2024 Election Discussion General

[What Am I]

1 minute ago, aurum said:

No!

This is just more bullshit people want to blame on the Dems.

Kamala stood for plenty enough to win. Maybe it wasn't everything leftists wanted, but it was a progressive, positive vision of moving things in the right direction. And they actually had a track-record of getting these things done, with four years of a successful Biden administration.

That people have the gall to say Kamala didn't stand for enough is astounding.

Well, you could be right, but it's like a portion of the public's perception seems to be getting distorted. Even on Destiny's stream, where the analysis is pretty logical and fact-based, Pisco was very forcefully asking what Kamala stood for. And at least in that moment, nobody could give an answer.

Not saying you're wrong, but some kind of phenomenon is at play here.

[Elia Gottardi]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yeah. It's gonna be bad.

What actions should we take in the meantime? How to behave?

I feel powerless but I don't want to just roll over and let humanity destroy all the good stuff we created so far.

I wish i could detach from all of this but there's nowhere to escape humanity from, since I am humanity myself!

[zurew]

11 hours ago, QandC said:

Here you go:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pops.12394

https://www.jstor.org/stable/586314

https://news.gallup.com/poll/651977/americans-trust-media-remains-trend-low.aspx

People ARE starting to question things, that's why things are changing. 

I can send you all the studies you want. It's what I live for. Also, thanks for keeping this debate going, it arouses me like crazy.

See, people this is the problem... You cant even have a decent conversaaation with diz guuuy--oooh!

Okay lets clear up what the specific claims are and where we are in the debate.

This is good btw because at least we seem to be having a substantial debate which is good and I don't mind the banter . This is a much better quality conversation than what most people usually have here and its good that you bring sources and studies to try to back up your claims and its good that you try to engage with the claim I make and with the studies I bring.

 

Now some of my claims are -

1) Most voters are low info voters (they are not informed in depth about the history of a given candidate and what the actual positions of a given candidate and what kind of legal stuff and background stuff was or is going on with a given candidate). I think the evidence  that I tried to back this claim up with actually substantiates my claim. 

• Your first response to this wasn't directly questioning the evidence that I provided , your response was an appeal to a different study or evidence, where you claimed that most Trump voters are in fact informed about Trump's cases and its just they don't care about them (they are not demotivated by them) and they have different values that they care about and thats why they vote for him. 
  • Now, I havent seen you provide a link for the evidence you were appealing to (something about pow research) and I would want to check it out first, but at best, what you have here is a different sample of people that were more educated about Trump's cases, but the fact still remains (unless you can directly challenge it) that the sample of people that my linked study is issued with were still poorly informed about Trump. - So at best what we are left with is the fact that there are competing claims on this specific subject (subject being : not being informed about Trumps's cases and more broadly being a low info voter).
    • Even if I grant you this, this at best only entails that Trump voters that are informed are necessarily morally bankrupt.
• Your second response to this was that the polling data that I provided isn't really that good argument to substantiate that these people are actually low info voters, because it can be  compatible with a different hypothesis where people are informed about things they just reject those claims are true.
  • I think this response might work in some cases, depending on how the given question is framed in the poll that I provided and based on what kind of answers one is allowed to give to the questions. But I think its unclear, how this response of yours specifically contradicts them being low info voters, because you havent provided evidence for the claim how much they are informed, you only provided evidence how they distrust the sources, from where the claims originate from (distrust  the mainstream media in general)
    • The fact that Trump voters in general distrust the mainstream media from that doesn't necessarily follow that they are informed in depth about the Trump cases (but even if I grant you this, I think given how much evidence there is and how much people were involved in those cases, the fact that Trump voters deny the validity of those claims reinforces my other claims about them either
      • Being irrational in general and or
      • Being partisan where they don't investigate the claims themselves they just reject things based purely on source and or
      • Being conspiratorial thinkers 

2) Trump voters are conspiratorial thinkers  (They believe in conspiracy theories). My evidence to substantiate this , I think is sufficient and they give multiple examples there.

• Your response to this wasn't to challenge my claim (that conservatives and Trump voters in general believe in at least one conspiracy theory), your response was trying to talk about the fact that there are multiple motivations and dynamics at play when a Trump voter votes for Trump and believing in conspiracy theories doesn't exhaustively describe or explain why they vote for Trump. I can agree with that, but that again doesn't challenge my claim.
  • You being able to demonstrate that there are multiple factors at play and that complex  theories are needed to describe Trump voter behavior is fine and is one thing , but thats compatible with my claim of them being conspiratorial thinkers and you presumably want to challenge my implicit claim that they are irrational for voting for Trump, but appealing to complex theories to describe and to explain why someone is irrational still doesn't challenge or engage with the fact that they are indeed irrational or conspiracy brained.

