America....

[Joolis]

Sure, conservatives don't riot, they just take over government facilities while heavily armed. Or have a heavily armed standoff over grazing fees. Typically democrats riot because most low income democrats live in urban areas (and if they tried either of the previous tactics they would be shot dead). Both sides do dumb dung, let's not pretend that "my side would NEVER do that". For the record, I think the riots and protests are stupid. It's too late, he's already going to be President. You want to protest against the other side? Go vote! Get others to vote!

[Firimei Lang]

I also imagine the protesters are the ones who voted for the right candidate. Thus protests ensued after Drumph was elected.

[Wept]

Pop really summed up my thoughts and sadness at this election. I'm the first to dismiss sports and celebrity figures that want to do political commentary but in this case he expressed my own thoughts very well. The parallels to the fall of the Roman republic are unbelievably striking.


http://sports.yahoo.com/news/gregg-popo ... 33327.html

[Wept]

Great article summarizing a big part of the problem:

https://hbr.org/2016/11/what-so-many-pe ... king-class

[Iskveri]

When Obama was elected, a woman said to John McCain she feared he was an arab. He replied, rebuking the woman that Obama was a decent man whom he just had disagreements with on policies.

But TRUMP said Obama was Kenyan and not born in America. Thanks for bringing this up

Sorry, you seemed to mistype "Hillary" there.

I also imagine the protesters are the ones who voted for the right candidate. Thus protests ensued after Drumph was elected.

We can imagine what we like and I'm sure *some* of them did vote for Hillary. But now I'm also more sure that more of them got a check, otherwise they wouldn't have showed up.

https://youtu.be/14zszKEKz-I

Anyways, I'm not going to bother doing something futile like arguing with ideologues. I know the only way one of those changes their minds is with self-introspection and an epiphany or five.

The Democrats put forth what quite possibly may be the most corrupt politician in history.
They shot themselves in the foot by rigging their own nomination process to do it, pissing off a huge chunk of their base.
They played (disgusting) identity politics, telling anyone who had any reasonable objection to any of this they were bigots and sexists.
And their media spent 9 months manufacturing libel, slander and deceptively editing newsbites and writing stories that could be debunked by anyone with access to Google - which just made any centrist on the fence think "Hrm, there's really nothing wrong with this guy if that's all they have... Why should I vote to choke on the dung sandwich they're offering me that is Hillary Clinton?"

I wonder how many independents alone CNN soured on her... Oh well, maybe they'll get GAWKERED out of business. They've left enough outright libel and slander laying around to do it.

[Firimei Lang]

It was better than Trump, anything is...

I respect a lot of you, but really why go for his ideals along with the party he represents. He is just....well he disgusts me and going by the reaction he is not the popular choice. The world celebrated for Obama, and now we have contempt for him and his crackpot ideas.

If he actually has any for running America successfully. I don't predict he will run full term.
Bernie Sanders would of white washed the Whitehouse with him..

This thread has run its course though, so maybe it should be locked and we can get on with the real issue..of mudding!

[Skittles]

When Obama was elected, a woman said to John McCain she feared he was an arab. He replied, rebuking the woman that Obama was a decent man whom he just had disagreements with on policies.

But TRUMP said Obama was Kenyan and not born in America. Thanks for bringing this up

Sorry, you seemed to mistype "Hillary" there.

I also imagine the protesters are the ones who voted for the right candidate. Thus protests ensued after Drumph was elected.

We can imagine what we like and I'm sure *some* of them did vote for Hillary. But now I'm also more sure that more of them got a check, otherwise they wouldn't have showed up.

https://youtu.be/14zszKEKz-I

Anyways, I'm not going to bother doing something futile like arguing with ideologues. I know the only way one of those changes their minds is with self-introspection and an epiphany or five.

The Democrats put forth what quite possibly may be the most corrupt politician in history.
They shot themselves in the foot by rigging their own nomination process to do it, pissing off a huge chunk of their base.
They played (disgusting) identity politics, telling anyone who had any reasonable objection to any of this they were bigots and sexists.
And their media spent 9 months manufacturing libel, slander and deceptively editing newsbites and writing stories that could be debunked by anyone with access to Google - which just made any centrist on the fence think "Hrm, there's really nothing wrong with this guy if that's all they have... Why should I vote to choke on the dung sandwich they're offering me that is Hillary Clinton?"

