Echoing what is being stated as well as aligned with the thread trend here. SDMB is like an island in a sea of questionable information, where astute observations by readers here can be so helpful in providing direction for follow-up reading and investigation. Usually, people here are correct, which is great and appreciated in times like these.
TBH I have used the Dope as a primary point for finding out about the latest outrages from the outgoing administration, rather than local news and social media. It will be refreshing to engage on beating-back the pandemic, restoring the economy, and addressing the challenges of climate change and social equity, rather than having to eye-roll at the latest Presidential fuck-up.
I originally joined the board last year because I found some illuminating discussion on a non-politics topic I was interested in, via a Google search. However, the bulk of my browsing attention soon gravitated to the politics & elections subforum because I discovered that there were many knowledgeable Dopers who, due to their life experiences in working in politics or law or whatever, happen to know the ins-and-outs of various political processes and protocols, and can explain them in a digestible manner. Even though I’ve been a naturalized US citizen for some time now, I’ve never really bothered to pay close attention to the inner workings of American government. I’m only starting to realize how little I know, and how much I can learn, just by lurking around these parts.
Like many others on this board, I was initially overcome with anxiety from the early voting totals on Election Day and how Republicans might try to sabotage the entire democratic process, but the many educated posts about state election laws/policies from other Dopers helped reassure me that in the end, everything will turn out to be ok! Which it more or less did, the January 6 insurrection notwithstanding.
Compared to Reddit, this board is much more well moderated (having way less site traffic and users than Reddit helps in this regard). Another point in favor of the Dope is that the discourse is generally civil and has a good amount of effort put behind it (well, not all of it … I won’t name names just yet). The SDMB is now the primary message board that I visit, and I find myself more and more withdrawn to this refuge because the people I know in real life are too naïve for my taste.
A few shout-outs:
Since November 2016 I have a quite pessimistic and bleak outlook on the world, and to a large extent it feels like @asahi and @Cervaise are a megaphone extension of my inner mind. I always appreciate their posts, which express what I’ve been too timid to say publicly to my real-world acquaintances.
@ThelmaLou and @Ann_Hedonia Some of your posts are remarkable in their acerbic wit and snarkiness towards Republicans and/or right-wingers, and I’ve nearly spat out my drinks in laughter when reading them. If I ever happen to feel down in the dumps or bored, I just recall those posts and my mood is immediately improved.
I consider @flurb to have a great grasp on different election formalities and policies, and he (she?) along with @Stranger_On_A_Train provided many well-reasoned analyses on matters of political intrigue. I’ve learned a lot from their posts.
All the moderators, for doing the thankless, unpaid job of keeping the discussions high-quality and civil
And all other Dopers, too numerous to list individually, who have contributed to fighting my ignorance in various subjects and keeping up my sanity in dark times.
Thanks to all of you. If we ever meet in person, I’ll buy you a round of beers.
I have been, and continue to be, pessimistic, yes, but I am also cautiously optimistic at the same time. A large part of my pessimism has been attributable to the fact that a lot of people didn’t take the dangers we’ve been facing seriously enough, which is understandable considering how successful our country has been politically, economically, militarily and otherwise. We’re among the most powerful and influential civilizations in recorded history (if not the most).
I see the Capitol riots on January 6th as both a tragic event and potentially a watershed moment that marks the beginning of the end of our country as a liberal democracy. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Now that this country has awakened to the dangers that have existed for some time, perhaps this leads to a great reckoning and a wave of institutional revitalization. There’s a real opportunity for this, and the early evidence suggests that this cultural shift is entirely possible.
But Americans of among all socioeconomic strata and demographic backgrounds have to be committed to understanding how we got ourselves into this mess and even more committed to making room for changes. I think it starts with a realization that our economic system does a great job of creating wealth but a terrible job of redistributing its rewards, and this trend cannot persist for long before it creates deep resentment. We also need a reckoning with regard to the intersection of race and class, and race and institutionalized power. To some degree, our public institutions – our police departments, our bureaucracies, our schools, our universities, our courts, our hospitals, our fire departments, and our board rooms – have to be less white and male…and we have to find tangible ways to help white males realize that their world won’t end as they make room for others in this space.
I have taken great comfort in knowing that my thoughts on the orange menace and his cult are shared by many here. I have a number of Trump supporters in my family and I’ve always wanted to ask them what they see in him, why people that seem normal and intelligent support him after all the BS. But I was always afraid that discussing politics with them would cause a rift that wouldn’t be easily healed.
So I haven’t posted to much in the political thread but the Straight Dope has been my rock. I am still very concerned about the damage that has been caused in the last 4 years, damage that still may come, but I think the healing process has started. Thank you everyone here for making me feel that I am not alone. group hug
Wow, thank you for the shout out! I’ve been on this board for a long time, but I’ve probably posted more in the last four months than the all the previous years combined. For some reason it was Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death – and the complete abandonment of even any pretense by the GOP of principles or a fair process in replacing her – that broke a dam in me. It was such a completely naked power grab and such rank hypocrisy after the Garland nomination that my choices were either to rant at my houseplants or y’all. And I chose y’all.
I’ve only recently joined, mainly because my husband has been reading Cecil for years, and I was curious. I’ve learned a LOT from you guys and you’ve given me, a humble European, trust that there are a lot of good people in the US.
Shoutout to all of you! Dopers gonna dope!
