Poll of the Day > What do you think is the best way to unify the US over the next four years?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Topic.

just for fun.

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Step 1) Trumpism gets fucked
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Unification

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Kotenks posted...

People aren't even willing to see the other side's perspective.

I really wish I was capable of seeing their perspective.

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make everyone live well. Long ago it used to hold that people who live well don't even know the name of their president/king/emperor and if they do, it's only because it's common knowledge

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Is there a way to lock comments and leave the poll?

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Free porn, easily. Politics are, by their very nature, divisive.

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Delete Twitter and Facebook.

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Honestly a few years ago I never would have said this, but I think there needs to be government controlled reform of social media. Its a scary idea that could lead to bad shit of its own, but we simply cannot have a system where anyone can go online anonymously and spread lies without any consequences. It destroys society and what people perceive as reality.

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Mead posted...

Honestly a few years ago I never would have said this, but I think there needs to be government controlled reform of social media. Its a scary idea that could lead to bad shit of its own, but we simply cannot have a system where anyone can go online anonymously and spread lies without any consequences. It destroys society and what people perceive as reality.

depression among young people skyrocketed since social media took over, which I think is far more serious than "fake news"

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What_The_Chris posted...

make everyone live well.

I think this would've been a way to prevent the division, but to even get there now we'd need more unity and consensus first.

I don't know what you can do and feel pretty hopeless about it because so many people aren't even interested in listening to facts and well-constructed arguments. They only want to listen to people who they trust and those people are a bunch of liars. It basically requires a bunch of people who are used to acting in bad faith to suddenly start acting in good faith and admit they've been lying and deceiving the whole time.

Mass de-programming of the far right. How we can possibly do that though I don't know.

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papercup posted...

Mass de-programming of the far right. How we can possibly do that though I don't know.

Didn't you used to be a republican? I guess it's possible but it does seem like we're getting into a territory where people are more and more entrenched. There finally seems to be some pushback on it but it might be too late.

GrabASnickers posted...

Didn't you used to be a republican? I guess it's possible but it does seem like we're getting into a territory where people are more and more entrenched. There finally seems to be some pushback on it but it might be too late.

I'm still a registered republican, but I'm basically a democrat at this point. I haven't voted republican in years.

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• Remove current cult leaders.
• Unify the cultists into a new, better way of living that still gives their their fix of belonging they so need, while introducing them to fair amounts of reality and personal identity.
• Incentivize a crucial standard for any news media, of any political affiliation, to show sources, show margins of error for every statistic displayed, and sticks closer to the actual facts; this will not be a requirement to function, but a standard to show reliability each quarter of the year.
• Not only raise taxes on the obscenely rich--if you own more than one house and a boat, you might be considered on the lower end on a case-by-case basis--by a considerable and fair amount, but do something about tax havens and lobbyists.
• Bring back a tradition akin to Fireside Chats where the President reads to the American public, maybe once or twice a week. This way show confidence in the leader's ability to do something basic, on one hand, but also give the people something to share with one another.
• Make absolutely certain all of these things are given enough time to do what they need to do. A wound does not heal faster if you tear out its stitches, after all.

Somehow I think the hardest part in doing what we need to do is getting enough of the right people to agree to it.

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At least until COVID is largely contained, you're not going to have any way to unify. However, most of the government division comes from the fact that government has its hands in too much shit. And with Biden in office, that's only likely to get worse; after all, he was Obama's VP and Obama was big into expanding the reach of government (not to mention promoting and facilitating the overthrow of foreign governments, leading to horrific fallout).

When you try to rely on government to solve every problem, you wind up with a lot more problems and a lot of (very rightful) anger at government.

What_The_Chris posted...

depression among young people skyrocketed since social media took over, which I think is far more serious than "fake news"

Of course Mead of all people would support a government takeover of social media to turn it into one more propaganda wing of the government. Maybe he can point to "success" stories like China when pushing that crap.

papercup posted...

Mass de-programming of the far right. How we can possibly do that though I don't know.

Because literally promoting brainwashing is sure to go over well, especially targeting people by political orientation. That's not going to ring alarm bells in America and overseas.


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Zeus posted...

Because literally promoting brainwashing is sure to go over well, especially targeting people by political orientation. That's not going to ring alarm bells in America and overseas.

That's what the middle and left, and overseas, have been telling the right for some time. Hence Paper's suggestion of de-programming.

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Mead posted...

Honestly a few years ago I never would have said this, but I think there needs to be government controlled reform of social media. Its a scary idea that could lead to bad shit of its own, but we simply cannot have a system where anyone can go online anonymously and spread lies without any consequences. It destroys society and what people perceive as reality.

