2024 Election Discussion General

[What Am I]

1 minute ago, Joshe said:

Most propaganda is subtle and many spreading it aren’t aware they’re even spreading it. Subtle nods to idea x here and there, spread amongst tens of thousands of influencers, troll farms, independent media outlets, pundits, talking heads, TikTok’s, the spreading of memes, Fox News, Tucker Carlson, who had the most popular show on prime time, Turning Point USA, the Daily Wire, JP, Tim Pool, Dave Rueben and the rest of the Russian tools, Dennis Prager, who designed teaching materials for K-12, which is currently being fed to public school kids in 8 states and counting, X, which is unique to other platforms for spreading information, talk radio, which you would know is huge if you ever scan for radio stations while traveling on the internet, and these are branching out to Hispanics now. The list is long. You can’t make a comparable list for the left.

Even if you could, it’s not just about how long the list is. It’s about the messages and the truthfulness of them. Fox News contributed to millions believing the 2020 election was stolen. You can easily find 10 examples of every mention on the list above spreading verifiably false information. That’s the difference. So, not only is the right’s propaganda more abundant, it’s orders of magnitude more deceptive and intentionally manipulative, whereas he lefts might be misguided with a few bad faith actors, but nowhere near as many on the right.

You can make a meme that communicates “the left is weak and beta”, and you can package it 50 different ways for 50 different target audiences. This is called memetic warfare and it works by appealing to ego. When enough popular people’s egos get stroked and tuned to a specific ideology, that ideology can take off, and the more cool kids that do it, the more effective the spread. Thais is largely why Trump won. Mimetic warfare and influence. Just go ask Peter Thiel. 

But really though, isn't the left just whining at this point? And I don't mean that to be a rude tone, but rather to point out that if they want similar capabilities, they should go build up their own media. It just seems like a ton of complaining lately. It's certainly not like the right has historically had the media advantage.

[Jodistrict]

The democratic party lost the male vote.  Particularly, young men went for Trump. 

The democratic party has neglected male issues because it doesn’t fit into their woke ideology.   They spread the silly meme on their mainstream media outlets that Kamala was going to win because wives would secretly vote for Harris.   

https://newrepublic.com/post/187767/maga-men-jesse-waters-meltdown-wives-secretly-voting-harris

Kamala Harris could have gone on Joe Rogan and tailored a message for his young male voters.  But apparently his audience wasn't important enough.

The below video discusses this fatal miscalculation.

 

 

 

[Joshe]

2 minutes ago, What Am I said:

But really though, isn't the left just whining at this point? And I don't mean that to be a rude tone, but rather to point out that if they want similar capabilities, they should go build up their own media. It just seems like a ton of complaining lately. It's certainly not like the right has historically had the media advantage.

Gee, IDK, is it whining that that the Daily Wire, PragerU, and Turning Point USA are on stated missions to spread their ideology to kids  so they can win the culture war? “BooHoo you wimpy leftists. Stop whining and go build your own effective propaganda machines like we’ve done on the right. I bet you can’t spread memes and infiltrate the kids better than us.”

The left doesn’t have multimillion dollar organizations with the sole purpose of spreading its ideology. The right has that. Have you pondered why this is? Do you think it’s just because the right is better at propaganda than the left and the left needs to step their propaganda game up? This type of thinking would come from someone viewing it as a spectator sport. This person’s circle of concern would be small. Sagur from Breaking Points comes to mind. 

[What Am I]

3 minutes ago, Joshe said:

Gee, IDK, is it whining that that the Daily Wire, PragerU, and Turning Point USA are on stated missions to spread their ideology to kids  so they can win the culture war? “BooHoo you wimpy leftists. Stop whining and go build your own effective propaganda machines like we’ve done on the right. I bet you can’t spread memes and infiltrate the kids better than us.”

The left doesn’t have multimillion dollar organizations with the sole purpose of spreading its ideology. The right has that. Have you pondered why this is? Do you think it’s just because the right is better at propaganda than the left and the left needs to step their propaganda game up? This type of thinking would come from someone viewing it as a spectator sport. This person’s circle of concern would be small. Sagur from Breaking Points comes to mind. 

I see what you're saying, and I'm not going to claim you're completely wrong, but yes, I would still consider it whining. You're not alone in this, though. It's come to my attention that a similar pattern is occurring everywhere.

I think a more productive question would be what you plan to do about it.

Edited Tuesday at 01:59 AM by What Am I

[Joshe]

2 minutes ago, What Am I said:

I see what you're saying, and I'm not going to claim you're completely wrong, but yes, I would still consider it whining. You're not alone in this, though. It's come to my attention that a similar pattern is occurring everywhere.

