|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
|
|
|
|
I wonder if Hegseth will mention Valhalla in the speech.
|
White supremacy, now warrior ethos, yep. Pete's reading the real good stuff stashed in the box behind Mein Kampf.
|
I can't help but imagine the mood of a room full of decorated generals and admirals being told what it means to be 'a true warrior' by an alcoholic National Guard reservist.
|
Current military and formal wear is a bit boring, considering any future documentaries about this period. If Hegseth would have them adapt to new warrior uniforms, things would look at least a bit funnier. Think how funny these events would look if we had the 80s fashion style currently.
|
"True warriors" like the glorious military men at Wounded Knee
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that he has decided that the 19 soldiers who received the Medal of Honor for their actions in 1890 at Wounded Knee will keep their awards in a video posted to social media Thursday evening.
While the events of that day are sometimes described as a battle, historical records show that the U.S. Army, which was in the midst of a campaign to repress the tribes in the area, killed an estimated 250 Native Americans, including women and children, of the Lakota Sioux tribe, while attempting to disarm Native American fighters who had already surrendered at their camp.
The event became a celebrated part of the regiment’s history, with its coat of arms still featuring the head of a Native American chief to “commemorate Indian campaigns,” according to the military’s Institute of Heraldry.
apnews.com
"Genocide then, genocide now, genocide forever!" — The next president probably
|
On September 27 2025 04:44 LightSpectra wrote:
I can't help but imagine the mood of a room full of decorated generals and admirals being told what it means to be 'a true warrior' by an alcoholic National Guard reservist. Barely disguised complete and utter contempt I imagine.
|
On September 27 2025 00:09 Sadist wrote:
I cannot believe that there are people in this thread making conservatives out to be some pious group that doesnt hate liberals only their leaders. Or that liberals never encounter opposing view points until later in life. Are you kidding me? You dont think evangelicals hate muslims, atheists, lgbtq, etc? Basically anyone other than fellow evangelicals? The racists in the republican party dont really hate minorities?
People who grow up conservative are usually some of the most insular people you will run into. They either grew up in the church which has major in group out group dynamics OR they grew up in a lily white town and never encountered people different themselves until later in life, but by then their view point is mostly solidified.
Its LIBERALS who are generally exposed to more people and viewpoints throughout life. Not conservatives. What in the absolute George Orwell 1984 double speak is going on in this thread. What the fuck.
Look man nobody hates Magas more than me but conservatives are fully half of the country. Not all of them are fully brainwashed. Some of the nazis, I assume, are good people.
|
On September 27 2025 00:23 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2025 22:19 Introvert wrote:On September 26 2025 16:19 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 12:21 Introvert wrote:
I would say it's more a hope born of necessity. For reasons both ideological and cultural it can be harder for people on the left to countenance people who disagree with them very strongly but that's part of why I think it will take some great national struggle or disaster to return our government to better functioning. Things will have to be placed aside, on both left and right.
Could you explain a bit more about what you mean by "it's harder for people on the left to countenance people that disagree with them very strongly"? Anecdotally, the two times I've had a conversation with someone heavily pro-Trump, even mild disagreement was taken as a personal offense that could not be countenanced. Neither time was a pleasant conversation. Anecdotically, also, the couple times I've had a strong disagreement with someone who identifies as 'on the left', it was fairly amicable and we reached a point where we could understand where each of us was coming from. If you want to know, a specific example was about trans people on TV and how this was going to mess up his kids, another was about DEI implementation in the workplace. Sent hit the nail on the head. In less rancourous times there was a saying, iirc penned by commentator Charles Krauthammer that "Conservatives think liberals are wrong, liberals think Conservatives are evil." I think this is mostly true (keep on mind we are saying "liberal" in the American sense of the word). For the criticism that the right is very "moralistic" i think surely that criticism (if you would even call it that) applies to the left at least as much. There is also the cultural dimension as well. American popular culture and academia has become so insular and increasingly left-wing that it's far easier, from what i can tell, for someone on the left to hear almost nothing from someone they disagree with than the opposite. It’s surely true on campus, and I and many others could attest to that personally. I'm sure it's not quite so overwhelming in a more conservative state, but any conservative who has ever attended college or seen a single thing a famous actor has said or read a news story in a legacy newspaper has had to read and interact with people they disagree with. Some Trumpers are incredibly annoying though, yes. I don't disagree that this may have been the case back in the day. But is it true now? I don't think right-wingers are moralistic; that kind of went when Trump became the standard-bearer. There was a clear shift from "holier than thou, you must uphold family values or you will go to hell" to "owning the libs", I don't think this is really arguable to be honest. In fact, it is becoming more and more common for right-wing people to describe anything left of center as their "enemies". You're painting conservatives as some kind of responsible parent with an unruly leftwing teenager, and I just don't think that image holds in modern America.
