can do is support social progress? If I were to guess I'd say more of the latter two options, with a sprinkling of the first.
You've got a lot more faith than I do in the ongoing integrity of the US democracy under Trump. I'm not suggesting he'll suspend voting per se, but I'm absolutely saying it'll be hard to trust the results.
Republican voters are cheering for a billionaire who's stripmining the country at their own expense. So, so many of those struggling people voted for the party who'll make their struggles infinitely worse rather than the one who, admittedly, probably would've kept them roughly the same. I hope you're right that the message can get through, I truly do, but I don't believe it.
Or is that, until recently, whenever a candidate focused on those issues people came out of the woodwork to explain that the American dream is still alive and well and people just needed to work harder and we don't need radical communist ideas so they should get out of the way and let everyone carry on lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps? While meanwhile the corporate media and the political machine would get to work making sure, at the behest of capital, that dangerous ideas like wage growth, regulation, monopoly busting, corporate tax increases and unions didn't stand a chance of making it into a general election.
The second bit is still going to happen, if anything worse than before. But I think we might collectively be close to ready to demand representation that cares about average people. I don't think awareness of the degree of capitalist corruption in government has ever been higher.
This seems to be a popular sentiment, and I get it. You might even be right. But I don't think we should give up hope just yet.
It sounds like we're very much in agreement on why there's no meaningful voting option for economic reform, in that case!
I guess I interpreted your original post a bit more along the lines of "the progressive focus is misplaced and needs to be redirected" and less "there's a top-down effort denying progressives the opportunity to focus on one of the most important issues" - and to be clear I think both are true to an extent, but without acknowledging the latter it's easy to forget that progressive voters are the ones trying, and sometimes even succeeding, when it comes to giving those struggling people healthcare, and education, and housing, and a broad economic safety net.
Yes it's a bit of both. I wasn't trying to say that the progressive focus is misplaced, or not exactly. Rather that progressives have managed to alienate a bunch of people who would happily vote for economic reform but don't want anything to do with what they perceive the progressive worldview to be.
In a lot of cases I think that's because they misunderstand what that worldview is. Part of that is misinformation (Fox News, the internet, certain religious leaders, Russian disinformation campaigns) but some of it is also that (many) people on the left have been heavy handed, absolutist and intolerant in their discourse.
We're so quick to label based on associations we've made in the past. If someone sounds even a little bit like the enemy, we treat them like the enemy. And that has been turned up to 10 by the last election.
Meanwhile there are signs of growing buyers remorse with this administration and every reason to believe that will continue. I'm hoping we'll take the high road and welcome those people instead of continuing to shout at them. One way to do that indirectly is to go all in on the things they can relate to, while having patience with the things they don't understand yet. As it happens the things they can relate to (economics) are also at the root of all the other problems we want to solve
They're also being lied to about economic reform and who will benefit/be harmed, generally actively inflaming racist/xenophobic tendencies into the full "deportations now" and "welfare queens" rhetoric today. But many people will not vote for economic reform if they think it'll help Black people too not even instead.
For me personally the book "White Rage" put a lot of things into context for me -far too many people will all but cut off their own foot if they're told it'll stop Black folks - or any minority they dislike, liberal tears are a fine enough target for some - from gaining something. Or who won't suffer an inconvenience in exchange for the freedom of others. People of faith will far too often change what they believe their faith teaches rather than show the charity their God demands. People do this, and will keep doing it, but they're choosing it, not being pushed there.
In pre-Nazi Germany, the conservative elite wanted an authoritarian leader, Nazi positions were popular, were seen as a way to crush labor movements and leftists. They redirected anger from the German elites to "foreign enemies." Was it the communists that "alienated" them or the elites that advocated for this? I know which way I vote.
And that's not a nice truth, it's not softened or reaching across the aisle, but it has been a pattern of behavior, and I don't anticipate it changing. They're alienating themselves. I could have stayed put on my opinions from 20 years ago and not "alienated" anyone and not a thing would be different. The right has as a whole been not just demonizing but actively dehumanizing, actively denying rights to the left, immigrants, racial minorities and queer people. I think the idea that the alienation is a phenomenon originating from progressives is factually incorrect.
Dems have shit messaging, but it's the progressives who actually have the best message, IMO, that would help the most people. We don't need to stop talking about equality and civil rights, we need to continue and message better on it. We also have to stop acting like things that some college students say or do or that one leftist says is indicative of an entire movement.
On the plus side we're seeing a PA Dem state senator elected in a red district by talking about social security and healthcare and being anti-Trump and Musk. And as far as I can tell, he didn't have to throw trans people under the bus.
Absolutely, misinformation is a big factor.
How much racism plays a part is debatable. Not whether it plays a part, it definitely does. But I don't think it's fair to lump everyone who voted for Trump, and the other conservative representatives that gave them control of both houses, in with the worst of the MAGA crowd.
You're right, especially much of modern evangelical leadership. The extent of their hypocrisy and scheming could be its own thread.
We should be real about that situation though, the bible compares believers to a flock. They take pride in going where their authority figures lead. Some are choosing it, others have just been indoctrinated from birth to trust their church. It's another group that I think it's unfair to judge based on their worst examples, despite the societal damage the group has done.
Again, yes, there are Nazis in the MAGA camp, but that doesn't make the whole group of voters Nazis. Voters as a whole are notoriously less informed and less engaged than people who are informed and engaged imagine. That's never been as true as it is now, with so many relying on Fox news (or their people's interpretation of Fox news) or similar for their information.
But if, for arguments sake, we say that they're like the Nazis, then that's it, abandon hope. It turned out the only way to stop the Nazis was to kill them. Is that where we want to go?
I'm not saying it definitely won't all go badly off the rails, there's a lot that's uncertain and a lot that's deeply wrong about what's been happening. But I don't think it's time to give up yet. And if we're not giving up, votes are going to matter a lot. I don't think calling people Nazis is going to help with that.
I did the best I could to avoid this kind of hyperbolic interpretation. I don't think we should stop talking about equality and civil rights, I think we should change how we talk about them. More empathy, more education, less dictation and judgement.
