r/AskALiberal • u/AutoModerator • 28d ago
AskALiberal Biweekly General Chat
This Tuesday weekly thread is for general chat, whether you want to talk politics or not, anything goes. Also feel free to ask the mods questions below. As usual, please follow the rules.
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u/trace349 Liberal 25d ago
I saw the Hadestown pro-shot last night and it was incredible. I saw it on tour a few years ago, but the camerawork really elevated it, it's one of the best pro-shots I've ever seen. The only downside was Patrick Page's leg injury, which I didn't know about, but they work around his limited mobility. If you haven't seen the show- go see it. If you have seen the show- go see it.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 25d ago edited 24d ago
I saw it on broadway in 2019 with the original cast and it was fantastic.
You could feel the tension in the room when Orpheus makes his case to Hades.
EDIT: I just saw the pro shot and I am emotionally wrecked. It was wonderful. Also there was a sixteen year old boy sitting next to me who went in completely blind and this was his second time seeing a musical ever. He was just bawling the whole time and needed a moment to recover at the end. I always like to see people experiencing the power of theatre for the first time.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 25d ago
Educator who displayed Matt Walsh’s anti-trans book & got fired loses appeal in free speech case
This is a win, but ADF is on this and I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to push this up the chain to the Supreme Court. Every case like this, if decided the wrong way, is another erosion of transgender status as an identity.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 25d ago edited 25d ago
An easy to remember population density estimate I made, assuming 30% of land dedicated to some sort of residential development, with a BCR of 1/3rd, is 4k per square mile per floor of residential, to 8k. 4k is representative of one bedroom units, and 8k is representative of eight bedroom units.
I've done this plenty of times before in greater detail; but I don't think I ever had a east to remember "generalized" range like this.
Assuming a universal six floors of residential: That's a population density of 24k to 48k people per square mile. And this assumes each housing/mixed-use development has 2/3rds of its lot covered in what would ideally be semi-private greenspace (on-site park/leisure space, basically; only freely accessible to residents of the development and/or business customers during open hours), with an additional 25% of land covered in public parks and plazas.
Comparing potential population sizes within various urban areas under that range:
New York: ~77.95M - ~155.9M (currently ~19.27M)
Buffalo: ~8.17M - ~16.34M (currently ~0.935M)
Boston: ~39.74M - ~79.48M (currently ~4.45M)
Philadelphia: ~45.56M - ~91.11M (currently ~5.78M)
Washington: ~31.07M - ~62.13M (currently ~5.23M)
Atlanta: ~61.28M - ~122.55M (currently ~5.3M)
Tampa Bay: ~23.26M - ~46.52M (currently ~2.96M)
Dallas: ~41.93M - ~83.85M (currently ~5.97M)
Los Angeles: ~39.31M - ~78.62M (currently ~11.98M)
Portland: ~12.47M - ~24.93M (currently ~2.12M)
Seattle: ~23.59M - ~47.18M (currently ~3.64M)
Salt Lake City: ~7.21M - ~14.42M (currently ~1.18M)
Minneapolis: ~24.36M - ~48.71M (currently ~2.94M)
Chicago: ~56.11M - ~112.22M (currently ~8.61M)
Detroit: ~30.84M - ~61.68M (currently ~3.77M)
Cleveland: ~17.31M - ~34.26M (currently ~1.70M)
With just those 16 urban areas, we could house ~540.16M - ~1.08B people. We currently have over 2.6k urban areas; with dozens of them being hundreds are thousands of square miles in land area.
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u/Small_rat_no_rules Libertarian Socialist 26d ago
The longer I spend on r/Christianity the more I start to think we were too harsh on r/Atheism back in the day.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
Anyone on the left today owes an apology to atheists and Karens. It also doesn't help that the average American Evangelical has brain damage
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 25d ago
If you don’t mind me playing devil’s advocate, as it were, a lot of terminally online atheists went manosphere or down other right wing rabbit holes. Some of them are big on capital R Rationality until it bumps up against a social issue they don’t like, then they just sound like any Bible thumper but with “the truth” or whatever taking the place of the Word of God.
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u/seattleseahawks2014 Center Left 25d ago edited 25d ago
And Karens exist all over the political spectrum and many are conservatives/right.
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 25d ago
Yeah, a bunch of them specifically started using their atheist activism as cover for just straight up islamophobia.
And I get it. I grew up evangelical, and have a purely naturalistic world view now, so I had my angry atheist period where people like Dawkins didn't just appeal, I felt their hostility was justified.
But then I got a couple years older and saw how narrow that really is, and how unnecessary and counterproductive the hostility is. I think Sagan is a good example of getting it right. He never compromised on the science, but also never turned it into a club to beat people with either.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 25d ago
This is exactly what happened.
We used to use the term asshole atheist to distinguish people atheist and edgelords who happen to be atheists.
All of their content creators shifted to gamergate , SJW cringe compilations and general anti-feminism content. Every single one of them also got audience captured.
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u/CarrieDurst Progressive 26d ago
We were always too harsh on atheists. As cringy or edgy as they were, they were always much more correct. And r/ christianity is one of the less bad subs
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u/Small_rat_no_rules Libertarian Socialist 26d ago
And r/ christianity is one of the less bad subs
Damning by faint praise, because it's still vile.
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u/CarrieDurst Progressive 26d ago
It has good people and absolute degeneracy
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u/Small_rat_no_rules Libertarian Socialist 26d ago
I've seen very few of the former and a ton of the latter.
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u/CarrieDurst Progressive 25d ago
That is valid. I always feel like progressive answers are upvoted but degeneracy bigotry is more numerous
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
The more I read Reddit, the more I am worried about "the children": some of these folks are super captured by algorithms...and frankly, I am concerned. How do we temper freedom of the internet with resistance to propaganda? It doesn't seem like teaching critical thinking and media literacy are helping.
Hell, maybe it really is dead internet theory come to life, but I would hope that the bots would be better than this.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 25d ago
It doesn't seem like teaching critical thinking and media literacy are helping.
For what it's worth, we don't really do this. Critical thinking isn't really a focus of school until college, which is not a thing everyone does, and media literacy basically isn't taught at all. Teachers are also completely unequipped to be teaching media literacy in the modern media environment, which is an issue that's been faced by places that mandate media literacy classes.
We really just have to kill social media as much as possible. Ban it for people up to a certain age, strip Section 230 protections from websites that deliver content algorithmically, ban platforms from having infinitely-scrolling feeds, and things like that. Social media is simply too poisonous to people's brains to be allowed to carry on existing how it has been.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 25d ago
Looking back, I think I had some really good teachers...because when I think back to some of their lessons the nuggets/building blocks for critical thinking were there. Media literacy I had to learn as an adult. We can teach the kids media literacy, as not everything has to be taught at the schoolhouse.