Somewhat related to what you saying there is an interesting thing happening in the Republican party that it is getting less obviously religious. I think for a long time Democrats yearned for such a day,, now I wonder if they are reconsidering lol.
That aside, I think it's hard to argue against the fact that discourse has gotten worse. For the moment I will abstain from guessing *why* but I do think you are more or less correct. I didn't mean my comments in a paternalistic sense, but I think at least that the type of politicians conservatives used to vote for were less combative. Again, for the sake of discussion I am agnostic as to why this is true.
But I would add that this more aggressive tone doesn't undermine what I said. It's true, if you are left-wing nudist in Berkeley, California who only eats locally grown non-GMO vegetables, there's also a chance your social circle is more "diverse" than an 85% white evangelical town in Nowhereville, Arkansas. But if you or your kids in that small town went to college almost anywhere, if they ever turned on the news, if they ever saw a movie, if they ever read anything at all about the nation they lived in, they'd have a deeper understanding of people on the other side than the free-range Bay Area man. Because that left-wing man in one of the hearts of blue America *probably* knows far less about the tens of millions of citizens who disagree with him than the college educated evangelical Christian. Sure, the former may know lots of people, but he has a huge, huge blind spot. And it would be entirely possible to go on living that way unless he consciously chose to learn something more. It's not that people on the right can't be a-holes or close-minded. I think these are all traits that come with human.exe, no software update required. Maybe that's my conservatism talking.
So I think both sides are growing in their obvious and stated contempt for the other, but combined with what I said and Sent. so succinctly summarized before, I think (my opinion) that it's harder for people on the left to really know what people who disagree with them think. I don't mean people who come from different cultures but all moved the same place and share a kind of mixed cultural milieu, but people who honest to God disagree about some very fundamental things.
My one tiny data point I will give here is that every survey says that people on the left are more willing to cut off family members and friends over politics. At first blush that is not the most open-minded behavior lol
Social media has helped silo people with their media consumption, so maybe both sides are becoming alike, but i do think that for a long time the right had an idea, imperfectly followed, as principles often are, that accepting that people could disagree with you over VALUES was ok.
|
On September 27 2025 11:19 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 00:23 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 22:19 Introvert wrote:On September 26 2025 16:19 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 12:21 Introvert wrote:
I would say it's more a hope born of necessity. For reasons both ideological and cultural it can be harder for people on the left to countenance people who disagree with them very strongly but that's part of why I think it will take some great national struggle or disaster to return our government to better functioning. Things will have to be placed aside, on both left and right.
Could you explain a bit more about what you mean by "it's harder for people on the left to countenance people that disagree with them very strongly"? Anecdotally, the two times I've had a conversation with someone heavily pro-Trump, even mild disagreement was taken as a personal offense that could not be countenanced. Neither time was a pleasant conversation. Anecdotically, also, the couple times I've had a strong disagreement with someone who identifies as 'on the left', it was fairly amicable and we reached a point where we could understand where each of us was coming from. If you want to know, a specific example was about trans people on TV and how this was going to mess up his kids, another was about DEI implementation in the workplace. Sent hit the nail on the head. In less rancourous times there was a saying, iirc penned by commentator Charles Krauthammer that "Conservatives think liberals are wrong, liberals think Conservatives are evil." I think this is mostly true (keep on mind we are saying "liberal" in the American sense of the word). For the criticism that the right is very "moralistic" i think surely that criticism (if you would even call it that) applies to the left at least as much. There is also the cultural dimension as well. American popular culture and academia has become so insular and increasingly left-wing that it's far easier, from what i can tell, for someone on the left to hear almost nothing from someone they disagree with than the opposite. It’s surely true on campus, and I and many others could attest to that personally. I'm sure it's not quite so overwhelming in a more conservative state, but any conservative who has ever attended college or seen a single thing a famous actor has said or read a news story in a legacy newspaper has had to read and interact with people they disagree with. Some Trumpers are incredibly annoying though, yes. I don't disagree that this may have been the case back in the day. But is it true now? I don't think right-wingers are moralistic; that kind of went when Trump became the standard-bearer. There was a clear shift from "holier than thou, you must uphold family values or you will go to hell" to "owning the libs", I don't think this is really arguable to be honest. In fact, it is becoming more and more common for right-wing people to describe anything left of center as their "enemies". You're painting conservatives as some kind of responsible parent with an unruly leftwing teenager, and I just don't think that image holds in modern America. Somewhat related to what you saying there is an interesting thing happening in the Republican party that it is getting less obviously religious. I think for a long time Democrats yearned for such a day,, now I wonder if they are reconsidering lol.
