US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5169

On August 14 2025 07:07 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
From other thread as I feel it’s already derailed enough

Horseshoe theory doesn’t postulate solely that tankies and fascists share some common attributes, but that that commonality starts to build across both sides of the spectrum the further one gets from the centre. Although, not uniformly hence horseshoe theory and not, idk circle theory or something.

The former in isolation, no issue with that claim, the latter I find incredibly dubious with a million counter-examples that exist.

Plenty of people in the centre absolutely do consider far left politics to be less desirable, or equivalently bad to those of the far right. Their behaviour reflects that. Plenty in the centre, the opposite. I’d struggle to think of any regular centre-left TL poster in the pop threads who doesn’t fall into the latter.

One often sees horseshoe theory appear, even if not explicitly named or invoked, in combination with what I’ll call ‘socialism amplification’, lacking a better term, and it’s quite effective in combination.

Whenever some candidate, some neat policy, some movement or whatever gains some traction and captures some momentum amongst the public, it starts to suddenly become more socialist in how it’s framed by opponents. If it’s relatively bipartisan centrist, milquetoast stuff in nature by European standards, it’s now socialist stuff across opposing media. If it’s actually approaching socialism, it’s now literally communism. And so on and so forth.

Crucially, as it pertains to ‘horseshoe theory’, it is observably not just the right wing of the ledger who do this, the centre absolutely do this as well.

Now, obviously this happens for many, many different reasons. My following example, I’d say, quite niche all told, but not a tiny niche.

Let’s take a hypothetical bloke, Mr Horsehoe. He loves Horseshoe theory so much he changed his name by deed poll. Quite a centre left kinda guy all round, but he really buys into the conception that the more extreme you get on either end of the spectrum, the more you coalesce.

If you were Jane Shitbag, who earns her blood money off trying to alter perceptions of potentially popular policies on behalf of the donor class, working off various generalised demographic profiles, if she came across Mr Horsehoe’s archetype, would it not be a completely sensible tactic from her to seek to amplify how left, and how extreme x policy is to turn Mr Horsehoe off it?

I wouldn’t even have Horsehoe theory in my top 10 weapons used to cudgel the left, and I don’t think it was first conceived as thus. Although, I do still often see it used as part of the arsenal.

Aside from thinking it’s massively flawed anyway, it’s certainly a frustration of mine, and many on the left I’d imagine.

One rarely hears it invoked by the right, when it pertains to the right. As with almost any viewpoint imaginable, I’m sure it’s happened somewhere. I just haven’t seen a ‘guys we can’t keep going further right, or we’ll just end up the same as the far left’ on my travels.

On August 13 2025 09:00 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
I dunno if this even holds remotely true.

On August 13 2025 16:14 Jockmcplop wrote:
Are people's brains really so tiny they have to pretend that people who believe in opposite principles about 90% of the time are the same just so they can group people into 'good/bad' more easily?

Horseshoe theory is for absolute fucking morons with very shitty intentions.

On August 15 2025 02:11 Billyboy wrote:
[quote]
I'm not a big supporter of the horse shoe theory myself. It has big issues of over simplification and ignores a lot of nuance. About the only part I agree with is that once you get way out to the extreme's they start to look and sound a lot alike. I would probably have the political spectrum more like a stick and a blob with the blob being the extremes. I don't think leftists and far right people have much in common at all, and much less then people in the center.

I think this has to do with the rejection of moderation, populism, a complete lack of trust in institutions and information. Once you believe that everything your hearing is a lie you have to believe in something and often this faith gets placed in demagogue style leaders who are up against a they or them of some sort (branded very different left or right). Some of these people are not even traditional political leaders but rather "influencers" who can then use this distrust in MSM and the general narrative for their own gains. Many have figured out how to brand their message to both extreme groups without reinventing the wheel.

You can go really far left and not do this, but it takes some hard work in critically analyzing your sources and all the information you take in, and it is a lot of heavy lifting. But if someone gets to the point where they believe no way China is perpetuating a cultural genocide because they are "socialists", in spite of the mountains of evidence even within the government documents. Or believes billionaire drug lord Maduro is actually fighting capitalists. Or that Andrew Tate is actually a good guy and all the bad stuff is made up by globalists. Or what Trump says today is for sure true even if it completely contradicts the completely true thing he said last week. You have left the traditional spectrum and entered this blob of extremism that is very similar, but with different branding. These figures can openly not follow the tenants and morals of their side and still be loved and trusted with a kind of zealously that allows them to manipulate basically any situation by blaming it on the nebulous group controlling things behind the scenes. That can be the capitalists, globalists, jews, deep state and so on.