The SDMB has been my social media lifeline for the last 4+ years. I spent an inordinate amount of time in the months leading up to the 2016 election posting links on Facebook to Washington Post and New York Times articles, often with commentary, thinking that it was my patriotic duty as an American citizen to do whatever I could to point out how bad it would be if Trump were elected president. However, all I succeeded in doing was to provoke arguments with my Trumper friends and relatives. It certainly wasn’t a reasoned discussion.
So after the last election, I vowed to stop discussing politics on Facebook. Fortunately the SDMB provided a place for reasoned discussion as well as an outlet (especially in the clusterfuck thread) when I just couldn’t take it anymore. Thanks to all my fellow dopers. You helped keep me sane.
I couldn’t have worded my case any better than this (and as an irrelevant side-note, somehow your posts have always struck me as “I wonder if maybe me and this person are neighbors”).
{I live in the “Fr” town, next to the “Mck” town, that I think both are in the “fastest-growing-cities-in-our-state-if-not-the-whole-US” lists}.
Anyway, my contribution to the “how did this place help you get through the clusterfck” conversation {are we talking about just the last two months, or the whole last four years?} would be that you guys have taught me the value (from arguing with idiots in the Facebook comments) of asking for a cite.
I think I’m batting about .150 in terms of getting someone to actually post a link to a story that backs up their case (especially when it comes to this two-month-long “there was widespread voter fraud” nonsense).
Where you guys really came to mind was a couple of months ago (before the election) when morons-in-the-Facebook-comments got on a roll about how “the Covid numbers are all inflated… I ‘know someone’ who stood in line for hours, and then left, and then a week later got a letter saying they’d tested positive for Covid - so the numbers are inflated”.
I “channeled” y’all like a motherfcker :
Me : “oh yeah, really? who? ya know your Friends list of 450 people is ‘Public’ so who was it? cite, please”.
Them : “oh, I don’t want to reveal who they are, that’s private”.
Me : “so, you mean someone (who {supposedly} wasn’t even tested) has the chance to go ‘on the record’ won’t come forward and be held accountable and get their ‘15 minutes’ and neither you nor them have proof or evidence?”
Them : {Crickets}
The other has been the ongoing “widespread voter proof” bullshit. Ask for a cite and of course they revert to the “do your own research”, or “look it up yourself”, or whatever.
I’ve seen people say that their cite would be available, but “the page won’t let me post a jpg”. I just want to break down and cry at that point. “No, you fcking moron, a meme is not a cite. Don’t you even think about bringing that weak shit to the SDMB, you would get destroyed.”
It’s just been disappointing to me that (otherwise reasonable) people have decided that “well I read it on Twitter” or “well it was on this meme I saw” is a good enough cite, and asking them for anything more than that is like banging your head against the wall. Thanks for letting me vent.
The whole four years (or five if you include his campaign), for sure.
Hehe. You are so right about that! Don’t step through that door unless you have a cite!
One of the most distressing things to me about the whole trump era is the way it has revealed to me how stupid most people are. Not at the Dope. We tend to drive the really intellectually slack and lazy away, but in society at large and sadly, among my friends. I didn’t know so many people could just swallow stupid bullshit, believe it, and live by it without any questions. They are more ready to give credence to ridiculous conspiracy theories than they are to believe right-in-plain-sight, common-sense reality. Hillary and the pizza parlor– are you fucking kidding me? And no, they’re not kidding. How can people be so stoopid? I ask myself. I don’t know how.
True. It’s easier than you might think for human mind to slip into North Korea-style brainwashing. None of us are immune; a distressing number of Americans are already there. Nearly all Dopers have the life experiences to fortify them against such traps…but the gulf is never as wide as we’d like to imagine it is.
This is true. On various social media, I sometimes find myself tempted to share memes that express views or make claims that, if true, would validate my worldview and have to go “Wait a minute - might want to check that before posting”. And every now and then I share one without thinking and get burned.
OTOH if told the thing I shared isn’t true, I don’t immediately launch into whataboutism, so I’m not completely irredeemable. I either delete it or caveat it with a correction (depending on whether there’s been any reaction or discussion of it).
When my children were young and I would talk with other parents on the playground, I always enjoyed what I thought of as the “Oh thank god, your kids do that too” moments. The Dope has been that place for me the last several years - filled with “oh thank god, someone else thinks that was crazy too” moments. So, thank you everyone for the sanity checks and the cites and the pit. My hope is that, before too long, there will be memes of Sheriff Bart from “Blazing Saddles” saying, “To speak the plain truth, it’s getting pretty damn dull around here.”
People try that shit with me and my standard response is “if you make a claim it’s your responsibility to provide proof. It’s not fair to make others do your homework”. That usually shuts them right the fuck up.
Good point, I think. A lot of this comes down to how willing someone is to admit they were wrong about something. Many factors play into this, but as has been said often, it’s about how invested you are in being right — how much your self-worth depends on others supporting the consistency of your views.
For me personally, it’s less about “avoiding being cast out of my tribe,” and more “avoiding facing the fact that I may have wasted precious time and energy on a false or even harmful belief.”
i would read what was in the pit, but rarely posted there… until. having the sdmb for facts and sane discussion kept me sane these last 4 years, not to mention the entire time i’ve been a member.
this newish p&e forum has been wonderful, not only for the u.s. based stuff, but also the interesting threads of non u.s. based politics & elections.
I live in Indiana, the first state to go Trumpy in the election. I am surrounded by Trumpists. I am the only non-Trumpy member in my family. It has been so helpful to come here (and a couple other online communities) and find others that feel as I do.