I wonder how many independents alone CNN soured on her... Oh well, maybe they'll get GAWKERED out of business. They've left enough outright libel and slander laying around to do it.

You really, really do not know how to use google. It was not Hillary, and no one ever needed to manufacture offensive things Trump said. I'm not really sure how to respond to such arrogant incompetence. Try reading Trump's twitter? Try watching videos of Trump talking? Try any independent fact-checker you want and Hillary was the most honest and Trump the most dishonest. Are you mildly interested in the fact that Trump started breaking campaign promises within 1 day of the election? I can see why you like him so much, though. The anger and severe efforts to ignore any facts is strong.

[dolofonos]

I think that with the internet and how easy it is to access at almost any time during one's day combined with how easy it is to enter echo chambers in the online world we've come to a point where people on one end of the political spectrum are operating with different "facts" than people on the other end. Now of course people are going to point out how facts are facts and there can't be different but to some degree there are different focuses on what facts each side latches on to and finds important. There is also of course some "facts" that probably aren't truly facts but some kind of altered version of reality.

The point I'm trying to make I guess is that the fact battles and linking to various websites supporting one's version of facts or why those facts are important doesn't do anything in terms of persuading people from the other end. In arguments about politics the foundation of one's argument usually comes down to values. When we're not trying to address people's concerns and not using facts or strategies to speak with them and persuade them why we think our position is better from within the context of the other side's values then we're just preaching to the choir.

Even for people who are maybe on the same side of the spectrum but at different points on it this becomes an issue. The in fighting both on the democratic side with Bernie versus Hillary and the Never Trump crowd on the right versus the people who supported him fiercely demonstrated that this is a problem for even people who are somewhat similar.

There's not much point to this than just pointing out that everyone needs to do a better job of trying to explain why their candidate or their position is a good one by framing it within the values of the person they're trying to persuade. I imagine that would be much more effective, productive, and more civil. At the same time though one's position on the political spectrum can be correlated with personalty traits like the Big 5 so a lot of where we find ourselves on what values are important might be strongly influenced by our biology and upbringing which is very difficult to overcome without deliberate action.

[meshi_]

Trump could yet be an epiphany for democracy. By breaking his campaign pledges to such an extent that the feasibility of manifestos (and the trustworthiness of the person making the pledges) becomes a key factor.

Or he could just be a very average president whose only legacy was to lower the tone of American politics because no-one else in a position of power will stick their neck out too far for someone so fickle.

[Firimei Lang]

I think that with the internet and how easy it is to access at almost any time during one's day combined with how easy it is to enter echo chambers in the online world we've come to a point where people on one end of the political spectrum are operating with different "facts" than people on the other end. Now of course people are going to point out how facts are facts and there can't be different but to some degree there are different focuses on what facts each side latches on to and finds important. There is also of course some "facts" that probably aren't truly facts but some kind of altered version of reality.

The point I'm trying to make I guess is that the fact battles and linking to various websites supporting one's version of facts or why those facts are important doesn't do anything in terms of persuading people from the other end. In arguments about politics the foundation of one's argument usually comes down to values. When we're not trying to address people's concerns and not using facts or strategies to speak with them and persuade them why we think our position is better from within the context of the other side's values then we're just preaching to the choir.

Even for people who are maybe on the same side of the spectrum but at different points on it this becomes an issue. The in fighting both on the democratic side with Bernie versus Hillary and the Never Trump crowd on the right versus the people who supported him fiercely demonstrated that this is a problem for even people who are somewhat similar.

There's not much point to this than just pointing out that everyone needs to do a better job of trying to explain why their candidate or their position is a good one by framing it within the values of the person they're trying to persuade. I imagine that would be much more effective, productive, and more civil. At the same time though one's position on the political spectrum can be correlated with personalty traits like the Big 5 so a lot of where we find ourselves on what values are important might be strongly influenced by our biology and upbringing which is very difficult to overcome without deliberate action.

Echo chambers provide an excellent insight to the world around us, not just by media and internet trolls. It gives us food for thought and may enlighten or confirm us to how the world is these days.