It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left.
The extremes tend to dominate the messaging on both sides. And frankly, the internet being dominated by younger people, there is a good case to be made that the extreme left's voices are louder.
>It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left.
Except it's not disengenuous to say that at all. We can see that by the candidates each party has supported. Biden is considered a pretty centrist democrat by pretty much any metric. Trump, however, can't be considered a moderate. He's enabled fascist White nationalist supporters. Biden hasn't done the same.
Also, for the record, BLM and SJWs aren't equivalent extremist left compared to literal Nazis - the left wing extremist equivalent is Communism and the position to kill and eat the rich. That is the level of extremism that Trump has facilitated in office. If Biden also enabled people who explicitly call to overthrow the US government, I'd say you have a fairer point.
The 2 extremes are indeed closer to each other than they are to the center, the Horseshoe theory. Of course, extremists on either side would hate to be bundled together, their ideology is different but their extremist approach is not.
But I can't help but think this is a very asymmetrical horseshoe where the right side extends much further then the left side ever did. The problem is not even necessarily the particular ideology but rather that the right side is willing to be far more extreme in their views. That in itself is exceptionally dangerous no matter what the views are because it implies a very, very unpleasant life for those who don't share them.
It's the reason why today the US is so divided, there's no more overlap, the 2 sides each sit in their corner. The only possible response to increasing extremism on one side is increasing extremism on the other side until one has enough power to quash the other.
> The only possible response to increasing extremism on one side is increasing extremism on the other side until one has enough power to quash the other.
I think this statement is wrong. There are a lot of other possibilities. For example: "A minority that is agressively vocal for extremism in one aspect could be cushioned by a strong general consensus for a political culture of reasonable cooperation and discussion."
There are extremists on the left, Biden disavowed them publicly.
There are extremists on the right, Trump disavowed them publicly.
Nevertheless, media commentators on either side try to portrait these candidates as if they supported, or at least "enabled" extremists.
Can you be more specific on how either of these candidates "enable" or "do not enable" extremism? How would you falsify an accusation of "enabling" something?
What you are pointing out here is fundamentally true and verifiable. I think I find myself, along with many other americans, in a bizarre position where we see comments like this which we know are accurate get barraged by downvotes or whatever system in Internet commentary exists to decrease the visibility of the comment, and I find this troubling. This mostly happens, from what I've seen, if there is any suggestion within the comment that the right is in some way defensible. I think many internet forums have tried to use downvotes as a signal for validity, but so frequently that signal is obviously misapplied, making it almost entirely meaningless. In fact, it is has become a signal for the direction of the political leanings of the majority, rather than anything having to do with the usefulness or appropriateness of any given comment.
Genuinely interested when/where Trump disavowed right wing extremists. I've seen him refuse to denounce white supremacy in the first debate but I haven't seen him denounce anyone who might vote for him
> I've seen him refuse to denounce white supremacy in the first debate...
That was clearly a missed opportunity to clear things up, but the counter-question "Who do you want me to condemn?" is a fair one. It's easy for Trump to condemn the KKK, not so easy to condemn militia groups in general. Similarly, it's easy for Biden to condemn rioters, not so easy to condemn Antifa in general. Effectively, both candidates dodged that question.
> ... I haven't seen him denounce anyone who might vote for him.
That's moving the goalpost a bit too far for my taste. Trump has condemned white supremacists, that at least is on the record.
"to condemn Antifa"
Antifa is a construct from Fox News to designate a broad category of mostly young people that range from anarchists calling for direct democracy to people who are against racism and intolerance that have in common that they are not against clashing with police forces. So condemning Antifa does not make much sense. Maybe he could have condemned violence in the protests but anyone who has been in a demonstration knows elements in both the protesters and the police are looking for the clash. But the police always has the upper hand and violently crush what is mostly damage to property. Just tell me how many people have been killed by so called "Antifa"? Is that comparable to the number of people that have been killed by right-wing activists? Why is it always the progressive leaders that get shot? Right wing activists always say they are here to "defend" against something but they are the one attacking.
> Can you be more specific on how either of these candidates "enable" or "do not enable" extremism? How would you falsify an accusation of "enabling" something?
I can indeed do this, but the question itself seems to be asked in bad faith. How on earth do you need me to report to you on Trump's behavior and words even into the final debate?
> It's also disingenuous to suggest the extreme left isn't dominating the messaging from the left.
Except they're not. Your country has drifted so far right, every opposing voice may look like "extreme left", but it's not. Nowhere close.
If you want to argue about the actual extreme left, go right ahead. I'm as left-leaning as they are, but I'll probably agree with you. There's some idiots.
But the extreme left isn't really that vocal at all in the US right now. It's the moderate leftists trying to restore some sense of normalcy.
National socialism is philosophy, which can be applied everywhere, including Israeli.
If somebody thinks that his nation is "gifted", while others are not, so government must support gifted people and punish other peoples, then it's National Socialism, regardless of country and nationality.
The formula “government must [support] X people, and [mitigate] Y people” seems like a pretty consistent formula for all collectivism. They only differ in the reasoning.