A lot of the lies that the right spreads aren't even anonymous, but from people with their real names on Twitter, and people even call them out on their shit and Trumpists will still blindly believe them. Trumpists are hopeless sometimes.

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The republicans who have elected to completely divorce themselves from reality under Trump need to be brought back to reality if we want to unify.

There is simply no way to unify when one side thinks the other is "satanic, pedophilic, cannibal international sex/child slavery ring"

Zeus posted...

Because literally promoting brainwashing is sure to go over well, especially targeting people by political orientation. That's not going to ring alarm bells in America and overseas.

You are so close. You are so so close to making a breakthrough.

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papercup posted...

You are so close. You are so so close to making a breakthrough.

I can see why you think that, but he's not he's really not close to a breakthrough.

Conner4REAL posted...

Is there a way to lock comments and leave the poll?

Well, the poll is arguably shitty, so let's not.

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I think that as a nation we can find a balance between the absolute chaos on social media we have now and the overcorrection of control seen by other governments where people have fewer freedoms of expression and idea sharing.

Its clear that our current system however breaks down social cohesion. If we dont fix that then we are going to dissolve as a nation and in fifty years well all be speaking Canadian.

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2 term limits for senators and representatives.

Poof! problem solved.

Not unifying and fighting problems that will upset the status quo because there are people who pay thousands for insulin. Despite who's feelings are hurt.

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Kotenks posted...

People aren't even willing to see the other side's perspective.

because our political climate only allows one or two sides to even exist, and this will never change for as long as we have a two-party system

america's two-party system is just a fancier one-party government that pretends it isn't

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Kotenks posted...

People aren't even willing to see the other side's perspective.

This is a flawed argument. It's not that people are unwilling, it's that they are unable.

Like look at the event that directly lead into this "Stop the steal!" rally. I've tried, I listened and read all the stuff the conservatives on this and other boards have provided. I read the highlights of and laughed at a lot of the republican lawsuits because of how nonsensical and devoid of basic legal sense they were. And yet we sit here with there not being even a single source of actual evidence supporting the claim that this election was stolen. There is a lot of accusations, but accusations are not evidence and accusations from people like the drunk chick Giuliani put up who it turns out was only there to clean glass is not credible.

Trumpism is a cult, it literally revolves around faith. Faith that what he says is true, faith that if he says the election was stolen then it was stolen and no evidence to the contrary or lack of evidence to support the claim will matter to them. Because evidence they don't agree with is not part of their reality.

These cultists are sick, they're delusional I can't understand where they come from. I can't meet them half way because I don't even know what their starting point is. The most delusional the "qanon" believers :

QAnon[a] (/kjunn/) is a disproven and discredited far-rightconspiracy theory[2] alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshippingcannibalistic[3][4][5]pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against U.S. president Donald Trump, who is fighting the cabal.[6] QAnon also commonly asserts that Trump is planning a day of reckoning known as the "Storm", when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested.[7][8] QAnon supporters have accused many liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking government officials of being members of the cabal.[9] They have also claimed that Trump feigned conspiracy with Russians to enlist Robert Mueller to join him in exposing the sex trafficking ring and preventing a coup d'tat by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros.[10][11] The QAnon conspiracy theories have been amplified by Russian state-backed troll accounts on social media,[12][13][14][15][16][17] as well as Russian state-backed traditional media

This is not a case of us being unwilling this is a case of being unable. This is INSANE.

Yeah I don't think both sidesing everything helps. I'm sorry but why should I be required to entertained the concerns of someone whose beliefs are the majority informed by a combination of misleading propaganda and outright fiction

Edit: Well I guess you can deprogram propaganda but I don't know how you deprogram complete falsehoods. And of course there is a line blurred between the two

Entity13 posted...

That's what the middle and left, and overseas, have been telling the right for some time. Hence Paper's suggestion of de-programming.

His and your idea of "de-programming" is basically the CCP's idea of "mind cleaning." That shit won't fly, at least not outside countries like China, Cuba, and other hard-authoritarian regimes.

BlackScythe0 posted...

The republicans who have elected to completely divorce themselves from reality under Trump need to be brought back to reality if we want to unify.

There is simply no way to unify when one side thinks the other is "satanic, pedophilic, cannibal international sex/child slavery ring"

ITP: "Anybody who voted for Trump or is a Republican is the hardest of hardcore QAnons."

papercup posted...

You are so close. You are so so close to making a breakthrough.

And you're so close to buying kool-aid by the gallon. You're proposing outlandish, dangerous things thoroughly antithetical to anybody who believes in democracy or the will of the people.

kukukupo posted...

2 term limits for senators and representatives.

Poof! problem solved.