Why would I reconsider wanting Republicans to be less religious?
|
One would expect that as people become less religious they become more receptive to facts and scientific evidence, not less.
It's been weird.
|
On September 27 2025 02:47 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 02:18 LightSpectra wrote:On September 27 2025 00:45 Magic Powers wrote:On September 27 2025 00:43 Sadist wrote:
Lmao yes. I grew up in a diverse area surrounded by affluent white towns. Within the area i grew up there were evangelicals, 7th day adventists, Jehovas witnesses, catholics, muslims, greek orthodox, etc.
Ive been to most of the states and interacted with all types of people. Ive left the country for work.
Get out of here with your bullshit. Are you an army brat that has lived all over? Is that your rationale?
A classic talking point of right-wingers is that left-wingers are created in woke universities. I mean, there's some truth to that. Not that universities are indoctrinating children, but it's impossible to participate in anything involving biology without knowing evolution is a fact and vaccines actually work. It's impossible to participate in anything involving weather, climate, geology, geoengineering etc. without knowing anthropogenic climate change is a fact. It's impossible to participate in anything involving Euro-American history without seeing utterly brutal, sadistic racism that's frequently glossed over or even omitted in many peoples' gradeschool curriculum. It's impossible to to study criminology without seeing that poverty is what drives the vast majority of people to crime, not culture or nationality or skin color. It's impossible to learn anything about other countries of the world without seeing universal healthcare simply works everywhere it's been implemented. And so on. There are some parts of conservative ideology that comes down to subjective opinion, like whether a fetus should be considered a person with all of the human rights that people have. But every single far-right plank that's falsifiable with science has been overwhelmingly debunked for decades. And once you realize Republicans have been lying about all of those things, it's hard to take them seriously about the subjective things either. There are very few university majors you can get that doesn't result in instantly realizing the far-right is blatantly lying about at least one thing. Yeah, I broadly agree. The funny (and revealing) part is that they call the result of university education "left-wing" and the universities themselves "woke". But it doesn't lead to left-wing views. For a right-winger though anything that's not right-wing sounds left-wing. Case in point: this thread. That's where their idea stems from that DEI is a radical left-wing concept. Just because DEI strongly opposes right-wing ideals and beliefs. They don't get the idea that DEI could be a fairly moderate concept. It's not regressive enough for a conservative, and anything that's more progressive than status quo racism is viewed as left-wing. That's an important part of their reasoning. They're just denying that the way we used to do things before DEI was racist. They now say "you call anyone and anything racist".
Yeah I was a conservative/republican until I was taught critical thinking, moved out a suburbia, had to get a job, and saw the world. I realized all the morals my conservative parents had taught me (education, tolerance, kindness, etc.) were in complete dissonance with the conservative party, so instead of changing my morals I changed who I voted for.
|
On September 27 2025 12:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 11:19 Introvert wrote:On September 27 2025 00:23 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 22:19 Introvert wrote:On September 26 2025 16:19 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 12:21 Introvert wrote:
I would say it's more a hope born of necessity. For reasons both ideological and cultural it can be harder for people on the left to countenance people who disagree with them very strongly but that's part of why I think it will take some great national struggle or disaster to return our government to better functioning. Things will have to be placed aside, on both left and right.