For example, my younger brother is an open minded, live and let live sort of person. He was raised in an environment with positive exposure to people of varying sexual identities and racial backgrounds. He has good reason, from his own life experience, to understand and empathize with people who are pushed to the edges of society by preconceived notions.
Some time ago, during a period where trans issues were getting a lot of attention, he said something implying that he didn't really get why a person would want to be something other than what they were born as. Probably he was going to go on to say something like "why choose a harder life?". I don't know, I responded before he got that far.
I might have said "oh no, not you too!" which a part of me was feeling, or "what's wrong with you, don't you know it's not ok to say that!?" or some other reactionary thing.
Instead I told him that a lot of trans people, after they start living as the gender that feels right to them, say they feel comfortable in their own skin in a way that they never had before.
That made sense to him, like instantly. He just got it, he immediately felt empathy. When I had more to say, he didn't need to hear it because he was no longer confused about trans people.
Which is a pretty singular example that doesn't directly extrapolate to the larger world. We're brothers, there's built in trust and respect. He's inherently a tolerant guy.
But there are two points in the story which I think are important. First, he wasn't coming from a malicious place even though he used words that malicious people sometimes use. Second, I didn't respond like he was an asshole, or direct my frustrations about intolerance at him, I responded like he was exploring something he didn't fully understand in good faith. The conversation could have been very different.
One thing that I think is sometimes easy to forget for people that have been immersed for a long time in social justice, and the self examination and empathy that goes along with it, is that some of these concepts are really foreign to people at first.
For a lot of people there's a period of shock, along with big emotions they don't fully understand. Not just with trans issues, but anything that's far enough outside of what they're familiar with.
Slapping them upside the head in those moments doesn't tend to create the desired outcome. For my brother there was refreshingly quick understanding but of course that's rarely the case. People need time, space and often repeated exposure to get used to something new. It helps a lot if they feel safe during the process.
Another point I think is important is that people are a product of their environment to a far greater degree than most of us like to admit. We do change our environments sometimes, but usually reluctantly and usually only if the one we're in is uncomfortable enough, and the alternative inviting enough. People actively choose their worldviews only some of the time, the bulk comes from the people and ideas they're exposed to most often.
I think much of the left could do a better job of creating an environment worth moving to. The same people who shifted right in the last election could very easily shift back left, and even some of the more committed right along with them.
This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Who said anything about throwing trans people under the bus?
Do you really believe that's what I meant? Is the idea that I don't have the courage to just come out and say the awful things I think but you can see them when you read between the lines?
Or was someone else talking about throwing trans people under the bus and I missed it?
I'm allowing for the possibility that I'm misreading something in your re-interpretations. And no doubt you have good reasons for your frustration.
But if someone is looking to change up their environment, they're not likely to pick one that looks hostile right out of the gate.
I didn't. Racism isn't limited to the "worst" people but I didn't do any lumping, I explicitly spoke against "lumping" later.
I think indoctrinated people are still responsible for their own actions. I grew up in a faith, I'm still responsible for what I did while a member.
I also didn't judge all believers in their worst examples. I don't understand why you keep assuming I am.
I'm an agnostic, and rather sympathetic to faith. I'm speaking generally because it isn't I've read more than one story from a pastor that was told their preaching was too liberal - because the gospel reading was the Sermon on the Mount for example, and saw how the Bishop Budde was treated for asking for compassion and mercy in church. I'm pointing out patterns of behavior, not demonizing Christians. There's a difference that I'm not seeing recognized.
Yeah once again, not the point I was making. I was pointing out that the problem on pre-Nazi Germany was not the Communists pushing the general public away, it was the elites wanting authoritarian rule and pushing the public into their hands to destroy both the left generally and labor movements in particular.
Why would we do this for arguments sake? Who are you arguing with?
I didn't. Again.
I didn't say you said to stop talking about it, though others have in previous discussions. I'm glad you helped your brother. I talk with folks like that all the time. But that's not unusual, actually, it's the typical way those conversations go when someone isn't ground into their trench.
I don't forget that, personally, empathy is core to my life in personal and professional ways, and I'm often working with people who don't naturally engage with it. But we're also not obligated to function as therapists for everyone who is having a tough time. People are obligated to do that work for themselves too. It's great when they have loved ones willing to do the emotional labor, or professionals who do it as their job, but none of us are going to be holding the hands of every individual Trump voter. They've got to do something themselves too. And the labor has to fall onto those who aren't constantly being bombarded by the bigotry - trans folks for example have got to stop having to be the ally doulas for transphobes. Those who choose to and have the emotional capacity to, that's great. But in my experience the labor is being put on the minoritized people, the ones with less money, more stress, less safety, etc. and those people are already doing this. I need more cis straight white men and women to speak up, personally. (And when black women respond to white farmers who mostly ignore the responses until a white farmer responds to him, we get the same "see everyone else, this how you talk to conservatives" ignoring that many people talked to him in the same manner, he just wouldn't listen to them for some reason)
It's come up quite a bit among national Dems and in previous discussions. Newsome just absolutely threw trans safety away to hang with Charlie Kirk and national pundits keep saying how Dems need to back away from social issues, often specifically mentioning trans issues.
I'm more frustrated you ignored the points I was making in favor of a "not all ____" argument. If I can't point out the similarities to pre-Nazi Germany without the response immediately being "well MAGA aren't all Nazis", we can't communicate.
First, having Nazis in your group is a fucking problem if you're willing to keep hanging out with them. But more practically, all Germans weren't Nazis until they were legally required to be, but Nazi positions were popular and did not get that way because the left messaged poorly.
I specifically said we also need to stop judging the left based on what outliers say, because frankly I think posts like this, which have become rather common, are lumping in all progressives with a relatively few outliers.
And the people telling them it is hostile are predominantly their peers and the media run by those conservative elites that wanted authoritarianism.
Edit: fixed a quote
Apologies for anything I misread. Possibly reading your post in the context of the topic caused me to jump to conclusions.
I'll try to get this bit right:
No argument that there's lumping happening in all directions. My experience, especially since the election, is that it's too many people to be characterized as outliers. I happily accept that I misread you and, for example, you weren't calling the right as a group Nazis, however we can find examples even in this topic of people doing just that.