I think a more productive question would be what you plan to do about it.

ok, so, you’re half way there. You acknowledged the truth of what I said. Now, the only thing left to do is contemplate the implications of that truth. Don’t just gloss over the fact that the right is using multimillion dollar companies, and even backed by billionaires, to force their ideology upon as many people as possible, starting with kids in kindergarten. Repeat that and then acknowledge the left isn’t doing that. After you contemplate this, if your position is still “the left is losing because their ideas are not as good and they are not effective at forcing their views onto people and they need to go back to the drawing board”, contemplate some more, until you see the problem. 

You’re condoning what the right is doing and saying the left should stop whining and do it too. It sounds like spectator sport mentality. 
 

 

[Hardkill]

1 hour ago, Raze said:

That’s an irrelevant comparison, you are comparing a entire social media site to media outlets. The fair comparison would be X to other social media sites such as Instagram or Facebook or tiktok, which as I told you are larger.

 

Nope

You are also assuming everyone on x is engaging in politics, they aren’t, plenty of people go there and don’t look at anything political.

CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and NBC combined get more views than Fox News.

they are declining, but so is Fox News.

Younger generations not watching mainstream channels includes them not watching right wing channels like Fox News.

You are cherry picking the biggest example, Joe Rogan and comparing it to random other things.

The left has John Stewart, Seth Meyers, Colbert and John Oliver who regularly get tens of millions of views on YouTube in addition to those who watch them on TV.
 

I am not in a fog, you are. Just like how you bought the lies of pundits telling you Kamala will win, you bought the lies that it’s all the fault of the “media”. They just give narratives to benefit establishment dems, in this case trying to make it sound like it’s not their fault they lost.

All of that is misleading. Many people on X easily mistake much of the stuff they see on there as liberal when it's mostly hard right brain rotting messages.

John Stewart, Seth Meyers, Colbert and John Oliver combined cannot compete with all of the right-wing media echo chambers out there. You must be a right-wing troll.

There's a major reason why Nixon during his time couldn't get away with what he did like Trump has. 

[Hardkill]

40 minutes ago, What Am I said:

But really though, isn't the left just whining at this point? And I don't mean that to be a rude tone, but rather to point out that if they want similar capabilities, they should go build up their own media. It just seems like a ton of complaining lately. It's certainly not like the right has historically had the media advantage.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

The left has been trying to for years, but it's still almost impossible to narrow the media gap.

Watch this:

 

[What Am I]

11 minutes ago, Joshe said:

ok, so, you’re half way there. You acknowledged the truth of what I said. Now, the only thing left to do is contemplate the implications of that truth. Don’t just gloss over the fact that the right is using multimillion dollar companies, and even backed by billionaires, to force their ideology upon as many people as possible, starting with kids in kindergarten. Repeat that and then acknowledge the left isn’t doing that. After you contemplate this, if your position is still “the left is losing because their ideas are not as good and they are not effective at forcing their views onto people and they need to go back to the drawing board”, contemplate some more, until you see the problem. 

You’re condoning what the right is doing and saying the left should stop whining and do it too. It sounds like spectator sport mentality.

Well, I'm not necessarily against what the right is doing. I think they have a worldview and they're spreading it as wide as possible to ensure it propagates. Are we saying that the concept of propaganda is inherently negative? If you don't think the left had the same advantage right up until the last few years, then I think you're stuck in some kind of recency bias, which wouldn't be that uncommon in our strange era of changing daily news cycles. Do you not remember the right doing some very similar complaining back around 2017-2018?

Edited Tuesday at 02:23 AM by What Am I

[What Am I]

8 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

You have no idea what you're talking about.

The left has been trying to for years, but it's still almost impossible to narrow the media gap.

Even if what you're saying is true, which I don't remember being the case, then I would still say it's just an endless stream of whining, lol. At what point will the next stage of planning begin?

Edited Tuesday at 02:25 AM by What Am I

[Raze]

15 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

All of that is misleading. Many people on X easily mistake much of the stuff they see on there as liberal when it's mostly hard right brain rotting messages.

No, they don’t

15 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

John Stewart, Seth Meyers, Colbert and John Oliver combined cannot compete with all of the right-wing media echo chambers out there. You must be a right-wing troll.

There's a major reason why Nixon during his time couldn't get away with what he did like Trump has. 

Nope, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and NBC combined get more views than Fox News. The left has John Stewart, Seth Meyers, Colbert and John Oliver who regularly get tens of millions of views on YouTube in addition to those who watch them on TV. The left also has a huge presence on Facebook, tiktok, Instagram, and X. 

