Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 393: Raid on Bungling Bay

(+) Yeah! (+)

I want to say that Old Dads got hit harder than any other demographic by GOP brainwashing, and I think they did, but I just looked up the gender disparity of Republicans and it's actually not THAT skewed towards dudes??? It's like 55% Male in most states, which is insane considering how much the GOP fucking hates women. I think brainwashing that many women to vote Republican is significantly more baffling than the Old Dad stuff

My dad is the opposite. Was a big Limbaugh/O'Reilly fan but has moved left on a lot of stuff (save guns where he was always very left). Now thinks guys like Hannity are huge pieces of shit.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/8/6/AAN7AaAADjSq.jpg

My stepdad is staunchly right wing, but he has his limits, fortunately. He's just super pissed at corporations and billionaires and thinks democrats don't do shit. He wanted to vote for Trump almost exclusively because he thought Trump would change things in the government. He also has a few close cop friends so he's typically pro-cop anything. I don't need to explain any hypocrisy in any of this as I'm sure you can point it out. He'll argue forever about it despite logic.

My mom is definitely a Fox doomer but she also has her limits. I'll at least be able to talk to her and she's not particularly educated on her beliefs and when I push her on them she kind of rolls over and usually avoids those discussions. She was shocked I was a Bernie supporter because she said "he scares me" and I have tried to explain to her how he campaigns for helping my generation and her grandchildren's generation and she just doesn't believe me. It's weird.

Fortunately they haven't fallen down a q-anon hole and aren't anti-vaxx and such, so I consider myself fortunate for that.

My dad acts like hes left wing but is also a homophobic/racist piece of shit(but also is a convicted felon and couldn't vote and hasn't reregistered).

I choose to believe that a lot of people are just naturally not good people and they just want to believe this right wing shit because it provides them an easy answer.

They might be victims of propaganda but they aren't good people in the first place.

if i can give b8 a bit of comfort that their family members could be worse i've done my part

I've definitely seen my parents' politics being shaped by consuming way too much cable news as well, though thankfully it's just MSNBC so it's relatively benign.

my dad watches cable news to call everyone an idiot and feel smarter than them

which i mean might sound reasonable given the state of media but he really doesn't know anything

Old people consuming news at an insane rate makes a lot more sense when you realize that, for a lot of them, it's their only/main hobby outside of work. News is what they put on to fill the void. Which is terrifying!

GuessMyUserName posted...

if i can give b8 a bit of comfort that their family members could be worse i've done my part

I have one parent that is an irredeemable piece of shit that I'll hate more than anyone ever so this is tough.

Leafeon13N posted...

I choose to believe that a lot of people are just naturally not good people and they just want to believe this right wing shit because it provides them an easy answer.

They might be victims of propaganda but they aren't good people in the first place.

yeah, this is the thing i fundamentally disagree with blur on. i'm sure SOME people are victims of propaganda but i don't believe in a rousseau-ish "all people start out as good people" stance or a john locke-ish "all people start out being tabula rasa" stance.

the implicit message of that line of thinking is "it could happen to YOU," when there's no way i would ever watch a second of a ben fucking shapiro video for fun.

TheRock1525 posted...

My dad is the opposite. Was a big Limbaugh/O'Reilly fan but has moved left on a lot of stuff (save guns where he was always very left). Now thinks guys like Hannity are huge pieces of shit.

My mom is a former right-winger now deprogrammed as well

Her deprogramming? Simply...a lack of Fox News. Literally all it took. The unfortunate passing of my stepdad led to her stop watching Fox with him. 5 years later she turns it on and tells me one day "those Fox News people are kind of crazy."

Then she voted for Bernie in 2020, literally with zero influence from me. She's the one who came to me telling me she was voting for Bernie. My dad thinks I got her to do it. My mom is the GOAT

Having parents fork along their paths like this is probably a big reason I have the perspective on these issues that I do. But nahhh really it's mostly the insane shift to fascism the right has been trudging towards the last 25 years

Leafeon13N posted...

They might be victims of propaganda but they aren't good people in the first place.

Since we're going on anecdotal evidence here, strong disagree. My mom used to always talk shit about immigrants and the like when she consumed Fox News. Now she doesn't even believe me when I tell her she did this and gets extremely angry when I show her clips of Tucker Carlson being a racist piece of shit

StartTheMachine posted...