First, tone matches the situation, in this thread I'm talking about progressive communication and whether that's really what's responsible for conservatives voting for authoritarian right candidates. I don't think it is. My tone, for example would be different talking with a conservative. So how people are talking here, doesn't necessarily reflect the messaging they send elsewhere.
Second, there's a reasonable argument to be made that if you tolerate associating with Nazis, you're no longer getting to exclude yourself from the category.
Third, I'm not holding you to account for what others are saying, it's why I didn't attribute my general statements to you. But also I'm not accountable for what others are saying. So since we've spent all this time talking about things I didn't say, I'm going to bow out.
There is a particular thing that republicans are good at and democrats are bad at. And that’s messaging. The reason they are good at messaging is because they have spent time and effort and money on creating a messaging pipeline. They have whole tv networks like fox which give only the republican perspective. They have almost completely captured social media: twitter, facebook, all that stuff gets republicans elected.
Why are they able to do this? Because they have money behind them to make it happen. Because their policies benefit people with the resources to buy and control all that media.
What is the core of their message? Culture wars. They convince people that the culture is sinful and evil and is controlled by democratic politicians, and if you don’t like that you need to vote against democrats.
Most of what they say are lies but they are consistent with their messaging over many years. (Decades). Meanwhile democrats are imperfect and similarly captured by capital but way more responsive to voters (since they can’t just plant a narrative).
Trump's policy is probably going to put us into a recession. They're cheering now, but wait for the chickens to come home to roost. If he tanks the economy it will be much more difficult for him to get reelected, even when he tries to cheat.
We need to be clear-eyed that there is a bait-and-switch at play: the DNC did not run a progressive candidate. They ran a center-left institutionalist and gave her 100 days to run against a previous president. She rallied from behind and lost by one of the thinner historical margins. Now the democratic apparatus is throwing up their hands saying "see we tried everything, we lost because of pronouns."
If we actually want to run a progressive platform there's a congresswoman in NY and senator from Vermont that know what that actually looks like.
You're absolutely correct that there's a lot at play in losing these elections ,but just like with Hilary it's a death by a thousand cuts thing.
Should the DNC actually have a strategy better than,....whatever the fuck running Biden a second time, was and the shitstorm it entailed? Absolutely.
However it's not just the democratic apparatus that's critical of the messaging of these things, and it's just as easy to say "we would've won if not for the messaging" as "we almost won because of the messaging".
The discussion should occur, but I will 100% agree that the discussion is secondary to "fire damn near everyone who's been involved in decision and strategy since 2014" as a starting point.
I don't mean this in a hostile way at all, but it's rather strange you're characterizing an entire party of people by the actions of a few. I also don't think it's fair to characterize how people act online versus how they do in person, although I do think the increasingly polarized way that people act online as a lack of moderation has only increased since the internet's early days has contributed to increasing polarization in both directions. You're going to run into trolls on both sides, and people are going to tell you that you're an absolute fucking idiot who deserves to kill themselves no matter what identity you have.
I also find it strange that you think this place is too left or unwelcoming as it's a rather center-left space that's historically had issues with pushing out minorities and folks who are further left. Many of them were genuinely nice people who were pushed out by just asking questions behavior by more privileged folk.
I'm not sure I could have used any more qualifying language (some, many, etc..) without making my post(s) outright annoying to read.
I don't think I said it was too left. I know I don't believe it's too far left. I'm positive I didn't say it was unwelcoming. Certainly I've seen unwelcoming moments where newer posters appeared to leave and never return as a result, but that's just online forums, overall I'd call Tildes unusually welcoming.
I recall a period, long ago, when you were talking a lot about some people who left. I think I was fairly new to Tildes at the time... I don't remember the posters, I'm not sure I even saw the threads they were involved in. My impression at the time was that it was pretty normal forum turnover but it sounded like you were close with some of them? I'm curious why it's relevant all these years down the road?
Apologies, you started your post talking about how you've seen uncharitable things on Tildes, and focus in on specific behavior that you feel progressives do. I made the assumption that you were talking about Tildes given the segue from one topic into the other, and not that the two were meant to be a non-sequitur.
I was close with those people, as well as a number of folks who have continued to flee the website since. The reason I bring it up, is that this very post is the kind of post which could alienate a lot of them. Again, I don't mean this as disrespectful, but it really comes off as kind of high horsing about what you think is wrong with the progressive party. I may simply be too plugged in to politics to know how the average person else feels, but people on the left being absolutely obsessed with messaging doesn't feel like a new thing to me, in fact this focus on messaging and not action is perhaps what's behind a major split between the progressives and the liberals driven probably by a lack of any movement from the left in ages (make strong statements against the republicans and then end up with enough of the party voting in step with them or not unifying in resistance).
It also vaguely strikes me as coming from a position of privilege and fragility. You're repeatedly responding to people in this thread who are raising real concerns about any kind of representation and even responding to people who are directly being targeted by the current administration and dismissing their concerns or redirecting to your feeling about how messaging is too polarizing or violent. Not only does it feel to me like you're seemingly putting yourself in a position of authority as opposed to listening and empathizing, but it also feels to me like it's coming from a place of privilege in that you can tell them what issues are more important when their rights are directly being attacked, right now, and many of them are fearing for their safety.
Like I get it, that you're scared too - pretty much everyone on the left is right now, because we're devolving into some kind of fascism on a national level and things are changing at the government level faster than they have in ages. You want to provide something tangible and useful, and you see an area for improvement. But also, this isn't really a new idea, and in many ways sounds awfully similar to what the party line has been towing, the very party which is currently letting a large portion of its constituents get thrown under the bus in order to court voters which may not even be interested in what they have to offer in the first place.
The reason it's relevant all these years down the road is that this kind of behavior, this kind of post, these kinds of responses are still continuing to alienate the minorities on this website. I'm simply providing that voice because you asked and because many of them are no longer present to do so.
There haven't been conversations about rights being attacked that I've been aware of. Though now I wonder about defnotafay who I made indeed have misread.