Given that congress is a 2-year stint, I'd probably say 4 or 5 terms (for a max of 8-10 years) but yeah, term limits are long overdue and it would help to ease at least some of the problems.

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I bet the founders would have put term limits for congressmen in if they realized people would be living 90+ years in the future.

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Zeus posted...

ITP: "Anybody who voted for Trump or is a Republican is the hardest of hardcore QAnons."

Liar.

If any politician has ever not returned a shopping basket to the store or corral disbar them from office, same for lawyers police officers, and milatary.

If you cannot self govern yourself and do the right thing when there is no penalty to do so then why should we trust you when a lobbyist is wanting permission to dump toxic waste in the municpal waterways (looking at you georgia pacific)

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Zeus posted...

His and your idea of "de-programming" is basically the CCP's idea of "mind cleaning." That s*** won't fly, at least not outside countries like China, Cuba, and other hard-authoritarian regimes.

That is either your legitimately false interpretation of what's being said, or it's another strawman aimed to make other people look worse in the eyes of... actually no one on this forum is fooled by it, I don't think. Please try again.

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Since the purge, the third option probably wouldn't work...
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I had no idea what "qanons" were

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It seems like they're going for instrumentality. So prolly that.

dedbus posted...

It seems like they're going for instrumentality. So prolly that.

I dont see how cellos are gonna solve things but we can try it

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What do you think is the best way to unify the US over the next four years?

1) Remove everyone currently holding office.
2) Ban them from holding office again.
3) Hold a new election for every position.
First order of business for the new government is to determine who in the old government had failed to uphold their oath of office.

What_The_Chris posted...

I had no idea what "qanons" were

Some made up bogeyman.

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Kill all but one American. There'll still be some disagreement left, but it'll be relatively minor.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

1) Remove everyone currently holding office.
2) Ban them from holding office again.
3) Hold a new election for every position.
First order of business for the new government is to determine who in the old government had failed to uphold their oath of office.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

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Kotenks posted...

I don't see any path to it. Politics has become so divisive. People aren't even willing to see the other side's perspective. It's getting more toxic. I don't feel comfortable discussing politics with people as much now. It's like if you're not one hundred percent with them, then you're against them because you're enabling the other side.

This is the mindset that needs to change.

From what I've seen the right is in a position where most of them have suffered immensely while the political elites and coastal democrats have mocked and belittled them. In other words, for a lot of them they're struggling with the fact that their jobs are vanishing, income is disappearing, and everything else while wealthy coastal democrats tell them to 'learn to code' from their vacation houses or lockdown everything before attending lavish parties and salons to get their hair done. There is effectively no way to get them to calm down so long as this sort of thing is ongoing.

Meanwhile, the left sees the world as descending into a bout of fascism and racism with discrimination and oppression effectively everywhere. To them the right has become a bunch of fanatical nazi's willing to oppress and destroy the minority groups for their own betterment. In other words they are the heroes and their opponents are evil incarnate.

The problem is that this means that there's effectively no way to de-escalate. The right won't be happy until they see the people who keep kicking them about and treating them like garbage are punished and depowered while the left won't be happy until the right is destroyed because they seem them as inherently evil. Take a look at this poll. As of this posting ~40% of people think 'Trumps head on a stick' will de-escalate things. This simply isn't the case. Something like that would only convince the right that they have no choice BUT to fight back because, otherwise, certain death (or depowerment) awaits. Meanwhile only ~9% see Biden's head on a stick as something that would de-escalate and I'm 100% willing to wager it's because most of the right doesn't believe Biden is the problem; it's the system that got him elected in the first place. I.E. that a bunch of political elites and coastal city dems voted for someone they see as unfit simply to get Trump out, are going to use their power to further crush the right, and there's nothing that can be done about it because it's the system that's corrupt.

The sad truth is that there really is no evident path to unification at this point. Maybe something will present itself; but it needs to happen soon or else things will get much worse.

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It won't get better any time soon, the "us vs them" mentality as taken over the country

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Zareth posted...

I bet the founders would have put term limits for congressmen in if they realized people would be living 90+ years in the future.

They also didn't expect government to be as big as it became (the original intention was that it would be something of a part-time job) and that people would stick in it as long as they did.

That said, term limits are long overdue.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Liar.

If that's not the conclusion you want us to draw, you might try pushing your claims differently.

Entity13 posted...

That is either your legitimately false interpretation of what's being said, or it's another strawman aimed to make other people look worse in the eyes of... actually no one on this forum is fooled by it, I don't think. Please try again.