3) Trump voters have a cluster of beliefs (This claim is kind of dependent on my second claim, and by this again for the sake of clarity I mean that just by knowing a few beliefs of a Trump voter from that one can reliably infer what kind of other belief they hold about the government, about healthcare about foreign policy about wars and on other political matters). The evidence that I provided for my second claim includes evidence that I think substantiates this claim as well. 

• Your response to this was that people can hold complex and sometimes contradictory views. 
  • 1) I don't think you have provided evidence for this claim - I would want evidence for this when it comes to Trump supporters
  • 2) I think that the fact that people hold contradictory views , just makes my point about most people not really reflecting on or thinking deeply about their beliefs and about the logical implications of the positions they take or have on a given political matter and they rather go on vibes (being irrational). To be fair, this can possibly challenge my third claim about one can reliably infer from a set of beliefs other beliefs, but this confirms my fourth claim about Trump voters -  which is that they are irrational.

4) Trump voters are irrational (For the sake of clarity, by this I mean that most Trump voters will go on vibes rather than  1) being able to spell out an evidence based, empirically sound,  clear reasoning why they take the specific political positions they take (about the economy , about wars , about immigration etc). 

• Most of them for example will claim that Trump is/was better for the economy , but they won't be able to substantiate this claim  - they won't be able to give a specific policy or doing that Trump did for the economy and then defend it in detail why that given move was good for the economy and they don't have a nuanced concept what even "good" means in the context of the economy.
  • I don't have specific evidence for this off hand, but if you want to challenge it I will look for something. I will say though for the sake of being fair, that this point also applicable to non-trump voters and it is applicable to most voters in general. Because people in general are not educated about mutliple field that are related to politics - about how the economy works , about immigration  about wars etc, and because of it , of course they won't be able to defend their position on any of those subjects.
• Most of them will appeal to conspiracy theories and narratives rather than to studies and tangible facts
  • Even on the things they are not informed on, they won't take an agnostic position, they will rather assume malice by the other side.

5) Trump voters are morally bankrupt (to be less loaded   - specifically they don't give a fuck about democracy , meaning they are willing to trash democracy for the sake of the percieved value(s) they think Trump will provide for them). If you want to I can search for evidence for this claim, but you brought some evidence yourself earlier and you tried to establish this claim , where you claimed that Trump voters are informed about the criminal cases of Trump, specifically surrounding jan6, but they don't care and they care more about other things.

 

6) Trump voters can be described by one or by the combination of my first 5 claims about them. Meaning they will have at least one of those features going for them, which I think establishes my underlying and overall claim about them  being irresponsible and reckless voters (since being low info on things) and or being irrational (going based on vibes and conspiracy theories) and or not valueing the maintainence of democracy.

• This overall claim is what you presumably tried to challenge from the get-go, that I don't have solid/good ground to claim that most Trump voters are either morally bankrupt and or irrational and that they can have good reason(s) to vote for Trump over Kamala - this is the specific claim the I would be very curious if you can make a positive argument for , that establishes that most Trump voters are this way. Being able to debunk the evidence I brought for my claims won't be sufficient for this, because at best that will nullify my claim of them being irrational and morally bankrupt, but wont establish that they are rational and educated and informed and non partisan voters - So you will need to bring evidence to substantiate that claim (if you want to maintain the claim, that most Trump voters can't be exhaustively categorized by the combination of the 5 claims I made)
  • Again for clarity and for you to not waste your time - you being able to bring theories that describe complex behaviour doesn't reject of them being irrational. There can be multiple underlying complex psychological drivers and factors that drive their behaviour , but thats compatible with them being irrational.

 

 

--------------

That all being said, I don't think that my claims are controversial in general. I think most of my claims are applicable to most voters in general, but some of them are much more applicable to Trump voters than to non-Trump voters. If Kamala would have tried to overthrow the government, or if Kamala supporters right now would baselessly claim that Trump stole this election, then I would push back on that and would push for evidence and if they couldn't provide evidence for it - I would put them also in the irrational category.

I think you confuse the world and people being complex with them not being morally bankrupt and irrational. I think there are cases, where if you want to steel-man a side or a given case, one can make a good and compelling argument for that side, but I think in the specific case of this election, (under the assumption that you value democracy) and given the facts about Trump thats not the case ( you can't do that without having at least one negative feature from my list).  A 2024 Trump supporter  either dont give a fuck about democracy and or is  irrational and reject the evidence about Trumps case and or  not informed about those cases.