Some feedback about the way you're coming across from my perspective: Your word choice is measured but the content is something else entirely. It's kinda dark.
It feels weird that you're making these bold claims about what I and other posters are experiencing. Like you've appointed yourself to a role. One that isn't appropriate among perfect strangers.
As I write this I'm increasingly leaning toward the conclusion that I'm missing some context here and I've stumbled in good faith into a conversation that maybe has a lot going on that has little to do with me.
Genuine question - why do you assume this is only long past?
I've almost walked away several times from the same sorts of interactions @Gaywallet describes, and one of those was last month.
Because they said historically and I remembered the time period I imagined they were referring to.
What I've seen on Tildes is largely tolerant and often kind, especially relative to my overall experience of the internet. Though of course there are sometimes exceptions.
Caveat: I don't read anywhere near the bulk of what gets posted so no doubt I miss a lot of what happens
I agree that Tildes is generally a good experience, but it does tend towards a lot of "just asking questions" towards minority groups, especially their civil rights. And genuine arguments made that "the left has to stop talking about trans people" for example, even though it was not the left that was.
Regardless, I do believe that historically here was not used only to mean in the past, but describing an ongoing pattern of behavior from the past that continues forward.
I don't recognise anyone's usernames on this site. I've been here for about two years.
The consistent trend that has caused me to take long breaks and delete my comments is centre-right/centre-left people telling minority groups what they are and aren't allowed to be upset about.
As stated below, this happened again last month, when a group of likeminded gentlemen (I checked) gathered together in a thread in ~lgbt to opine that yeah, maybe it was time to give up on trans rights, and why did everyone in ~lgbt have such a problem with it?
I know your post isn't that extreme, but it does contain a lot of 'well, they're not all Nazis', so I'd put it in the same category: Here We Go Again.
The people that emerge in the comments of these posts, by my research of their profiles, are:
Usually professionals in the IT field
Usually have similar interests like anime/video games
Base part of their personality on being hyper-rational or STEM-focused.
Seem to spend a lot more time online than the people I hang out with in real life.
Now I'm not saying you're one of these group, but they're certainly out in force in the comments. And reading through this thread has caused me to say 'you know what? Fuck this.' It'll be a long time before I come back again.
I'm not even that far left for my country. But when I think of Tildes, I think of American computer workers telling each other how correct they are about what rights marginalized groups should have, 'just because you voted for Trump doesn't mean you're a racist, you know!', and policing whether people who are being targeted by the regime are allowed to feel upset or not.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent of your post, but given how it's developed - and especially, your responses to challenges - I just find it insane that you are surprised people interpret things uncharitably here.
TL;DR if I see someone making the argument we should try and be nicer to the people who voted for Nazis because they aren't all actually Nazis, I'm sorry, but I'm going to put that post in a certain category. And that category is 'computer men in my mentions telling me my lived experience is actually incorrect if I try and comment my own perspective from my real life.'
For months at a time, I can go thinking Tildes is a great place, filled with kind discussion and nice people, and then something like this comes up and reminds me: don't get too comfortable, they don't want you here. What you think of as a historical problem is a current problem. Just as in the real world, it probably just doesn't impact you.
Peace.
I think one thing worth mentioning is that venue is important. Or, at least I think venue is important. I moderate the types of conversations I have and positions I take depending on the topic I'm in and the nature of the initial post. I rarely comment in the niche topics like LGBT, and if I do I avoid setting up a debate. On the other hand, I'm game for a bit of a scrum in the weekly politics thread.
I think in general Tildes users could do a bit better at modulating their behavior based on the topic; it's what all the tags and tag filtering is for. I don't think people should go into the LGBT topic and downplay the harm to trans persons with the current politics. However, it feels different if they want to have a debate about political expediency in the weekly politics thread in relation to a posted op-ed. Whether I agree or not, I'm usually happy to debate a position in the right thread with people in the right frame of mind.
[...]
I'm reading your post as genuine, rather than an attempt to make a foregone verdict sound like something other than what it is. I hope that's true.
What I hear is that you've experienced a lot of small mindedness, ignorance and hostility that has left you burnt out on anything that even feels like it leans in that direction.
Likely also the current state of things in the western world, and maybe America in particular, creates a feeling of hostility to your existence that's just sort of always there. Or maybe more of a feeling than there was before would be a better way to say it.
I hope that doesn't come across as presumptuous. I don't claim to know anything about your life and experience, those are just feelings that marginalized people I've known seem to share in common. A lot of relatively non-marginalized people too for that matter.
Putting aside explanations, having tried to clarify more than enough already: I'm sorry for contributing to that.
That's a good summation, yes.
I think one major assumption you've made that I will correct is that I am adversely affected because I am a member of a marginalized community. I'm not. I'm a straight, white, middle income man. Nobody's trying to take my passport, change my driver's license, restrict my healthcare, or disappear me.
What has burned me out is the inability of other people in my position to just shut up and listen when people who are actually being adversely affected by the current regime are talking. And if marginalized people bring up a point, they have to endlessly litigate it and provide evidence that what they experience every day now is actually true.
Since the election, it took maybe one month for 'What did Democrats do wrong?' to turn into 'Now, I'm a software engineer with a background in systems administration, but hear me out: maybe we should give up on human rights for everyone?' Of course that strain of 'just asking questions' existed pre-election, too, but it has become louder in my experience, and more targeted at those who are least able to bear the burden.
I suppose why this particular topic really rubbed me the wrong way, as did your assertion that Tildes is accepting, open-minded, and its issues are historical. The burden always falls on minority or marginalized groups to push back on what you termed, I think correctly, as small mindedness, ignorance, and hostility, and it really doesn't sit right with me.
Nevertheless, I do sincerely appreciate your apology.
Yeah I definitely had that wrong!
Tildes is accepting and open minded in comparison to my general experience of online spaces. There are more accepting places, but Tildes is well ahead of the general curve. I stand by that. But I didn't intend that to be dismissive of people's experiences here, I think I've mostly managed to miss the worst threads in that area.
Interesting discussion, thanks.
