Thread for ILX Trump Voters to stand up and be counted.

not a trump voter but i spent last weekend with one and now my in-laws are visiting and my fil is another one. both trump voters are older, jewish, socially awkward, intelligent, trolls. i am unclear with both whether they'll actually do it or they're just saying it to piss off their wives and friends.

Trolling people is pretty low-impact but actually getting up and going somewhere to cast a ballot can be kind of a pain in the ass.

older, jewish, socially awkward, intelligent, trolls

I recognize this demo

i'm prolly more likely to actually consider voting for him than anybody here... but in the end still no. i don't want him to win the presidency, and i do want hillary. but i will say that i have seen dems + libs behave like completely insane ppl this election (from my vantage point, exactly as bad as the mouth-frothing, fact-rejecting cariactures they make republicans out to be), and i can't imagine i'll be voting as down the ticket dem as i have in previous elections from here on out.

no judgement - just want to understand. when you say "dims + libs behave like completely insane ppl this election" what are you referring to? the internecine fighting? 'fearmongering' regarding trump? pitching too left an agenda, or not left enough?

i mean kind of all of that to extreme levels, + a ton of racism and obstinate ignorance of the systems they are criticizing

thing is there are a handful of people in the elections thread that are "staunch supporters" and are pretty vehement about defending their ideas and the vibe over there is pretty intense

i wouldn't be surprised if there are a few trump voters on ilx but they don't say anything because some people are pretty ruthless

hint hint nudge nudge amirite ;)

I am told that anything but a vote for H.R.C. is "a vote for Trump" and, in the case of an abstention, write-in, or minor-party vote, "cozy white privilege."

so basically the crazed-lib monotheism i predicted four months ago

your powers of prediction know no bounds

i hope ppl vote honestly here. i would be interested to hear from a trump voter who has also found ilx to be of interest to them

If there were a politician named Staunch I would vote for him/her no matter what anyone said.

ilx has had no openly republican poster for years, not even any libertarians which is pretty unusual for a nerdy msg board

there used to be a couple - Dandy Don etc. Board has drifted left though.

drifted left meaning like, 2 libertarian guys left

haha yes

lack of libertarian ilxors is indeed pretty unusual

but a look at do you consider yourself a libertarian?

indicates there are at least a few that agree with some libertarian theory

no online community has much ideological diversity anymore because people just gravitate toward places where everyone agrees with them.

I disagree

i kind of agree with both of you

the most politically and ideologically diverse community i frequent is a soccer forum. i think specificity of interest perpendicular to political persuasion is necessary for this

im just praying one day an email leaks and we learn HRC and Trump both colluded w each other to make a killing in speaking and book deals and are hereby both disqualified

both trump voters are older, jewish, socially awkward, intelligent, trolls.

this also describes the trump voters in my social media universe (though none of mine are family members)

don't think it's actually trump's core demo though

i guess "family members" is sadly correct though i want to defend my actual family by saying that not a single person biologically related [or married] to me is voting trump.

Would not vote trump in a real election but voted trump itt as a protest over not including bernie as an option

The ideological purity of ILX is pretty shocking, given that it isn't a political forum.

i'm actually not convinced of said purity. there are what, thousands of lurkers? as far as we know they're men's rights activists and picket planned parenthood on sundays.

well yeah but among regular (american) posters there are really no conservatives

what are there actually tories in the UK contingent

i wont vote for trump but i did put all the money i had on pinnacle for him to win ~4 mnths ago when the odds seemed unreasonably long

(I seem to recall some recent imagebombing indicating there were but I can never tell what UK ILX0rs are on about)

xp

among regular UK posters there's essentially no one even on the right side of Labour from what I can tell
the few posters from farther afield (Fredrik, Tuomas) are leftier than the average American or Brit

A few UK posters are SNP, of course.

