Isn’t it strange that you have to make a disclaimer like “please don’t judge me?”. Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump, should you automatically be ashamed of that?
(It’s easy for me to say ofc, I have no horse in this race)
There are plenty of Trump voters (Republicans in general) who would actually find the contents of that website abhorrent. I would say these people represent a minority (albeit a large one) of Trump supporters.
Which is fine when the leader in question ignores those minority opinions.
The problem here is that the leader is going out of his way to specifically engage and this minority group by committing as many atrocities as possible.
Approximately 23% of the US population voted for him. Typically I don't like this arguement, the rest of the population would probably have voted along much the same proportions as those who did.
I don't think this is true. It's been shown over and over again that the more people who vote, the more likely Republicans are to lose the election. This is why Republicans have gone all in on their disenfranchisement efforts.
Whatever you assume about how they would have voted, they didn't “literally” vote.
And the assumption that people who choose to vote have an equal distribution of political views to those who choose not to vote is ludicrous; people who, if they voted, would only vote for someone who isn't a major party candidate are going to be vastly overrepresented among nonvoters simply because they are more likely to feel participation is futile; it would be less inaccurate than assuming equal distribution—but still inaccurate—to assume every eligible nonvoter is equivalent to a vote against at least all of the major party candidates.
> the rest of the population would probably have voted along much the same proportions as those who did
According to Pew, the non-voter block is much less white, less educated, and poorer than the voting population. You can probably make several cases for which way that block breaks, but I would certainly not say they would vote proportionally the same as voters.
I'm an active reader of threads on YC, and maybe I'm just lucky but I have yet to see anyone spouting MAGA based conspiracy theories. I did get downvoted one time for saying Trump invented the term Antifa (Which is absolutely true. I did a google search by date to verify.) but that's as close as I've seen.
I think you got downvoted because the term/group Antifa has existed in several forms since the 30s, it was a movement started in Germany in response to the rise of the SPD between WWI and WWII.
That I did not know. I just know no one was using the term online before trump started calling the BLM protestors antifa. (However, there was a single tweet with an #antifa hashtag 2 days before trump used the terminology. I figured he saw the tweet and it inspired Trump to pick up the term, but now I do not know given the historical back stop.)
Not in the Trump train themselves, but there are definitely a lot of libertarians on here who believe in absolute free speech - a position that is seen as borderline ridiculous from an European (specifically: German) perspective.
That's refreshing to hear. I'm not pro manipulative speech (and manipulative news), but in the US free speech is seen as a very strong positive culturally, regardless where you are on the political spectrum.
We'll see if that attitude changes once the US has a one or two ethnic/cultural genocides that was preceded by a lot of hate speech against said ethnic/cultural groups.
That is to say, the US attitude towards free speech is not somehow the result of some very wise collective, it simply hasn't had the history to affect its attitude towards it in the same way that European countries have.
Ask a Native American (or one of dozens of other groups whose vilification enabled their oppression and murder), or maybe read a history book? We Americans aren't less experienced than Europeans; we're just more committed.
How many Americans today are aware they (well, their ancestors but that does carry responsibilities to younger generations) are guilty of mass murder and ethnic cleansing? And how much of that genocide was preceded of much hate speech? (how much were the free speech protections a factor in said genocide)
I think you may be right that ethnic genocide alone may not be enough to change a whole population's opinions around free speech rights, that there may be additional factors required such as general awareness of how bad it was to engage in such acts and what contributed to those acts.
I am not Native American, but perhaps I can answer your questions about USA culture in general. Lots of people know about the genocide in an intellectual sense, although that doesn't affect their politics and they don't appreciate reminders.
Free speech protections weren't obviously relevant to the genocide as it has occurred, although it wouldn't surprise me to learn e.g. that a native counterpart to Frederick Douglass had been silenced unfairly. As for speech in the other direction, the worst things were said (and done) by the "greatest statesmen" [0] so I doubt that corporate speech codes would have been much help. If it isn't too presumptuous of me to observe, it's unlikely that such things would have done much to slow down Hitler or Mussolini either.