The extra complicated part is these people are not completely wrong, we are getting misinformation even from trusted sources. Science is not always right, and there is truth to the old, he who paid the piper picks the tune. It is not surprising why so many people have turned to alternative sources of information when the traditional ones keep fucking up and straight up lying. The problem is these alternative sources are often worse, completely unchecked and there is tons of money and power in it. IT is easy to see these folks on the other side and much harder to see them on your side. Which is natural, but they do exist and it is important to recognize that and call them out. More important on your own side because they negatively effect your sides entire credibility.

On August 13 2025 09:26 Billyboy wrote:
[quote]
Then do some research and get back to me. Might find out I'm correct, or you might find some great counter points.

On August 13 2025 16:14 Jockmcplop wrote:
Are people's brains really so tiny they have to pretend that people who believe in opposite principles about 90% of the time are the same just so they can group people into 'good/bad' more easily?

Horseshoe theory is for absolute fucking morons with very shitty intentions.

On August 13 2025 21:41 WombaT wrote:

[quote]
It’s a useful framing for those people, absolutely. Equally I don’t think that holds overall. For many it’s that they genuinely think ‘clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you’ is the way to be. I think for some it’s a defence mechanism. Hey I’m justified advocating for not throwing the left a bone, I mean the far left is just as bad as the far right right?

I just think it’s a ridiculous framework personally, but it’s not always invoked out of malice.

Any framework where you have to morph and swap out constituent parts to then try and draw parallels, and ignore things that don’t fit is just a fundamentally broken model (see also - ‘Social Justice is a religion). Hey I’m a healthy weight, anorexic people and obese people to either side of me are not, ergo those two cohorts are the same right?

On August 14 2025 01:23 KwarK wrote:
Voters just don’t like you GH. They’re not being held against their will, they’re not hostages, they know about your party, they got the invite, they laughed at you and then they threw it in the trash. This hostages idea is pure cope to somehow reconcile your idea of self with the fact that nobody showed up.

On August 15 2025 09:49 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
Fair, you make a lot of good points here!

On August 13 2025 16:14 Jockmcplop wrote:
Are people's brains really so tiny they have to pretend that people who believe in opposite principles about 90% of the time are the same just so they can group people into 'good/bad' more easily?

Horseshoe theory is for absolute fucking morons with very shitty intentions.

On August 13 2025 21:41 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
GH holds liberals in contempt, clearly. In part because he expects them to be better, and frequently says so expectations he does not really hold for MAGA zealots or whatever. Who, I don’t especially see him agreeing with or being too pally with in the first place.

Another reason why he’s not too chummy with some liberals here is quite a simple one, many are actively hostile to him as well. Not always without merit by any means, but it is absolutely the case.

I’d also add that GH is one poster, and far from the only far-left poster on these boards. For this observation to stick in a more general sense wouldn’t others be doing the same things?

[quote]
It’s a useful framing for those people, absolutely. Equally I don’t think that holds overall. For many it’s that they genuinely think ‘clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you’ is the way to be. I think for some it’s a defence mechanism. Hey I’m justified advocating for not throwing the left a bone, I mean the far left is just as bad as the far right right?

I just think it’s a ridiculous framework personally, but it’s not always invoked out of malice.

Any framework where you have to morph and swap out constituent parts to then try and draw parallels, and ignore things that don’t fit is just a fundamentally broken model (see also - ‘Social Justice is a religion). Hey I’m a healthy weight, anorexic people and obese people to either side of me are not, ergo those two cohorts are the same right?

On August 13 2025 23:55 Jockmcplop wrote:
[quote]
Fair enough, its not always out of malice. Sometimes its out of stupidity.

If you literally can't tell the difference between a tankie and nazi you need serious, severe help with your ability to learn and assess information.

On August 14 2025 01:41 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]

As anecdotal as it is, I've never had interactions that led me to believe that this is true. Even among people who consider themselves liberal, there are way more leftists than liberals. I'd wager that is why we hear so often about how liberals are the lesser of two evils, rather than how they are, you know, good.

On August 15 2025 09:59 Razyda wrote:
[quote]

He literally didnt make a single point there. All he said is right bad, left not bad. Right stupid, left smart.

On August 14 2025 02:55 Billyboy wrote:
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I don't think anyone's brain is actually that tiny, because no one has said what you are saying. Perhaps you need some basic reading comprehension lessons or some more emotional control because this and really most of your low (no) content one liners miss the mark by a mile. I wouldn't go calling others morons when you miss the point this bad and this consistently.

