volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
You're saying a bunch of stuff here that's simply not true.
The US government has been disabled, gutted and incapable of non-partisan law enforcement? Obviously not considering the tremendous amount of money it spends on the opposite every single year.
You see a political party following the law? Where? Every party is breaking it, and we're good with it. We keep reelecting the folks breaking laws.
I really think you're espousing a perspective that is not in line with the real world here, and proposing solutions based on misunderstandings of the problems.
No it's not satire or parody, it's trolling, plain and simple.
And the way to respond to it is the way you respond to any troll on the internet. It's the same strategic pattern.
Yeah, the American people elected this troll to be president knowing full well what they were electing. So the important thing is to respond to the folks who empowered the guy.
But Trump himself? It's the old internet adage: don't feed the trolls.
@bruce He's trolling you.
The president is a troll, this is nothing new.
But it sounds like you're falling for his game.
That's my case I know many minorities in my close Social circle, and not a single one showed any sign of fear. As they were organizing carpools and stuff, fear never came up.
That's just not correct. The main weapon ordinary people have is their votes and they keep using their votes to support ineffective politicians.
Not at all, and part of the problem is that these protests play into his hands instead of opposing him in more effective ways.
His side will be using scenes from these protests in their campaign advertisements to garner support and get reelected.
That's why it's so important to call it out.
This kind of stuff got Trump reelected in the first place. I opposed it then, I call it out now for the same reason: folks need to stop giving his side this ammunition.
No, #Trump isn't "terrified" of #NoKings protests. He doesn't even know they're happening if his handlers don't tell him.
The #GOP In general isn't terrified about it, they welcome it, because they're going to use framing of it in their campaign materials. It plays into their game.
These protesters are being played.
#LarryKudlowShow, among others: We already have a #NoKings day, it's called Independence Day, don't these kids know that?#USPolitics
It's in the eye of the beholder.
The problem is, if these protesters want to attract support from others, they need to realize that they do look foolish in the eyes of many of the people who they need to convince over to their side.
Otherwise they're just preaching to the choir in silly outfits.
Pretty much sums it up. A whole bunch of people spending a lot of resources to tell Trump not to be a king while he is saying he never was, so this is all pointless and those people look foolish.
@jack_daniel Oh he was definitely Democratic in his voting record after his stroke.
So that's not the solid correlation.
He only started moving toward the right after he was getting better, and after Democrats got really dumb with their political strategies, shedding support, seeing Trump get reelected, and having voters award the political branches to the Republicans.
He's not, though. Trump is not particularly engaged with the world, he only knows what his handlers tell him, so he's probably not even aware of this stuff.
Conservatives aren't shaking in fear. They don't care.
In fact, conservative campaign offices are already mining this stuff for out of context clips they can play in their next campaign commercials.
They welcome this. These protests are playing into their hands.
And I wish y'all wouldn't support them like that.
@anna_lillith so the key is to start cutting them down and using them for housing material where they can keep the carbon sequestered!
@light Oh yes, quite a lot!
And it's already been happening.
Already for the last week Trump supporters have been talking about these upcoming protests as illustrating how out of touch their opponents are (their words, not mine) and how generally irresponsible they are.
Today I'm listening to numerous speakers saying things that are going to be used in sound bites for upcoming campaigns, everything from standing politicians not seeming to know what the laws in front of them are through general notions of priorities of the left that don't really resonate with most of the country.
There is going to be videos of people in inflated costumes with political candidates saying, is this really how you want your country governed? With the sense that these protests show non-seriousness of democratic candidates.
And to be clear a lot of it will be dishonest. I imagine even this week there will be politicians from the right floating stupid ideas like, we had to spend a ton of money to pay for security for these protests. But, that kind of messaging resonates with a lot of people.
Yes, there is a ton that is optically bad.
These protests might have felt really good to the participants, they might have been a great party, but on the whole I expect that they will have worked against their cause.
@light No it looks to me like he absolutely did!
That doesn't make him a king, though, because he's still subject to oversight from the people that we elect to Congress. We elected and reelected and reelected a bunch of congresspeople that backed his move.
That doesn't mean he's a king; that means we elected a bunch of people we should not have elected, and we need to stop reelecting those people.
A lot of these people going out to these stupid protests are going to go ahead and reelect the exact congresspeople who are supporting Trump's illegal actions.
So what's the point.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters are going to use optics from these protests in their campaigns to win over voters to their side.
Yeah, Trump is violating laws like so many presidents do. It's up to us to elect congresspeople that will will stand up to him, we don't, so we get what we voted for.
We need to change. These protests are if anything promoting this really bad status quo.
No I think you have that wrong. The right was able to use Ferguson protests and BLM as a talking point, and that helped get Trump reelected.
These protests are feeding into right-wing rhetoric. I know that's not the intention, but that's the reality. These protests don't look good to the general public, and politicians are able to use them in their campaigning against progressive causes.
That is just the reality of media.
Are you kidding? A whole lot of the blue politicians got us into this, and reelecting them only continues the mess that our government is.
Vote blue when blue gives us someone worth voting for.
Otherwise blue is only making things worse.
@cdarwin If the president thinks his rule is absolute then he wouldn't bother with the courts. But he is.
So all of the politicians trying to buy into that line, they're just lying and manipulating to public.
We need to stop reelecting these ineffective liars.
Listening to #C-SPAN covering the #NoKings rally in DC, #BernieSanders is giving his speech and completely misrepresenting what the legislation before the Senate includes.
Can somebody please poke Bernie and have him actually read the legislation that he is voting against? He's holding up funding for the federal workforce, holding up all of those paychecks, based on his misunderstanding of what the legislation actually says?
He is a very powerful person who is harming a lot of people and putting it on display right now. Maybe it's time for him to retire. Maybe other powerful people need to stop propping him up.
But mainly, we need to call out powerful people like Sanders who are really doing a lot of harm to a lot of people here.
If he's unable or uninterested in understanding the legislation that he is supposed to be working on as part of his job, then he needs to step down, not promote misinformation to his echo chamber at these silly protests.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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