American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Yup, Trump gets the dumb and of course the racist votes. problem is there was 74 million of them last time. What a country.

He also parlays the majority of rich people and finance types.

I have a couple friends that live in SF and NYC in finance and they are amongst hard core Trumpist merely for greed.

To them, Trump will turn a blind eye to their wealth building, coupled with a decreasing regulations. To many people, Trump is their way to getting a bag.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by flames_fan_down_under

I would agree with this. There is also a lack of strong male role models that are appealing to young men, which is why so many are drawn to Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson etc. These men promote masculinity in a way that is of course toxic, but they give young men someone who speaks to them and "cares" about them. My suspicion is it is rooted in the mental health epidemic prevalent in young men because they lack strong social connections because of social media.

There are literally thousands of male role models in almost every sector of culture/life. Men do not lack role models. Men just appear to be picking the worst ones - also the ones that cast men as victims without any thought. It's easy to do nothing and just be a victim of circumstance.

Can't get hold a job? nah, its not because of your lack of education, it's because of immigrants are taking all the good jobs.

Can't get a girlfriend? nah, its not because of your lack of career prospects, or general redeeming/desired qualities, its because women are whores and only want guys because of their money!

[activeStick]

Nervous about the debate tomorrow. No question in my eyes that Harris is levels smarter than Trump, but so was Hillary and so was Biden. Trump has shown in all of his last debates that despite his opponents being smarter than him, he has a way to come out on top in the perception of viewers anyways. And with the nervousness I've seen from Harris in interviews where she doesn't have a script, I'm hoping she can somehow break the pattern and come out strong, with crisp, concise answers. I believe Gabbard, who hit Harris pretty skillfully during the Dem debates in 2020, is coaching Trump through the debate tomorrow.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Nervous about the debate tomorrow. No question in my eyes that Harris is levels smarter than Trump, but so was Hillary and so was Biden. Trump has shown in all of his last debates that despite his opponents being smarter than him, he has a way to come out on top in the perception of viewers anyways. And with the nervousness I've seen from Harris in interviews where she doesn't have a script, I'm hoping she can somehow break the pattern and come out strong, with crisp, concise answers. I believe Gabbard, who hit Harris pretty skillfully during the Dem debates in 2020, is coaching Trump through the debate tomorrow.

Again, it's because Trump goes on the offensive, he does not care.

Harris needs to come across as confident, sure of herself, in command of facts. She would be well served to toss out one or two new policy ideas, just to quiet the criticism that she’s short on specifics. Guns, Abortion, Economy, immigration, the pandemic that he made so much worse, the insurrection, his felony conviction, his Putin-love, and all the rest, not hum and haw and play defense. She can't say 'next question' in the debate like she did in her CNN interview. She has to come out ready to throw punches.

Trump is going to savage her in every way he can think of. It’s who he is. He can’t believe he’s losing to a Black woman, and he can’t possibly comprehend the fact that America likes her better. Harris’s favorability rating isn’t exactly high but it's at least neutral instead of unfavorable latched to Biden

He knows there’s only one way he can win: He needs to get America to hate Harris. Right now, people don’t. They don’t adore her, but they don’t hate her. This is very different from 2016, when he was running against someone the right wing had been telling Americans to hate for decades. He knows he has seven weeks to do a Hillary on Kamala.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Cappy

There are literally thousands of male role models in almost every sector of culture/life. Men do not lack role models. Men just appear to be picking the worst ones - also the ones that cast men as victims without any thought. It's easy to do nothing and just be a victim of circumstance.

Can't get hold a job? nah, its not because of your lack of education, it's because of immigrants are taking all the good jobs.

Can't get a girlfriend? nah, its not because of your lack of career prospects, or general redeeming/desired qualities, its because women are whores and only want guys because of their money!

I'd argue that there is a distinct lack of gentlemanly, articulate, and intellectual male role models in popular American culture. Name 5.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I'd argue that there is a distinct lack of gentlemanly, articulate, and intellectual male role models in popular American culture. Name 5.