i think there are UK moderates or centrists -ish but angry hectoring Stalinists like me make them feel unwilling to post their thoughts sometimes

what a legacy

was trying to be honest tbh

sorry 4 snarking this should be a safe space

I cast thee out blasphemer

don't get me wrong i also think reluctance to post your conservative opinions is usually based on hypocritical guilt but i recognize that we could all do more to encourage everybody to speak their minds without fear of ad hom abuse

ah bollocks objectivity and logical debate are mirages anyway

"i also think reluctance to post your conservative opinions is usually based on hypocritical guilt"

Its prob more "why argue when we're winning" id think

conservatives are certainly not "winning" rn in the US, save in the sheenian sense

suspect that the people that wanna apologize for neoliberalism aren't the ones that are "winning" thru it but i hear your point darragh

They only hold 31 of 50 state governorships and have complete control of all government in 23 states, what losers.

S'why trump is such an interesting, positive development despite being such and odious horror. The reaction of an entire swathe of a hitherto-satisfied demographic that hasnt had to justify or even exercise thought on its base platform for decades

Sorry ive been xping myself to make it a less blunt point

everything boils down to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wveW9Tw2JKE

tho

And was more ukcentric to nv

I honestly wish more moderates/conservatives posted here. I mean, y'know, the ones who were willing to engage in respectful debate. Assuming they still exist.

another ilxor and i once talked about making a "sock" of one. we came up with a whole biography and everything.

Engage in a respectful debate with......who?

Seriously now

Yeah 3 guesses who that was xp

They only hold 31 of 50 state governorships and have complete control of all government in 23 states, what losers.

tbf that's something of an accident of history in that we give any kind of value to states with the population of large cities and even those will likely be whittled down with further urbanization and decline of the white vote (until they figure out a way to realign themselves away from being the rainbow coalition of petty bigotries)

xxp well the problem might be more level of debate in general than leaning of particular debater

Well, there is the ongoing debate of "the GOP has been crazy for years" vs. "the GOP has been getting crazier and crazier." If the latter is true that could certainly account for a certain degree of steady attrition. I mean, are there many on ILX who identify as Republican, never mind as supporters of Trump?

No. The problem was/is that to take any but ilx orthodox position became an attack on the individuals involved nv.

It was a thing at the time, iirc. But its ok now, ilx is much better right.

Look its this or a boards.ie thread about kids in cafes

i miss the innocent days when people complained about hipsters

imo only sensible / defensible republican position at this moment in time is frum-style apologetics. But other right wing ideologies could probably make a showing for themselves - libertarians, dark enlightenment guys, maybe alt-righters but idk maybe not

You can argue about taxes and regulation and all that, but the gaps between most people aren't that large. Outside of a tiny sliver, everyone has accepted market capitalism and the disagreements are about how to implement it/curb its worst impulses.

You can't have a debate about basic human decency and in the US that's the vast majority of the strong disagreements.

The hell i cant

another ilxor and i once talked about making a "sock" of one

im p sure iatee and i discussed doing this once but it seemed mostly fruitless - i dont think anyone on ilx is going to be like engaged by someone posting rightwing shit really. if anything theres more room for someone coming from the like neoliberal centre-left to start posting dumb shit in an extremely vox.com columnist voice to fuck w/ppl and get interesting conversations going since i think thats where most of the political disagreement on ilx lies

That and eating a subway while listening to the beatles

gabbneb?

xpost

S'why trump is such an interesting, positive development despite being such and odious horror.

― poor fiddy-less albion (darraghmac), Wednesday, August 3, 2016 12:46 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

think you got it right 8 years ago, d

How does ILX *really* feel about wealthy people?