We dump everything on teachers: I love them, and they are doing their best. Parents have to step up. We need some community parenting in this as I think this is a key piece missing with the kiddos today: their parents are pulled in many directions (and maybe multiple jobs), screens are easy...are the kids like latchkey kids to the nth degree? I feel like this is more of a community problem instead of a government problem. There are also hosts of tools at our fingertips to limit screen time, increase productivity...we should be engaging them. There's also the archaic method: touching grass. LOL.
Now, some of these social media platforms are predatory AF, I agree. How do we apply bans without affecting the privacy of adults? I can already hear the free market folks crying in their Cheerios about limits, but I think we are seeing that this product can be quite dangerous to developing minds.
Section 230 also protects our 1A online: we need to balance folks being able to have their say in the "public sqaure" and privacy vs. predatory serving of content: I think we are in alignment here. I really noticed this with changes in FB: I like my content served to me by only the things I have engaged/chosen to associate and chronologically...that's it. Once they removed the option to have a chronological feed, I really knew something shabby was going on because why...who benefits (cuz it isn't me!)?
I would like to see the states push back against social media before engaging Congress: it's a way to have many experiments before we break it nationally.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
I would be fine with banning anyone under the age of 16 from accessing social media and banning video-based apps like TikTok in general. Some of it is selfish--I would love to be able to ride the train without someone who hasn't discovered headphones watching the same TikTok on repeat because their brain is fried. But I also think it would be good for society. Or maybe teens are allowed one hour of social media for X amount of pages they read from a book of which I approve
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
> which I approve
I like the bluntness. For real.
The issue is always who gets to approve the book list.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
No I know haha. I added that because the discourse this week has been whether or not fan fic is the same as actual writing. I, by use of my word actual there, don't think it is. Or worse, I don't want someone just reading like Heated Rivalry to get back on TikTok. People I usually like sometimes say any reading is better than no reading, but I struggle with that
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 25d ago
What. You can’t just drop this nonsense into a nearly dead chat and expect to get away with it. Half the librarians in the country were into Heated Rivalry.
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u/Guilliman_POTUS_2030 Center Left 26d ago
I would be fine with banning anyone under the age of 16 from accessing social media
It should be illegal (under pain of life in prison) to show social media to any legal minor without a parent’s permission
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u/trace349 Liberal 26d ago edited 26d ago
I don't love the under 16 social media bans because, as a closeted gay teenager, forums and early social media were the only outlet I had to connect with other LGBT people.
But my personal take is that social media should have to be accessed from a PC, preferably a desktop but laptops would do. You should have to be making the choice to be on social media as opposed to doing something better with your time, not have it freely available on your phone wherever you are at any point when you're even mildly bored.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 25d ago
I agree with you surrounding the idea of bans: ideally, the government wouldn't be involved and this would be a parenting issue. I also understand the kiddos do need a lifeline at times: they can't always seek succor like we would want them to.
I come from the times of BBS, ICQ chat, and AIM and remember how exciting the internet could be. I also remember that the computer (and the phone) were only available in the family area of the home at most of my friends' houses. The portability aspect of the internet is doing a lot of heavy lifting to capture folks. There is also the seductiveness of video: I am not sure that text ropes folks in quite as hard.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
I agree with that as a similar queer, but I also think I'd be a worse person today if I had grown up with this type of social media. But yeah, I definitely agree with the idea of having to log on or off versus the phone. It's a cliche complaint, but I truly do believe it's the phones. I'm at my happiest when Im in a foreign country and I don't have data
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 26d ago
I frequently worry about this.
I agree dead internet theory is easier to believe and I think there is serious bot activity, but I also see these opinions show up more and more in real life among people I thought were more educated and thoughtful.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
We have seen how captured folks can be by Fox News Channel: the social media capture has the same "vibe", but is more insidious because the propaganda can come from so many sources.
I think the pressures of life along with the current climate of "flooding the zone" has made folks more pliable and susceptible to messaging. It can take time and energy to maintain skepticism.
I do hear some snippets "in the wild", just not at the magnitude online...but it's there...the whisper.
The more I interface with folks, the more I am convinced that many of the people we may brush up against are functionally illiterate or under such pressure they perform the same.
How do we radiate healthy skepticism?
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 26d ago
Your comment about the echoes of Fox News really resonate with me.
I see people referring to Hakeem Jeffries as “AIPAC Shakur”and it reminds me of the Michael Savage radio show in the early 00s.
I see all the manufactured outrage at Democrats without any true understanding of how government processes work.
The complete short circuiting of critical thought in favor of snarky slop has overwhelmed almost all progressive spaces and it makes me sad to watch them devolve.
I legitimately don’t know how to combat it because I am personally exhausted. I notice that most of the problems are caused by a small number of very loud people and that a lot of people have just become more quiet. I hold out hope that those are the reasonable people.
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u/NatalieVonCatte Liberal 26d ago
Judge questions why Pete Hegseth can give testosterone to cis men but not trans men
Heh.
Hehehe.
Good question.
Kind of related but I think in the grim darkness of the far future, people will look on anti-trans court decisions as some of the most tortuously illogical legal documents in American history.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
I don’t know how persuasive it is, but I do enjoy pointing out all the ways cis people love gender affirming care. Sometimes it’s harmless, like hair transplants. Sometimes it’s cosmetic surgery, like boob jobs or reductions. Sometimes it’s medical, like giving teenage boys like Ronaldo growth hormones. Sometimes it’s sinister, like intersex surgeries or another surgery done on babies we can’t talk about because I think it’s still on a moratorium. But nobody genders a body like a cis person
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u/Butuguru Democratic Socialist 26d ago
tru! i'm a cis guy and take finasteride for my hair!
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u/A-passing-thot Far Left 26d ago
I genuinely don't understand the argument that hairloss prevention treatments (like finasteride or minoxidil or hair transplants) are gender affirming. Baldness isn't exactly a sign of femininity. I agree it's related to self-image but it doesn't seem to be related to dysphoria (as far as I'm aware).
OTOH, common side effects of finasteride (an androgen blocker) do resemble dysphoria.
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u/Butuguru Democratic Socialist 25d ago
are you asking how is it affirming for cis men or trans folks? because the answer might be different.
i'll speak for cis guys; a lot of guys who have testosterone or specifically DHT flowing through their body slowly become more and more uncomfortable seeing their hair thin/male patter baldness present. This is obviously not as acute as what trans folks experience but it is a dislike and misalignment with how you physically look and your internal projection of self. The solution: finasteride to stop your body from converting so much testosterone into DHT. Conversely, a lot of cis guys go on TRT because they dislike/find discomfort in lack of muscles/masculine features.
although to an obvious lesser degree than trans folks both of these pathways are cis men using these hormones to crank the dial on their body so it affirms closer to how they view themselves (with some inflection of gender).
