Politics US Edition (2021!)

January 23, 2021

13 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Capitalism without the proper amount of redistribution leads to disruption, imbalance and finally a collapse of the system. Naturally those who profit most will always oppose changes and will make something up like the trickle-down nonsense - but they are also complaining the most when they can't get out of their guarded compounds anymore or finally get clubbed to death by a starving mob. And the funny thing is that 75% of society are led to believe they are the ones profiting (or at the brink of doing so) while actually it's the top 10% if not even less.

Well said

HoonDing · January 23, 2021

You don't need any education at all in a country where a Qanon follower can be elected to Congress.

January 23, 2021

2 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

You don't need any education at all in a country where a Qanon follower can be elected to Congress.

QAnon elected to Congress is the product of a country that doesn't value education, not a signal that no education is needed.

The most dangerous thing in the world right now is confusion. The only thing that will counter it is education.

PK htiw klaw eriF · January 23, 2021

Marjorie Green, the Qanon Congresswoman, has a Bachelor's in Business Administration. She also took over her father's construction company and lived in a wealthy area, so it isn't a case of the (white) working class getting fooled.

Taken on it's own, "education" is really too vague to be a counter to confusion. Arguably a bad education can exacerbate it, as the 1776 thing by Trump would have certainly done. I don't think there's really a silver bullet for stopping conspiracy theories and other stupid **** people believe.

rjshae · January 23, 2021

55 minutes ago, Achilles said:

QAnon elected to Congress is the product of a country that doesn't value education, not a signal that no education is needed.

The most dangerous thing in the world right now is confusion. The only thing that will counter it is education.

I'm not sure it's about education. The trend I see is that the Republican party has spent a couple of decades indoctrinating its followers into distrusting the mainstream media. Lacking any other sources of reliable information, they naturally migrate toward (mostly unproveable) conspiracy theories that are easy to package and popularize. Perhaps QAnon was inevitable?

I wonder if the fix could be to create reliable information sources that lack procedural bias; just relate the facts for both sides? Maybe we need an AI political bias detector?

January 23, 2021

52 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

Marjorie Green, the Qanon Congresswoman, has a Bachelor's in Business Administration. She also took over her father's construction company and lived in a wealthy area, so it isn't a case of the (white) working class getting fooled.

Taken on it's own, "education" is really too vague to be a counter to confusion. Arguably a bad education can exacerbate it, as the 1776 thing by Trump would have certainly done. I don't think there's really a silver bullet for stopping conspiracy theories and other stupid **** people believe.

At the risk of making a "no true Scotsman" argument, misinformation != education. But to your point it would probably be a good idea for me to find a better word.

Gfted1 · January 23, 2021

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Poor, brilliant people will stay poor and uneducated while rich, stupid douches and their decendants will stay rich.

I assume youre referring to the US. Have you observed a reversal of this trend in Europe with their free education opportunities?

ShadySands · January 23, 2021

But if people can't make 150 million dollars what incentive do they have to make just 100 million dollars?

Anyways, obligatory DS9

PS I may have hit the Manischewitz a little hard

majestic · January 23, 2021

22 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

PS I may have hit the Manischewitz a little hard

's the best way to deal with this thread. Outside of staying away.

Boeroer · January 23, 2021

57 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

I assume youre referring to the US. Have you observed a reversal of this trend in Europe with their free education opportunities?

I was talking about an unchecked capitalism in general.

Those trends are less prominent in European countries that have (or had) a rel. strong social democratic influence. This doesn't only mean free education but also universal health care, free child care (day nursery, kindergarden, pre-school), paid apprenticeship instead of unpaid internship, access to funding and fair loans, information campagins and so on and so forth. Rich kids and kids of academics will always have a head start - you shoudn't put a spoke in the poor kids' wheels.

Small anecdote: in my school class on the Gymnasium (high school basically) there were 25 kids and none of us had parents who were rich or academics. We nearly all went to university. I met most of them on our 20th anniversary of the Abitur (high school diploma) in 2015 and was pleasantly surprised that all of them had been quite successful in life.

Edited January 23, 2021 by Boeroer

ComradeYellow · January 23, 2021

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

-Steinbeck (attributed)

Gromnir · January 24, 2021

4 hours ago, KaineParker said:

Marjorie Green, the Qanon Congresswoman, has a Bachelor's in Business Administration. She also took over her father's construction company and lived in a wealthy area, so it isn't a case of the (white) working class getting fooled.