You are welcome to prove me wrong (but again don't forget, you didn't just imply that there is at least one Trump supporter that my system can't categorize, but that most of them are that way). So even if there is a hidden 200IQ argument than most of us are not aware of (for the case of Trump over Kamala), from that doesn't follow that most Trump voters who voted for Trump was because of that reason and not based on them being irrational.

Edited November 7 by zurew

[aurum]

2 minutes ago, What Am I said:

Not saying you're wrong, but some kind of phenomenon is at play here.

Yeah, it's called ignorance and anti-establishment Dem brainwashing.

If people couldn't give an answer to that question, that is pathetic and reflects more on them than Kamala.

[aurum]

1 hour ago, Frylock said:

Nothing beats first hand experience in learning.

Let's not forget that the US is by far the youngest developed country in the world. If you were born in 1989, you've lived through about 16% of the country's history.

This is the first time the US has gone full on authoritarian. Western European countries are like been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

It's unfortunate, but people are stupid and lazy and they're not going to do the research, and our increasingly botched education system isn't going to properly teach them.

It's still not a reason to vote for Trump. 

[integration journey]

This was interesting to watch. 

[Davino]

5 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

The US eco/political system is so abusive that many of the poor souls living there have turned loopy.

What most disgusts me of this situation 

Is how many nice, otherwise intelligent individuals have been utterly fooled by Trump and his brainwashing machine.

It's total mass hallucination. Even Chris Langan such a brilliant mind, totally bought into it. Many friends of mine also. I'm not self-righteous, you are free to vote all the colours of the rainbow but some options are shooting yourself in the foot, you're not seeing it due to your political illiteracy.

Btw, there's nothing I would hope to be more wrong about than Trump. So hopefully all my views on him end up being inaccurate, so that he behaves like harmless four year president.

[BlackPhil]

45 minutes ago, integration journey said:

This was interesting to watch. 

Finally some honest, self-critique from dems. They actually bring up the stuff democrats/media did wrong that made Kamala lose instead of just shouting they lost because everyone's a racist.

That I can respect.

Edited November 7 by BlackPhil

[Basman]

4 hours ago, Lyubov said:

Green is gonna get hella mean these next 4 years lol

I somehow find Green the most annoying stage. Green toxicity is a little more subtle and not as obvious as the lower stages. Or as bad, so its just "annoying".

Then again I have a bit of a bias for rationality.

[Jacob Morres]

I enjoyed the social progress from 2019 but seems there quite the backlash from it now 

Almost like we pushed too hard and now we're facing a collective ego backlash 

[UnbornTao]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Survival, survival, survival.

Use "survival" instead:

 

[zurew]

https://x.com/Espaking2/status/1854287198331515005 

Now, this is the trash that shouldnt be supported.

This is MAGA retardation level and cope where you conflate your "Isn't it weird" questions with actual evidence.

The only thing that I see possibly to have a chance  is Elon's giveaway being illegal. But from that doesn't follow that Trump wouldn't have won and again to be very clear - that giveaway being illegal is questionable , because it might be totally legal.

At best, this provides a reason to start an investigation , but this is incredibly far from proving the claim that there was an actual fraud.

 

Edited November 7 by zurew

[Nivsch]

41 minutes ago, Basman said:

I somehow find Green the most annoying stage. Green toxicity is a little more subtle and not as obvious as the lower stages. Or as bad, so its just "annoying".

Then again I have a bit of a bias for rationality.

Agree with you.

[Jodistrict]

1 hour ago, integration journey said:

This was interesting to watch. 

This was worth watching.  There was a divirsity of opinions and people actually made an attempt to shine some light on what happened without hysterical rhetoric.  

[Alex4]

1 hour ago, Basman said:

I somehow find Green the most annoying stage. Green toxicity is a little more subtle and not as obvious as the lower stages. Or as bad, so its just "annoying".

Then again I have a bit of a bias for rationality.

Green stage is the beautiful stage. It’s the stage that reconnects you with nature, your community, and, paradoxically, even with your country. Once you step into green, you begin to see just how full of shit blue and orange are.

I’m considering starting a thread to explain how to embrace the green stage. Many of you fall into the trap of thinking you can somehow reach yellow by skipping green.

Edited November 7 by Alex4

[DocWatts]

America chose, and it chose to reject democracy in favor of a vengeful dictator. This is reflective of a broader shift in American culture towards conspiracism and hate.

It's been extremely disappointing that this shift has been reflected in what's supposed to be a Conscious Politics forum as well - as evidenced by the number of people here who are eager to downplay and excuse Trump's monstrous behavior.

