I like to think of this place as a refuge from spin and an honest place to debate and discuss issues, civilly. I learn a lot here. That is something we all value, I believe. If we see something going on that is not in accord with those values, then me, you, all of us - need to step-in and change the course of that discussion. Just like IRL if you see someone getting bullied, don’t stand there on the sidelines catching cell phone video - step-in and make a difference. Sometimes action is required right away, before a moderator can be called-in.
This place has more value when there are more opinions. You are not required to agree with everyone, but you are required to be civil. Poor arguments lacking data are not tolerated here, and they should not be. Trolls are identified and shown the door. Citations can be questioned and refuted, but we should not pillory the poster. We have the structure in place to keep this place interesting. The integrity of this place, as inclusive and striving for truth, and fighting ignorance, is worth protecting. We don’t protect that by scuttling ideas that don’t conform.
Yes, it’s an echo trailer, though I’m not sure this is a good example of it, since it wasn’t just this board that was convinced Trump didn’t have a chance. I think even most board ‘conservatives’ were saying they didn’t think he had a chance. Though, of course, it could be that they were in the chamber too, so maybe it IS a good example after all…
(And I was in it too…I was convinced that Trump didn’t have a chance and was just wondering how big Hillary’s landslide would be. I was completely and totally blindsided by this result…and I think that at least part of that was my participation in this board, where posters I respect and even some I don’t were saying basically the same thing I was thinking, which was that Trump was going to be crushed)
I just wanted to say, FWIW, that since this conversation I have caught myself referring to “Dems” countless times, and I am a Democrat. The only thing is I don’t know if the lingo was triggered by this conversation or I’m just more aware of it now. :dubious:
What you have described to me is like the ideal Straight Dope. It is a vision of what we aspire for the board to be. We have a vision of the ideal America, too, and as we’ve learned, it often falls short of the mark. All we can do is strive to make it better.
I’d personally love to see more conservatives posting on this board, assuming they were as thoughtful, nuanced and respectful as most other people here.
Not so much that this is an echo chamber, but that it is located inside a larger Echo Mall (Echo Dome?). Remember, The Straight Dope originated in the Alternative Press.
BTW, as a Registered Democrat, donor to the Democratic Party to the tune of thousands over the years, and supporter of many a Dem candidate:
I use these terms casually and with no compunction, generally following this pattern:
Democratic is the proper name of that party, and proper adjective form for things of or pertaining to it
Democrat is a proper term for a member of that party and the usage for terms referring to those members (e.g. Young Democrats of America*), and casually/colloquially as adjective for things related to the Democratic Party (“the Democrat lead is shrinking”)
“Dem” is a casual colloquial term for when I just can’t be arsed to type out “ocrat(ic)” on the annoying smartphone keyboard. And you may have notice I some time even write “too many Ds stayed home”. And I’m not about to drop it but rather I’d say we TAKE it and OWN it.
One point I was going to make in support of this argument is that replying to a post with an off topic reply, or with snarkiness and sarcasm, is not proper debate technique. I was going to give examples, but they are too numerous to quote - even in this thread alone.
I could go into why I voted for Trump, but, really, it would be exhausting trying to defend myself. So, I choose not to. It’s a shame that I immediately realized that I would be *forced *to defend myself - not that I can’t defend myself, but being immediately put into a position of defense - and that is why I am choosing not to. So, if the liberals of this board choose to not learn anything from these recent electoral events, then they are doomed to repeat them in 2020.
I’ll just end this by saying that liberals must realize that the people that voted for Trump are actually intelligent people. To ignore their concerns, or dismiss their intelligence, would not be good for their cause.
Hey sorry for asking you to defend your position, but I find the bolded intellectually untenable, as I have spent the last year trying to find any reason to vote for Trump not grounded in intellectual dishonesty and failure of understanding - i.e. any reason that holds up to even the slightest criticism. I mean, c’mon, dude. It’s Donald Fucking Trump. Why do you think people are going to ask you for your reasons?