Could you explain a bit more about what you mean by "it's harder for people on the left to countenance people that disagree with them very strongly"? Anecdotally, the two times I've had a conversation with someone heavily pro-Trump, even mild disagreement was taken as a personal offense that could not be countenanced. Neither time was a pleasant conversation. Anecdotically, also, the couple times I've had a strong disagreement with someone who identifies as 'on the left', it was fairly amicable and we reached a point where we could understand where each of us was coming from. If you want to know, a specific example was about trans people on TV and how this was going to mess up his kids, another was about DEI implementation in the workplace. Sent hit the nail on the head. In less rancourous times there was a saying, iirc penned by commentator Charles Krauthammer that "Conservatives think liberals are wrong, liberals think Conservatives are evil." I think this is mostly true (keep on mind we are saying "liberal" in the American sense of the word). For the criticism that the right is very "moralistic" i think surely that criticism (if you would even call it that) applies to the left at least as much. There is also the cultural dimension as well. American popular culture and academia has become so insular and increasingly left-wing that it's far easier, from what i can tell, for someone on the left to hear almost nothing from someone they disagree with than the opposite. It’s surely true on campus, and I and many others could attest to that personally. I'm sure it's not quite so overwhelming in a more conservative state, but any conservative who has ever attended college or seen a single thing a famous actor has said or read a news story in a legacy newspaper has had to read and interact with people they disagree with. Some Trumpers are incredibly annoying though, yes. I don't disagree that this may have been the case back in the day. But is it true now? I don't think right-wingers are moralistic; that kind of went when Trump became the standard-bearer. There was a clear shift from "holier than thou, you must uphold family values or you will go to hell" to "owning the libs", I don't think this is really arguable to be honest. In fact, it is becoming more and more common for right-wing people to describe anything left of center as their "enemies". You're painting conservatives as some kind of responsible parent with an unruly leftwing teenager, and I just don't think that image holds in modern America. Somewhat related to what you saying there is an interesting thing happening in the Republican party that it is getting less obviously religious. I think for a long time Democrats yearned for such a day,, now I wonder if they are reconsidering lol. Why would I reconsider wanting Republicans to be less religious?
Like Gorsameth said, I'm not sure how well it's working out from a Democrat perspective. Assuming of course these things are related 
|
On September 27 2025 11:19 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 00:23 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 22:19 Introvert wrote:On September 26 2025 16:19 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 12:21 Introvert wrote:
I would say it's more a hope born of necessity. For reasons both ideological and cultural it can be harder for people on the left to countenance people who disagree with them very strongly but that's part of why I think it will take some great national struggle or disaster to return our government to better functioning. Things will have to be placed aside, on both left and right.
Could you explain a bit more about what you mean by "it's harder for people on the left to countenance people that disagree with them very strongly"? Anecdotally, the two times I've had a conversation with someone heavily pro-Trump, even mild disagreement was taken as a personal offense that could not be countenanced. Neither time was a pleasant conversation. Anecdotically, also, the couple times I've had a strong disagreement with someone who identifies as 'on the left', it was fairly amicable and we reached a point where we could understand where each of us was coming from. If you want to know, a specific example was about trans people on TV and how this was going to mess up his kids, another was about DEI implementation in the workplace. Sent hit the nail on the head. In less rancourous times there was a saying, iirc penned by commentator Charles Krauthammer that "Conservatives think liberals are wrong, liberals think Conservatives are evil." I think this is mostly true (keep on mind we are saying "liberal" in the American sense of the word). For the criticism that the right is very "moralistic" i think surely that criticism (if you would even call it that) applies to the left at least as much. There is also the cultural dimension as well. American popular culture and academia has become so insular and increasingly left-wing that it's far easier, from what i can tell, for someone on the left to hear almost nothing from someone they disagree with than the opposite. It’s surely true on campus, and I and many others could attest to that personally. I'm sure it's not quite so overwhelming in a more conservative state, but any conservative who has ever attended college or seen a single thing a famous actor has said or read a news story in a legacy newspaper has had to read and interact with people they disagree with. Some Trumpers are incredibly annoying though, yes. I don't disagree that this may have been the case back in the day. But is it true now? I don't think right-wingers are moralistic; that kind of went when Trump became the standard-bearer. There was a clear shift from "holier than thou, you must uphold family values or you will go to hell" to "owning the libs", I don't think this is really arguable to be honest. In fact, it is becoming more and more common for right-wing people to describe anything left of center as their "enemies". You're painting conservatives