All the way back in 2014 Scott Alexander wrote a very interesting post called "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup". The whole thing is worth reading, but the following passage is particularly relevant, I think:
I think this is a huge part of what leads to liberal smugness. If you know conservatives who are good people, it's a lot easier to understand how they get to their positions - even if you don't agree.
Scott Alexander is a really bad example to pull in this conversation IMO.
Why?
Because someone that supports eugenics and believes in race science, and - bonus new fact because I always get bonus new facts - kept recommending his "culture wars" offshoot subreddit when it became a cesspool of "race realism" before disavowing it (it's since been banned off reddit I understand). I also think he makes bad arguments often strawmanning the left and should stick to psychiatry. But he does it "rationally" so it doesn't flag for people apparently.
I've written extensive, cited posts about him before. I'm not gonna do it now, it's in my history, mostly link chained together. There's the rational wiki for more info. While bringing him up in a "progressives have gotten this wrong" thread is on brand for him, bringing up people who express white supremacist views is never a great idea unless you're wanting to share what white supremacists think.
There's more, but as I said, I'm not rehashing it all. I just think he's a bad example to use.
I did as you suggested and went through your post history to find what your referring to, then through thousands of words of blog posts by Scott and his critics, summaries on rational wiki, articles on the wiki, and I've been on this for several hours now.
To be clear:
I asked why because I think that "this person shouldn't be cited" isn't really helpful to the discussion without at least some explanation, especially if it's not in direct reference to the linked article and just the person who wrote it.
I also asked why because I have always had a fairly low opinion of SSC and Scott as it quickly became a magnet for self identified "rationalists" who in my experience are mostly people who want to justify why they've always been right and nothing they've ever thought is wrong, no matter how awful it is. To his credit it seemed like he at least sourced his arguments, which makes it easier to discuss them, but I still got the same vibe I do with many which is starting with "i must be right, lets go find why", even if I would say he was objectively not doing that, just something that felt akin to it.
None of what I'm about to post is in any way meant to be a crtique of you.
With that in mind, please bear with me as I go through what this entailed:
It's not exactly easy to go through comment history (i'm aware of no search feature for it?), but 10 pages in you reference Scott (maybe there's a ref earlier, i'm just using find on the word Scott) and it leads to this comment, which again states
and links to this blog post about SSC which is, according to the author, 12,000+ words, but also has a couple thousand words of replies that are probably worth reading as well, especially as one of the people the author is talking about shows up to claim they've been "libeled"/unfairly attacked.
However your previous post also links to this post on a deleted topic and also this post which itself links to the aforementioned deleted topic, twice I believe (i've gone in circles on this a lot now and am too tired to bother tracking it further).
The key post from you I could find on all of this being:
Wiiiich again doesn't really cite a source or point to anything, but just makes claims.
I then hopped to kagi and google for more research which led to the aforementioned rational wiki entry and its 59 footnotes of sourcing and wildly inconsistent tone and levels of professionalism (the page very much reads like his fans and detractors have taken stabs at editing). Of note some of the most extreme claims are lacking any footnote, such as " Over the years he has repeatedly hinted, and eventually stated, that IQ is really important, races differ substantially in IQ, and the world would be better if smart people had more babies and stupid people had fewer. " as are some of the less extreme but easy to verify ones like "Alexander simultaneously disclaimed /r/themotte and kept recommending it."
This does not mean the claims are incorrect, but annoys me when it is the whole damn point of a proper wiki (and you know...sorta useful if you're going to claim to be rationalists). And naturally like all wiki's that don't have the wiki's userbase, I've no idea how current some of these claims are without, you guessed it, more searching.
As a kickoff point:
seemed promising, since I could so I looked into Charles Murray as he has a very detailed entry on the wiki and I'm familiar with "The Bell Curve" as a common cited book supporting IQ tests (which I believe, and research mostly shows, are at best lousy tools and at worst outright useless), however I find the words "close ideological ally" to be, at the very least, not up to encyclopedic standards as neither footnote contains those words. At best they are taking extreme liberties with the linked segments.
In fact I then found that Scott himself has talked about the NYT piece, including the aforementioned Charles Murray, segment, and it quotes to one of the same footnotes the rational wiki does with its own explination. In fact I recalled reading this when it occured.
This then of course gets into the rabbit hole of "Was the NYT unfair to Scott in its presentation of his stances and desire to dox him when he claimed to fear for his safety, or did Scott protest the piece only once they started interviewing people who would not like him?, as the rational wiki mentions in the oh so proffesional manner of:
The footnote 15 is the link above.
It's around here that I'm going to call it on my summary of this dive(which includes quite a lot more that's just as much a pile) and instead summarize my thoughts and why I bothered to write all this.
I think it speaks volumes that in an age where I can, in a few hours, source so many points, that it still leads to a whole shitload of reinterpritations, bad sourcing, unprofessional behavior, and assumed motives. Doubly so when it's not like the subject matter at hand is missing plenty of 100% easy to quote in context concerning opinons and behaviors.
I feel that a lot of the current nightmare state of US politics in particular is related to this fact. I was someone with a already negative viewpoint of Scott, who then wanted to learn more, and now have multiple offramps to choose my own adventure on reality, and that's across literal hours of reading and research with a lot of personal experience with Scott fans and detractors. The space is littered with so much "well i know what they meant" that you can't even begin to easily get to "this is what they actually said" and try to unravel from there.
I do sincerely believe this all relates to the topic at hand, which at the end of the day once again circles back to communication and messaging. If its this hard to even figure out what was said by someone who's main claim to fame is thousand word essays in a "rationalist" community, what hope do people have when 90% of what they get is from tiktok and twitter takes? It's why I think it's so important there's a cultural shift on some level to properly calling out discussion that serves to only enflame situations, even if it's "on your side". A behavior that I think is absolutely embraced by extremists.
As I said, I'm not particularly interested in going into it again, I've written more than those posts on the man, but some of them no longer exist at this stage. I've been criticized for sourced comments and criticized for short statements and criticized for bringing it up at all. And I don't care. I read through all the things, and the sources and googled the ones that didn't have sources until I found things.