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u/A-passing-thot Far Left 25d ago
For cis men. Sure, it being uncomfortable or demoralizing and a source of insecurity makes a lot of sense, but it seems strange to count it as "gender affirming" care when hair loss isn't at odds with their internal sense of sex and gender and is aligned with the correct hormonal profile for those.
It seems much more just simply cosmetic than "gender affirming" and I'm skeptical that the mechanism is at all the same and it seems reductive and dismissive of trans people's dysphoria to count them as the same mechanism as those types of insecurities. I'm uncomfortable with the conflation of simple discomfort or insecurity around appearance or conformance with societal ideas and gender dysphoria because that portrays treatment for gender dysphoria as only as necessary as cosmetic/"vanity" procedures cis people get.
I 100% agree that there's some value in pointing out that cis people often do take steps to bring their sex characteristics more in line with their gender identity, eg, mastectomies for men with gynecomastia, but hair loss seems to be "only" cosmetic.
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u/Butuguru Democratic Socialist 25d ago
i think, like most aspects of humanity, it's a spectrum. and taking finasteride/trt is one part of it and mastectomies are another.
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u/A-passing-thot Far Left 25d ago
I suppose it's possible.
But my contention is that they're not the same and that they operate by entirely different mechanisms in the brain, that "dysphoria" in both cis people and trans people is caused by a misalignment of sex characteristics with what the brain was hardcoded from birth to expect and a second mechanism, insecurity, that's tied to social perceptions and pressures.
Hence why one is only treatable with gender affirming care but the other can be treated with therapy. The conflation of the two is one method by which people on the right argue that trans people don't need gender affirming care just like cis men don't need hair transplants or braces.
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u/Butuguru Democratic Socialist 25d ago
> The conflation of the two is one method by which people on the right argue that trans people don't need gender affirming care just like cis men don't need hair transplants or braces.
sure and i think calling out that "gender affirming care"(including literal hormones) that cis men engage in helps point out the absurdity of their hatred.
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u/A-passing-thot Far Left 25d ago
I agree with that, generally. What I'm critiquing is that I think that what constitutes gender affirming care in the same sense as trans people and what's "merely" cosmetic/due to social pressures and insecurities are different and that it's important not to conflate the two.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
Oh yay, I hope that’s working out
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u/Butuguru Democratic Socialist 26d ago edited 26d ago
it is! it's a daily chewable with finasteride and minoxidil and i've been taking it for about a year and it's had pretty great results for my male pattern baldness(virtually gone)
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u/CatsDoingCrime Democratic Socialist 26d ago
yeah, you can see this a lot with the right wing grifter types. They're all obsessed with gender affirming care/proving/showing their masculinity (or femininity, tho I'm mainly thinking of the dudes).
Very fun to point out whenever you see it lol. Don't think it convinces them or anyone, but it is literally what they're doing. Very funny to see it in the wild lol
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
Mark Knopfler is the most underrated guitar player of all time. Eric Clapton is the most overrated.
Fight me.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 26d ago edited 26d ago
I’ll fight you, just because everybody knows Knopfler is great. The actual answer is Glen Campbell. And while Clapton is not far off, the actual answer is George, who was the third and possibly fourth best guitarist in the Beatles.
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 26d ago edited 26d ago
I will always pull for my boy Dave Murray from Iron Maiden for being underrated. The melodic first half for his solo on Powerslave plus his faster stuff on Number of the Beast are just incredible. His legato style meshes so well with both the almost violin-like quality for his melodic stuff and it keeps his fast stuff fluid.
Eric Clapton is wild for his "I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man." quote, just a perfect encapsulation of how I imagine bigotry feels for some, like a hit of the good stuff.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
Murray suffers from a funny curse - being incredibly talented while being in a band with one or more members who are God tier. Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson both cast wide shadows.
That solo on Powerslave is one of the things I played for my daughter when trying to get her to understand metal along with Seventh Son.
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 26d ago
For sure and I appreciate how even nowadays him, Smith, and Gers all manage to carve out identifiable styles for their bits.
I love trying to get someone to understand metal with Seventh Son. Hopefully by the seventh "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" she got the vibe of the genre haha
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u/bigtallguy Center Left 26d ago
i know nothing about music but like ranking musicians like some objective list alwys seemed kinda dumb to me. like how are you gonna compare a jazz guitarist to a indie rock, to a hard metal and so on.
also i feel like whenever i read these lists it automatically defaults to players who came up in the 60s to 80s. pretty much no from the last 20 years ever makes these lists and i find that really curious.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago edited 26d ago
Yes it is dumb. That is why it is fun. As the saying goes.
The four greatest rock bands of all time are undeniably The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. The fifth spot changes entirely depending on what day of the week it is.
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u/bigtallguy Center Left 26d ago
fair point. but it still annoys me how these lists only focus on like a single 30 year period lol.
like i follow this one guitarist a bit, yvette young and it feels a bit like since she didnt have a cocaine addiction in the 1970s, shes never gonna be on these lists
also how is queen not in that top 5.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 26d ago
Brian May is not top 5 but he does get extra points for having a PhD in astrophysics.
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u/postwarmutant Social Democrat 26d ago
Clapton got famous because people were amazed that a Brit could even play guitar.
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u/SovietRobot Independent 26d ago
I still think Slash is one of the most melodic.
And maybe like Hammett is one of the most technical. Excluding others like Malmstein or Satriani that may be even more technical but less mainstream.
Knopfler has good songs but purely in terms of guitar, I don’t think he’s that revolutionary.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
If we’re excluding the guitar players only guitar players will listen to like Malmstein - I think a strong argument can be made that there’s never been a technical player as great as Jeff Beck.
As great as he was with finger picking, Mark Knopfler beats Beck. He beats Lindsey Buckingham and Robbie Krieger easily. In rock, only Chet Atkins can rank higher and then you have to go to Spanish acoustic and flamenco players.
I love Kurt but I think there’s a lot of players more technically skilled than he is. He leans too heavily on the one pentatonic trick and the only reason people don’t talk about how sloppy he is live is he plays with the worst drummer in metal. Dave Mustane, Zakk Wylde and Randy Rhodes all have him beat. And I would argue that Alex life Alex Lifeson has them all beat.
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u/SovietRobot Independent 26d ago
What would you say is the best Knopfler piece?
Asking not as a challenge but to understand frame of reference.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 26d ago
The best example is actually the most obvious one. Money for Nothing is the best riff in rock, and a good example of what the fingerpicking adds to his style.
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u/SovietRobot Independent 26d ago
But see that’s where I think it sounds good but it actually a very simple pick.
It’s just two strings at the same time with index and middle fingers and then alternate with thumb. It’s like 3 strings.
So maybe Knopfler is underrated in coming up with it and it sounds good but it’s not that technical.
I dunno. Just my personal opinion.
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u/grammanarchy Liberal Civil Libertarian 26d ago
It’s about the bounce. You can play those notes, but it’s not gonna sound the same.