Also, this is the exact BS post that needs to be eliminated from TL, it adds no value and is just an angry man lashing out because he does not want the trouble of thinking.

[quote]
Everyone is different is obviously true, I think a lot of people here who identify as far left would not be considered far left by GH. Someone can avoid most of the stuff targeting them if they critically think about it and check the sources of where it came from, but sadly we are all being influenced by propaganda/marketing there is plenty of studies that it works with enough repetition even if we know it is BS, there is a reason companies spend so much on advertizing and "influencers".

I do not think anyone thinks the bold part, and if you think I've written that somewhere I'd love to see the post.

[quote]

Everyone can, only people who are scared of self analyzing and want to be mad at made up evil people instead of real people would say such a thing. But could Nazi's and Tankies be allys or agree on anything? No way that would ever happen in the real world....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov–Ribbentrop_Pact

[quote]
I think this is true. I believe the issue is that the super far loud leftists purity test everyone out of the group instead of building a large enough one. If anything the non tankie leftist's who don't believe Russia is actually good, China is perfect other than capitalist propaganda, Maduro is a real Socialist and not a drug lord, and so on, need to stand up to the the people that call themselves far left but are actually more into feeling special by shitting on people then building some real political movement and momentum.

It would actually be pretty interesting if the left people in the threads starting arguing with the left stuff and the right started arguing with right. Might calm things down.

On August 15 2025 07:28 LightSpectra wrote:
Orban already tried and failed to do that.

"in a case related to allegations that Magyar threw a man's phone into the Danube river after an incident at a Budapest night club... The Hungarian authorities cannot charge Péter Magyar while he continues to be covered by his MEP immunity."

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/05/06/hungary-seeks-to-strip-leading-opposition-mep-peter-magyars-immunity-again

On August 15 2025 10:41 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
Yes, as I said, good points.

On August 14 2025 07:07 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
From other thread as I feel it’s already derailed enough

Horseshoe theory doesn’t postulate solely that tankies and fascists share some common attributes, but that that commonality starts to build across both sides of the spectrum the further one gets from the centre. Although, not uniformly hence horseshoe theory and not, idk circle theory or something.

The former in isolation, no issue with that claim, the latter I find incredibly dubious with a million counter-examples that exist.

Plenty of people in the centre absolutely do consider far left politics to be less desirable, or equivalently bad to those of the far right. Their behaviour reflects that. Plenty in the centre, the opposite. I’d struggle to think of any regular centre-left TL poster in the pop threads who doesn’t fall into the latter.

One often sees horseshoe theory appear, even if not explicitly named or invoked, in combination with what I’ll call ‘socialism amplification’, lacking a better term, and it’s quite effective in combination.

Whenever some candidate, some neat policy, some movement or whatever gains some traction and captures some momentum amongst the public, it starts to suddenly become more socialist in how it’s framed by opponents. If it’s relatively bipartisan centrist, milquetoast stuff in nature by European standards, it’s now socialist stuff across opposing media. If it’s actually approaching socialism, it’s now literally communism. And so on and so forth.

Crucially, as it pertains to ‘horseshoe theory’, it is observably not just the right wing of the ledger who do this, the centre absolutely do this as well.

Now, obviously this happens for many, many different reasons. My following example, I’d say, quite niche all told, but not a tiny niche.

Let’s take a hypothetical bloke, Mr Horsehoe. He loves Horseshoe theory so much he changed his name by deed poll. Quite a centre left kinda guy all round, but he really buys into the conception that the more extreme you get on either end of the spectrum, the more you coalesce.

If you were Jane Shitbag, who earns her blood money off trying to alter perceptions of potentially popular policies on behalf of the donor class, working off various generalised demographic profiles, if she came across Mr Horsehoe’s archetype, would it not be a completely sensible tactic from her to seek to amplify how left, and how extreme x policy is to turn Mr Horsehoe off it?

I wouldn’t even have Horsehoe theory in my top 10 weapons used to cudgel the left, and I don’t think it was first conceived as thus. Although, I do still often see it used as part of the arsenal.

Aside from thinking it’s massively flawed anyway, it’s certainly a frustration of mine, and many on the left I’d imagine.

One rarely hears it invoked by the right, when it pertains to the right. As with almost any viewpoint imaginable, I’m sure it’s happened somewhere. I just haven’t seen a ‘guys we can’t keep going further right, or we’ll just end up the same as the far left’ on my travels.