They're downvoting everyone who is pointing out that Trump did not win the popular vote. This is frustrating given it is absolutely relevant, even if it is somewhat of a nitpick; the statement that "half of the US" voted for anyone is genuinely misleading.
> Their worst right now is much worse than expected, I would be ashamed to be associated.
This doesn't follow. Trump has been promoting violence since 2016. There have been multiple attacks carried out by Trump supporters. Most Republicans think the election was stolen thanks to Trump. Anyone who was surprised by this hasn't been paying attention to the blatantly obvious signs that have been on display nor to the repeated warnings by many, many people saying this is where things were headed. I'm in no way surprised this happened. Why were so many other people?
It does follow if you think that most people that voted for Trump didn't actually think that Trump means most of the things he says. Which matches up with what Trump supporters say in interviews regarding Trump's stance on topics that even many of his supporters don't agree with. They will generally say something like "yeah, I don't agree with what Trump says about X and Y but I vote for him because of Z".
And to be fair their stance is not totally unreasonable. On both isles of the political spectrum most voters for some candidate ignore at least part of what the candidate says _and_ does. No candidate perfectly matches up with what you think should be done, that's normal and expected, democracy isn't perfect. A part of this process is trying to guess what the political candidate really thinks/believes vs what they say just to gain political capital. All people living in a democracy learn to do this early on. I guess for many Trump supporters they guessed that even with all the seemingly violence inducing rhetoric it wouldn't end up with a mob assaulting a federal government institution. Mistakes were made. :)
My point still stands. Anyone surprised by violence from Trump supporters have not been paying attention for the last four years. All the warning signs have been there. You've got documented evidence of Trump and his followers setting small fires for four years and half the country shouting "HEY WE'VE GOT A FIRE!" suddenly people are surprised that the building is burning down around them? Mistakes were made, the President and supporters everyone has been warning about do the thing everyone has been warning about and try to stage a coup. Oops!
I don’t paint every Democrat as a supporter of the violence and property damage that happened over the summer.
I think the vast, vast majority of people believe in non-violent protest and giving people room to express their views and hurt and frustration in non-violent ways.
I think politicians and the media is largely responsible for trying to paint groups they don’t like with an overly broad brush, and we should outright reject that as Americans.
The political flame war has to stop. The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans are in fact reasonable, kind, loving people who still believe in America even if it’s no longer popular to admit it.
The challenge is the fringe voices are amplified a million times more than the center-mass.
I read an interesting Twitter thread last week on how housing policy in SF is basically totally dominated by 6 people, private citizens, who scream down anyone who would dare to offer an opposing view, and are successful in setting policy with these tactics. I don’t know if that’s fully true, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
There seems to be a poll floating around that 45% of republicans supported the storming of capitol hill. Of course polls can be twisted to deceive, but if we take that at face value, that is not a small "fringe"?
My personal poll of around 20 Republicans found only a single supporter. Sure that's not scientific, but that's such a difference I doubt the number is that high.
>Isn’t it strange that you have to make a disclaimer like “please don’t judge me?”. Quite literally 1/2 of the USA voted for Trump, should you automatically be ashamed of that?
I dont have a horse in the race neither other than stock market.
It's not that strange. It's why elections are supposed to be confidential. Public opinion is always going to shift. During Clinton's reign we had the clinton crazies who hated him. George W bush? Did anyone like him? Obama derangement was readily labelled racism. Now Trump derangement is very strong. Biden will have his haters, that's coming.
However, the derangement is real and even the illusion you're for trump will gain you hate.
Yes some people are under the mistaken impression that there's anything good about Trump and therefore suprised when he doesn't seem to care for the future of our democracy and our country even a tiny bit
Nitpick: 1/2 of the US did not vote for Trump. In 2016, of the eligible voting populous, only 54.8% voted in the election. Of them, the popular vote was lost by Donald Trump, who got around 63 million votes.
So even winning, it doesn’t really need to be that close to half of the U.S.
Not to say that isn’t a sizable chunk or anything.
lol. That has to do with comments like, "Wow, look at that comment's downvotes!" not asking about guidelines in relation to votes. Of course, there is room for interpretation on this one.