This will be my last post in this section of the Forums. The quality of the discourse here has started to be more reflective of a YouTube comments page rather than a forum for people who are serious about discussing politics in a mature way.

Absolutely disgusted with my country, and the number of people here, on this Forum, who have been enabled America's shift towards fascism.

How anyone here can have watched Leo's content on epistemology and conscious politics, and come away thinking 'yup, Trump is our guy!' is mind boggling.

Apologies to folks like @Hardkill and @Husseinisdoingfine, along with the moderators and the handful of other people here who've avoided falling into this trap. I've enjoyed interacting with you over the years. Best of luck to you, hope the Forum here becomes more reflective of your thoughtfulness and integrity over time, once it becomes unavoidable that life is getting far worse for people as a result of the outcome of this election. Maybe I'll check back in a few years, but for now it's goodbye.

Edited November 7 by DocWatts

[eliasvelez]

3 hours ago, Bobby_2021 said:

@Leo Gura Calling full names is racism now? What made you think that word "Hussein" contain racist undertone anyway? 

How you say things can change the meaning of something.

[Salvijus]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

America chose, and it chose to reject democracy in favor of a vengeful dictator. This is reflective of a broader shift in American culture towards conspiracism and hate.

It's been extremely disappointing that this shift has been reflected in what's supposed to be a Conscious Politics forum as well - as evidenced by the number of people here who are eager to downplay and excuse Trump's monstrous behavior.

This will be my last post in this section of the Forums. The quality of the discourse here has started to be more reflective of a YouTube comments page rather than people who are serious about discussing politics in a mature way.

Absolutely disgusted with my country, and the number of people here, on this Forum, who have been enabled America's shift towards fascism.

How anyone here can have watched Leo's content on epistemology and conscious politics, and come away thinking 'yup, Trump's out guy's is mind boggling.

Are you trying to make people who have a different opinion than you somehow guilty? Lol. Don't be ridiculous. Nobody cares about your tantrums. 

Most you could achieve like that is gather like minded people and whine together in your little private corner while giving each other validation of how right you are and how wrong others are. (because fragile egos need lots of validation you know) 

Edited November 7 by Salvijus

[BlackPhil]

49 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

America chose, and it chose to reject democracy in favor of a vengeful dictator. This is reflective of a broader shift in American culture towards conspiracism and hate.

It's been extremely disappointing that this shift has been reflected in what's supposed to be a Conscious Politics forum as well - as evidenced by the number of people here who are eager to downplay and excuse Trump's monstrous behavior.

This will be my last post in this section of the Forums. The quality of the discourse here has started to be more reflective of a YouTube comments page rather than a forum for people who are serious about discussing politics in a mature way.

Absolutely disgusted with my country, and the number of people here, on this Forum, who have been enabled America's shift towards fascism.

How anyone here can have watched Leo's content on epistemology and conscious politics, and come away thinking 'yup, Trump is our guy!' is mind boggling.

49 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

 

I think you need to learn the difference between democracy and liberalism. What just happened was literally democracy in action: people voted and got what the majority wanted. Did Trump become a fascist dictator last time he was president? No. Will he now? No, I doubt it.

The rest of your post shines the light on a big problem. You dont want to talk to people with different opinions than your own. That creates echo-chambers and disconnects you from reality. That's what happened this election and that's why so many on the left are surprised by the results.

If you want to actually change politics and peoples minds you need to instead focus on discussing with people of a different opinion, reaching the other side. Not just call them fascist and block them out. People doing just that is one of the bigger reasons Trump won.

That elitist (and actually fascist) behaviour of thinking you are of a "higher consciousness" and people of "lower stages" are not even worth talking to is simply pride in it's purest form. And pride comes before fall.

 

Edited November 7 by BlackPhil

[TheAlchemist]

I think there's a realistic possibility for a scenario unfolding where Trump's regime starts using the threat of withdrawing from NATO to pressure European countries to dance to his tunes.

During Trump's last term we got a small taste of this when he successfully pressured European NATO allies to increase their defense budgets with these threats. It would be naive to think he wouldn't push those demands further this time around as he is more organized and clearly willing to use threats and blackmail towards allies.

Just like he demands total alligiance and praise from the people in his cabinet, so will he demand it from allies. And many will bend to his will, we can already see many progressive leaders in Europe stroking his ego and being careful about criticising Trump in any way in public statements. Pretty crazy to witness

We in Europe need to get our shit together. This might sound crazy to some but basically we need a European military and a European Federation. The geopolitical environment has shifted significantly now from the post WW2 order. 

 

Edited November 7 by TheAlchemist