this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2024
828 points (98.4% liked)

politics

19172 readers
5141 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. 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.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Snowflakes. Groomers. Cucks.

For years the MAGA movement has approached politics the way a bully would approach a schoolyard, sparring with labels so nasty, they seemed expressly chosen to appeal to the kind of people who stuffed nerds in lockers in sixth grade. And for years Democrats, abiding by the mantra to go high, not low, have responded by trying to be the adults in the room: defending themselves with facts, with context, with earnest explanations that nobody remembers (if they defend themselves at all).

The problem is that taking the high road only works if politics is a sport played mainly by people who act like grown-ups, which it is not. And also: Facts and context don’t make for particularly sticky messaging.

Enter: Weird.

Over the past two weeks, as “Brat” and coconut memes have taken over the internet and Kamala Harris inches closer to Donald Trump in the polls, the Democrats have finally gone low, deploying a bit of verbal jujitsu so delightfully petty it might just work.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 209 points 3 months ago (5 children)

i find weird and creepy to be less name calling and more fact pointing

[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (5 children)

i love how there are like 10 different kinds of lemmy gold

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Good observation!

Take these!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

They are all as valuable as that other gold too!

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Let's keep up the "name calling" facts

Matt Gatez creepily traffics children
Gym Jordan is, at best, a creepy enabler of pedophiles
Mike Johnson weirdly discusses individual porn movies with his children
(I'm not trying to stick to a theme here)
Lauren Boebert seems to weirdly enjoy public indecency

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago

yes! they key is to use factual words that these very simple, emotionally driven people understand.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago

(I'm not trying to stick to a theme here)

Sometimes a creepy pattern just emerges from the data. :shrug:

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago

Also way less offensive than what they deserve.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

For Heaven's sake, someone make this person a Lemmy Mod

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 115 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Back when Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high--I told my wife "I really wish that worked in American politics, I really do....but it simply doesn't". My wife disagreed. Because my wife is a mature, kind-hearted Democrat. She thinks you can bring an informational brochure to a bar fight.

Maybe there is a way to de-escalate things and return to more civil "statesmanship" style in our politics. But my guess is that these things follow some kind of up-and-down cycle, and you don't want to be on the side that's lagging.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I saw an article that summarizes people like your wife as those living in a West Wing (TV show) fantasy. I wish we lived in such a world too, but we definitely do not.

I do not mean offense to your wife. I envy people that still have that type of faith.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (9 children)

No offense taken. She has a hard time seeing how nasty it has become. She limits her exposure to the news, which is mostly a good thing.

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's not just one or the other.

You can't ignore it, you can't pick it apart and expect people to listen. Even if they listen, now you're spending all your time explaining.

What you is dismiss them quickly and broadly, then talk about what you would do.

They won't waste time trying to talk policy, so they're reduced to making the same insults and getting the same dismissals.

It makes them look "weak" and the more they fight back the crazier shit they have to make up. It's a feedback loop.

Biden tried to do it, he just couldn't string together enough words. Kamala can, but it's not some master strategy, just the common sense response to the situation

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

Sure, I hear you and what you're saying, and it all makes sense. I think it depends on the time, the place, and the audience. I would say in general there has been a sea change here in the Trump post-truth world. And in general, things are much, much nastier as far as the tone and style goes. Things were very nasty when it came to policy and actual backroom deals back when Reagan took over. But at least the evil old bastard was charming and liked most Americans in his own goofy / phony way. He did pit us against each other but more in the grandpa wants to watch the kids wrestle kind of way compared to Trump's "let's destroy democracy" kind of way.

I also think it's very important that the Democrats continue to be for some things and not just 100% against things like the Republicans are.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Meeting in the middle and taking the high ground has worked a LOT in the past. In about 12 years, though some would argue since 2002, things changed. We can return to a more reasonable time, though I am of the opinion that the modern Republican Party needs to be gutted and replaced before we can do that. They are so far right that they've done a complete circle and have ended up with various heads in far too many asses.

I'm a big picture kind of person and that large magical totally not a portal painting on the wall points to the party being beyond saving.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Yeah I think the winning move is “we can discuss the issues as mature adults whenever you choose to. But until then if you’re going to insist on name calling and fascism I’m going to call you the pathetic weirdo you’re being”

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (3 children)

They go low, we kick them in the teeth.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 91 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think it's missing the point. It's not effective for being name-calling. It's just saying what everyone is already thinking. Like in the 2020 debate when Biden said "Will you just shut up, man?" It was relatable because Trump runs his fucking mouth all the time.
This is the same. It's a relatable feeling - Trump is deeply weird and out of touch. Vance is so creepy people didn't even bother to check if he really wrote about fucking a couch.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago

Vance is so creepy people didn't even bother to check if he really wrote about fucking a couch.