Ach im better now i think

it's not like leftists have ever had difficulty finding things to fight about among themselves

will have to reconsider after that physics ribbing

xp

gabbneb?

hahah yeah his voice is sorely missed, cld use some insider insight into 'hamilton', why defense industry lobbying is actually insanely good and what are the cool haircuts to have

True its that those fights are usually p boring

xp im on the side of the physicists!

attaboy

Up and atom

tbf that's something of an accident of history in that we give any kind of value to states with the population of large cities

To some degree yeah but Illinois, Ohio, Texas not exactly insignificant states here!

yeah, but the more cultish and creepy the GOP gets the less able they will be to hold onto those seats. or if they do, it will just be because people want to vote for governors who pledge to cut taxes (via nj). conservatives are losing the cultural war... their turn to more open forms of white identity politics is evidence that they know their days are numbered.

maybe some kind of less racist conservative neoliberalism could emerge in the next few years that could be viable, but this trump nation stuff and its antecedent the tea party is a walking corpse

feelin polyannaish after the most recent nowcast. but i also just think, looking at demographic trends, this stuff the republicans are pulling now is not going to fly in the coming decades.

To some degree yeah but Illinois, Ohio, Texas not exactly insignificant states here!

Illinois and Ohio

er, I don't know the demographic stories on Illinois and Ohio is what that was going to say.

maybe some kind of less racist conservative neoliberalism could emerge in the next few years that could be viable

yep

ilx ideological purity = progressives who don't have the kishkes to vote for a progressive

I occasionally post defenses of the status quo from inside the beast

I would have made the poll options "some folk'll never vote a trump" and "then again some folk'll"

Morbs, I don't want to do anything to destabilize that cloud of self-righteousness you float around on so magnificently, but it may surprise you to learn that voting for a lesser evil POTUS candidate and voting for progressive downticket/local candidates are not necessarily mutually exclusive decisions.

AHHHHHHHHHH, MY CLOUD

(OL, i'm talking primarily about the bloc who abandoned Sanders in the primaries bcz of the "Bros" social-media illusion that was in all probability a Clinton ratfucking op)

Maaaaan, you don't seriously believe the latter, do you? If so, you should get yourself a Facebook and have a peek around. Not saying the existence of the Bros on its own is justification for abandoning Bernie, but they're undeniably a thing.

i think it was played up by that weird david brock super PAC that paid ppl to make internet comments though too tho

(erase one of those "thoughs")

if anything theres more room for someone coming from the like neoliberal centre-left to start posting dumb shit in an extremely vox.com columnist voice to fuck w/ppl and get interesting conversations going since i think thats where most of the political disagreement on ilx lies

― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Tuesday, 2 August 2016

You mean flopson? Mordy? Shakey? Hurting? Tombot? We get plenty of neoclassical apologetics and left-skepticism already.

OL, obnoxious people on the intertubes are in all camps

tbf that's something of an accident of history in that we give any kind of value to states with the population of large cities a huge GOP wave election gave Republicans control of statehouses, and thus redistricting, immediately after the 2010 census

Then maybe we need to have another one of them "census" thingies.

Shakey?

for the record, I never supported Sanders.

oh sorry scanning thread to fast

ilx has had no openly republican poster for years, not even any libertarians which is pretty unusual for a nerdy msg board

― iatee, Tuesday, August 2, 2016 4:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rip dee the lurker

Dee converted some years back, IIRC.

if anything theres more room for someone coming from the like neoliberal centre-left to start posting dumb shit in an extremely vox.com columnist voice to fuck w/ppl and get interesting conversations going since i think thats where most of the political disagreement on ilx lies

― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Tuesday, 2 August 2016

You mean flopson? Mordy? Shakey? Hurting? Tombot? We get plenty of neoclassical apologetics and left-skepticism already.

― bobby shimurda (bamcquern), Tuesday, August 2, 2016 11:09 PM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I voted Sanders fwiw. Gave him money too.

If anything, my impression from the politics threads is that ILX has leaned strongly Clinton all along. But maybe that's just the loudest voices, or maybe the leftier folks mostly stay off the election threads.

I think most clinton supporters on ilx have pretty genuine left-wing political beliefs and are just pragmatists who didn't think that sanders was a viable agent for change etc. etc.

difference between that and blue dog clintonite gabbneb types. and I mean even gabbneb would be probably far left of the average american on most issues.

