Twenty years ago, most Republican politicians at least knew that Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing talk radio jocks, were feeding the rubes a bunch of BS to enable the GOP to keep deregulating businesses and passing tax cuts for the rich.
Nowadays, most Republicans in Congress are people who grew up politically listening to Rush Limbaugh. (And the younger ones grew up on Fox News as well.) Rather than doling out the Kool-Aid, the party is mostly in the control of the people who drank it. (Mitch McConnell is an exception here. But not in a good way.)
This board seems very concerned with labels - I think that is what gives it a different feel than other platforms. The conversations turn in that direction; which is interesting to for some people (me included) but I think that can be a big turn off for many.
Most places I visit on the Web have sorted themselves by their shade of politics. No need for labels if almost everyone there is at almost exactly the same point on the political and ideological spectrum as you are.
I don’t know if it’s allowed, but I could certainly show you what goes on in those other platforms, or tell you which specific ones to look at in order to see for yourself what the difference is or is not. The moderation is much different and there are more specific posting requirements. I believe there are rules here about talking about other message boards, but my post is merely a response to the other posts speculating about the SDMB membership decline especially among younger people.
My parents refused to subscribe to the Tribune when I was growing up in the sixties and seventies. Entirely too conservative, they said. I tried to talk them out of it since Peanuts appeared in the Trib. No luck.
I’m glad someone else chimed in about this. You have to be super right wing and see every part of the “lamestream media” as on the left to see the Tribune as liberal!
However, there’s no doubt that this board has shifted dramatically to the left over the years. Is this really in dispute? And it’s not in the “hey, we’re a bunch of mainstream Democrats”, which would be cool. It has become dominated by aggressively PC, identity-politics oriented left wingers, who are a real buzzkill.
Missed this first time around. Get litigious with me, then…
Really?
Not familiar with dearly departed OP’s posting history, but judging from his flouncing comments about oh-noes!-antifas/“You didn’t build that” horse hockey, I’m a little surprised to hear you say that.
Yeah, not worth a whole shitload, that.
To remind:
…and along with their LGBTQ support and actually giving a shit about the poor, then: nah, they’re, um, fucking heapfuls more open-minded and inclusive than right-wing folk.
Sure, I’ll go with that.
Even though I’ve been here not all that comparatively long, this comment seems a little vague and weak and definitely could use some elaboration. (heh - in ATMB?)
That’s “There is only one.”
Usually try to avoid responding to someone who got a cardiac(?) about five months ago and hasn’t been here since, but seriously, AllanFotheringhamgay, Russia is expanding their influence all over Central Asia; they’re frantically boosting trade relations with Japan, Taiwan, the Koreas, Vietnam the Phillipines, and Indonesia; exerting influence in Venezuela; sowing political discord in the US and western European countries to weaken the shit out of them (along with fomenting divisiveness between NATO and the European Union); and encouraging alt-right extremism in eastern European countries [and in Sweden, as well as in Holland, trying to get alt-righter and Jimmy Page imposter Geert Wilders (unsuccessfully, thankfully) into power about a year and a half ago.]
So to claim that Russia is not angling to be virtually the dominant world player is, at best, disingenuous.
:dubious:
Elaborate, please.
A couple +1 posts, further reinforcing the left’s openness, and the right’s dysfunction:
I don’t think so. This board has always leaned “cite?”, where actual facts and coherent arguments were more important than the spouting of talking points. That viewpoint, in and of itself, certainly can make things appear to “lean left”.
The board always has had some obnoxious, asinine leftists (I wonder where Diogenes is now?), and there will always be ElvisLives or asahi to continue the trend. But it’s no worse now than before.
One thing I have noticed though is the recent loss of intelligent Republicans. It’s not like we were swimming with a ton of them before, but I haven’t seen Bricker or Scylla or really any rational Republicans anymore. I suppose UltraVires, but that’s no great shakes.
I dont think that’s an issue with the board, though. It’s really hard to be a rational Republican now. Now that we’ve learned the reality of who the Republocan base really is and what their motivations really are, it’s tough to defend. Much easier to take a hiatus or find another place than to try to defend this horrid administration and its spineless enablers.
I am, and while he was a Nomad he did indeed contribute many interesting points. For many years, he lived as an ever-moving expat because he had the kind of job which allowed that (self-employed IT dude) and because a medical incident as a child made him uninsurable in the US as a self-employed IT dude.
ACA made it possible for him to go Back Home. The things he says in his OP make me think of all those immigrants who, as soon as their paperwork is fully finalized, start ranting, not against illegal immigrants, but against anybody who dares immigrate to “this country WE built!!!” Uh, you got sworn-in as a citizen last Saturday, I was there…
Hamlet, the dynamic you describe should support there being a disproportionate number of hyper-rational center-left types who are fans of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, etc. But that describes me to a T, and when I stick up for those kinds of viewpoints, I get roundly attacked by a swarm of “woke” politically correct types whom I would not characterize as being in the facts-and-reason camp, sadly.