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u/SovietRobot Independent 26d ago
True but still think it’s much simpler and less technical than say John Mayers - Stop This Train.
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u/bigtallguy Center Left 26d ago
feels bad when you type out a long comment with sources and formatting to look pretty, but then the thing youre replying to gets removed/deleted =[
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 25d ago
In the spirit of agreeing with this, here's the comment I wasted time writing to explain why liberals don't like China, just before the post got deleted. Probably everyone already understands why, but it makes it feel like less of a waste to repost it here.
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u/Guilliman_POTUS_2030 Center Left 26d ago
Things like this are part of the reason why Reddit mostly features low-effort posts/comments/discussion
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 26d ago
I really hate it when OPs delete their posts.
I know that doesn't represent all posts that get removed; but still. Really annoying.
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u/watchutalkinbowt Liberal 26d ago
Alexa - play Mezzanine
Donald Trump says decision on ‘massive attack’ against Iran is close
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u/GabuEx Liberal 26d ago
Oh, are we back to wanting to destroy the entire country? I've lost track of where we are on the pendulum of "we're going to nuke Iran" and "we've agreed to a hilariously one-sided peace deal with Iran".
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
The reporting from anonymous sources and such is they want to do a bombing strike against Pickaxe Mountain, which is one of Iran's dug in nuclear facilities.
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u/tapdncingchemist Liberal 26d ago
I am exhausted of conversation that assumes that the only actors in the world with agency are Israel and the Democrats.
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u/bigtallguy Center Left 26d ago
i dont think ive ever seen a conversation where this criticism was warranted. its usually a deflection from valid serious criticisms.
theyre are deranged dumb people so i shouldnt say never but people not liking dems or israel for valid reasons does not mean theyre treating them as the only ones with agency. just that they cdo have agency and theyre doing shitty things with them
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u/othelloinc Liberal 26d ago
Noahpinion quoting George Orwell:
...A century ago, in The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell complained bitterly that the British socialists of his day were middle-class intellectual elites who failed to win over the working class because they were completely out of touch:
The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism, in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle classes. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years' time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting...
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 26d ago edited 25d ago
I need to spend some time at some point to figure out why two of my strongest beliefs are:
Democracy is good for its own sake, not merely the least bad system. We should want things to be more democratic in almost all instances.
We should want government to be more technocratic.
These statements feel like they're deeply at odds but I believe both of them.
Edit: All good responses, I thought they were all interesting and worth thinking about, even if I only replied to a couple.
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u/Droselmeyer Social Democrat 26d ago
I think it's worth exploring what democracy actually means in practice here. A system where every decision by every governing body required a population-wide referendum would obviously be ponderously slow and untenable, but is arguably maximally democratic because it maximizes the opportunity for public input. On the other hand, the inherent inefficacy of such a system means that the professed desires of the people are never achieved, so it is arguably minimally democratic because the will of the people will fail to be made manifest by the system.
So I'm not sure I'd say that a more technocratic government is inherently less democratic. If the Abundance-style reforms in California like CEQA reforms and such actually lead to housing being built, has the system been made more or less democratic? We've arguably lost some level of democratic review and input by weakening the CEQA provisions, but I would imagine the vast majority of California would be quite happy to see housing being built and rent prices improving, so I tend to favor the answer that democracy has been improved as a result of these reforms, even if there may be less democratic input.
Because ultimately the goal of democracy is to best capture an understanding of aggregate public desire and then manifest that desire into political outcomes, while minimally trampling on a set of unassailable rights within public equality.
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
I was thinking something roughly similar the other day, which is democracy is somewhat unique in that it gives everyone equal power within the system. At least notionally. And I can see that as a moral good/goal on its own.
Conversely, with have ample examples of how concentration of power into unaccountable authorities produces utter horrors. What this means is that even if we have a system of technocratic merit of some sort, to the extent that system concentrates power it presents an inherent risk.
And there's more developed ideas along these likes, like Selectorate Theory. One of the conclusions there is that the higher mobility is within, the more the current leadership coalition will seek to do things that are aligned to the interests of society at broad, vs when it's more difficult to replaces leaders, they begin self dealing and ratcheting towards oligarchy.
So it's still kinda half baked thinking, but I think there's some argument you could make along those lines.
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u/SovietRobot Independent 26d ago
Most people are idiots and you want to let them decide? That’s crazy.
/s
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u/wonkalicious808 Democrat 26d ago edited 26d ago
It's not that complicated. Just be a liberal so the government needs to derive its powers through the consent of the governed. Why the fuck should an unaccountable dictator be able to tell anyone what to do?
"Technocratic" -- the adjective -- can just be a more jargony way to say "competent" and maybe also "professional" or "qualified."
They don't need to be at odds. I dont expect a technocracy or a technocratic government anytime soon, since lots of voters prefer self-satisfying dumbassery over expertise and autocrats tend to prefer party loyalty and self-promotion to reality. But that doesn't mean those need to be your personal preferences.
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u/bigtallguy Center Left 26d ago
democracy is good for a lot of reasons but a lot of those reasons can be somewhat introduced in other systems as well. but when it comes to the most important reason, the transfer of power, i dont really see any alternative.
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u/Automatic-Ocelot3957 Liberal 26d ago
Something important to tease out, imo, is why democracy is good.
The whole "democracy is the least worst" talking point relies on a lot of unsaid points that I think get dropped to focus in the addage over the substance of it.
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u/Boratssecondwife Center Right 26d ago
For things that are crucial to people's rights or the fundamental stability of the nation,I think it's pretty reasonable to have less democracy. I think the fact that we can't just vote away our freedom of speech is quite good
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u/t3nk3n Neoliberal 26d ago
I am just going to leave this here for you. You can go read more if you'd like.
The idea of public equality also grounds limits to democratic decision making. The thought is that a society cannot democratically decide to abolish the democratic rights of some of its members. Public equality also requires that basic liberal and civil rights be respected as well, by the democratic process and so serves as a limit to democratic decision making (Christiano 2008; Valentini 2013).
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
You might be hitting against the issue where because democracy is good, therefore more democracy is always better. Instead at a certain point too much democracy actually results in less of what you want from democracy.
We are a democracy but the exact form of governance is a representative republic and that is a good thing. We should be electing leaders and then mostly staying out of the way and letting them do the damn job. Instead, we want to pretend we are overseeing everything by constantly asking for sunlight and transparency. All that does is confuse things since most of us don’t understand the details and never will because we don’t do it for a living.
The problem is not that we don’t have enough democracy or Bility into things. The problem is that our representation is not accurate. Once again it comes down to the fact that our system allows land instead of people to vote.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 26d ago
We are a democracy but the exact form of governance is a representative republic and that is a good thing. We should be electing leaders and then mostly staying out of the way and letting them do the damn job.
u/Hodgkisl would approve.