You are wrong.

[What Am I]

1 minute ago, Raze said:

Nope, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and NBC combined get more views than Fox News. The left has John Stewart, Seth Meyers, Colbert and John Oliver who regularly get tens of millions of views on YouTube in addition to those who watch them on TV. The left also has a huge presence on Facebook, tiktok, Instagram, and X. 

Don't forget Reddit, perhaps the most left-leaning of all platforms.

[Joshe]

2 minutes ago, What Am I said:

Well, I'm not necessarily against what the right is doing. I think they have a worldview and they're spreading it as wide as possible to ensure it propagates. Are we saying that the concept of propaganda is inherently negative? If you don't think the left had the same advantage right up until the last few years, then I think you're stuck in some kind of recency bias, which wouldn't be that uncommon in our strange era of changing daily news cycles. Do you not remember the right doing some very similar complaining back around 2017-2018?

Interesting. You want the world to awaken to truth but you don’t care if religious zealots infiltrate the hearts and minds of the populace. If the left didn’t exist and these people were doing this, you’d be able to see clearly and you’d denounce it, but because you hate the left, you condone the right… it seems. 

[What Am I]

6 minutes ago, Joshe said:

Interesting. You want the world to awaken to truth but you don’t care if religious zealots infiltrate the hearts and minds of the populace. If the left didn’t exist and these people were doing this, you’d be able to see clearly and you’d denounce it, but because you hate the left, you condone the right… it seems. 

I think it's fair to point out that I'm not against the left spreading propaganda either. How else would a political party disseminate their preferred worldviews to the people?

I promise I'm not trying to be an asshole with this question, but do you think the right should not be allowed to do this and the left should? Or are you desiring a world where propaganda isn't spread at all? If that's the case, I can sort of get on board, but it's kind of difficult to imagine how it would work in practice. Though that doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth pursuing.

[Joshe]

21 minutes ago, What Am I said:

I think it's fair to point out that I'm not against the left spreading propaganda either. How else would a political party disseminate their preferred worldviews to the people?

I promise I'm not trying to be an asshole with this question, but do you think the right should not be allowed to do this and the left should? Or are you desiring a world where propaganda isn't spread at all? If that's the case, I can sort of get on board, but it's kind of difficult to imagine how it would work in practice. Though that doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth pursuing.

It’s not that I think they shouldn’t be allowed to operate freely to spread their ideology. We probably need that freedom for humanity to find its way. It’s just that their ideology is founded on utter ignorance. We’re talking about people who, if they had their way, and they are gaining it, would force Christian mythology onto kids in 4K public schools and make them say the Lord’s Prayer. If you care about humanity finding it’s way, you’d see this as regressive, taking us back quite a bit. 

No matter what Fox or Rogan says, the left isn’t pushing extreme views or trans onto school kids. The left  mostly just wants more sanity, more acceptance, more justice. On the whole, that’s where they’re coming from. It’s insane to think climate change isn’t real and that it doesn’t matter because this 6000 year old rock will be of no consequence when the good lord rides a chariot to call home his chosen people. It’s insane to disbelieve in dinosaurs or to think they roamed the earth with men. Reasonable people reject this nonsense. Many apolitical, non-ideological people side with the left because they’re sane. 

People pay attention to the loud, frothing, attention seeking extremists on the left and think everyone else is like that. Most on the left just choose to not join the side of climate deniers, ancient mythologies, and bigotry. Decent, reasonable people would reject these detrimental falsehoods and not like them being spread. 
 

[Novac08]

9 hours ago, MarkKol said:

After traveling to nearly every western country I became a European supremacist

so I’m just gonna leave this here

It's a bit absurd to expect europeans to support trump. He will not be good for Europe, and will act against their interests. It's likely the only europeans who support him are anti-immigrant right-wingers who want to mass deport immigrants, and would like trump to go first so they can normalize this wish that they have.

[What Am I]

20 minutes ago, Joshe said:

It’s not that I think they shouldn’t be allowed to operate freely to spread their ideology. We probably need that freedom for humanity to find its way. It’s just that their ideology is founded on utter ignorance. We’re talking about people who, if they had their way, and they are gaining it, would force Christian mythology onto kids in 4K public schools and make them say the Lord’s Prayer. If you care about humanity finding it’s way, you’d see this as regressive, taking us back quite a bit. 