You claim that, but he literally suggested -- and these are his words -- "mass de-programming." Now what form do you believe that kind of suggestion would take? Particularly what form that doesn't massively violate every fucking civil liberty? And, not for nothing, but America *used* to stand for something. When other nations either did or attempted similar shit, we cried foul. Now somebody suggests something along those lines and individuals like yourself cry, "GREAT IDEA!" But before you get too enthusiastic about that idea, keep in mind that once you start to put shit like that in place, you might find yourself in there for "de-programming" one day when your views don't align with that of the government. After all, many of the supporters of these programs in other nations eventually wound up the victims of those same programs.

So if you're going to try to blow smoke, please try again. You can start by attempting to explain how you're going to do that without massively violating civil liberties and giving the government a frightening amount of new power that almost certainly will bite all Americans in the ass down the road if not from the get-go.

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Go back to using Mexico as the scapegoat. Gotta find a common enemy.

Muscles posted...

It won't get better any time soon, the "us vs them" mentality as taken over the country

This country was built, and runs, on conflict. It hasn't "taken over" because it's the only thing that has ever kept this country going.

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Not sure but I think bringing sexy back would help lol

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Everybody "walking a mile in their opponents' shoes" would be a start.

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Unbridled9 posted...

This is the mindset that needs to change.

From what I've seen the right is in a position where most of them have suffered immensely while the political elites and coastal democrats have mocked and belittled them. In other words, for a lot of them they're struggling with the fact that their jobs are vanishing, income is disappearing, and everything else while wealthy coastal democrats tell them to 'learn to code' from their vacation houses or lockdown everything before attending lavish parties and salons to get their hair done. There is effectively no way to get them to calm down so long as this sort of thing is ongoing.

Meanwhile, the left sees the world as descending into a bout of fascism and racism with discrimination and oppression effectively everywhere. To them the right has become a bunch of fanatical nazi's willing to oppress and destroy the minority groups for their own betterment. In other words they are the heroes and their opponents are evil incarnate.

The problem is that this means that there's effectively no way to de-escalate. The right won't be happy until they see the people who keep kicking them about and treating them like garbage are punished and depowered while the left won't be happy until the right is destroyed because they seem them as inherently evil. Take a look at this poll. As of this posting ~40% of people think 'Trumps head on a stick' will de-escalate things. This simply isn't the case. Something like that would only convince the right that they have no choice BUT to fight back because, otherwise, certain death (or depowerment) awaits. Meanwhile only ~9% see Biden's head on a stick as something that would de-escalate and I'm 100% willing to wager it's because most of the right doesn't believe Biden is the problem; it's the system that got him elected in the first place. I.E. that a bunch of political elites and coastal city dems voted for someone they see as unfit simply to get Trump out, are going to use their power to further crush the right, and there's nothing that can be done about it because it's the system that's corrupt.

The sad truth is that there really is no evident path to unification at this point. Maybe something will present itself; but it needs to happen soon or else things will get much worse.

Look at this guy talking about unity while seemingly placing all blame on the left. Are people on the left not also suffering, losing jobs, and being ridiculed and mocked? Does the right not see the world as descending into a bout of socialism and communism? Is the right willing to hear the left out on issues such as institutional racism, police brutality, trans rights, etc? You see, blame goes both ways.

I for one believe that getting rid of one of the most divisive presidents in US history would be a good start for unity. We need to look at why people are protesting and rioting and address those issues instead of exchanging middle fingers, but that is utterly impossible with a president like Trump who only cares about himself and the base he has cultivated. This guy who spent the last four years constantly demonizing the left.

I do think people are a little too quick to slap others with the label of "racist", so I'll give you that.

I just think we need public schools to start placing WAY more emphasis on teaching how to think critically and value objective truth. In my experience only right-wing extremists oppose this and would prefer to teach the Bible instead. They literally view the idea of teaching critical thinking as brainwashing. That is the kind of unreasonable, ass-backwards opinion that I will always be vocal against. It just so happens that this kind of stupid opinion permeates the right.

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Stricter legal requirements for broadcasting, requiring "news" to be presented within a standardized professional framework free from bias or misinformation.

Rapid increase in education funding for public schools, including an equal per student funding model for schools.

National standards for policing, including requiring a minimum 4 years bachelor's degree for all new police hires, regardless of prior policing experience.

Significant increase in taxes for corporations and those making over $200k per year.

Reduction in military spending by 10%.

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never gonna happen.

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Kotenks posted...

I don't see any path to it. Politics has become so divisive. People aren't even willing to see the other side's perspective. It's getting more toxic. I don't feel comfortable discussing politics with people as much now. It's like if you're not one hundred percent with them, then you're against them because you're enabling the other side.

Most of my friends/groups are at least willing to allow the other guys to speak. Youve basically described the other guys to a T.

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