Popularity does not imply morality. 46.8% of people voted for Donald Trump (not "quite literally 1/2"), a man who is a known fraud, morally bankrupt in business and personal life, and who has shown himself to be incompetent in office. People who voted for Donald Trump should be ashamed of their vote.
That said, reading what people are saying in an effort to understand and to de-radicalize is not something to be ashamed of.
Hopefully the wonderful moderators on this board reprimand you for posting political flamebait and attempting to use hacker news for political or ideological battle.
> a man who is a known fraud, morally bankrupt in business and personal life, and who has shown himself to be incompetent in office.
Are you talking about donald trump or joe biden?
> People who voted for Donald Trump should be ashamed of their vote.
Using your logic, those who voted for corrupt biden should be ashamed as well.
> That said, reading what people are saying in an effort to understand and to de-radicalize is not something to be ashamed of.
Have you taken a look in the mirror. People like you are what's wrong with the country. Extremist and blind to their own faults.
We had two choices this year. Maybe I'll phrase it in a way you can understand. On the one hand, we had a "corrupt, evil rich privileged white male" and on the other hand, we had a "corrupt, evil rich privileged white male".
People like you whine about rich privileged corrupt white males all the time and yet are slaving over a rich privileged corrupt white male.
I'm rather tired of the "both sides" rhetoric. One candidate refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power. One candidate has a history of racial bias (Central Park 5, apartment zoning, Judge Curiel, etc.). One candidate openly asked for and received aid from a foreign nation. One candidate built up a mob and pointed them at the Capitol in an attempted coup.
On the other hand, one candidate lost a son to drug overdose. One candidate had debunked conspiracy theories regarding their other son's interactions with Ukraine.
Do I think that Biden is perfect? Gosh, no. Do I think he is a good person? I don't know if it is possible to be a truly good person while holding any high office. Do I think that Biden is a better person and a better choice than Trump? Absolutely.
That's what Republicans and Trump supporters say too. You are tired of it because it's true.
> One candidate refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power.
Neither candidate committed to it. The DNC was going to do exactly what the RNC did.
"Hillary Clinton said in a new interview that Joe Biden should not concede the 2020 presidential election “under any circumstances," anticipating issues that could prolong knowing the final outcome."
> One candidate openly asked for and received aid from a foreign nation.
Are you for real? Biden and his son's ukraine, russia, china, etc endeavors are just as bad or worse.
> One candidate built up a mob and pointed them at the Capitol in an attempted coup.
Right. And no rioting from biden's side.
The only people who think like you are brainwashed political zealots. You are part of the problem. The only difference between you and a tea party or trumpist is political party affiliation. That's it. And it doesn't really matter because DNC and RNC are ultimately on the same team. They serve the same master. And it isn't the american people.
But whatever, you do you and keep up the good fight.
I may be mistaken, but you sound like the type who cries about "privileged white males". But man, you sure do love Biden.
Trump cheated in 2016, did he not? The republicans have been cheating for many decades (legally in some cases, illegally in others), necessitating the voting rights act, have they not? Is voter suppression not cheating?
It's a little strange indeed -- the US is at a very polarized time, where discussing such a mainstream thing as supporting Trump is treated like a breach of decorum by some. Very surreal in some ways.
That being said, identifying that the support for Trump is about 50/50 does not _really_ tell the right story here with thedonald.win -- this isn't a representative of the ~half of us in the US who voted for Trump (or would if we voted)...it's a representation of a small, extreme culture, part real and part just trolling.
I doubt OP would have apologized quite so hard for watching Fox News. Fox News's editorial content is somewhat to the right of the average Republican voter, but not by nearly as much as thedonald.win -- that's something that represents mainstream Trump voter (aka Republican voter) worldview.
"Upvote if you still believe Trump will be our President for the next four years. People are forgetting this man is a genius and has always been ten steps ahead. Now is no different."
This is one of the top threads on that site RIGHT NOW. Its easy to judge someone participating in that discussion.
(It’s easy for me to say ofc, I have no horse in this race)
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