Taken on it's own, "education" is really too vague to be a counter to confusion. Arguably a bad education can exacerbate it, as the 1776 thing by Trump would have certainly done. I don't think there's really a silver bullet for stopping conspiracy theories and other stupid **** people believe.

your mistake is using a single example to dismiss the benefits o' societal education. of course education on an individual basis is never particular meaningful and you will always be able to find examples o' educated buffoons. meet an educated individual and assume they is free o' conspiracy nonsense or is less bigoted is a mistake. have pointed out on the boards dozens o' times that an education does not confer magical powers o' insight. bs. ba. ma. ms. jd. md. phd. we can all find examples o' individuals with loads o' education initials who is obtuse and willful ignorant.

meet bob and assume he cannot be a follower o' q nonsense because he has a degree from princeton should be an obvious fail.

however, as a group, people with a degree from princeton is far less likely to be believers in q than is folks who failed to graduate high school.

that said, when it comes to conspiracy theory, bs receptivity is most close connected with being a loser... denotative. those who believe they has gotten the fuzzy end o' the lollipop, even more than education, leads to high bs receptivity and a tendency to believe in conspiracy theory.

being able to discern stoopid is indeed an education thing, but one need always keep in mind that on an individual basis it is unwise to assume clarity and/or insight 'cause o' a sequence o' pretentious post name initials. never assume education makes a person smart. however, education on a larger scale significant diminishes the likelihood a populace will fall for stoopid.

HA! Good Fun!

ps perhaps think of education same as vaccine efficacy. even highly efficacious covid-19 vaccines is 'round 90% effective. best vaccines nevertheless will still result in individual people suffering from covid-19 even if they has been vaccinated. however, once enough people get vaccinated, the spread o' the virus diminishes and herd immunity occurs at some not-specific point nullifying the possibility o' pandemic. education is like a vaccine for ignorance and conspiracy. is not perfect, but enough people get educated means no pandemic level o' stoopid.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Gromnir

PK htiw klaw eriF · January 24, 2021

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

your mistake is using a single example to dismiss the benefits o' societal education.

That's not what I was doing, I was pointing out that the joke Hoon Ding made about not needing an education was misleading because the subject (Congresswoman Green) had in fact received an education. In fact I think societal education is beneficial, even if implementations of it are not good.

While I doubt there's any hard data on Qanon demographics, I don't think it would be much of a reach to say it's very similar to the demographics of Trump's hardline supporters. If this is the case, then I'd argue that being white is a better indicator of being a Qanon (or whatever we're calling the group members) than education or income. While education is a massive factor among white people (a degree cuts at least 20% of Trump support away), it doesn't seem to have the same effect with people of color (who generally dislike Trump across education level). With this in mind, any attempt at combating the prevalence of right wing conspiracy theories or the embrace of "Trumpism" that doesn't take into account how whiteness is a factor in adoption is going to come up short.

January 24, 2021

4 hours ago, ShadySands said:

But if people can't make 150 million dollars what incentive do they have to make just 100 million dollars?

Key word is "incentive". The incentive structure for a pious priest who swears a vow of poverty is different than an unapologetic capitalist who stopped reading anything new after encountering The Gospel of Wealth for the first time.

The issue at hand is identifying better and worse incentive structures.

3 hours ago, Gromnir said:

of course education on an individual basis is never particular meaningful and you will always be able to find examples o' educated buffoons.

I live in a "2nd amendment state" so I love making the joke that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a college degree is a good guy with a college degree

Gromnir · January 24, 2021

1 hour ago, KaineParker said:

That's not what I was doing, I was pointing out that the joke Hoon Ding made about not needing an education was misleading because the subject (Congresswoman Green) had in fact received an education. In fact I think societal education is beneficial, even if implementations of it are not good.

While I doubt there's any hard data on Qanon demographics, I don't think it would be much of a reach to say it's very similar to the demographics of Trump's hardline supporters. If this is the case, then I'd argue that being white is a better indicator of being a Qanon (or whatever we're calling the group members) than education or income. While education is a massive factor among white people (a degree cuts at least 20% of Trump support away), it doesn't seem to have the same effect with people of color (who generally dislike Trump across education level). With this in mind, any attempt at combating the prevalence of right wing conspiracy theories or the embrace of "Trumpism" that doesn't take into account how whiteness is a factor in adoption is going to come up short.

and again, w/i trump supporters, the ones who is q anon adherents is more likely to be less educated. causation v. correlation fail. trump supporters is tending to be white and his base is, particular after the most recent election, working class. given the polarization in this country, and as q has somehow become an alt-right thing, attributing a racial predisposition would appear to be missing the obvious, no? going out to the suburbs o' college towns and trying to inoculate the white folks 'gainst qanon is gonna be providing diminishing returns as those folks is gonna be few and far between. converse, go to rural and and economic suffering portions o' the country and look for q is gonna be ez.

