well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum Off Key Agree to disagree, or nope, you're an idiotPage 1 2
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| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana  |
A lot of thoughts have occurred to me after the election. Like many of us, the notion that Trump could actually increase his vote count, and even flip house seats is mind-boggling. The commentary afterward, though, has me equally mind-boggled. I keep reading how Trump supporters are brain-washed idiot fascist morons (or worse), that there is no reason to even discuss our differences, that they are immoral, unpatriotic losers who should just shut up and go hide under a rock. I'll confess, I've certainly had those feelings as well. But I need to stop, and I think we all need to stop. There will always be that percentage of people who lack a moral compass, empathy or compassion. We have one in the White House now. But are all Trump voters like that? I don't believe so. However, a large portion of the progressive bloc seems to be operating from a superior, "woke" view of the world and often comes across as sneering and passing judgment on everyone else. Remember, we are the ones who hounded out Al Francken from Congress because a photograph surfaced that offended some people. If I could fire everyone who offended me, I'd be working alone. I'm wondering what everyone else feels about this. It's clear that the standard procedure isn't working for the Democrats. As Cindy mentioned earlier, Trump's re-election should have been an easy layup. We got lucky that he was such a buffoon. So where do we go from here? What needs to change? | ||
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| "I've got morons on my team." Mitt Romney Minor Deity  |
This is a conversation that needs to take place within the Democratic party, but which may simply divide rather than produce a consensus. The moderate wing of the party is livid with the woke crowd, and claims that this is a major cause of the House losses. In some cases, I think this is pretty clear. The rise in Hispanic Trump voting seems tied to the GOP's effective (false) language about "SOCIALISM!!!" Said one Hispanic Texas Congressman (Vicente Gonzales) who barely scraped past his GOP opponent after winning with 60% two years ago: "Defund police, open borders, socialism -- it's killing us. I had to fight to explain all that." He said that the "average white person" may associate socialism with Norway, but to Asian and Hispanic migrants it recalls despotic "left-wing regimes." Two House seats in S. Florida went bye bye over that. These are young voters who could keep FL, TX, and AZ red for decades if they form deep GOP allegiances. | |||
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity  |
I agree, on the first part and the second. My personal feeling of... repulsion? that people could even vote for Trump once, let alone twice, is not going to dissolve easily. But that will not help us as a country move forward. And we do need to move forward. For example, Trump voters somehow need to be convinced to listen to Biden when he says "wear your mask." We need everyone to come together on covid issues, because it won't work if only half of the country is taking it seriously. And I don't think we can convince people to listen to leaders if leaders (or their immediate staff below them) are making fun of Trumpers etc.... So I don't know what needs to change, but I do know that something needs to change. What and how, that's the million dollar question.
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Beatification Candidate |
I don't think the analysis that going too far left caused the losses is correct. More, I believe it is a reflection of just how much more effective the conservative media/echo chamber is at convincing people that fiction is really true. I don't see an easy fix - it will take really skilled people (like Mayor Pete) to regularly venture to the alternate universe and make the case for truth as opposed to fiction.
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Minor Deity |
Condescension and holier-than-thouishness certain did great harm. Lack of empathy cuts both ways. Remembering that fascinating article in the NYT claiming that the "last acceptable prejudice" is against the less educated. And then Trump's striking claim that "I love the undereducated, I LOVE the uneducated." He certainly hit upon that demographic's nerve - an act of true PR genius. In fact, he appealed to the greatest bugaboo of countless special interest groups, promising understanding and to attack their supposedly joint enemies.
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| Minor Deity |
Last Acceptable Prejudice Do We Have Disdain for the Less Educated?