Too many seem to feel that their own opinions are objective facts. I could, for example, never vote for someone who has held government information, classified or otherwise, in such disregard as Hillary Clinton. My opinions are shaded by my years of working to secure government information and my knowledge of that world. I also view her actions as a betrayal of the public trust since it seems obvious, to me anyway, that she maintained a separate server for the express purpose of denying the government and the public the ability to review and provide oversight of her actions. I understand that others may have other opinions and may view her actions, and intentions, differently or feel that such behavior may be overlooked in comparison to what she brings to the table. But, for me, the betrayal of the peoples trust is unforgivable. That is just one reason I could never vote for her, among many.
I didn’t vote for Trump, to do so would have IMHO degraded my own character, but if a gun were put to my head and I was asked to vote for one of the two I would have voted trump any day of the week.
Then I suggest you look in the mirror and recalibrate your own intelligence significantly downwards. Many people have explained ad nauseam. But perhaps you haven’t read those posts because those posters are on your ignore list?
Do you think conservatives are just going to pull up stakes and turn left? Trump sucks, but at least he’s not a liberal.
My boss - Seton Hall
Inside sales - Stanford
Boss’s brother - University of Oklahoma
Boss’s sister - University of Oklahoma
Boss’s BIL - University of Oklahoma
They all voted for Trump. They all have better educations than I do and I didn’t vote for him - but would have voted for Romney again had he been the nominee.
NPR had a piece this morning discussing how Hillary failed to get as much of the Union vote as Obama did. That bastion of the Democrat voter base didn’t turn out for their nominee.
A major symptom of the bubble a lot of SDMB’ers reside in is constant focus on who would, and now who has voted for Trump, which turns out to be Romney’s number minus a little net. But Trump did a little better % wise with non-whites than Romney, which doesn’t invalidate any particular person’s opinion about [you name it]ist/[you name it]phobe aspects of the election, but does seem to demolish the idea that was actually what the election was about for most people. If it was, Trump would have needed a national surge in white (arguably ist/phobe) voters and have had to overcome even further deterioration in non-white support v Romney. It wasn’t the case case, on either point.
Mainly, Hillary lost by failing to turn out as many Obama voters, again despite the call to fight ism/phobia.
It seems to me the story of the election is more boring and less revolutionary than a lot of people act like it is. Mainly the electorate was tired of the Democrats and Obama, though Obama is thought more highly of personally than his policies are. That manifested on the right in turnout close to 2012 though still a bit depressed by the nature of Trump and the campaign. It manifested on the left by more significant depression in enthusiasm. GOP wins.
Half the people that voted give or take voted for Trump.
Most of the posters here did not. AND most of the posters here would probably say they don’t know many people that did. Some go so far as to say they can’t even IMAGINE how some one could even remotely entertain the idea.
So, if you are on a forum that definitely leans (hard in this case) one way, is dominated by one side, your real life environment is significantly underepresentative of the other side, and a bunch of your fellow travelers (if not yourself) can’t even SEE the other sides point of view.
Yes, dear Virginia, you most certainly DO live in a bubble/echo chamber EVEN IF you think your group is the paragon of intellectual discourse (which IMO a bunch of you are fooling yourselves about to one extent or another).
At the risk of sounding Trumpesque, Trump voters are racist, sexist, and some, I assume, are good people.
In other more friendly words, it’s clear (to me, anyway) that if white supremacists voted, they voted for Trump. So not everyone who voted for Trump can be lumped into any category, good or bad.
The substance of your comment – that many people who voted for Trump had defensible reasons for doing so – I agree with. I didn’t weigh factors as they did but I can certainly understand it.
Trump’s list of Supreme Court nominees was filled with exactly the sort of justice I want on the Supreme Court: justices who apply the law as written and do not seem to regard their role as helping to change social policy. In my view, in a representative democracy, the role of an unelected lifetime judge is to act as an umpire, and apply the law as written to the facts of particular cases, and not to act as a partner for social consciousness or the evolution of social principles, no matter how much the judge may personally favor such principles.
Clinton did not share a list of notional nominees, but based on her platform and general statements I was highly confident she would not appoint judges in the mold I describe in the preceding paragraph.