Nailed it. Pre-Trump era I would have frantically searched for a source. These days my expectations from the Republicans are so unbelievably low.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 months ago (6 children)

I don't like the implications for future political discourse...

but fuck it, for now it's refreshing to see the reactions of surprise by that camp... Did they think that Dems didn't dunk on them "playground style" cuz they couldn't?

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 months ago (5 children)

All due respect to Michelle Obama otherwise, but I think she was flat out wrong when she said ‘When they go low, we go high’. It's the paradox of tolerance applied to the political realm. How do you ensure a tolerant society in the face of intolerant people? It's impossible if you're not allowed be intolerant of intolerant people. How do you ensure that political discourse sticks to concrete policies and objective facts when your opponent refuses to engage with either but instead stoops to conspiracy theories and personal attacks? Also impossible if you're stuck talking about difficult concepts and nuanced facts while your opponent is free to sling personal insults and cognitively sticky memes that may have absolutely nothing to do with reality.

The solution is to apply social contract theory. Tolerance doesn't have to be a rule that you're not allowed to break. It can be a social contract instead, so when someone breaks the social contract by being intolerant you are no longer bound by the contract, freeing you to not tolerate their behavior in return. Similarly, sticking to policy- and fact-based political debate doesn't have to be a rule you're not allowed to break, it can be a social contract between political opponents. If the other candidate won't debate policy or facts then you're free of the contract, which means you're free to say they're weird. Which they very much fucking are. Once you get most of the figurative children out of the room, you can go back to making actual progress amongst the contract-adhering adults who remain.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

You are no longer bound by the contract, freeing you to not tolerate their behavior in return.

An important perspective here is also: by not agreeing to the terms of a social contract the other party is, in fact, forfeiting their right to be treated as a signatory to contract, and any implied protection that accompanies it. When I frame it like that it feels less like I have a license to actively be hostile in response to douchebaggery of the right, and more that they have opted to stand in the douchebaggery lineup.

6 in one, half dozen in the other, but I like putting the responsibility on them for a change.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago

Yeah. I think they thought that. The bully doesn’t think the victim can fight back. Or maybe they just think they never will. But someday the victim does

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Future Presidential debates:

"Shut up you lying little bitch"

"Come make me, fuckface!"

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago (1 children)

...deploying a bit of verbal jujitsu so delightfully petty it might just work

It's not even petty. It's just true. Republicans, with their obsessions over what's going on in everyone's pants and bedrooms, really are weird and creepy.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I was annoyed at that “when they go low, we go high” rhetoric. No you kick them in the teeth. Politics is a pig wrestling competition and you gotta get dirty.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Don't let Shady Vance go near your couch cushions.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (3 children)

You mean JD Vance, the man who wrote Wet Goddess: Recollections of a Dolphin Lover under the pen name Malcolm Brenner?

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Republicans are disgusting

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)

So, this guy said he wants to bang his daughter back in 2016 and it took you 8 years to settle with “weird”.

Woah, slow down there cowboy!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

We called him out on it then. But man, this weirdo just took it in stride like being called a fascist by everyone from historians to neo nazis. But weird, he doesn’t like it when we acknowledge he’s weird.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago

Trump is shit. Vance is stupid. Match made in hell. Wierd just aint cuttin it, comrades

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My only issue with using weird to refer to them is how much I love Weird Al Yankovic...

Fuck it tho.. if weird works to get under the skin of fascistsI don't think it'll hurt AL in the slightest.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago

There's good weird and bad weird.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

They’re both weird and creepy in their own ways. The GOP is like a Petri dish that someone smeared rabid monkey shit on, and we’re all watching it fester and mutate.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Bout damn time we give up this "We go high" bullshit

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The primary difference being that the Dems are backing up the name calling with actual policies or things they've done.

Trump is weird bc he constantly says off the wall things, does weird shit, and supports unpopular policies (which are weird).

Vance is creepy because he believes and says super weird shit about women. Like how he believes women have to have kids to have value - that is creepy. If somebody said that on a date, there would not be another date. And how he nevertheless has no problem with childless couches - pretty hypocritical and creepy.

And from the repub side:

Schumer is a "member of Hamas" because.... it is inflamatory

Kamala is "laughing kamala" because.... she laughs sometimes. She is also a "radical democrat socialist" because.... she supports mainstream, popular, dem policies

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›