@Achilles

ted cruz is a disturbing example o' educated who is clear purposeful appealing to the less educated portions o' the republican party. we would argue cruz is one o' the ten brightest guys in Congress, and am perhaps doing him a disservice to suggest only top ten. like him or not (not) his career as an attorney was impressive and his legal writings reveal a disciplined and insightful intellect.

having read the comments sections o' many fox news articles, am worried 'bout the potential to change hearts and minds. the hardcore believers in q and trump is not thinking. they have faith.

HA! Good Fun!

ps sadly, is multiple qanon folks in congress nowadays other than greene. is questionable how many is genuine believers as 'posed to political opportunists exploiting the shortcomings o' their electorate.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Gromnir

PK htiw klaw eriF · January 24, 2021

14 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

and again, w/i trump supporters, the ones who is q anon adherents is more likely to be less educated. causation v. correlation fail.

I haven't seen anything to support that one way or the other. Do you have anything that isn't behind a paywall?

15 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

trump supporters is tending to be white and his base is, particular after the most recent election, working class.

You need to add a big "white" before that working class, because solely in context of income Trump trailed Biden by at least 10% with families making under 100K (Trump leads by around 10% with people making over $100k) and solely in context of education Trump has only a 2% lead among folks without a degree. (per New Yourk Times) Simply by the numbers being white is a better predictor of Trump support than either education or income, and white evangelical is an even better predictor but a whole nother can of worms. In context of education and race only white people without a college degree strongly support Trump, white people with a college degree favored Biden by about 3%, and people of color supported Biden by at least 70% regardless of education level. With all of this context in mind, you can't really understand Trump support without factoring in whiteness because without that component Trump support deflates.

Given Trump's lead among wealthier people, it's disappointing that there aren't any breakdowns along race and income or race + income + education. Something tells me that white people who make over $100k without a degree are going to clock in higher levels of Trump support, this probably describes the other Qanon congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who didn't have a GED until 2020 and owns(ed?) at least three restaurants.

18 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

given the polarization in this country, and as q has somehow become an alt-right thing, attributing a racial predisposition would appear to be missing the obvious, no? going out to the suburbs o' college towns and trying to inoculate the white folks 'gainst qanon is gonna be providing diminishing returns as those folks is gonna be few and far between. converse, go to rural and and economic suffering portions o' the country and look for q is gonna be ez.

On the contrary, given the proximity of the alt-right to white nationalism, not attributing a racial predisposition would be missing the obvious. While less educated white people are more likely to support Trump and Qanon than their educated counterparts, educated white folks still got behind Trump in a greater percentage than people of color. And given the prevalence of the internet in sustaining and spreading the alt-right in general and qanon specifically, you'd be better served looking at the types of people getting pulled into 4chan, rightwing facebook and reddit groups, or similar hives of magas and conspiracy than just going by geography.

January 24, 2021

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

ted cruz is a disturbing example o' educated who is clear purposeful appealing to the less educated portions o' the republican party. we would argue cruz is one o' the ten brightest guys in Congress, and am perhaps doing him a disservice to suggest only top ten. like him or not (not) his career as an attorney was impressive and his legal writings reveal a disciplined and insightful intellect.

Well, if he's not part of Team Stupid, then he must be...

Gromnir · January 24, 2021

9 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

stuff

first of all, use exit polls is fundamental broken.

am not sure if you are being serious. wait. that ain't true. am certain you are serious, but you keep insisting on doing the correlation fail.

qanon is a conspiracy theory which claims democrat economic and political leaders is part o' a pedophilia sex ring. you already note that minorities disproportionate vote democrat, so the fact that there is not many minority adherents o' such a conspiracy theory is surprising? attribute to whiteness when obvious reason for democrats to avoid qanon is baseball bat swing to the face obvious?

and again, you are trying to lump all white voters into a block. newsflash: there are wealthy white voters who supported trump 'cause their iras is doing swell and they support deregulation.

but heck, if poll numbers is a thing...

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/the-trump-biden-presidential-contest/

notice college grad for whites and overall is virtual identical: 37% trump and 57/58% biden... technical 1% better for white grads and the strong lean for biden were 5% better. this helps explain why biden did so much better in the suburbs than did hillary, despite exit poll numbers.

also, is perhaps noteworthy that regardless o' race, as education increases, trump support decreases.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-election-swing-state-biden-trump-coalition/

however, in spite o' transactional reasons for voting republican, the numbers for biden amongst white and educated voters improved significant over hillary whereas minority support for biden, in the new age o' qanon, decreased.

