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by weberc2
3206 days ago
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I don't want to defend Nazis, but I don't trust our society to accurately identify Nazis. We already see people who question political orthodoxy getting fired for "being intolerant", and there are a lot of people (even in my workplace) who sincerely believe that anyone who voted for Trump (close to 50% of our country) is a closet Nazi. Some people even question whether free-speech advocates are Nazis ("Why else would someone defend the speech rights of Nazis?"). The reason the left took an absolutist position on free speech in previous decades is because there isn't a good test for identifying deplorable speech--maybe today censorship sounds appealing to you, but consider the precedent you're proposing for the next cultural administration (if you indeed believe the country is 50% Nazi, you should be very concerned about weakening free speech). EDIT: One other important point--who's to say that censoring Nazis is even an effective way to limit the spread of the ideology? It could well galvanize Nazis or push those on the fence over to the wrong side. What are our motives? Are we more interested in limiting the spread of intolerance, or do we want to make sure there are plenty of Nazis to punch? |
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You mean close to 50% of registered voters. Which are less than 40% of the population who are eligible voters. And that number is probably off too, thanks to voter suppression, disenfranchisement, and gerrymandering of voting districts.
Furthermore, it was the electoral college who decided who the president should be, in many cases going against the popular vote within their state. When you understand how the electoral votes are decided upon, the number of voters who voted for our current president grows even smaller.
In short, it's a relative minority who actually voted for Trump, and all the voters together are in the minority of all eligible citizens who can vote. Why those others didn't vote is up for debate, but I've already mentioned three potential reasons (not counting apathy).
So that other portion of the population that didn't vote - we have no idea how they stand ideologically on political and social issues. But we can certainly say there's a percentage of them who would have voted for Trump, and the ideology that supports him.
Greater than 50% of the population? Not likely. But it isn't a small percentage, either (in fact, it is probably somewhere close to his polling numbers - around 30%).