I think there are tons of men who fit that description out there. The problem is that for every young guy following Hank Green on YouTube there are 100 following Logan Paul. We need to make science cool again, I guess?

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by activeStick

….No question in my eyes that Harris is levels smarter than Trump, but so was Hillary and so was Biden. Trump has shown in all of his last debates that despite his opponents being smarter than him, he has a way to come out on top in the perception of viewers anyways….

I’m not so sure about that. Hard-core MAGAts will believe whatever bullsh1t Trump spews, and there will be a lot. Many undecideds will be turned off by the bs; some will come over to Kamala’s side but I don’t see them going to Trump if they’re undecided at this point.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

I think there are tons of men who fit that description out there. The problem is that for every young guy following Hank Green on YouTube there are 100 following Logan Paul. We need to make science cool again, I guess?

My younger son's favorite celebrity is Mark Rober (engineering YouTuber). I agree there are plenty of positive roll models available, it's a matter of looking for things that are positive vs just floating along in an algorithmic sea of crap.

[Bonded]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...table-00106105

Good read through on masculinity and the left

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Bonded

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...table-00106105

Good read through on masculinity and the left

Half way through and this quote is so bang on

“ There are really two abiding themes in masculinity: The macho man — Trump’s got that covered — and the good man. And what Democrats need to do, and Josh Shapiro did this, Lis, to a certain extent, is enact the good man, the decent man, the “It’s a Wonderful Life” man. The only people I see articulating that are other Republicans, which makes me a little sad as a Democrat.”

I am an advocate for men being allowed to be who they are. Including being traditional men. Strong, protective and proud providers. Its not something to be ashamed of.

That said, its taking the next step to being a gentleman that earns my respect. Listens, thinks, isn’t obnoxious but is strong. Those are the leaders we need more of than the Trumps.

[direwolf]

We all know how this debate will go:

No matter how strong Kamala is or how much she stays on message and lays out her platform, every breath, word, gesture and body language from her will be heavily scrutinized and picked apart by the media in exhaustive detail.

Meanwhile Trump will lie constantly and continue to spew insane, racist, sexist, fascist bulls***, and no one in the media will bat an eye or call him out on any of it. And his poll numbers will probably go up as a result.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

You can basically pinpoint the moment Harris lost her juice when her team forced the messaging to pivot back to the same stances as Biden on everything.

Who knew the people yearned for at least a minor shift to the left.



I'm going to guess that right-wing demonization of education, especially post-secondary institutions, and the general thread of anti-intellectualism that is so pervasive in their rhetoric, has led young men (who vastly outnumber women in leaning right under-30) away from going to college. It wouldn't be shocking to hear that they are avoiding "woke" campuses and "elite" professors.

Part of it is systemic. Boys benefit from delayed entry into school more than girls and are more disproportionately affected by early start times. So the lack of good child care options hurts boys more than girls.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I’m not so sure about that. Hard-core MAGAts will believe whatever bullsh1t Trump spews, and there will be a lot. Many undecideds will be turned off by the bs; some will come over to Kamala’s side but I don’t see them going to Trump if they’re undecided at this point.

Inflation is the topic that can sway people. I see examples of more than a few people who aren't really MAGA types who think everything is expensive now because of Biden and things were better in that regard under Trump.

It's probably too Kludgy to convince many people that Trump definitely set up this period of inflation, as well as a lot of other factors.

But, I do think it is possible to call out Trump's plans as being very inflationary. His core platform is to kick out illegals, raise tariffs, and meddle with the Federal Reserve to bring down rates. All 3 of those things will drive up prices and inflation, especially if they are any where near the levels he is proposing.

Harris needs to make an effective case at the debate that Trump is the far greater threat to accelerating inflation.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

That's pretty interesting. I would have thought that social media would give the left a huge advantage? What was before social media? Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio.

Why would the social media give the left an advantage?

It's owned by a bunch of billionaire ghouls (or China), and is well known to have good pipelines to radicalize the young men to the right, it generally mostly just feeds into cynicism and/or doomerism. It also just feeds into a bunch of influencer beef / leftist infighting.