Now this I agree with though. Like holy fuck. Even though I predicted Trump being elected, I also had some small shred of hope that he might also finally deconvert a chunk of Fox News viewers (now Newsmax viewers) like my Dad through his sheer idiocy and egregious narcissism. I guarantee you, the average Trumper is smarter than Trump is by simple IQ metrics (obviously a horrible way to measure critical thinking skills). Genuinely think Trump is near the level of mental disability.

But you know, once that didn't happen, it was also obvious they would all buy his lie that he won the election

This post is now just about making fun of foolmo for saying 2% of the American public would believe the election was stolen or whatever dumb shit he said. Let's all just make fun of foolmo together

I don't agree with the idea that Trump isn't smart. Trump is smart enough to have run circles around every other Republican candidate in 2016 and to tie the party establishment in knots. Trump is smart enough to make millions of people believe the most ridiculous lies. Trump is smart enough to construct sentences where people who want to hear wisdom hear what they perceive as wisdom, and people who want to hear stupidity hear the worst stupidity.

Trump does not care about anyone but himself.

Lolo_Guru posted...

My dad chose to call climate change "God's retribution for your generation's sinful ways" immediately after calling it a hoax this morning.

I feel like, more than ever; any attempt at deprogramming is a lost cause.

That makes sense, but he's got the wrong generation. Whose generation actually holds power? Whose generation is sinning?

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

the implicit message of that line of thinking is "it could happen to YOU," when there's no way i would ever watch a second of a ben fucking shapiro video for fun.

tbf one problem is that this is essentially what everyone thinks of themselves (well, not specified to be about shapiro but to thinking they wouldn't listen to nonsense)

extremists don't think they're following extreme content

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

yeah, this is the thing i fundamentally disagree with blur on. i'm sure SOME people are victims of propaganda but i don't believe in a rousseau-ish "all people start out as good people" stance or a john locke-ish "all people start out being tabula rasa" stance.

the implicit message of that line of thinking is "it could happen to YOU," when there's no way i would ever watch a second of a ben fucking shapiro video for fun.

Do you think that most people watching right wing videos are having fun? I feel like the reaction Tucker is going for, for instance, is anger, not enjoyment. Don't think his viewers are having fun.

red_sox_777 posted...

I don't agree with the idea that Trump isn't smart. Trump is smart enough to have run circles around every other Republican candidate in 2016 and to tie the party establishment in knots. Trump is smart enough to make millions of people believe the most ridiculous lies. Trump is smart enough to construct sentences where people who want to hear wisdom hear what they perceive as wisdom, and people who want to hear stupidity hear the worst stupidity.

Trump does not care about anyone but himself.

I just know this is gonna go the way of the charisma discussion all over again and I don't want to start it

I'll just say I agree. I think he's socially smart and good at reading crowds, but that's just completely unrelated from what an IQ test would measure

IQ tests are dumb (but most Trumpers would still do better on them than Trump)

StartTheMachine posted...

Appealing to things like "Christian and family values", '"patriotism", "strong work ethic" is what works on others. And certainly their own natural dissatisfaction with their lives and fear of others.

OK sure, but why do things like "Christian family values" and "fear of others" have any appeal to them or power over them to begin with? I guess the idea here is they were already conned earlier so now they're easier marks for the second, later con?

Kenri posted...

OK sure, but why do things like "Christian family values" and "fear of others" have any appeal to them or power over them to begin with? I guess the idea here they were already conned earlier so now they're easier marks for the second, later con?

People who feel disadvantaged in life want ideas they can cling to to show they are at least equal to others they fear are better off. One of the strategies for this is to decide on a set of morals, or fundamentals, which they are able to hold to, but which others do not. Then they can see themselves as superior to those people who fail to uphold their chosen morals/fundamentals.

Like, suppose someone is jealous of Bill Clinton. They're from a similar background but they didn't go to Oxford. They didn't become attorney general, governor, or president. They didn't come up with observations like "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line" and didn't preside over excellent economic times.

So, to avoid feeling inferior, they need something they are better than Bill Clinton at. And that thing can be family values. It's really easy to beat him at that. And to convince yourself that you are better than him, you decide that family values are vastly more important than intelligence, success, helping poor people, etc.

KamikazePotato posted...

Old people consuming news at an insane rate makes a lot more sense when you realize that, for a lot of them, it's their only/main hobby outside of work. News is what they put on to fill the void. Which is terrifying!

Can confirm, my Dad is very much like this.

red_sox_777 posted...