as some kind of responsible parent with an unruly leftwing teenager, and I just don't think that image holds in modern America. Somewhat related to what you saying there is an interesting thing happening in the Republican party that it is getting less obviously religious. I think for a long time Democrats yearned for such a day,, now I wonder if they are reconsidering lol. That aside, I think it's hard to argue against the fact that discourse has gotten worse. For the moment I will abstain from guessing *why* but I do think you are more or less correct. I didn't mean my comments in a paternalistic sense, but I think at least that the type of politicians conservatives used to vote for were less combative. Again, for the sake of discussion I am agnostic as to why this is true. But I would add that this more aggressive tone doesn't undermine what I said. It's true, if you are left-wing nudist in Berkeley, California who only eats locally grown non-GMO vegetables, there's also a chance your social circle is more "diverse" than an 85% white evangelical town in Nowhereville, Arkansas. But if you or your kids in that small town went to college almost anywhere, if they ever turned on the news, if they ever saw a movie, if they ever read anything at all about the nation they lived in, they'd have a deeper understanding of people on the other side than the free-range Bay Area man. Because that left-wing man in one of the hearts of blue America *probably* knows far less about the tens of millions of citizens who disagree with him than the college educated evangelical Christian. Sure, the former may know lots of people, but he has a huge, huge blind spot. And it would be entirely possible to go on living that way unless he consciously chose to learn something more. It's not that people on the right can't be a-holes or close-minded. I think these are all traits that come with human.exe, no software update required. Maybe that's my conservatism talking. So I think both sides are growing in their obvious and stated contempt for the other, but combined with what I said and Sent. so succinctly summarized before, I think (my opinion) that it's harder for people on the left to really know what people who disagree with them think. I don't mean people who come from different cultures but all moved the same place and share a kind of mixed cultural milieu, but people who honest to God disagree about some very fundamental things. My one tiny data point I will give here is that every survey says that people on the left are more willing to cut off family members and friends over politics. At first blush that is not the most open-minded behavior lol Social media has helped silo people with their media consumption, so maybe both sides are becoming alike, but i do think that for a long time the right had an idea, imperfectly followed, as principles often are, that accepting that people could disagree with you over VALUES was ok.
Ok, i also think is true that a Mile Pence type politician is closer to the archetype conservatives historically voted for. It is also inarguable that that is simply not the direction of travel now.
You're right about leftwing people not being particularly open minded. I saw those same stats. You don't have to go farther than this thread, GH could never picture himself working with someone that doesn't pass his purity tests. We are in a big mess and it's not getting better.
But you are connecting those two dots by saying "this can only mean that leftwing people are ignorant of what people that disagree with them think, otherwise they'd be more open minded". You could make the reverse argument "this is because leftwing people know exactly what the people they disagree with think and can't see themselves engaging with that kind of disregard for human rights". I think the latter is closer to the truth than the former.
|
On September 27 2025 05:19 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 04:44 LightSpectra wrote:
I can't help but imagine the mood of a room full of decorated generals and admirals being told what it means to be 'a true warrior' by an alcoholic National Guard reservist. Barely disguised complete and utter contempt I imagine.
Most general and flag officers should be professionals, free of such tumblr contempt for authority. Unfortunately there is an element of politics once you get to be a general - or rather even when you get to be a general. For the most part they will have basic respect for civilian control of the military and the chain of command, but there's also too many generals in general, so cutting out the ones who think like you do would be great.
|
United States43978 Posts
It’s not contempt for authority, it’s contempt for an alcoholic Fox News commentator who identifies as a soldier but couldn’t oversee an operation that required nothing of him without leaking it on social media. Let’s call it contempt for the contemptible.
But, as you say, these are professionals. That’s why he said they’d disguise their contempt for him as their personal opinions are not needed. Asking that they not have contempt is not only thought policing them, it is requiring that they become terrible judges of character.
|
On September 27 2025 14:45 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 05:19 Gorsameth wrote:On September 27 2025 04:44 LightSpectra wrote:
I can't help but imagine the mood of a room full of decorated generals and admirals being told what it means to be 'a true warrior' by an alcoholic National Guard reservist. Barely disguised complete and utter contempt I imagine. Most general and flag officers should be professionals, free of such tumblr contempt for authority. Unfortunately there is an element of politics once you get to be a general - or rather even when you get to be a general. For the most part they will have basic respect for civilian control of the military and the chain of command, but there's also too many generals in general, so cutting out the ones who think like you do would be great.