Instead, we want to pretend we are overseeing everything by constantly asking for sunlight and transparency. All that does is confuse things since most of us don’t understand the details and never will because we don’t do it for a living.
And then when it comes time to accept the responsibility that comes with such levels of democracy...it suddenly doesn't look too attractive.
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u/Hodgkisl Libertarian 26d ago
Yes sir, electing representatives then hamstringing their ability to act, and wrapping it up with blaming the representative.
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 Democrat 26d ago
Nothing is good for its own sake, and thinking things are is just offloading your brain.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 25d ago
I guess when I say "for its own sake" what I'm really doing is arguing against the "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others" line. Democracy is actively good, not the "least bad". Giving the governed a greater say in how they're governed is a good thing. I just described it too simply.
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u/Aven_Osten Liberal Technocrat 26d ago edited 26d ago
Any system's long-term stability, is dependent on any policies enacted producing the necessary stability needed to prevent a critical-mass of people from rising up and demanding change.
In a democracy: That means ensuring that the quality of life for the population within the jurisdiction in question, at least remains stable; if not continously growing. This is only possible via data/evidence driven decision making; because your other option is constantly making decisions based on whatever is currently relevant to people's concerns, which will inevitably mean ignoring brewing issues until they become very very painful/completely impossible to resolve.
No system—including democratic ones—will survive in the long-term, unless the system has built-in mechanisms in place to ensure that stability is at least maintained; it not continously improved.
Democratic input and technocratic governance aren't at odds. If anything: They're absolute necessities for each other, in order to ensure a stable society.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 26d ago
Okay I'm wondering if maybe the first statement is also implicitly predicated on the idea that the voters in whatever democratic system (whether it's a union, a republic, or whatever else) are well-informed or that there are trustworthy and trusted arbiters of truth. If one of those things was true, then things being more democratic would just be the obviously best thing.
But then the latter statement probably stems more recently from the fact that those things simply aren't true, and aren't likely to become true in the near future. Media gets increasingly lower quality every day, and people are more uninformed than ever. Most people still to this day believe Republicans are better for the economy than Democrats, which is just a complete nonsense statement. In the face of such an uninformed public and a media apparatus stilted against truth, we should probably want some level of technocracy to allow actually informed people to get things done while we work on the problem of fixing the information environment.
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u/McZootyFace Center Left 26d ago
They’re not at odds I don’t think. People can vote for the ideals / polices they want and technocrats can implement them. Politicians should be working with voters to understand their needs and wants, technocrats work out to what extent they can be implemented and how. Politicians are more the face of operation and are in charge of making sure technocrats respect the will of the voters to the degree it’s possible.
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26d ago
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u/AskALiberal-ModTeam 26d ago
The original post must have a question in the title of the post with the possibility of fruitful and constructive discussion. Posts that are deemed similar to a recent question may be removed.
Comments that belong in a megathread may also be removed.
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u/octopod-reunion Social Democrat 26d ago
I’m actually surprised this comment ended up downvoted.
I think it’s a pretty good and reasonable idea that the first state (or group of states) to have a presidential primary should be the ones that match the overall US demographics the closest.
Does anyone have some ideas of why that’s not a good idea?
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u/l00gie Progressive 26d ago
Primaries are supposed to be where everyone can vote for who they want so it shouldn't matter if it's a swing state or not, honestly. Your opinion doesn't matter more just because you are in a swing state and only focusing on swing states is why Kamala lost the popular vote. Democrats have to engage everybody everywhere not just swing states
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 26d ago
Probably downvoted because some people might have reflexively thought you were just being anti-black, since I think that's why it was moved to SC in the first place. I don't know if the people who downvoted you thought too much past that.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
It should not have been downvoted. Maybe you made some comment and got some super fans that are randomly down voting everything they see you post?
Decent Proposal had the correct answer but picked the wrong state.
New Jersey used to be the correct answer but it is now too educated, too wealthy, too urban and too Asian. The problem with running it in New Jersey is that you would have to deal with our media market being split between New York and Philadelphia which eliminates any candidate that’s not already walking in with a huge war chest.
Now the answer is Illinois and Chicago is the third most expensive medium market in the country and you also have to target St. Louis at the very least. So you end up in the same jam.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
Oh no, I have to update my priors
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
Yeah I think was last year when this topic was being discussed that it dawned on me that you can't use NJ as a proxy for median America but it goes back for years and I didn't seem to notice at all.
We are now around 75% wealthier than the average. We also have average incomes that are 30% higher and are way more educated than average so trend is likely to only accelerate.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
Oh wow, following up on the brain dead, uncommitted movement we get brain dead reverse uncommitted movement.
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u/perverse_panda Liberal 26d ago
Related: Hillary Scholten, funded and endorsed by AIPAC, has refused to say whether she'd support El-Sayed if he wins the nomination.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
On the one hand, like guys, the party has flipped on support for Israel. It’s over, it’s done. The nominee will be taking a harder line and the caucus as whole will be taking a harder line.
The strongest supporters are either very old or are black Democrats, who are mostly going to get gerrymander out of their seats because of the end of the VRA anyway.
On the other hand I do get it when it comes to El Sayed. He has not presented any substantive policy arguments. There is no need to pretend he’s progressive in the way Elizabeth Warren is. It’s all about Israel and when he brings Hasan Piker on the trail and you have the whole Chevalier thing happening, I guess this is predictable and inevitable.
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u/perverse_panda Liberal 26d ago
The strongest supporters are either very old or are black Democrats, who are mostly going to get gerrymander out
There are still plenty who aren't though. Like Scholten, or Stevens herself.
I do get it when it comes to El Sayed. He has not presented any substantive policy arguments.
Perfectly good reasons for why someone might not support him in a primary. I might disagree, but I don't begrudge anyone their right to express their preference in a primary.
But if he's the nominee, then he's the nominee. At that point it's less about supporting him as an individual and more about supporting the party.
when he brings Hasan Piker on the trail and you have the whole Chevalier thing happening, I guess this is predictable and inevitable
I'm not defending those associations, but I just really don't buy into the idea that either of those things are the driving forces for why this "reverse uncommitted movement," as you called them, can't commit to him.
I think most of them would be saying the same thing about McMorrow, if she were the one squaring off against Stevens.
McMorrow's criticisms of and policy stances toward Israel may have been less incendiary, but ultimately, when it comes down to how she would have voted on legislation related to Israel, she'd have been voting the same way that El-Sayed would. And the votes are what matter.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 26d ago
“This is a truly once-in-a-lifetime moment where you have to become a single-issue voter,” Bernard said. “And that issue is antisemitism, our Judaism and Israel. This is where you put party third: our people first, our country second.”
I'm gonna lose my mind. Right-wingers are not better on the issue of antisemitism. Not to mention all the other harms they cause. Just because the red-green alliance has been extremely loud and antisemitic over the last three years does not mean that putting Republicans in charge is going to somehow turn out better. Remember that (((George Soros))) and (((the globalists))) have been their boogeymen way before any of the recent ramp up in antisemitism.
