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68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

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Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#71

Post by FFRefresh »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #69
FFRefresh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 'alt' mean when added as a prefix to left or right to you? What % of people on the right would you consider alt-right? What % of people on the left would you consider alt-left?

There isn't a single term used for a political group that you can break down into sub-components and root words to understand what it means. The best you can get will be the origins of the term, but that might no longer be related to how it's used today.

Yeah, my impression is that it's predominantly not used to accurately describe the political leanings of a person or group of people, and it's just a quick modifier that can be used by people to paint the target as an extremist who holds anti-social views.

If I were to wager a guess, I'd guess that the targets of the term 'alt-right' would rarely accept that description of their politics. Whereas 'right' or 'conservative' or 'social conservative' or similar terms would have a high acceptance rate for those that are being called it. 'Alt' has become a pejorative in everyday use (at least in the liberal circles that I run in).

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#72

Post by mcphage »

luxuryballs wrote: post #48
sibeliuss wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always hilarious and absurd to me how people use Trump's rally size -- in 2020, during a pandemic -- as some sort of proxy objective measurement for popularity. I mean, Trump held rallies to the shock and horror of local and national and international government health departments because he's an entertainer and he knew it would be good for business, and in many cases even shamed people for wearing masks so as t…

Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. More people packed the streets for BLM than either candidate. But does anyone really believe that Joe Biden would have had popular rallies even without a pandemic to hide behind? I very much doubt he even won the election but we’ll probably never know!

> I very much doubt he even won the election

Yeah, the most hated man on the planet lost the election, how completely shocking.

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#73

Post by jbob2000 »

zarkov99 wrote: post #37
lrvick wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shapiros history of consistent homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic vitrol sure do seem consistent with everything I hear from people in the alt right movement and validates them. He also claims he is not alt right, not homophobic, and not racist. So there is that.

What utter nonsense. Shapiro is just a conservative pundit the only thing that sets him apart is that he is very smart and, relatively speaking, intellectually honest. His greatest crime is not kowtowing to the left orthodoxy that is so dominant in tech/academia/media. And that makes his voice particularly valuable.

I’m not sure I would characterize his angry word vomit as “smart” or “intellectually honest”. He’s a male Ann Coulter; a loudmouth who loves to stir up controversy.

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#74

Post by bargl »

nindalf wrote: post #51
zarkov99 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What utter nonsense. Shapiro is just a conservative pundit the only thing that sets him apart is that he is very smart and, relatively speaking, intellectually honest. His greatest crime is not kowtowing to the left orthodoxy that is so dominant in tech/academia/media. And that makes his voice particularly valuable.

What’s valuable about homophobia? What’s intellectually honest about hating people for their sexual orientation and advocating for discrimination against them? If the left orthodoxy means treating people equally, sign me up. > very smart This is the guy who endorsed Trump in October 2020 for another four year term because “he’s already done all the damage he can, he can’t do anything more”. Genius.

>If the left orthodoxy means treating people equally, sign me up.

If we all understand that this is actually (under the law) what MOST people want we'll be able to get along.

>What’s valuable about homophobia? What’s intellectually honest about hating people for their sexual orientation and advocating for discrimination against them?

I just started looking this up to write this comment. I was curious about it and I wanted to be as correct as I can. Ben Shapiro believes that contractually, under the law, homosexuality should be allowed. Full Stop. This is a very libertarian perspective. It's the idea that no matter what I personally believe due to my religion, you can and should be able to legally do what you want as long as it doesn't affect others (throwing that in for the abortion argument).

Personally, Ben Shapiro is a homophobe. Politically, he is not. He's pro-equality of opportunity and recognition under the law.

As someone who grew up really religious, I can understand how he justifies this idea. You are indoctrinated to hate the sin and love the sinner. This does not always come out the way it's supposed to, and leads to homophobia which I believe is evil and a reason I left religion. However, this dualism allows for one to strive for political equality, while still spouting homophobic ideas.

This is a very fine line to draw on a topic like this, but I think it's important for us to recognize if we're ever going to get less divided hateful towards each other. Most people, even bigots, racists, homophobes, etc. want equality. They want the government to give them the same rights as anyone else and to be left alone. They want their rallies, protests, sermons, etc. In order to get that they recognize (at least people like Shapiro do) that they need to fight a cultural war instead of a political one on this stuff.

It doesn't mean that those ideas are ok for people to personally have, but it does mean that we can work together to agree on a lot of shit, make progress.

tl;dr; Don't hate people on the other side of politics, talk to them.

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#75

Post by bargl »

nindalf wrote: post #43
cobraetor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also given the fact that Trump's rallies were attended to in extremely larger numbers compared to that of Biden's, and the new White House videos being downvoted heavily in YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhiteHouse/videos *edit: Responding to a comment below, > I very much doubt he even won the election We have to be extremely careful when alleging election fraud. I think that may be perceived to be divisive. It…

Have the courage to use a real account instead of creating new ones.