IIRC, ilx (not just Morbz) was pretty down on Clinton in February-March or so. People have toned it down now that the alternative to her is the Orangepocalypse, but no one (as far as I can tell) has decided they like her Iraq war vote, general hawkishness, affection for Kissinger, or cozyness with the corporate sphere.

IDK, I feel like I have seen a lot of those "She is actually a true progressive champion who is just pragmatic and also she has to pretend to be more conservative bc she's a woman you know!" type posts. Maybe I'm mixing up ilx and facebook.

yeah that doesn't really sound like ilx to me

If ilx has a general vibe of pragmatic Clinton support, it only dates from when Sanders's fortunes started to decline.

as one of ilx's neoclassical neoliberal apologists even i was authentically split btwn sanders + clinton in the primary up until shortly before the NY primary. i don't remember if it was the Daily News interview that pushed me over or it was just one data point among others.

IDK, I feel like I have seen a lot of those "She is actually a true progressive champion who is just pragmatic and also she has to pretend to be more conservative bc she's a woman you know!" type posts. Maybe I'm mixing up ilx and facebook.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Wednesday, August 3, 2016 12:21 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that doesn't really sound like ilx to me

― iatee, Wednesday, August 3, 2016 12:25 PM (31 minutes ago)

there has definitely been plenty of this, but i think the phenomenon YMP describes explains it: people have talked themselves into her out of fear of the alternative

the response to the sanders NYDN interview was a masterclass in political messaging from the clinton team. every article by people who actually understood econ was like "actually, sanders didn't sound dumb" but by that point the narrative was already written

i disagree. i thought he sounded pretty shallow and not just on the economic stuff. there was the 10,000 dead civilians in gaza comment too. there was a general lack of specificality and it was a good opportunity for him to show that he was more than his stump speech. i saw the economists who explained how no actually you could interpret his comments to mean X and Y and so there was some validity but he needed to demonstrate it on his own. i feel like apologetics for that interview were pretty lackluster even in hindsight.

Dee has a complicated political identity now, which is all any of us could have wished for her.

the masterclass in political messaging is that when hillary sat down for the same interview she wonked out like crazy. she understood what ppl were looking for and how to develop authority / expertise (even if just an illusion) far better than bernie did.

People have toned it down now that the alternative to her is the Orangepocalypse, but no one (as far as I can tell) has decided they like her Iraq war vote, general hawkishness, affection for Kissinger, or cozyness with the corporate sphere.

fwiw i ditched out entirely from the main political threads after realizing any critique of Hillary was unwelcome and met with lots of hostility. once it got to the point of someone telling me how the bank bailout was actually good i decide to check out and haven't been back since. there was a lot of talk about purity tests in Bernie's direction but ofc the same could be said for the with-us-or-against-us pro-Hillary crowd.

also i think ILX may have an international presence, posters like Frederik B. live in socialist utopias compared to the US, and thus their views on US politics are heavily skewed and you end up arguing with vastly different viewpoints no wonder it's a mess

once it got to the point of someone telling me how the bank bailout was actually good i decide to check out

the nerve

i want to abolish rich people through severe taxation of both income and capital gains and i am voting hillary this year

she understood what ppl were looking for and how to develop authority / expertise (even if just an illusion) far better than bernie did.

one of the convention postmortems identified his role the whole primary season as a 'moral tribune' which sounds about right as far as distinguishing his source/form of authority

the last few weeks of his campaign were worrisome but in the end i consider him a national hero for bringing income inequality to the center of our discourse where it belongs

