politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
All conservatives seem to be anymore is 3rd grade schoolyard bullies. I guess they're just as weak and insecure. Such a shame that such a huge chuck of the population will never reach self actualization. What a pitiful existence - kinda makes me sad for them.
Something President Obama said in his speech the other night - instead of making it about us and them, you try and find some common ground. And there's always something to agree on, even totally opposing sides. We're still people living our lives.
"That sense of mutual respect has to be part of our message. Our politics have become so polarized these days that all of us across the political spectrum seem so quick to assume the worst in others unless they agree with us on every single issue. We start thinking that the only way to win is to scold and shame and out-yell the other side. And after a while, regular folks just tune out, or they don’t bother to vote.
Now that approach may work for the politicians who just want attention and thrive on division, but it won’t work for us. To make progress on the things we care about, the things that really affect people’s lives, we need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices. And that if we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process. "
None of that is easy, and not everyone is going to change. But the other choice is to be like them, and that helps no one.
dems have been trying to do this for years. YEARS. what do republicans do? vote against THEIR OWN bills, because they don't want anything to get accomplished while a democrat is potus.
i love obama, but unfortunately the only thing that seems to be starting to work is calling republicans weird couchfucking fascists who need to be defeated in a landslide just to keep the country from devolving into a christofascist dictatorship
the "lets play nice" approach gave us trump 2016 , a 6-3 corrupt conservative scotus, and not even a guarantee that it won't all happen all over again starting november
fuck trump, fuck trump voters, and fuck anyone who claims to still be "on the fence" about which choice is best for this country.
"undecided" doesn't mean undecided for this election. "undecided" means "i'm voting R, but don't want to say it out loud," because that person knows that they'll be--correctly--shat on for voting for the objectively wrong choice
This take the high road attitude can fuck right off when the other side's concerns are irrational racist hatemongering bullshit.
The high road only works when your opponent as a sense of shame and the capacity to self-reflect, even a little bit.
MAGA has neither. The few republicans that still do, the few who are still the adults in the room, have already pledged for Harris. Any of them who haven't by now are lost causes addicted to Trumps tit milk.
I totally agree with both of you that once you see the person's true colors, there's no point in continuing. The point was, how can you know what the person is thinking without actually interacting and finding out their real problems? And perhaps introducing some solutions or directions that, without the labels of socialism or communism, are appealing to them.
If we paint all conservatives with the same brush, we alienate the few (or maybe not as few as we think) to never consider something different. How many times is it said that much of their information comes from just a single source like Fox News? Let's give them something else to consider before we blast them all as hopeless. As shown, there are those who have heard the message and seen the true Trump in reality who have flipped, but they only did so because someone helped them realize their echo chamber was just that and all lies. They'd still be Trump supporters if someone didn't open their eyes.
You're preaching to the choir on that point. In fact I got positively roasted a while back for saying essentially the same thing.
The only thing I would say is that I was referring specifically to voters themselves; those conservative leaning non-voters that may not see themselves in the current republican party.
Incidentally, its a belief that was validated by the addition of Tim Walz to the ticket since that's exactly what his presence is meant to do.
But once those conservatives identify as not just conservatives, but as republicans, there is very little hope in changing their mind unless they're already predisposed to having it changed.
have you taken into account the possibility that the reason maga has become as powerful and pervasive as it has is because one of their core strategies is to paint liberals with the same brush?
"let's not stoop to their level"
again--the let's play nice take the high road approach is the reason this discussion is even happening.
trump is a convicted felon who also happens to be an insurrectionist. who also happens to be a rapist. who also happens to be a con man. who also happens to be fucking incomprehensibly incompetent.
are we REALLY "alienating" people who take objective verifiable real life FACTS and throw them out the window as "fake news" because that's what trump says?
no. the time for "we should listen to their concerns" has long passed. as stupid as it is, mockery and ridicule of the wrong side is what will save this country from destruction
I understand your point, and I agree to a degree that once you find out a person is ignorant on purpose, or worse that they know the facts and embrace them, then let them have it. But I can't see it being constructive to attack anyone before you know where they really stand, and unfortunately sometimes that takes some interaction and "good faith". Let them dig the hole first before you bury them.
I'm just trying to avoid being a false dichotomy on the issue. People are more than a caricature of red or blue. Hell, part of the Republican plan is to make the peons fight with each other and not talk to each other, it works for them to create this image of the evil liberal.
Pick your fights. Some aren't worth fighting. Some are.
if we were to end up in a christofascist dictatorship with trump wielding unlimited absolute power, what would you have done differently?
if we were to end up in a christofascist dictatorship with trump wielding unlimited absolute power, what would you have done differently?
Talk to more people? Presuming it was a problem with voters showing up. I can't see how me getting just a few people to vote blue instead of red or not at all is a problem leading to that scenario. Unless I miss your point.
If it's vote stealing or another insurrection attempt, certainly that's a looming danger, but I didn't get that meaning from your question.
how many people have you converted so far?
It's not conversion, but just more getting people to think beyond what they're being fed. That I know of (or rather, what they've said) possibly two or three.
Obama was, and remains, shockingly naive in this way.
The entire republican mindset is being trained to abuse this kind of attempt at good faith engagement. Fascism thrives on that kind of naiveté.
I think he knows, he's just playing for the centrist vote.
These are beautiful and healing words and also we're dealing with the white Taliban whose very identity is not to play along with that.
Obama's approach is more preventative, whereas we're in the cancer-killing phase of things. We're trying to get back to where we can do things that way safely, if we're doing things right.
And even the preventative approach has to be fucking ballsy and loud about not letting rich cocksuckers hijack civil conversations to justify robbing everybody blind while calling it "business as usual", which is what set the stage for all this in the first place.
The sentiment only goes so far when right wing media is constantly going on about the communist antifa radical terrorist pedophile deep state Soros millennial immigrant rapist woke mob that comprises the Democratic voting base.