I don't agree with the idea that Trump isn't smart. Trump is smart enough to have run circles around every other Republican candidate in 2016 and to tie the party establishment in knots. Trump is smart enough to make millions of people believe the most ridiculous lies. Trump is smart enough to construct sentences where people who want to hear wisdom hear what they perceive as wisdom, and people who want to hear stupidity hear the worst stupidity.

Trump is smart in the Gordon Gekko way where he knows what he can or can't get away with. Although admittedly I haven't seen Wall Street so I'm basing this primarily on Roger Ebert's review of the movie where he outright says the charisma wielded by people like Gekko is the reason Trump and others of a similar background are spoken as presidential candidates. For a more real-life example, Trump is smart in the same way Harvey Weinstein is (or was?).

On a side note, is part of Putin's justification for invading Ukraine the country's close cultural ties to Russia? Just came to mind when I realized there are so few Russian actors regularly working in Hollywood and Ukrainians typically come closest.

red_sox_777 posted...

Do you think that most people watching right wing videos are having fun? I feel like the reaction Tucker is going for, for instance, is anger, not enjoyment. Don't think his viewers are having fun.

maybe "fun" isn't the right word. i think some people are addicted to being outraged all the time and that's why they watch those videos.

Can confirm on multiple levels.

For some people the radicalism is the point. Whether it is left or right doesnt matter, they just want to smash the system. That is the kind of mould that GMUNs brother fits into, and the whole youtube influencer archetype as well. Overall just a small fraction of the right and indeed far-right though, which is mostly older, less educated, middle class racists.

On the topic of parents my parents are both good socialists but thats what happens in the North East of England. I do feel grateful for that though as I feel it made me a lot less susceptible to far-right propaganda online. The amount you saw on B8 up to about 6 to 8 years ago, which is these days one of the most left-leaning gaming forums Im aware of, was pretty disturbing and a lot of quite reasonable people today got sucked into it back then.

LightningStrikes posted...

The amount you saw on B8 up to about 6 to 8 years ago, which is these days one of the most left-leaning gaming forums Im aware of, was pretty disturbing and a lot of quite reasonable people today got sucked into it back then.

could you name names? i don't think people like sephyg and smartmuffin were ever reasonable. i'd say even wang doesn't count.

Oh, I wont name names because I definitely dont want to shame anybody which was never my intention. And I as well as everybody here definitely had my share of edgelord cringe to work through. The point is more that youre a lot more vulnerable to that kind of thing when youre younger, especially if you have conservative parents. What I have observed both online and among people I know is a lot of people getting more and more progressive as they get older. That saying about getting more right-wing as you get older clearly no longer applies as people are no longer accumulating wealth as they age. You cant be a capitalist if you dont have any capital. What I hope is that if our generation ever does accumulate wealth, is that we remember what we went through and try to prevent that for the next generation, ie dont be boomers 2.0.

LightningStrikes posted...

That saying about getting more right-wing as you get older clearly no longer applies as people are no longer accumulating wealth as they age.

I think the statistics don't really bear that saying out anyway.

I don't believe there's been a true longitudinal study of the effects of aging on political beliefs but I think the best theory/explanation is basically "the events/president in power when you turn 18 is the strongest sign." Basically that it's a generational thing, but more finely tuned than that where you can see that people who turned 18 during Obama are less liberal than those who turned 18 just a few years before. Or the subsection of Boomers who turned 18 under Nixon are more likely to vote Democratic than the rest of that generation. Or that the Greatest Generation/those who turned 18 under FDR voted more democratic than the national average all the way through the Bush 43 years (at which point small sample sizes took them out of the data.)

But again, I don't think aging specifically has been really studied so it's hard to say with any authority.

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

could you name names? i don't think people like sephyg and smartmuffin were ever reasonable. i'd say even wang doesn't count.

there was the phase with Realo and ExTha (?) being into alpha male stuff, which is basically adjacent / a gateway to right wing political YouTube guys

https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1557546910101250051

It's such a shame Beto has no chance.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

there was the phase with Realo and ExTha (?) being into alpha male stuff, which is basically adjacent / a gateway to right wing political YouTube guys

oh yeah, extha is a good example.

i don't think realo was ever on the left, though. his political beliefs were always kind of weird and bad.

i guess ulti is also a semi-decent example, though he was never that far on the left - he was mostly a "i voted for kerry and obama" democrat. there was a time when he hadn't completely fallen down the alt-right rabbit hole, though.

The alpha/beta shit was the worst the board has ever been, by far

God was that insufferable

What a time

LightningStrikes posted...