IMO the NYDN thing with Sanders was more an issue of lack of polish than lack of sufficient knowledge. Hillary and others have ultimately said basically the same things he was saying (but admittedly garbled a bit) in that interview. Also the style of the interview was sort of gotcha and confrontational in a way that the Hillary interview (in which she also basically had the questions in advance) wasn't. It's all water under the bridge now, but the whole "LOL HOW ARE YOU GOING TO BREAK UP THE BIG BANKS WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" thing got under my skin given that (1) it came from people who themselves had no idea what the fuck they were talking about and (2) "credible" and "mainstream" politicians and economists and legal thinkers had long been saying it was possible.

yeah i think that was kind of overblown. i also think a lot of people are confused about the reasons bernie's plans were "unrealistic." they aren't logistically unfeasible, just politically so... as in, if enough political will could be built up, we could do all that stuff.

exactly, and to that end, the same is true of many of Hillary's proposals so long as the GOP controls congress

otm, but it's hard for me to worry about that stuff when our country and world are facing this

On The O’Reilly Factor tonight, Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson attacked Republicans for pushing endless war and talking tough. And then she asked, “What good does it do to have a good nuclear triad if you’re afraid to use it?”

I guess I'm more of the belief that Sanders, too, could have defeated Trump. In fact I thought it was a great opportunity to push for a more leftist candidate. I always thought the "OOOH THEY WILL CALL HIM A COMMUNIST!" stuff was overblown. He'd easily win the same "Obama coalition" that Hillary is winning and might also pick up some white working class male support. He might not pull support from the "reasonable Republican" crowd the way Hillary does, but I have a feeling that's a small demographic.

it's possible, but it would have been a gamble. nobody knows what would have happened since there hasn't been a presidential candidate like sanders *or* trump.

fwiw i ditched out entirely from the main political threads after realizing any critique of Hillary was unwelcome and met with lots of hostility.

Dude, you need to stop paying so much attention to Fox News stories about ILX threads.

it's possible, but it would have been a gamble. nobody knows what would have happened since there hasn't been a presidential candidate like sanders *or* trump.

― iatee, Thursday, August 4, 2016 8:54 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sure, but no one knew what would happen with Hillary. She was a gamble too -- one of the most unfavorably viewed candidates in history. My point is that the party got behind her because she is a party insider and represents the mainstream of party ideology today, not because she was more "electable." I don't consider this to be some kind of conspiracy or "rigging," and it's not all that surprising (Sanders' level of success was the surprise for me), but it does say something about how our political system limits and manages our options.

I mean the whole idea that it had anything to do with "Well, this year is different -- you know -- Trump!" is nonsense. They'd say the same in the face of any GOP candidate, and any GOP candidate would have enough of a chance of winning that we wouldn't be able to "afford to risk" putting up a lefty candidate, even one that seemed to potentially match up very well against the GOP opponent.

Whereas I tended to think that, with the GOP imploding, this was the year we COULD afford to risk it. And now I'm getting the feeling that we'll wind up with a center-right administration more dependent on Clinton's coalition with dissatisfied mainstream Republicans than on any alliance with the left.

I'd take a legislature that passes compromise bills I can complain about over one that can't pass anything at all

I'd also like a senate with a dozen Sanders-style independents, enough to create a significant voting bloc

Yeah, that'd be excellent. Unfortunately we don't have a dozen Vermonts.

whoa man I never said I wanted more vermonts, one is fine

i never thought the more electability argument was particularly convincing tho i think there is something to the idea that sanders was an unknown quantity on the national stage and hillary's negatives were already baked in. that said - i would not have been shocked to learn that sanders did have the extremely wide appeal his supporters claimed he would and run up the score in places like the rust belt. otoh it kinda seems like clinton has the perfect temperament for countering trump and i wonder how sanders would've done in the general with the day in day out grind and whether he could keep his cool.

Yeah. I'd accept that he had a greater unknown +/- factor, but I don't think anyone could say he was per se "less electable" than Clinton. Most of the arguments for that tended to underestimate the effect of personality and perceived character and overestimate the importance of labels to the typical voter. People will often vote for someone just because they get "a good feeling" from them, and Sanders seems to have given a lot of people a good feeling.

he gave a lot of dem primary voters a good feeling. but trump did the same on the republican side. i don't think we can project success in the primaries to success in the general.