I'm not even including my personal distaste for effective altruism and the holding of rationality over emotions. I'm sorry you did all that work, because ultimately, while I feel sufficiently backed up by the facts and various sources this is also based on my reading his own words. And I don't source my life, and my comments are clearly not forever.
And that's why, it's worth it to me to say "we shouldn't quote the guy that advocates for eugenics and the like" especially in this discussion but tbh in general. I just have a personal stand of not letting white supremacists be posted unchallenged.
ETA: and this isn't a criticism of you either I started writing more and I just cannot spend more of my energy on a shitty dude. (Him) So I'm sticking to my boundary.
Fae, I get where you're coming from here but I find this sort of purity test exhausting and unhelpful, particularly given that race wasn't even part of the conversation. I don't agree that Alexander holds white supremacist views, but even if he did, this isn't, like... I don't know, Mencius Moldbug or Steve Bannon or something where it's a central, inseparable part of their ideology and public persona, to the point where it infects even wholly unrelated topics. What I mean is that I can understand how you interpret some of his comments about IQ testing as white supremacism, but it's not like that's his hobby horse or something he's bringing up all the time or whatever. It's not what he's primarily known for.
Obviously I'm not saying that you should share links or Alexander's writings. I just don't appreciate being told that I shouldn't - particularly given when it's for things unrelated to the topic at hand. (And if I'm being honest, double particularly when there's no explanation given. I understand that you feel too exhausted to get into it, but you did bring it up).
I did bring it up and I will bring it up, and you're free to make whatever choice you want about sharing from him. I hold no authority over you. I also don't think "explicitly supporting eugenics" or saying he believes in white supremacist ideology is "his views on IQ." And I don't think it's a purity test, but if you disagree cool, my "purity test" is not supporting that. I don't think it's hard to meet.
He's said plenty of things I disagree with on other topics and things I've agreed with on even others and I still think he's a particularly bad example for this for several. It is my opinion that his opinions aren't isolated only to a few mentions as I've read a number of his writings, Reddit posts, leaked emails, and the like in my attempt to figure out his intentions, beliefs and what he espouses.
This is one of those things where while I'm sorry some people find it annoying, I don't believe that I should compromise my values because of it. I will probably swing back to citing sources since my past comments no longer all exist as far as I can tell. But if folks regularly posted someone with the views of JKR, under the cover of being "gender critical not hateful," but about another topic like personal responsibility or whatever, I'd be saying something then too.
Compromise your values?
I do not believe he should be posted unchallenged and I don't think we should post white supremacists at all outside of talking about what white supremacists believe.
I know we disagree on whether he meets the definition. C'est la vie.
He manages to be posted fairly frequently regardless.
I’m wary of discussing what “they” think (for any “they”) because it’s a big country and many claims will be true of some people. Maybe a good way to share information about what people are like is to tell stories?
All this talk about how conservatives have it so tough and are being left behind, would be a lot easier to swallow if they didn't consistently vote for the people promising policies that will make it worse.
well you took the wind right out my sales buddy boy.
I had a call with my mum tonight who lives in Texas and usually when it comes to politics I let her talk without me interrupting cause I feel like too many people want to shout over others when it comes to politics instead of just keeping their mouth shut and listening and understanding and it was a fascinating conversation.
the gist of it seemed to be that one of her colleagues at work (or a colleagues' kid) apparently tried to get votes for the dems in the last election by talking about how if the dems dont win, certain rights are not a guarantee (the ones she mentioned was abortion and legal marriage).
my mum's response was apparently "if you really want an abortion, you can just go to Mexico and get one" and for legal marriage "marriage ain't all that, and lots of straight couples dont get married, they just are common-laws, just do that". and keep in mind, she has gay friends and likes them.
her response was "I can barely afford to pay my mortgage" and she rattled off other general affordability issues such a medical insurance stuff.
and all I could think is, "yea, her response fits entirely with what Jon Stewart keeps saying every Monday on TDS since the end of the election". what really hurts people is struggle and poverty. My mum apparently doesnt even watch the news. For all I know she doesn't even know Trump tried to overthrow the government. her only perspective is "the system doesn't work and I can see this in how the medical system is fucked and how I can barely afford my home".
So yea, I am not necessarily against identity politics. It's sometimes a good and necessary thing cause it allows for marginalized voices and people to be illuminated. and civil rights are obviously important but if the dems dont try to reach out to the regular american who are just trying to get by, it seems like they may never have the votes of the regular people who quite frankly just arent plugged into civil rights and political stuff.
But as long as dems pretend that their problem is just a messaging issue and not what AOC outlined quite clearly here, they will always struggle to get votes and will act surprised after each election and "soul" search which apparently just means insisting that anything except their corporate capture is the issue.
Its really important to not contrast this label with marginalized people.
Regular Americans include your mom, sure, and also queer people, Muslims, Latinos, Black people, etc.
"Regular" people have to care about their own civil rights too. If the SAVE act passed, your mom would probably suddenly care very strongly about her right to vote.
When "Regular Americans just trying to get by" is used as a contrast it really continues the pattern of "othering" the minority populations. All those marginalized groups, we're regular Americans, with rent/mortgage and bills, and food budgets hit by inflation.
either I am misunderstanding you or we don't agree.
Your first part is saying that regular Americans includes marginalized Americans. that I can agree with.
But I think you are further trying to state that the majority of those regular marginalized American families also care about their civil rights. That's simply an optimistic assumption you are making imo. Some care about their civil rights, some care more just about getting by, being able to afford a roof over their heads and a meal for their families. You might make the case that the only way that the regular marginalized Americans can get those is by advocating for their civil rights and maybe you are right but in my experience, marginalized/immigrant families are more likely to want to keep their heads down, not cause trouble and just get by and be able to provide the basic necessities for their family.
Basically I agree with the sentiment shared here
I'm saying you used the term "regular Americans" in contrast with marginalized groups and that yes all kinds of Americans juggle the things they care about - especially when their rights are under attack. As I said if your mom couldn't vote because of the SAVE act passing, all of a sudden she may indeed, despite her mortgage, care a lot more about her civil rights. I'm not conflating "care about" with "protest on the street." There's nothing contradictory about "keeping ones head down" and caring about issues that impact their safety.