I'd argue you could have said this in a more constructive way.

If this were a sports game there would be yellow and red flags all over this incident.

-No talking politics

-No overuse of anonymous accounts

-Be Kind,

-Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive

I really like that last one.

As I'm not a moderator please just consider this a friendly reminder that there is always a human on the other side of the keyboard, even the anonymous ones.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#76

Post by zarkov99 »

nindalf wrote: post #51
zarkov99 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What utter nonsense. Shapiro is just a conservative pundit the only thing that sets him apart is that he is very smart and, relatively speaking, intellectually honest. His greatest crime is not kowtowing to the left orthodoxy that is so dominant in tech/academia/media. And that makes his voice particularly valuable.

What’s valuable about homophobia? What’s intellectually honest about hating people for their sexual orientation and advocating for discrimination against them? If the left orthodoxy means treating people equally, sign me up. > very smart This is the guy who endorsed Trump in October 2020 for another four year term because “he’s already done all the damage he can, he can’t do anything more”. Genius.

>What’s intellectually honest about hating people for their sexual orientation and advocating for discrimination against them?

Can you provide any evidence he does any of these things?

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#77

Post by derekp7 »

FFRefresh wrote: post #60
danans wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does 'alt' mean when added as a prefix to left or right to you? Not the GP, but the 'alt' prefix to me seems to invoke the similar usage in the term 'alternative' music like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc, which were an 'alternative' to pop music from the 80s and 90s. The prefix suggests a change of type and not just a change of degree. They aren't just "more conservative Republicans". This is why it applies more to…

Thanks for offering a perspective on the right. I do disagree about a change of type not happening on the left. I see a very large rift developing on the left around whether to honor classically liberal values or not. I do think the trends in 'alt' usage are predominately aimed at the right as more of a pejorative towards the outgroup, and less of a descriptive term. You can see a snapshot of the vast disparity in us…

What I imagined years ago is that the Occupy movement and the 99 percenters would become the Democratic's version of the Republican Tea party. You can kind of see this to a degree in AOC and Sanders, if I understand everything correctly.

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#78

Post by NoodleIncident »

FFRefresh wrote: post #71
NoodleIncident wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a single term used for a political group that you can break down into sub-components and root words to understand what it means. The best you can get will be the origins of the term, but that might no longer be related to how it's used today.

Yeah, my impression is that it's predominantly not used to accurately describe the political leanings of a person or group of people, and it's just a quick modifier that can be used by people to paint the target as an extremist who holds anti-social views. If I were to wager a guess, I'd guess that the targets of the term 'alt-right' would rarely accept that description of their politics. Whereas 'right' or 'conserva…

You're still (intentionally?) missing the point. There is no such thing as an "accurate descriptor of political leanings". There are words useful to describe groups of people from the outside, words useful for groups of people use to describe themselves, and sometimes they overlap.

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#79

Post by p1necone »

danans wrote: post #62
xupybd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever Ben Shapiro is, alt-right or just right of center, he holds views typical of most conservatives. If that means all the U.S. conservatives meet your definition of alt-right, so be it.

This. None of these are static categories, and even if Shapiro's litany of X-phobic views were previously 'alt-right', they are now part of the mainstream political right (and its manifestation in the Republican party). As a result I think it's genuinely hard to be a non X-phobic conservative these days.

This kinda parallels the alt-rock of the 90s as mentioned in other comments. Back then it was called that because it was "alternative" to what was mainstream rock, but over time it eclipsed the mainstream and now most new rock music falls under the "alt-rock" umbrella.

Re: 68% of the top links on Facebook since September are in support of Donald Trump

#80

Post by FFRefresh »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #78
FFRefresh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my impression is that it's predominantly not used to accurately describe the political leanings of a person or group of people, and it's just a quick modifier that can be used by people to paint the target as an extremist who holds anti-social views. If I were to wager a guess, I'd guess that the targets of the term 'alt-right' would rarely accept that description of their politics. Whereas 'right' or 'conserva…

You're still (intentionally?) missing the point. There is no such thing as an "accurate descriptor of political leanings". There are words useful to describe groups of people from the outside, words useful for groups of people use to describe themselves, and sometimes they overlap.

I disagree that it isn't possible to accurately describe one's political leanings.

I am a proponent of aiming for accuracy when trying to describe other people's politics, and being charitable whenever possible.

If I see a group of people using words to describe another group of people in a way that purposely misrepresents them, particularly in a negative way, I think that's something worth calling out.

I don't have the nihilistic take that "if you can't 100% accurately describe something, then it's okay to not even try".

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