Clinton's coalition with dissatisfied mainstream Republicans

this does not exist in the Senate or the House wt

WTF

GOP intransigence is going to get worse, not better - they have no incentive to work with Clinton no matter how much she gravitates towards this mythical "center"

I don't think anyone wanted to have a discussion that the potential first female candidate was less electable due to 'personality and perceived character'. It's pretty hard to have that conversation without discussing gender in a really uncomfortable way.

But I remember I first thought Hillary would be the best candidate because she was more electable, and looking on it now even Lincoln Chafee could probably have beaten Trump in a general election.

idk, if it's a total massacre in nov and dems pick up senate and either win back house or come close to doing so it might put the fear into moderate republicans who see cooperation as the only way to save their careers.

Whereas I tended to think that, with the GOP imploding, this was the year we COULD afford to risk it.

well when the other candidate is lamenting the fact that we don't use our nuclear weapons I think it's pretty smart to put the safest, closest-to-100% option they can find

I don't think anyone wanted to have a discussion that the potential first female candidate was less electable due to 'personality and perceived character'. It's pretty hard to have that conversation without discussing gender in a really uncomfortable way.

Oh bullshit. The Democratic Party is not going to put avoiding "uncomfortable" discussions above winning. fuck off.

might put the fear into moderate republicans who see cooperation as the only way to save their careers

this is not gonna happen! Most GOP House reps are in safe districts, and feeling under threat only makes them circle the wagons more, not less. They will never capitulate.

Dems won't get 60 seats in the Senate either, much less a majority in the House. GOP will go into siege mentality just like they did when Obama was elected and McConnell's publicly stated objective was to "make him a one term President"

I don't think anyone wanted to have a discussion that the potential first female candidate was less electable due to 'personality and perceived character'.

maybe you live in some alternate reality where every other article on Hillary wasn't about this very thing

also congrats on having the foresight to predict that the safest establishment choice would be the one to make it.

fwiw Adam, you met hostility in the political thread not because you were critical of Clinton, but because said criticism boiled down to typing the exact same 2-3 phrases over and over again regardless of context or relation to the conversation at hand with little to no engagement with anything that people were actually talking about as if you were dropping an atom bomb of truth onto an unsuspecting audience instead of repeating well-known facts that everyone on the thread had known for years and had already reckoned with

IOW it's not because you "criticized" Clinton, it's because you are a one-note blowhard with nothing of value to add to a conversation

<mushroomcloud.gif>

but did you hear that Hillary voted for the Iraq War *and* the bailout

why is repeating the "people have a hard time w her personality/character the issues have nothing to do w it cos we already know they exist" line over and over again not one-note?

why i am criticizing an elected official's actual public voting records when i could be criticizing the elected official's supporters?

honestly i don't care about this team-based approach to politics. i am sorry you have friends that are annoying on facebook.

nothing of value to add to a conversation

and yet it's still more value than you bring when you devalue other's speech

honestly i don't care about this team-based approach to politics.

which approach do you prefer? I'm unaware of any political system that is not essentially team-based.

i mean team based as in pretending everyone on social media and the candidate have all coordinated and have a hive mind and are acting as a united team. lots of noise going around. calling people stupid makes them an adversary whether they were before or not, it divides us into teams without my agency. it's an aggressive tactic and maybe team-based was a bad term to use there but you kinda see what i mean.

anyways enough about this distracting bs are you Patriot Act apologists just huge fans or torture or something?

of torture

I was and am against the majority of the Patriot Act. Funnily, this is not incompatible with supporting Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.

Obama's signed v clear executive orders banning torture, I don't really expect a Hillary administration to reinstate it. Also torture was not authorized by the Patriot Act.

I don't want to call you stupid since you don't respond well to that but uh... be more coherent?