You're getting really good at twisting the meaning. While it's true that the military structure placed under the authority of a civilian is something they have balked at since governments started doing it, and with plenty of coups throughout history and around the world as a result, this was, in particular, a flippant remark about Hegseth. Usually the civilian in charge of the military is at least somewhat competent. Hegseth has proven to be anything but. Contempt is singularly understandable.
|
On September 27 2025 15:06 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 14:45 oBlade wrote:On September 27 2025 05:19 Gorsameth wrote:On September 27 2025 04:44 LightSpectra wrote:
I can't help but imagine the mood of a room full of decorated generals and admirals being told what it means to be 'a true warrior' by an alcoholic National Guard reservist. Barely disguised complete and utter contempt I imagine. Most general and flag officers should be professionals, free of such tumblr contempt for authority. Unfortunately there is an element of politics once you get to be a general - or rather even when you get to be a general. For the most part they will have basic respect for civilian control of the military and the chain of command, but there's also too many generals in general, so cutting out the ones who think like you do would be great. You're getting really good at twisting the meaning. While it's true that the military structure placed under the authority of a civilian is something they have balked at since governments started doing it, and with plenty of coups throughout history and around the world as a result, this was, in particular, a flippant remark about Hegseth. Usually the civilian in charge of the military is at least somewhat competent. Hegseth has proven to be anything but. Contempt is singularly understandable.
This is the US military and these are general and flag officers confirmed by Congress, not some McDonalds where your boss made you clean up or cut your hours. If your boss wants to talk to you about something, you give it your full attention and be open how you can make it happen and what you can contribute and how you can inform him. None of that is happening with an attitude of seething resentment that you only have to wait 3.5 years until it's back to autopilot and you're in charge of yourself because you know best and how dare the Secretary of Defense want to have a meeting when I'm so busy and there are still Chinese balloons to let fly over the entire length of the US.
The US military doesn't balk at civilian control of itself. Anyone who goes down that road should say goodbye to their career and potentially freedom. For example a #NotMyPresident Hillary supporter who thought the 2016 election was illegitimate can never be trusted with a command.
Thankfully there's not an actual case of this we're talking about, it's just forum posters projecting what they hope general and flag officers should do and feel to stick it to their boss and defending imaginary generals/admirals for their first amendment right to do/feel things there's no report they have done/felt.
|
On September 27 2025 14:41 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2025 11:19 Introvert wrote:On September 27 2025 00:23 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 22:19 Introvert wrote:On September 26 2025 16:19 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 26 2025 12:21 Introvert wrote:
I would say it's more a hope born of necessity. For reasons both ideological and cultural it can be harder for people on the left to countenance people who disagree with them very strongly but that's part of why I think it will take some great national struggle or disaster to return our government to better functioning. Things will have to be placed aside, on both left and right.