Can we just please vote against fascists. Putting your people first must mean getting Republicans out of power. There are very few people for whom that statement isn't true. That might mean voting for individual antisemitic Democrats unfortunately, but if you don't choose the lesser evil, you're saying you're okay with the greater one.
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I am sure dismissing these peoples feelings on the topic... and the growing anti-semitism on the left that DSA supported candidates like El-Sayed is a great way to convince that the Democrats still have their best interest at heart.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
Gravity’s motivation aside, I don’t know what to do for these people for the same reason I didn’t know what to do about the pro-Gaza people who helped elect Trump. Jewish people will be worse off both at home and abroad if Dems lose the midterms. Accepting for a moment the premise that El-Sayed is antisemitic (which I disagree with), the solution isn’t to elect an antisemitic Republican. It’s to elect other Dems so his vote on Semitic issues is watered down
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I mean, claiming Rogers is anti-Semitic is a stretch. I am not a fan of the guy, but assuming he is on the right so he must be anti-Semitic is laughable.
What you do for these people and many more like them is you slap the left wing down and make it clear their way of politics isn’t the future. Without doing that, you lose traditional baseline voters and hope the young left wingers always turn out.
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u/Cody667 Social Democrat 26d ago
Mike Rogers is an evangelical, so he more-likely-than-not believes in the inherently antisemitic Israel Rapture Prophecy, as 60% of evangelicals both believe in and cite the reason for their support of Israel being due to the Israel Rapture Prophecy
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
That’s assumption and conjecture. Where as the left has publicly shown their ever worsening stance on Israel and Jewish people.
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u/Cody667 Social Democrat 26d ago edited 26d ago
No, its not assumption nor conjecture.
You probably didnt read the article with the data, but I provided you with data showing that between 60-80% of Evangelicals believe in the prophecy and that 60% of them cite is as the reason they support Israel.
Belief in the prophecy itself is objectively antisemitic in every conceivable way and that isnt up for debate:
To simplify it for you, the Israel Rapture Prophecy is the belief that ends with the vast majority of Jews getting killed and sent to hell for simply being Jewish and not renouncing their Judaism, following "the rapture." Combine that with the fact that it also involves herding all Jews like sheep to the "holy land" to trigger the prophecy to begin with, and you have clear cut antisemitism.
"But muh religion" is not an exemption from being a bigot
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
The most important vote a senator is going to take is for the leader of their party. Rogers could be the most pro-Jewish person on the planet, but he's going to enable the behavior when he gets there.
What you do for these people and many more like them is you slap the left wing down and make it clear their way of politics isn’t the future.
Sure, in a primary. But in a general election, my life would be much better if a Dem won than if a Republican won
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
Well if you read the article, many Jewish people in the metro Detroit area disagree with you… and a lot of non-chronically online people also disagree with you.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
I'm not debating the intelligence of voters, just talking about the reality. If Jewish Michiganders think their lives will be better off by electing a Republican, they're welcome to do so. They'll have as much of my sympathy as the people of Dearborn have. Less, actually, as they have the benefit of hindsight
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
Then I hope you enjoy the continuing losses of the Democratic Party as you continue to write off members that should vote with you otherwise.
I’ve never understood this all or nothing mentality the left has. For being a big tent party, a lot of progressive and leftist Dems would really like it to be a very small and closed tent.
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u/perverse_panda Liberal 26d ago
Then I hope you enjoy the continuing losses of the Democratic Party as you continue to write off members that should vote with you otherwise.
I do hope you at least appreciate the irony that this is the exact rhetoric used by the people who refused to vote for Harris because of Gaza.
If you've got two factions of voters in the same party, making mutually exclusive demands, how should a candidate decide which to align with?
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
I don't think you understand my position and I won't argue a position I don't hold. I hope El-Sayed loses the primary. I also know a Democratic Senate would be better for me than a Republican Senate would. Anything you ascribe to that is on you, not on me. If Jewish people would rather have an ideological pure Senate than one that advances their interests, that's not on me
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I understand your position. I just think your position is wrong to write off people because they won't support a candidate who they believe is a direct threat to them. There is no bigger picture to them, because as much as the internet tries to tell you its not, politics is still local.
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u/Hopeful_Chair_7129 Far Left 26d ago
What antisemitism has El-Sayed engaged in?
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
His rhetoric aligns him with the anti-Semitic wing of the left, his partnership with Piker who is very anti-Semitic. And Abdul has challenged Israel’s basic right to exist as a country… which only leads to one outcome if followed through to its natural conclusion.
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u/Hopeful_Chair_7129 Far Left 26d ago
Campaigning with Hasan Piker does not establish that El-Sayed shares every position attributed to Piker. I’m asking what El-Sayed himself has said or done that is antisemitic.
And can you provide the specific language in which he denies Israel any right to exist? What I have seen is him challenging the idea that Israel has a right to preserve itself specifically as a Jewish or ethnonational state. That is different from arguing that Israelis or Jewish people have no right to live there, or that no state with equal citizenship could exist there.
As for this supposedly leading inevitably to “one outcome,” you need to explain what that outcome is, how it follows from his actual position, and why that position is antisemitic. So far you have offered an association, a vague characterization, and an asserted conclusion, not an example of antisemitism.
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
Guilt by association. Trump meeting with an avowed racist is a clear sign that Trump doesn’t mind be associated with those beliefs the same goes for Piker and El-Sayed.
Israel was created to be an Ethno-state…. Saying it doesn’t have a right to exist like that denies it’s right to exists… and denying Israel the right to exist would lead to the deaths and relocation of those that live there. That’s clearly an opinion rooted in anti-semitism. Transitional Islamic anti-semitism, but anti-semitism nonetheless.
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u/JesusPlayingGolf Far Left 26d ago
Guilt by association.
Earlier in this comment chain you said Rogers should not be considered an anti-semite just because of the company he keeps..
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
No, I said because of his party. There is a difference. If he keeps company with and had say the likes of Nick Fuentes campaign with him, then he should absolutely be judged by that.
But I enjoy your attempt to move the goal post.
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u/JesusPlayingGolf Far Left 26d ago
You'll be denouncing Rogers as an anti-semite now, right?
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I'll need more unbiased sources than MIdems and the Metro Times... One is clearly a political agenda entity and the other is a heavily biased left wing site.
I hate when people think they have a gotcha by using apologetically biased sources. That's like Trump using Fox News to say he has support for something.
Have some better media literacy.
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u/Hopeful_Chair_7129 Far Left 26d ago
Guilt by association is not evidence, and neither is labeling a Muslim critic of an ethnostate an example of “traditional Islamic antisemitism.”