Oh, I wont name names because I definitely dont want to shame anybody which was never my intention.

Bruh

That shame is well deserved tbqh

LordoftheMorons posted...

The alpha/beta shit was the worst the board has ever been, by far

God was that insufferable

100% true (and i contributed a lot to those debates).

Realo is interesting because I specifically remember an interaction I had with him around 2010 where I pointed out as someone who has actually studied animal behaviour extensively, none of the aplha stuff he was on about had the faintest resemblance to science and that all of those arguments only existed to spread pointless division, and his response was basically just what are you talking about, join the debate. It was one of the earliest instances of debate me, bro! I can remember seeing. Realo is definitely not the kind of person I was thinking about, in fact he was the propaganda to begin with. Also didnt he become a weird Trump influencer/campaigner or am I getting that mixed up here?

Happy to say my dad is still a CNN watching socially liberal Democrat.

Of course he also has a bunch of hobbies and only watches news during meals. And the local nightly news

Republicans are really running with this argument, and Im convinced that its a plot to drive me and all other mathematically literate people insane

https://twitter.com/tolstoybb/status/1557633538563796992?s=21

LordoftheMorons posted...

Im convinced that its a plot to drive me and all other mathematically literate people insane

Has this not been their strategy for decades now?

My own father hasn't changed his politics in over ten years, which is one benefit to him being deceased. My mother has since remarried a guy who follows Candace Owens on Twitter, though she watches less news than she used to. She talks like a closeted moderate so I guess it could be worse.

My grandparents have fox news on 24/7 so talking to them has been pretty miserable for years now. And then they guilt trip me for not wanting to talk to them! Family is great.

Mr_Lasastryke posted...

i guess ulti is also a semi-decent example, though he was never that far on the left - he was mostly an "i voted for kerry and obama" democrat. there was a time when he hadn't completely fallen down the alt-right rabbit hole, though.

Yeah Ulti is where I first heard of the whole "you can't criticize X or you're racist/sexist" idea, although thinking back he might have been semi-joking. Then the Ghostbusters reboot happened and I witnessed such backlash on a massive scale.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1557762434739453952?s=21&t=X8OZojGrQ1bjwI7ULGCJ0Q

Those people from before combined with shit like this means that January 2025 is gonna make Jan 6th look like a schoolyard tussleregardless of who wins, weeeee

A dude I work with that went to the January stuff and said it was overblown and peaceful... posted on facebook yesterday that if you aren't on a government watch list at this point then you aren't really a patriot.

heh

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1557778998901571591

NYT is reporting that the documents at Mar-a-Lago were related to national security and so sensitive in nature that the Justice Department had to act.

You mean the documents the FBI planted there because Trump has never done anything wrong in his life and this is all a politically motivated witch hunt.

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1557524922871660544

Garland came out to say that DOJ has filed a motion to unseal the search warrant.

To this point, by law, DOJ could not speak to the matter because it was under seal. Trump could, at least as to what was taken (because again, by law, they leave a receipt) but obviously hasn't. Once a court approves the unsealing it'll become public information.

Edit: Apparently Trump's counsel can file an objection to the unsealing of the search warrant so I guess they could try and block the release so they can continue to spread their bullshit.

Same thought process as to why he keeps fighting to keep his tax stuff hidden, he has something to hide. Too bad his supporters are morons.

https://twitter.com/maxasteele/status/1557806155661017091?s=21&t=COKc5LwZxOHOaK1k8e39nw

Was eagerly awaiting this one

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/11/poll-voters-mar-a-lago-search-00051116

37% of voters currently disapprove the FBI raiding Trump. Assuming it was all above board (And I dont see any reason why it wouldnt be) That probably is the ceiling for disapproval. That means I doubt it hurts democrats in November.

The caveat is I am really curious if this fires up Trumps base, but are there Trump voters who previously werent voting but now would? Seems doubtful

masterplum posted...

Was eagerly awaiting this one

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/11/poll-voters-mar-a-lago-search-00051116

37% of voters currently disapprove the FBI raiding Trump. Assuming it was all above board (And I dont see any reason why it wouldnt be) That probably is the ceiling for disapproval. That means I doubt it hurts democrats in November.

The caveat is I am really curious if this fires up Trumps base, but are there Trump voters who previously werent voting but now would? Seems doubtful

The most important part is indies going 47-33 in favor. Basically gooey independents are not moving back towards Trump.