No matter what Fox or Rogan says, the left isn’t pushing extreme views or trans onto school kids. The left  mostly just wants more sanity, more acceptance, more justice. On the whole, that’s where they’re coming from. It’s insane to think climate change isn’t real and that it doesn’t matter because this 6000 year old rock will be of no consequence when the good lord rides a chariot to call home his chosen people. It’s insane to disbelieve in dinosaurs or to think they roamed the earth with men. Reasonable people reject this nonsense. Many apolitical, non-ideological people side with the left because they’re sane. 

People pay attention to the loud, frothing, attention seeking extremists on the left and think everyone else is like that. Most on the left just choose to not join the side of climate deniers, ancient mythologies, and bigotry. Decent, reasonable people would reject these detrimental falsehoods and not like them being spread.

I'm definitely with you on your dislike for the Christian right. Their entire belief system is a misunderstanding and perversion of the mystical truths once embodied by their Gnostic founders. If I perceived Christians to be 99% of the party, I'd likely run away in terror. But it just doesn't seem to me that they hold that kind of sway. Though I admit, they do seem to be planning some shady stuff, and they'd love for everyone to have their same tiny scope of vision for reality. Whether their competing interests on the right succeed is yet to be seen.

Truth be told, someone like me probably resonates more with the left. Not the far-left weirdos, but more center-left, like I assume Leo and yourself would at least partially identify. But we're in crazy times, and people are finding themselves in unexpected alignments.

[What Am I]

I also have to admit that this other angle of subversion from the right concerns me as well. It tickles the conspiracy theorist portion of my mind, which has now had many years to develop.

 

Edited Tuesday at 04:07 AM by What Am I

[Joshe]

48 minutes ago, What Am I said:

If I perceived Christians to be 99% of the party, I'd likely run away in terror.

If the right didn’t have Christianity, then they’d be much more comparable to the left. If it was only about keeping with tradition, nuclear families, no gays, etc, and didn’t have Christianity, and if they believed basic stuff like evolution, THEN the comparison would be much closer and siding with the right would be nowhere near as insane as it currently is. 

The largest media outlets on the right are pushing Christianity. Fox knows theirs viewers are mostly all Christians or at least on the fence. The Daily Wire, PragerU, and Turning Point USA have Christianity baked into their mission statements.

Right wing grifters have recently started joining the religion. JP and Russell Brand. Most recently, Tucker Carlson has hopped on the bandwagon. Saying he was attack by a demon in his bed, which prompted him to spend the next 1.5 years reading the good book. In a recent clip by Rogan, he dipped his toe in the Jesus pool. He jokingly said “people need Jesus”, then he got serious and said “for real”. Christianity is en vogue again. While it’s not 99% of the right, it’s the majority, and the big money outlets are pushing Christianity hard.

Trump doesn’t fake like he’s a believer in Christ for the fun of it.

Edited Tuesday at 04:50 AM by Joshe

[What Am I]

16 minutes ago, Joshe said:

If the right didn’t have Christianity, then they’d be much more comparable to the left. If it was only about keeping with tradition, nuclear families, no gays, etc, and didn’t have Christianity, and if they believed basic stuff like evolution, THEN the comparison would be much closer and siding with the right would be nowhere near as insane as it currently is. 

The largest media outlets on the right are pushing Christianity. Fox knows theirs viewers are mostly all Christians or at least on the fence. The Daily Wire, PragerU, and Turning Point USA have Christianity baked into their mission statements.

Right wing grifters have recently started joining the religion. JP and Russell Brand. Most recently, Tucker Carlson has hopped on the bandwagon. Saying he was attack by a demon in his bed, which prompted him to spend the next 1.5 years reading the good book. In a recent clip by Rogan, he dipped his toe in the Jesus pool. He jokingly said “people need Jesus”, then he got serious and said “for real”. Christianity is en vogue again. While it’s not 99% of the right, it’s the majority, and the big money outlets are pushing Christianity hard.

Trump doesn’t fake like he’s a believer in Christ for the fun of it.

I suppose any percentage that I throw out there would just be an estimate, but you're probably correct about the right being a majority Christian, even if only just. What's scary to me isn't your average Christian, though, but rather the maniacs who would see the US turned into a theocracy. The schemers who would try to force small-minded beliefs on everyone. I don't believe the average Christian would be for something like that.

An easy counter to Christianity's profound ignorance would be a revelation regarding the mystical truths of consciousness. An advanced understanding of humanity's innate transcendent skills of attention. If only such things weren't reserved for the very few.

[LambdaDelta]

It's nice seeing some Christians see through Trump

https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/1gkwofo/trump_is_not_the_antichrist_but_he_taught_me_a/

That thread was an interesting read, similar to some of Leo's blog posts