The Democrats as a party are IMO pretty weak in social media. Social media is just not friendly to people who want to fix things with policy, it's boring. So while some progressive causes get a lot of attention on social media, it's very different from the kind of direct party support machine the GOP has built.

The lefties/progressives in social media put out quality content, but they're nowhere near as popular or famous as figures like Shapiro, Tate and Peterson.

[dino7c]

With all this being said the GOP gets millions less votes every election

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Nervous about the debate tomorrow. No question in my eyes that Harris is levels smarter than Trump, but so was Hillary and so was Biden. Trump has shown in all of his last debates that despite his opponents being smarter than him, he has a way to come out on top in the perception of viewers anyways. And with the nervousness I've seen from Harris in interviews where she doesn't have a script, I'm hoping she can somehow break the pattern and come out strong, with crisp, concise answers. I believe Gabbard, who hit Harris pretty skillfully during the Dem debates in 2020, is coaching Trump through the debate tomorrow.

Nah. Trump lost all the debates in every poll, except the last one with Biden obviously. Biden smoked him perception wise in 2020. And HRC was perceived to have won in 2016 (and remember she won the popular vote by 3 million).

[Itse]

Originally Posted by dino7c

With all this being said the GOP gets millions less votes every election

Millions less compared to what? Trump got 2nd most votes of any presidential candidate ever in 2020, 74 million compares to Obamas previous record of 69.5M from 2008 and 12 million more than he got in 2016.

In general the Trump era elections have had record turnouts and they've all been close. GOP won the popular vote by 4 million votes in 2022. They're doing fine and would likely be fine even without Trump.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Itse

Why would the social media give the left an advantage?

It's owned by a bunch of billionaire ghouls (or China), and is well known to have good pipelines to radicalize the young men to the right, it generally mostly just feeds into cynicism and/or doomerism. It also just feeds into a bunch of influencer beef / leftist infighting.

The Democrats as a party are IMO pretty weak in social media. Social media is just not friendly to people who want to fix things with policy, it's boring. So while some progressive causes get a lot of attention on social media, it's very different from the kind of direct party support machine the GOP has built.

The lefties/progressives in social media put out quality content, but they're nowhere near as popular or famous as figures like Shapiro, Tate and Peterson.

It was my impression that boomers and truckers weren't on social media and liberals could use social media and podcast to usurp talk radio. I guess I'm wrong if the right is winning that war too.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

It was my impression that boomers and truckers weren't on social media and liberals could use social media and podcast to usurp talk radio. I guess I'm wrong if the right is winning that war too.

Maybe 20 years ago.

My dad has Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok. He's over 65

I have Instagram (with 30 minute time limiters).

Social Media is addictive as hell, and Boomers have bought in hook line and sinker. The algorithms just continue to feed them what they want to hear, over, and over, and over.

[marsplasticeraser]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

It was my impression that boomers and truckers weren't on social media and liberals could use social media and podcast to usurp talk radio. I guess I'm wrong if the right is winning that war too.

I think maybe a different way of thinking of this is "Why didn't a left-wing talk radio evolve?"

There's likely a personality trait that made talk radio a great way to appeal to a certain type of person.

I've never really thought of this, but the right has a real default to authority as well as the stick together no matter what ethos. This is probably pretty good for a top-down, one-to-many communication style such as talk radio and social media.

As has been noted, those in the centre and left squabble, and you'll find that most centrists and those left-of-centre have beliefs that straddle multiple political parties. They don't want a top-down 'here is what you will believe' as what they're told is often at odds to their personal beliefs.

This makes it hard to have a top-down, one-to-many communication style talking to moderates and those left of centre.

In thinking of this just now, I totally see this in my circle of friends as well.

Most of my friends talk about ideas they've read, not a headline, but an article by a real journalist, or a book, or at times long-form podcasts or youtube. What's interesting is that it's very rare we talk about 'this is the answer', but often around what the problem is and the impact of different solutions.

In contrast, my right-of-centre friends share almost exclusively twitter posts and want to make me agree that their answer is correct. It's almost impossible to talk about the problem, why it's a problem (is it a problem?), or other possible solutions.