Could you explain a bit more about what you mean by "it's harder for people on the left to countenance people that disagree with them very strongly"? Anecdotally, the two times I've had a conversation with someone heavily pro-Trump, even mild disagreement was taken as a personal offense that could not be countenanced. Neither time was a pleasant conversation. Anecdotically, also, the couple times I've had a strong disagreement with someone who identifies as 'on the left', it was fairly amicable and we reached a point where we could understand where each of us was coming from. If you want to know, a specific example was about trans people on TV and how this was going to mess up his kids, another was about DEI implementation in the workplace. Sent hit the nail on the head. In less rancourous times there was a saying, iirc penned by commentator Charles Krauthammer that "Conservatives think liberals are wrong, liberals think Conservatives are evil." I think this is mostly true (keep on mind we are saying "liberal" in the American sense of the word). For the criticism that the right is very "moralistic" i think surely that criticism (if you would even call it that) applies to the left at least as much. There is also the cultural dimension as well. American popular culture and academia has become so insular and increasingly left-wing that it's far easier, from what i can tell, for someone on the left to hear almost nothing from someone they disagree with than the opposite. It’s surely true on campus, and I and many others could attest to that personally. I'm sure it's not quite so overwhelming in a more conservative state, but any conservative who has ever attended college or seen a single thing a famous actor has said or read a news story in a legacy newspaper has had to read and interact with people they disagree with. Some Trumpers are incredibly annoying though, yes. I don't disagree that this may have been the case back in the day. But is it true now? I don't think right-wingers are moralistic; that kind of went when Trump became the standard-bearer. There was a clear shift from "holier than thou, you must uphold family values or you will go to hell" to "owning the libs", I don't think this is really arguable to be honest. In fact, it is becoming more and more common for right-wing people to describe anything left of center as their "enemies". You're painting conservatives as some kind of responsible parent with an unruly leftwing teenager, and I just don't think that image holds in modern America. Somewhat related to what you saying there is an interesting thing happening in the Republican party that it is getting less obviously religious. I think for a long time Democrats yearned for such a day,, now I wonder if they are reconsidering lol. That aside, I think it's hard to argue against the fact that discourse has gotten worse. For the moment I will abstain from guessing *why* but I do think you are more or less correct. I didn't mean my comments in a paternalistic sense, but I think at least that the type of politicians conservatives used to vote for were less combative. Again, for the sake of discussion I am agnostic as to why this is true. But I would add that this more aggressive tone doesn't undermine what I said. It's true, if you are left-wing nudist in Berkeley, California who only eats locally grown non-GMO vegetables, there's also a chance your social circle is more "diverse" than an 85% white evangelical town in Nowhereville, Arkansas. But if you or your kids in that small town went to college almost anywhere, if they ever turned on the news, if they ever saw a movie, if they ever read anything at all about the nation they lived in, they'd have a deeper understanding of people on the other side than the free-range Bay Area man. Because that left-wing man in one of the hearts of blue America *probably* knows far less about the tens of millions of citizens who disagree with him than the college educated evangelical Christian. Sure, the former may know lots of people, but he has a huge, huge blind spot. And it would be entirely possible to go on living that way unless he consciously chose to learn something more. It's not that people on the right can't be a-holes or close-minded. I think these are all traits that come with human.exe, no software update required. Maybe that's my conservatism talking. So I think both sides are growing in their obvious and stated contempt for the other, but combined with what I said and Sent. so succinctly summarized before, I think (my opinion) that it's harder for people on the left to really know what people who disagree with them think. I don't mean people who come from different cultures but all moved the same place and share a kind of mixed cultural milieu, but people who honest to God disagree about some very fundamental things. My one tiny data point I will give here is that every survey says that people on the left are more willing to cut off family members and friends over politics. At first blush that is not the most open-minded behavior lol Social media has helped silo people with their media consumption, so maybe both sides are becoming alike, but i do think that for a long time the right had an idea, imperfectly followed, as principles often are, that accepting that people could disagree with you over VALUES was ok. Ok, i also think is true that a Mile Pence type politician is closer to the archetype conservatives historically voted for. It is also inarguable that that is simply not the direction of travel now. You're right about leftwing people not being particularly open minded. I saw those same stats. You don't have to go farther than this thread, GH could never picture himself working with someone that doesn't pass his purity tests. We are in a big mess and it's not getting better. But you are connecting those two dots by saying "this can only mean that leftwing people are ignorant of what people that disagree with them think, otherwise they'd be more open minded". You could make the reverse argument "this is because leftwing people know exactly what the people they disagree with think and can't see themselves engaging with that kind of disregard for human rights". I think the latter is closer to the truth than the former.
ah, I see what you are saying, I think. Is that not disagreeing more with the potential ideological underpinnings previously mentioned? I guess I would return to the (admittedly extreme) example I gave. From what I can tell, it's not that hard, just by accident of birth, to never come across very conservative viewpoints articulated well and and defended systematically. There's no guarantee of it in high school, non in college, almost none in regular print media. In popular media you might have some right-of-center ideas appear and presented perhaps sympathetically (though also often unsympathetically). If those ideas appear there one often has to wonder if it was an accident, and it's often just background or subtext. Now of course it's true that none of these things make those views right or wrong. But I don't think I'm getting too far ahead of myself in saying it's more difficult for someone on the right to avoid opinions and arguments they don't want to hear then someone on the left. Making all allowance for individual circumstances of course.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