"In the 13 swing states that turned the 2020 presidential election into a nail biter, suburban and urban counties with the highest share of college educated White people supported Biden by 4.4 more points than they did Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to a Bloomberg analysis of the latest available vote counts from the Associated Press."

'ccording to pew, as recent as march of 2020, 76% of americans didn't even know what qanon was. nevertheless, you are using raw presidential voting numbers to describe those who actually support q silliness?

trying to make white voters monolithic is a mistake, a mistake which you keep repeating.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/03/who-supports-qanon-heres-what-our-new-poll-finds/

might also be a mistake to knee jerk the link 'tween q silliness to white supremacy. you state such as if is axiomatic when facts do not support. sadly, disillusioned qanon folks in the post trump world o' 2021 is being active recruited by white supremacist groups. am foreseeing some success 'cause there is a similarity in educational shortcomings 'tween qanon believers and white supremacists.

@Achilles

am agreeing 100% that cruz is team evil, or at least so opportunistic as to not make any practical difference.

HA! Good Fun!

PK htiw klaw eriF · January 24, 2021

19 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

trying to make white voters monolithic is a mistake, a mistake which you keep repeating.

I did nothing of the sort my dude. "Simply by the numbers being white is a better predictor of Trump support than either education or income" is not treating white voters as monolithic. This claim is supported by the pew research poll you linked, which not only shows Trump polling better with white people as a group than people with "some college" or "HS or less" as groups, but specifically shows that white people with no college degree favored Trump more than people without a degree in general by about 10%.

26 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

might also be a mistake to knee jerk the link 'tween q silliness to white supremacy. you state such as if is axiomatic when facts do not support

...did you read the link in "'Q' shares messages — or clues — to followers on the anonymous social media platform 8kun" in the Washington Post article you linked? If you didn't, "8chan, the anonymous message board known for propelling white-supremacist and extremist content, is up and running after being knocked offline in August. The site, rebranded as 8kun, claims anything deemed illegal in the United States will be removed." are the two first sentences.

Gromnir · January 24, 2021

2 hours ago, KaineParker said:

...did you read the link in "'Q' shares messages — or clues — to followers on the anonymous social media platform 8kun" in the Washington Post article you linked? If you didn't, "8chan, the anonymous message board known for propelling white-supremacist and extremist content, is up and running after being knocked offline in August. The site, rebranded as 8kun, claims anything deemed illegal in the United States will be removed." are the two first sentences.

we read, and again, just 'cause they share same sites does not mean they are ideological aligned. look at this board for examples. you obvious didn't bother reading the rest o' the article and instead wanna pull out one seemingly helpful factoid. you did notice the article is trying to explain how q ain't exact the alt-right group folks tend to believe it to be, yes? is an extreme small fringe group which appeals most to individuals with high bs receptivity.

"When we combine these four questions into a single summary measure of conspiracy thinking, we find that they are strongly correlated with positive views of QAnon, regardless of the survey respondent’s partisanship."

is not racial. is basic conspiracy nutter measures such as low education and a high degree o' dissatisfaction. do a search for bs receptivity if you wish. curious, intelligence is not considered to be direct protection gainst apophenia, but education is. this is in part 'cause measure intelligence is a whole different can o' worms the psych guys don't wanna tackle whereas education levels is objective. is not some kinda white thing. q, for obvious reasons, is gonna appeal less frequent to minorities, but you are a dog with a bone on this and wanna ignore obvious.

and yeah, you did lump white voters together based on crude numbers. is the same kinda stoopid which has white folks blaming minorities for crime 'cause look at these fbi numbers. correlative v. causation fails.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/10/09/the-trump-biden-presidential-contest/pp_2020-10-09_election-and-voter-attitudes_1-04/

college degree holders is not pro trump, and this trend is actual more pronounced (if only slight) mongst white specific. strong favor biden were even more significant mongst white college grads than overall college grads and as education increases, favorability for trump decreases.

bs receptivity is highest 'mongst poor educated folks who is losers. denotative losers-- persons who is looking for explanations for why they is getting less while everybody else, in their estimation, is getting more. so yeah, trump, speaking to disaffected and poor educated were natural gonna appeal to conspiracy theory wingnuts such as q adherents.

but hey, you wanna see as a white thing, knock yourself out.