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| Does This Avatar Make My Butt Look Big? Minor Deity  |
I don't know what to say, Nina. For decades, conservatives convinced middle America to vote against their interests. In particular, taxes for the wealthy went way down, which deprived government of the resources needed to make lives better for people. So Dems were stuck trying to get people to welcome government, when government wasn't actually making the lives of regular people better. Which enabled conservatives to claim government cannot make anyone's life better, which undermined the entire premise of the Democratic party. Check Mate. It got so bad the middle America revolted against Obamacare, which was mostly designed to give middle America some health care. Middle America actually voted for politicians who openly declared they planned to repeal Obamacare. It's frustrating. But on the other hand, the left wing of the democratic party seems hell bent on taking as many insane positions as possible, especially if the issue is of no concern to middle America. Take transgender rights, for example. It's not enough to just take a position that people should be left alone to be and do what they want. Noooo. We have to decide that everyone must declare their pronouns, even though this whole pronoun business of using "they" to refer to one person is super annoying to folks who like to conjugate verbs correctly. In my civil rights world, you are supposed to put your pronouns into your signature block in work-related email. So I am supposed to have my signature in email be "Cindy Sphinx (she/her/they)" or something, and if I am especially "woke" I will have a link in the signature block that connects to some progressive explanation of why we should all be doing this now. Maybe there is merit in doing this, but it is killing the Dem party politically. We are being drowned by our own political correctness, and folks are getting really tired of being corrected or shamed for nothing. I swear, in my civil rights world, it has been decided that the proper capitalization rules are that you have to write the races as "Black" and "white." I kid you not. You cannot just capitalize both races or not capitalize both races. No, you cannot capitalize "white" because white supremacist organizations capitalize "White," so of course that means the rest of us cannot. Huh? The progressives need to friggin' get on board. Dems will never, Ever, EVER win the Senate or White House if progressive views color the agenda. We have to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the middle, and above all, we need to be satisfied with incremental measures, not revolution. And if the progressives check out and refuse to vote or vote third party, we will wander in the wilderness for the rest of my lifetime. Joe Biden understood. From the get-go, he advocated incremental change and said folks weren't ready for a revolution. Can't we be the party that makes small, incremental change that people want and that actually helps? There really is no other path. | |||
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| Serial origamist Has Achieved Nirvana  |
If I were any closer, I'd give you a big sloppy wet kiss. Extremism is futile, counterproductive or just plain bad no matter which axis/end you are extreme on.
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| Pinta & the Santa Maria Has Achieved Nirvana |
I totally agree--you explained my thoughts much better than I did. I still can't get past the notion that we hounded Franken out of office because he had a goofy picture. I mean, common sense would tell you that it was a poorlly thought out, but ultimately innocently stupid thing to do to pose for that shot. But noooo! We had to be all woke and show the world how much better we were than everyone else, at our own expense. Nina (she/her/it) | |||
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| Does This Avatar Make My Butt Look Big? Minor Deity |
I still believe Franken had more going on than one dumb picture. I think he was told to step aside or the rest of it was coming out. There have been a few guys that have survived "me too" accusations, and our president-elect is one of them. If you have one accuser, you'll get through. If you have many, you're finished. Franken (and that Prairie Home Companion fellow) must have had quite a portfolio. | |||
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
The issue for progressives is that they think there are enough of them, but they just stay home because their issues aren’t addressed. They think we’d win more elections if we’d just move farther left. I think their analysis is delusional. | |||
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| "I've got morons on my team." Mitt Romney Minor Deity |
Sorry, I think these people ARE my enemy And the people who vote for them will not be persuaded by this kind of evidence that the GOP is sick, anti-democratic, and thoroughly racist. So what am I to say to them? Aww, you're just having a hard time so I understand why you vote for total sh!theads who would deny basic rights to millions of Americans to keep America White and right. | |||
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Minor Deity |
Cindy, well said. Jf
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Have we outgrown the two-party system?
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana  |
bring back real journalism. treat the internet as a publisher--no untrue posts, statements, articles, links allowed. bring back anti-trust rules to the media markets. bring back the family-owned newspaper. it's an information war. if radio, tv, social media, and anything appearing on the internet must be truthful to be aired, this goes away, not sure how soon we can get there or how hard it will be to get there, but putting some legistlation down in this direction is a start.
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well-temperedforum.groupee.net The Well-Tempered Forum Off Key Agree to disagree, or nope, you're an idiot