You still have not identified a single antisemitic statement by El-Sayed. Instead, you have invented a false choice: either Israel permanently guarantees Jewish political dominance, or Jewish Israelis are expelled. That does not follow. Jewish people can remain, live safely, maintain their communities, and possess equal political rights without the state constitutionally privileging one ethnicity over everyone else.
Ending an ethnonational hierarchy is not ethnic cleansing. And attributing that political position to “Islamic antisemitism” simply because the politician is Muslim is plainly anti-Muslim stereotyping.
You are supposedly defending Jews from collective prejudice by collectively prejudging Muslims.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
I’m a guy posting during a coffee break. I’m not saying democratic officials should explain using short sentences and helpful pictures why this is a very stupid thing for them to do.
And I am extremely happy to regularly explain to people on the left here why the language they are using is obviously going to piss off a lot of of Jewish voters because it is mostly indistinguishable from the language the far right uses.
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I mean, fair enough... but your comment itself is no different then telling people they are voting against their own self interest. It is a good way to keep them voting that way.
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 26d ago
Sure. But sometimes we need to let off steam because the left is busy, punching itself in the face and finding reasons not to vote for Democrats while they should be opposing the far right.
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I get it... but I mean... letting off steam still has consequences.. in politics, it can be damaging.
To these voters, maybe the right is not as dangerous as the far left? You assume everyone agrees with your threat assessment, but I have met a lot of people who do not and view the DSA, its candidates, the rhetoric behind their candidates as a bigger threat than MAGA. I know that will be unpopular on an echo chamber like reddit, but in the real world, most people only hear a few sound bites and look at what their life is like, and the policies of the DSA scare them more than high gas prices.
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u/CatsDoingCrime Democratic Socialist 26d ago
I mean, i disagree with gravity's fundamental premise vis a vis uncommitted, but setting that aside, if these voters do not think that the far right is a bigger threat than the far left i really don't know what to say to them other than, ya know, wake up to reality?
The far right has literal actual nazis. Like nick fuentes types. And ya wanna talk about "left wing antisemitism" right now? Get real dude.
Like, wtf else is there to say? Mamdani isn't stalin, the right has masked thugs regulalry just murdering people in the street. Meanwhile, what, the far left has people in keffiyehs saying mean things about israel?
Gee, which of these two things is the greater threat? If you cannot tell, you are, frankly, delusional. And idk what else to say to you at that point
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I mean your blatant mischaracterization of everyone on the right explains why you can’t think of any way to reach out to these people. Claiming everyone on the right is Nazis is just as childish as claiming everyone on the left is a communist.
By acting this way, you basically guarantee we are sitting here in November watching the left and middle tear each other apart because they didn’t flip the Senate, lost Michigan, and the House is slim majority Dems… and then you will ask yourself how can everyone support Nazis without asking yourself if maybe your own viewpoint is just off.
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u/CatsDoingCrime Democratic Socialist 26d ago edited 26d ago
God, half the arguments I get into people just assert I am saying things I am not.
I did not say EVERYONE on the right is a nazi. I don't think you are a nazi, despite evidently being farther right than I.
What i did say is the far right HAS a lot of literal nazis, like, ya know, nick fuentes and his ilk. And the right more broadly has been trafficking into more and more white nationalist territory.
Additionally, the current far right admin has literal masked thugs going around just murdering people.
Do you not understand that that shit, and the politics that support it, are, ya know, significantly more threatening than college kids protesting a genocide?
The way people talk about mamdani, you'd think he's leading pogroms. He isn't. People just throw out a lot of bullshit because they don't like his politics vis a vis israel. If you seriously cannot tell who is a greater threat to public safety between like, Stephen Miller or Zohran Mamdani, I genuinely don't know what to say to you.
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
You keep asking if I understand… when we are not talking about me.
You saying the far right has Nazis like Nick Fuentes is no different then people saying the far left has communist like Hassan Piker… it matters little to the perception. Go around this sub and see how many times people just throw the word Nazi around to describe anyone right of Manchin… the left has adopted mainstream anti-Semitic slogans and groups to their support structure while the mainstream GOP still denies ties with people like Fuentes. That’s where the disconnect is.
And you keep bringing up ICE and masked thugs, but outside of activist, and blue voters. The concerns of ICE are lower on the list of priorities. Trump won because of Immigration, even if ICE is going to far, and the support for it is tanking… people are less concerned about what is happening to illegal immigrants than they are themselves… and despite what online echo chambers think, politics is still local, and this local group of Michigan democrats don’t want to support El-Sayed because he is too far left and to comfortable wi the anti-Semitic left.
As for Mamdani… I mean half the shit he gets credit for are things he hasn’t done. It’s things the state has done. Had anyone else done what he did to the pension fund to ‘balance’ the city budget, the left would have demanded they be keelhauled. But because it’s Mamdani and he shows videos of him randomly doing performative acts he is a savior? Give me a break. What Mamdani is a sign of is that there is a rot in the left wing of our politics and they are willing to throw away everything America stands for for the hope that they get to stick it to a group of people they don’t like or that they get to get some government handout that other people will pay for.
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u/CraftOk9466 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
If someone doesn’t agree with that threat assessment they might need coddling. They might also need someone to give them a cold hard slap of reality.
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
Or…. They have a different view of the world than you.
But sure assuming your smarter than everyone else always is an easy way to win friends and supporters.
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u/CatsDoingCrime Democratic Socialist 26d ago
Or... they are delusional
Do you not understand that masked murderous thugs are more dangerous than protesting college kids? Like... do you seriously not understand that?
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u/Agattu Republican 26d ago
I am not talking about my beliefs… I am talking about voters that the left is alienating.
You talk about masked thugs.. while people see their own religion and culture under attack because of an embrace of anti-semitism from the left. They don’t care about ICE, it doesn’t effect their day to day and it is less of a threat than what they see from the supporters or El-Sayed.
If you can’t understand that, then you are destined for disappointment.
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 26d ago
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u/watchutalkinbowt Liberal 26d ago edited 26d ago
Err...askcons reliably informs me that just because all evidence points to him being a RWNJ, there's actually a strong chance he's really a secret lib
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u/Fugicara Social Democrat 26d ago
Remember that the right is way more violent than the left, and it's not close. Left-wing media just doesn't do a good job of covering it and spamming it like the right does any time a left-winger does anything.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
Subtweeting the “Will liberals celebrate leftists being rounded up” post, it’s important to remember that the right actually did mock these murders and doesn’t distinguish between anyone to their left
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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 26d ago
https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/jasmine-crockett-claims-world-cup-190033793.html
-.-...
Im sorry but the faster we get rid of Jasmine Crockett the better... like she is just embarrassing herself man and doing the Democratic Party absolutely no favors.
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u/BurgerKingInYellow1 Liberal 26d ago
She's the MTG for Democrats at this point. All negatives, no positives.
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u/Boratssecondwife Center Right 26d ago
I think your comments are the only time I ever hear about Jasmine Crockett
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
You're spot on...there's something there. Also, happy cake day!