I feel like this goes back to a point that Mordy commonly makes quite well, which is that voting is always strategic, and not an expression of a personal ethical position.

you are aware of the condition Chelsea Manning is currently in?

stay on target there pardner

Why has the Obama administration been so harsh on whistleblowers? Is it just because there are more of them now, or is there some animus or strategy that previous administrations didn't have? I don't understand it.

this thread is not about that

Lol Shakey = thread sheriff sittin on a rocking chair

Otm sheriff tho

I think it's worth talking about. Any topic that isnt about Trump is welcome

The election thread has become kind of insufferable. OMG WTF TRUMP *psychoanalyzes trump for the 14,000th time*

tbf omg wtf trump

otm

i'd be curious to know if keythkeyth is a trump fan. he was the most consistently on message republican poster back in the day

adam reminds me of a couple of irl friends who are curious, wide-ranging and articulate when it comes to cultural knowledge but immediately go into malfunctioning robot mode when trying to talk politics

didn't that cat like sarah records or whatever, how could a person like sarah records AND trump

adam reminds me of a couple of irl friends who are curious, wide-ranging and articulate when it comes to cultural knowledge but immediately go into malfunctioning robot mode when trying to talk politics

― he mea ole, he kanaka lapuwale (sciatica),

Also many other ilxors tbf

before the election's over (maybe during the debates?), ronald mcdonald will announce he's just been joking the whole time; he's really still a liberal (universal health care / free public college / pro-taxes/-choice/-divorce), and as the most effective unmasker of "conservative" hypocrisy in history, he deserves not just all of our votes but our thanks as well

nah. I was just listening to an interview with a guy who was going on about how close trump was to roy cohn. the nyt recently published an article on this subject.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Not a Trump supporter but I wouldn't vote for Clinton either. Not really very active here and I missed most of the discussions during the primaries but the level of tone policing that's currently going on makes me uncomfortable with expressing my views most of the time here. Like the strings of defensive "OTM" comments that pop up when dissenting views are raised, it's really just redundant and otherwise serves mainly to create an echo chamber. Pretty much exactly the same as likes on FB or upvotes on Reddit.

I realize that some people's strident tone can grow tiresome, but I also feel a little defensive just reading those ideological purity threads, and I'm not really that invested here. I can see how someone who really identifies as an ILXor but doesn't necessarily agree with most of you on political matters could quickly be made to feel like every discussion about this is a personal siege.

tone policing?!?

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/09/02/article-2409415-0A44B484000005DC-636_634x442.jpg

agree with viborg even though i am going to vote for hillary and might be one of the people you are talking about. i think a lot of this has to do with the fact that people are scared right now. they're not really in the mood to consider dissenting POVs because they just want to get through november and not have trump in office. most of what ppl are posting in these threads right now could be summed up as "oh god... oh god.... OH GOD.... no way he'll win.... oh god."

Thanks, Treeship. I definitely get that and it's also part of the reason why I usually just stay out of it.

the tone police
they live inside of my head

I don't really feel like ILX is an 'echo chamber', though, other than most of the posters in the US tend to be liberal. but there are definite gulfs between what everybody believes within that sphere. take for instance the Israel threads, there have been some heated debates there. I've been a liberal most of my adult life but I've learned a lot from these threads over the years, which is something an echo chamber doesn't really provide you.

there have been conservatives/libertarians here in the past, most of them that got clowned had to do more with the clumsy way in which they expressed themselves. though I will say I can't imagine people of either ilk feeling comfortable here - but to be fair, this isn't a politics board specifically.

i'd be curious to know if keythkeyth is a trump fan

pretty sure the answer to this is no way. my guess would be gary johnson.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

17 FPs

I didn't vote in this poll so chalk up another one for "other"

Huh

bad news, america. 23% of ilxors are voting for trump. (some of these definitely disingenuous/troll votes much like trump's irl support)

17 trolls vs. 17 v silent majoritarians