HA! Good Fun!

ps we were gonna wait a couple more posts before stating the obvious, but am already getting bored. assume for the moment white is somehow the core indicator, then how does that change anything? can't cure white. regardless o' the appeal o' a soap box fight 'gainst white bigotry, is fact that as education increases, bs receptivity and appreciation o' demagogues such as trump decreases. reminder, education is not a guaranteed individual cure but is societal inoculation. perhaps you think whitey needs be singled out for the most education? *chuckle* whatever. your flawed correlative observation changes absolute nothing. increase education and the q problem and similar conspiracy and ignorance based obstacles disappear.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Gromnir

Guard Dog · January 24, 2021

8 hours ago, Achilles said:

Key word is "incentive". The incentive structure for a pious priest who swears a vow of poverty is different than an unapologetic capitalist who stopped reading anything new after encountering The Gospel of Wealth for the first time.

The issue at hand is identifying better and worse incentive structures.

I live in a "2nd amendment state" so I love making the joke that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a college degree is a good guy with a college degree

OK that last bit, I’m stealing that!

BruceVC · January 24, 2021

Your post has some really complex and important questions that still need to be satisfactorily answered around Trumpism and the good and bad of it in the last 4 years. People are discussing these things and we will some good reports and studies coming out

But just to quickly address HoonDings comment, its always provides some entertainment for some, and in the examples of China and Venezuela a pointless "self-justification " for their own systems of often criticized ,flawed or failed government policies ,to laugh at this type of outcome that we saw during Trumpism. Unfortunately certain criticism around the Trump presidency and how it ended are valid so the QAnon interest is understandable but not for the reasons Hooding posted

Of course if you genuinely wanted to know if the statement is true its patently not true. The lady was not elected to Congress because of a lack of education. It was ideological and she was supported by Trump and that was enough. Any views or logical precedents that discuss the facts about movements like QAnon are almost impossible to have in the normal way we understand any ideological movement because the core QAnon manifesto doesn't make any sense on a level normal of understanding. Its based on a combination of conspiracy theories, political dichotomy , irrational and rational bias and the one common Trumpism thread that hopefully is gone

Some people who supported Trump decided to create their own reality of events and how certain things work in the world. Trump made things worse but he cant be blamed for what people decided to think was the truth and how the ability to do research and analysis suddenly failed for them

And part of this believing in misinformation and " alternative facts " was partly due to how various news channels frame certain political decisions or realities. But all citizens in any society that has things like freedom of speech and freedom of information you are not suppose to accept and believe everything automatically you see in the media .....unless it obvious its true

We live in an amazing time, this is the greatest era of mankind where so many things have improved yet you see people refusing to be subjective or rational about things and deciding " I will only believe what Trump says " or in the case of QAnon they see false signs and have unproven views on events that can be understood through a normal analysis of the event

So going back to one of your points, was QAnon inevitable ? Groups like this exist in basically every country in the world already but there presence is normal seen on the Internet. Under Trumpism something went wrong with how these groups are suppose to function....they are not suppose to think "Internet echo chamber " logic and outcomes can easily translate into how the RL operates

Its not the same in many cases. So in summary Trumpism gave them a false agency where their vacuous and generally uninformed opinions suddenly became " real "

And then to make things worse many of these groups suddenly made Trump a foundation as part of their own beliefs and motivations ..yet Trump had no real interest or understanding of the different groups that made him their inspiration. He was only concerned really if these groups supported him and some of his own views

Trump was actually somehow giving hand signals for QAnon in numerous public events he attended and he apparently instructed people to attack the Capitol....very hard to prove that legally ?

One solution to this is relatively simple, people who were part of the misinformation need to go back to how most of us rationalize things. You base your opinion from multiple sources and you apply common sense to how we understand things. For example if you dont have a a degree in a subject and no institutional experience in that field what you can learn only from the Internet can really be limited and you may know certain technical aspects of a subject but are you the right person to argue with a doctor about mask wearing during a pandemic ?

That is what some mask denialists did in many states in the USA around their views that masks were a political statement

BruceVC · January 24, 2021

20 hours ago, rjshae said:

I'm not sure it's about education. The trend I see is that the Republican party has spent a couple of decades indoctrinating its followers into distrusting the mainstream media. Lacking any other sources of reliable information, they naturally migrate toward (mostly unproveable) conspiracy theories that are easy to package and popularize. Perhaps QAnon was inevitable?

I wonder if the fix could be to create reliable information sources that lack procedural bias; just relate the facts for both sides? Maybe we need an AI political bias detector?