When as I said "regular Americans care about their civil rights..." You replaced it with "regular marginalized Americans."
My point is that language is meaningful, and when we other marginalized groups as not part of "regular Americans", we mirror the same language this administration uses. If there's a distinction to make, about where someone gets their news, or how "plugged in" they are, or whatever, I think those are useful, but it's also worth noting that the poorest households predominantly vote Dem. For examplr, 92 percent of Black women (who have the highest wage gap) aren't only activists or high information voters or whatever you're contrasting with "regular."
So what I'm saying is mostly about the language you're using , which is relevant in a thread about messaging.
I think you are a little too focused on language personally and having people speak the way you see is proper and correct.
You assumed that that my use of "regular Americans" was intended to exclude marginalized groups (it was not). and when you misjudged what I saw saying, instead of going "b3_kind_rw1nd, when you say regular Americans, does that include marginalized people?" and then I would have said "of course" and that would have corrected the misunderstanding.
Instead you seem more focused on ensuring another person is not using the language, that to you, echos the rhetoric of the current administration. I don't think that's a winning strategy.
Sure if I was out here calling women cunts or bitches or black people the n-word or started using Nazi rhetoric like Trump does, maybe then there's cause for concern. But what I said was pretty harmless and you just took it a certain way I didn't intend.
No she wouldn't. I don't mean to be devil's advocate or what it may be but you are assuming 2 things there: 1. she would know that her right to vote had been passed and 2. that she would ever be inclined to vote. I am not saying her perspective is correct or healthy, I am just laying out why I don't see her getting upset with losing the right to vote.
there is nuance there, depends on the marginalized community we are talking about. I would say if it's someone who is part of a marginalized group but was born in the state, they are much more willing to be loud and assert themselves if they think the government is doing things that impact their safety. I don't think they all would care to protest but perhaps a non-insignificant size would.
However, if it's someone part of a marginalized community who is a recent immigration or in the states on a green card of visa, they are much more likely to keep their head down and not want to make waves by protesting at the risk of facing repercussions for doing so. And once they become a citizen, chances are the country they came from is so much less developed, they will be happy enough with the privileges they view themselves as having (being an American citizen and privileges that come with having a shot at the American dream for themselves or their kids) that they still would not want to make waves just for the shot at achieving that.
This whole thread is about messaging and communication. I didn't assume your intentions, but highlighted how you contrasted the language in your paragraph post. Your intentions may have been different, the impression is still present. "Regular Americans" must by its nature contrast with some "irregular" group of Americans. I'm not misunderstanding you, I'm thinking you'd be better served in a messaging thread by using language that specifies rather than implies your meaning especially because othering people is part of the administration's active practices. And I still don't know what "regular Americans" means to you.
(Also, I don't understand why you not calling women the c-word but then using it anyway is somehow a positive. There are plenty of shades of gray in language before you get to using the N-word or sound like an open Nazi.)
As for your mom, I did say "may" because I don't know her personally. But if your mom wouldn't vote at all even losing the right to, then I'm not sure why any political party needs to appeal to people similar to her?
As for immigrants on visas and permanent residency status, it's ironically those who were using their first amendment rights being targeted now for deportation, meaning at least some folks in those groups are quite willing to speak up. It depends very much on the individuals and I'm sure there's statistical data about who immigrant families vote for, based on whether they're first gen or 2nd/3rd Gen.
But I am discouraging the separation of people into "regular" and basically any other group, but especially "regular" and "marginalized." I'm pointing it out not just because of its relevancy but also because a nebulous group like "regular Americans" is impossible to target with outreach without definition.
I mean, I guess we disagree even there. To me post_below's post (and my subsequent comment) was about the fact that Democrats are failing cause they are not making proposal for real substantive changes that can win them more voters. Democrats want the issue to be their lack of messaging and communication cause then they can pretend their policies and plans are a winning strategy and keep serving their rich donors instead of regular people.
Maybe to some people, not to me. When I say regular americans, I mean people who are not politically active and just trying to get by, go to work, put food on the table. the opposite of my version of regular americans are activists in some form and more educated about the current culture wars or social issues in America. The random american who didn't even know till a month before the U.S. election that an election was coming up. For example, I know more than my immediate family about the U.S. election and the issues at play with Trump wanting to be a facist. My immediate family? had no idea and I am not American and they are. My mum apparently hasn't watched news in God knows how long.
I disagree there too. What you are doing reminds me of liberals who get too held up on the wording and I think that kinda thought process is a part of the reason why liberals keep failing. The policing of people's language will get you nowhere. And Trump's election proves that to me. Stop trying to police language and instead just focus on real substantive changes (affordability, etc). I am not saying that some people do not use problematic language but those people (who matter) will not be pleased and will be actively turned off if another group of people make a big deal about their use of language when they are going through real struggles of poverty, etc.
We do disagree, I think most of the Democratic policies are in fact better for poor and working class voters (and tbh people in general) than Republican ones. (They're far from perfect but better is a scale) But you framed it as Dems needing to "reach out to" regular people and outreach is a communications/messaging/PR issue.
Emphasis mine
You say it doesn't, but then you provided a very specific definition. That's something that can be engaged with, and "regular" does not mean that specific thing to everyone. That definition lets conversation happen. I'm not sure that's a majority of Americans but maybe it is.
You can absolutely disagree, but with the specific definition you can actually get into whether essentially anyone is reaching people who don't watch the news or know about the election coming up. We disagree about who isn't being reached, because for example we see tons of people just tryng to get by who do vote for Dems. Consistently poor people vote for Dems pretty consistently. That can be broken down further though.
My point isn't policing language it's that you can't talk about who a group is without defining them, and pointing out that the way you used it implied a contrast with marginalized groups.
But it raises an excellent point. Just like the Dems weren't focusing particularly hard on civil rights issues this election and did talk about affordability of home ownership, cost of groceries, inflation in general, etc. and the post mortem has still been "Dems should focus less on civil rights issues" despite the right focusing on those issues consistently.
We keep buying into the assumption that people are walking around saying "check your privilege" and the like or focusing on trans issues because that's the Republican messaging. If one thinks their policies are better for those voters you describe, then it's about communicating that to them.
