this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
1091 points (96.8% liked)

politics

19096 readers
3469 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

F you, Taylor Swift!” shouted Megyn Kelly, “and f all of the people who want to see these children have body parts chopped off.”

For those not fluent in Republican crazy-speak, Kelly’s meltdown was triggered by Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris the night before, barely one hour after Trump all but face-planted on the debate stage. Kelly was especially triggered by Swift highlighting her appreciation for vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s support of LGBTQ+ rights.

Other right-wing commentators, like Ben Shapiro, took another approach: making fun of Swifties. “Note: if you vote for a particular candidate because your favorite singer is doing so, please don’t vote. You are too stupid to vote,” wrote Shapiro on X. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, threatened to impregnate her.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 138 points 2 months ago (5 children)

The current Republican platform is largely based on stupid easily disproven lies. I'm convinced our fall to fascism is caused by stupidity as much as it is hatred.

"Doctors are cutting little boys dicks off because they like the color pink!"

"They're performing abortions after birth!"

"Haitians are eating all the cats and dogs!"

"They're putting litter boxes in the school bathrooms!"

There's really only two kinds of Republican: The evil ones who spread these lies intentionally, and the stupid ones who believe this dumb shit.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Hatred is stupidity. Always has been.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

Hatred is also taught.

Its sad that kids are in MAGA as well due to this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Never underestimate how much destruction stupid people with power can cause.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is why evil rarely succeeds in the long-term: when you have that many self-absorbed fucks attempt to work together, it rarely yields anything useful.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

yeah, but it takes a fraction of the time to destroy than to build. They don't need long-term, they can wreak havoc in one term

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Good point 🍻

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The current Republican platform is largely based on stupid easily disproven lies.

It's worth mentioning that this strategy is straight out of the trolling playbook. The overall idea is to get everyone to waste their time arguing nonsense, making it impossible to discuss anything of merit. While the following article applies to internet forums, it's not hard to see how any social media, TV, or radio, can spill over into our day-to-day discourse and have the same effect: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7573649/

In this case, the topic at hand meets multiple criteria for deliberate trolling. IMO, there's little room for doubt that we're being led by the nose and baited to waste valuable pre-election time:

  • Digression - Luring others into off-topic discussions by spamming, partaking in cascades or introducing tangential topics (e.g., as in [16]).
  • (Hypo)criticism - Excessive criticism of others, e.g. on their punctuation while possibly committing the same errors oneself.
  • Antipathy - Creation of a sensitive or antagonistic context through purposeful provocation, in order to manipulate others to produce emotional responses.
  • Endangering - Giving out poor advice under an innocent guise, and others are compelled to respond in order to protect others.
  • Shocking - Posting about taboos or sensitive subjects, such as religion, death or human rights.
  • Aggression - Deliberate and open aggressing of others into retaliating (e.g., by name-calling or foul language).
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I would love to see more of the Democrats platform displayed, argued, justified and rationalized, but there's literally no reason to talk about any of that when the other side has less discussion than a headless chicken.

I hope the right can someday see how bad they are for policy in general.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The litter box thing annoys me so much. Like, do you have any idea how quickly that shit would fucking go viral if it were true? Like, every damn kid would post about it online. It's so fucking stupid!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

do you have any idea how quickly that shit would fucking go viral if it were true

But it was true! Just not in the way that was claimed: They had these litterboxes in case they had to barricade in the classroom for extended periods of time due to a school-shooter that the police didn’t bother to stop quickly…

So yes, it really is a fucked up story, just in a very different way from what republicans claimed.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

There’s really only two kinds of Republican: The evil ones who spread these lies intentionally, and the stupid ones who believe this dumb shit.

https://theauthoritarians.org/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Nonense! There's a third kind who is both stupid and evil. They may even be the majority.