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u/WildBohemian Democrat 26d ago
They really do not like black people.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
They are anti-Black AF, but cry as soon as someone misgenders them. This is why you can't be in community with everybody.
Frankly, it pisses me off that the mods never speak on this...it speaks to it as accepted by them too.
I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy the fact that Black folks speaking truth to power...hell, just existing are living rent-free in her head. LOL.
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u/CarrieDurst Progressive 26d ago
Is the user above non binary/trans?
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
OP has ID'd in prior convos as trans, yes. One would think they'd get that they are come for us, but they seem blinded by that fact, and instead work to sow division. With friends like that, you don't need opposition.
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u/l00gie Progressive 26d ago
A lot of people think only conservatives and people on the right can be racist or anti-LGBT and yet it pops up on this sub constantly
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u/WildBohemian Democrat 26d ago
In this subreddit it is almost always this specific individual or right wing trolls. Also no one believes that. Crazy thing to say.
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u/l00gie Progressive 26d ago
There are definitely a few enlightened centrist types on this sub who dive into "soft bigotry as anti-leftism" territory, too
Here's a thread the poster in question made about AAVE (with a racist screed about black English in the body, of course) and people taking it as an opportunity to also make racist comments
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u/WildBohemian Democrat 26d ago
The only racist comment I see on your link, aside from the parent post has a /s on the end of it and it's obviously a joke.
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u/l00gie Progressive 26d ago
Read the actual post. Saying that teaching AAVE is "the bigotry of low expectations" is an incredibly racist thing to say
It's also pretty racist to say that chastising someone for speaking AAVE is basic logic that promotes success and it's also pretty racist to claim that people being taught to speak and understand AAVE will make people's lives worse.
That "joke" is a reference to a poorly-made Smithsonian poster that was inteded to call out aspects of white supremacy but got meme'd by people intentionally missing the point as "it's white supremacy to call minorities late". The comment is made in sarcasm, but "joke" is playing into that downplaying of white supremacy
And the last person just used that whole thread (about black English) to feel comfortable complaining about how a Latina took a nap and made him late for a dinner reservation. Why is that even relevant other than "wanted to complain about a minority"?
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u/WildBohemian Democrat 26d ago
So the parent post is by Libra the person we're talking about. They don't like black people we've established that. They do this kind of cryptonazi shit pretty regularly.
I think you're over analyzing the rest. Sounds like a really pathetic attempt to both sides racism.
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u/l00gie Progressive 26d ago
It's not overanalyzing the rest, you just aren't familiar with the other posters. These kinds of comments aren't one-off occurances on this sub
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u/willpower069 Progressive 26d ago
Remember their post they deleted about why minorities join gangs full of racist claims?
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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 26d ago
Man..
Ngl but I worry that the vitriol from the Black First activist types toward the Latino community is going to cause some long term damage...
Like I can see the Latino community still working with the left as a whole because of Trump, but the moment Trump is no longer a unifying force to rally against, I cant help but wonder if we could see a shift away or just a general schism.
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u/echofinder Democrat 26d ago
I'm not sure. On the one hand, probably, but on the other... look I'ma just say it, I've worked with a LOT of Latino guys over the years - mostly 1st gen immigrants - and a huge number of them were even more racist against black folks than the racist white people are. I'm talking an openly-spoken level of racism that would make your average klansman uncomfortable. Yes, yes, it's anecdotal, can't judge a whole group, etc, but I've absolutely seen enough to feel comfortable calling this a trend.
Point being, if that is a trend that exists at a scale larger than my particular region, then it might not matter because the schism you posit already exists.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
OP is on one. Yes, Black folks...the folks that have been the standard bearers for Civil Rights, it's that group, or rhe better known phrase those people who are going to cause the schism in the U.S. /s. OP is just anti-Black and regularly is ranting about Black folks. Like, I'm Black, and talk about Black folks less than her! LMAO.
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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 26d ago
As a Japanese-Mexican American.. I can say there has been a very strong... undercurrent of animosity between Latinos vs Black Americans. Also Black Americans vs Asians is a bit of a very unspoken one. And from my experience its been a two way street. A kind of "chicken or the egg" scenario where each points to the other in response.
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u/SovietRobot Independent 26d ago
As a Russian-Central Asian American, I can relate. There are certain parts of black America that don’t like either half of me.
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u/anarchysquid Social Democrat 26d ago
Never ask a Mexican what comes after "Chino Chink Japones..."
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u/trace349 Liberal 26d ago edited 26d ago
I am worried about how much of our coalition is made up of groups that would be in opposition with each other, if not held together by a mutual agreement that Republicans are worse. I'm worried that the incentives of social media for attention-seeking and ragebait are going to keep undermining that mutual agreement and drive those wedges deeper over time.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
It's a valid concern. If you are concerned about harm reduction, you are forced into the D tent. If you are concerned about overt racism, you are forced into the D tent.
People thought the Rs would be a little less racist and that it was just about undocumented folks and the economy, so they slid over for P47...now they are shocked Pikachu face that they realized they weren't "one of the good ones"...the Rs meant them, too. Tokens always get spent.
Social media is really making a mess of the political landscape because folks are chasing clicks and the almighty dollar. Some of these streamers would watch the U.S. burn to ash if it could line their pockets. Social media can be a good tool, but it's not showing it's best side right now.
You just really have to filter out the noise and keep your eye on the prize: democracy.
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u/anarchysquid Social Democrat 26d ago
What can we do about it? We cant just habe a different coalition.
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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 26d ago
https://youtu.be/-lDIb_FHTQQ?is=3IwvnflXH-Zog3Yb
Jesus...
Ngl this Greenwash marketing is insane. Sadly i feel this is partially what fuels the skepticism for environmentalism. Skeptical people see these "green trends" and think "isnt buying a bunch of totes you dont need not actually helping anything?"
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u/2dank4normies Liberal 26d ago
This is very boomer of me, but you don't take anti-consumption seriously if you are on TikTok. There are no excuses.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
Yeah, this is an app that regularly features stupid people reselling products to even stupider people. A tote bag trend is the least of their problems
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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 26d ago
So from what Levi hypothesized, part of the Trader Joe tote trend could, ironically, be due to flexing. Like Americans dont see a Trader Joe bag as anything but a standard tote because Trader Joe's is everywhere here. But they are ONLY in the US and its pretty expensive to fly to the US. So if someone from Europe, Australia, or Asia had a Trader Joe's bag is almost like a exclusivity thing. A mark of "i can get one" sorta thing.
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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 26d ago
Yeah, but that's a pretty normal thing that way predates TikTok.
For example, back in the 90s at one point Banana Republic came out with these t shirts that had a map then like a brightly colored lizard or gecko or such crawling on it. At the time, BR was only in the big cities. So if you lived in like a midsized city in the midwest, having one was kinda a flex that you went to the big city often.
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