I am curious, when do you think I implied it was a messaging issue?
Oh, I think I see the confusion.
When you said
i thought you were implying that I am categorizing marginalized Americans as the "irregular" Americans because they are not the "typical white cis" American, or whatever the stereotype is. What I would say instead is I view folks who are not so plugged into the news and politics as "regular Americans" because that represents most/average Americans and therefore I view it as the regular behavior of most Americans. My personal belief is folks like you and me are amongst the outliers in that we keep up with politics and news. I don't think that is something done by most.
Regarding your last bit, I can't claim that I entirely understand what you were getting at. Either your sentence structure is off or I am having reading comprehension issues. I think I get snippets but not the overall gist so best I can do is respond to snippets.
Honestly, I would assume most people would know that if you say "regular Americans" you mean people not politically engaged as that's the language used on news shows.
Another point of disagreement. Ever since 2016, Dems only really focus on "we aren't trump" and how they aren't fascist or dictator-like, especially with this last election, which I agree with but guess what, apparently voters care more about solutions to affordability than whether or not you like to cosplay as a facist. Fair or not, that appears to just be the reality of the situation. I disagree that Dems provide real actionable solutions to home ownership, cost of groceries, etc. They talk about it but I don't think anyone thinks they provided solutions that anyone think will actually make much of a dent in how the system screws over the poor and struggling. You might say "they focused on it in a more meaningful way then Republicans" but I think as long as that's the bar for the democrats, they will forever struggle to get votes.
They already explained that's what they were talking about right in their original post, so the hostile interpretation of that "regular" seems out of place.
But it makes me wonder, what is your definition of "regular Americans"? Who do you mean by that term?
I'm not hostile nor, despite the assumptions, accusing the previous poster of anything other than using a term that can be loaded. "Regular Americans trying to get by" doesn't inherently mean low information, or exclude people who care about civil rights. Knowing that they meant "low information voters who don't even pay attention to the election" and are contrasting that with politically engaged people and activists is helpful. Though personally I think there are more folks than that. But when you talk about marginalized groups then follow that up with a sentence about "regular people" there's implication that can be fully avoided by being specific. I'm in a marginalized group. I am also pretty sure I'm a regular people by most definitions.
I don't use the term "regular Americans" as a rule but if pressed I'd say "not billionaires" or possibly "not politicians" depending on context. Essentially "regular" to me means about 99+% of the population. But again, I don't use the term. If I did, I'd make the contrast of who I was referring to explicitly clear.
Does that answer your question?
Wish I'd understood this better before I had my first few conversations with my Mom after she started getting sucked into the right wing misinformation machine! I didn't interrupt or shout over her but I should have have done a better job of listening and being curious at the beginning. In my mind it was going to be easy to show her how toxic the internet MAGAs are because she was progressive by nature her whole life... Large queer friend group, people from different cultures, she'd had an abortion herself, new agey one love spirituality, etc.. Turns out not so easy after all. Any de-cultification progress I made was quickly reversed by the far right doomscroll.
Yes exactly, if Fox news or, in my Mom's case right wing Facebook influencers, are the only place you get your information from then you think the world is on fire (but not the climate) and the right is here to solve all your problems. Especially when...
I think there are genuinely a lot of voters who either don't know that Trump tried to stage a coup at all or believe only the right wing spin. To them Trump didn't try to overthrow the government, he was defending democracy from the corrupt libs. The right has spin for everything that's wrong with MAGA. It falls apart with even a little rational scrutiny but that doesn't matter if your relationship to it is primarily emotional, mostly based on fear and outrage. Which of course the right excels at triggering.
For me it goes farther than that, I think many of the core tenets of progressive identity politics are vital not just for expanding people's rights but for creating a healthy society. I think the strategies need work though. As you say, it's not connecting with a lot of Americans and we'll need a good sized chunk of them in future elections.
If you tell them: your safety and your economic concerns are the top priority, and they believe it, a lot of them are likely to accept the rest of the platform in the same way they have with Trump. After which it will be a lot easier to educate them about what the other parts of the platform actually are.
Yep. I just hope there will be enough public support in the nearish future to force the democratic party to give ground to the real progressives. It'll have to be loud and persistent, the old guard's grip on the party has the strength of rigor mortis at this point, waiting for them to age out doesn't seem to be an option.
Saying people can't be marginalized but they can feel marginalized is like saying they can't be sad because they can only feel sad.
That's absolutely not what it is like.
It's saying that somebody's feelings are worth trying to understand and solve, even if those feelings do not match reality.
Someone might feel oppressed or threatened or a multitude of other feelings without being in any of those felt situations. And trying to see why they feel that way and if a reasonable solution for those feelings can be found is very much distinct from saying that that feeling is correct.
Marginalization is not a feeling, so this comparison doesn't work. Marginalization describes material conditions that affect a certain class of people. Black people aren't just marginalized because they feel a certain way, they're marginalized because of a long history of oppression and policies deliberately designed to limit their social and economic opportunities.
White men, by contrast, are not marginalized as a class in the US. While many white men are marginalized for other reasons, white men are not marginalized for being white men. White men nevertheless may feel marginalized, and this can be due to various factors. Some white men feel marginalized because they're suffering from class-based oppression, for instance. Others feel marginalized due to increased focus in the public consciousness on combatting marginalization of other groups of people, which can cause them to feel disadvantaged even when that's not actually the case materially. There is a wide spectrum of reasons that a given white man may feel marginalized, and those reasons are not always based on any actual material reality. Addressing why they feel this way can even in some of those cases still be a good thing and worth doing.
To leverage one of the greatest quotes in Frozen 2:
You feel what you feel, and your feelings are real.
White men are not marginalized, by any stretch of the imagination, to people whom understand what marginalization actually is. But the feelings of marginalization get stoked by the people whom dislike that others are being marginalized less....in part by being disingenuous about what marginalization is.
That is what enables white men to be leveraged to support regressive policies in practice, even if they otherwise wouldn't support them.
Overall yeah I agree with this framing, at least when it comes to the subset of men who would not otherwise support regressive politics getting started down the pipeline.