It could be anything: smart/dumb, peaceful/violent, weak/strong, poor/rich. And in any order. Today people seem to be fixated on race. I wonder if we’ll ever get past that.
Nazism is one thing , national socialism is another (with non-capital letters)
to my understanding , national socialism is in principle a socialism that is tooled to deliver social policies within a ntaion-state , which is not a very controversial idea .
there is no intrinsic need to punish anybody for anything
and frankly , thinking that one's nation is "gifted" is not an illegitimate opinion, even if its probably wrong ,as long as it doesnt translate into any kind of racist or expansionary policy
Yeah but what about the ones holding swastikas saying chanting "Blood and soil, Jews will not replace us" who were not condemned by the to of GOP leadership. The left uses their words like a shotgun, however, theres still nazis out there.
Not condemned? He literally used the phrase “condemned totally” referring to them. How much more condemned can you get?
Here’s a direct quote from Trump’s press conference:
> “It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay?”
It’s an outright lie to claim otherwise and the media was complicit in allowing Biden to do so. Over and over.
The first statement said both sides, the second statement 2 days later tried to clarify the statement with an excuse that he was saying other people that walked amongst nazi were the good people. As a constant pattern of trumps presidency, he throws out a dog whistle and then walks it back 2 days later sayig he was taken out of context, misspoke, or was joking. You can claim he's fighting against antisemitism and racism, but I just straight up don't trust his good faith. My jewish eyes see him as supporting nazis and a supporter of those who walk with nazis. Him being a poor communicator is a lackluster excuse why I should trust him.
All those other good people walked under those nazi flags. Why would I trust them either?
> The first statement said both sides, the second statement 2 days later tried to clarify the statement with an excuse that he was saying other people that walked amongst nazi were the good people.
The first statement is in regards to people protesting to bring down monuments. There’s clearly two sides to that argument and there are many fine people, myself included, that do not want to see statues of Lincoln torn now.
> As a constant pattern of trumps presidency, he throws out a dog whistle and then walks it back 2 days later sayig he was taken out of context, misspoke, or was joking. You can claim he's fighting against antisemitism and racism, but I just straight up don't trust his good faith.
If your own biases interpret everything in some perverted negative light, then it’s an impossible standard to meet.
> My jewish eyes see him as supporting nazis and a supporter of those who walk with nazis.
And yet his grandchildren are Jewish and he’s had more success negotiating Middle East peace deals that benefit Israel than any other president.
If he’s Nazi supporter he’s doing a pretty crappy job at it.
> Him being a poor communicator is a lackluster excuse why I should trust him.
If you refuse to ever give the benefit of the doubt then why even argue about it?
> All those other good people walked under those nazi flags. Why would I trust them either?
Nobody says to trust them. But they’re not the only ones that wanted to preserve historic statues.
That’s like reducing all of recent racial / police protests to a bunch of looters robbing a Best Buy.
> there are many fine people, myself included, that do not want to see statues of Lincoln torn now.
Who was trying to remove statues of Lincoln? In all the reporting I've seen on this issue I've only seen people trying to remove statues of Confederate generals and leaders. I, like many people, have no problem with these statues being moved into museums. They just shouldn't be public monuments.
The question is why some on the left think they are fighting nazis. I think I answered my anectdotal view sufficiently. There are people out there at protests acting under the symbols of nazism and the chief executive charged with assuring those who are concerned fails again and again to ease that concern. Defend his actions all you want. The vote has come in, you can look at that for it's democratic feedback and mandate on preferred leadership.
> Here’s a direct quote from Trump’s press conference:
That's a quote from August 15th. Trump had made statements about the murder in Charlottesville as early as August 12th, when he famously walked out of the interview after being asked to condemn white supremacists.
Please see my post here on HN about this incident[1]:
> You've linked to the second interview he gave about Charlottesville. In his first statements in an interview on August 12th, 2017, he famously didn't condemn white supremacists who murdered someone, saying instead that he condemns "egregious displays of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides".
> Then, several days later in the second interview on August 15th that you linked to, he equates the violent white nationalists that murdered someone with what he calls the "alt-left", the purported group that the murder victim belonged to, saying that he thinks there is blame on both sides. After asking for further clarification, he says that there were fine people on both sides. Only after further questioning, and in a separate statement, does he condemn white supremacists.
> People were criticizing him for his initial equivocation on August 12th, comparing the white supremacists who murdered a person to the victims of their violence, and the fact that he didn't name or condemn white supremacists. In fact, when journalists asked him to condemn them, he walked away from the interview. He refused to differentiate between the two.
> Then, on August 15th, he defends his initial comments through his continued equivocations in the second interview.
> Is it all the swastikas? Maybe it’s all the swastikas.
The only swastikas I've seen are on public bathroom stalls and I've seen them for many many years and they haven't increased in frequency in recent years. Increase in visibility isn't equivalent to increase in frequency.
I'm conservative. I'm active on social media. I don't see what you're talking about at all. My feed is constantly being inundated with "We need to make lists of every trump supporter" and similar, but never do I see the supposed ultra-widespread nazi/alt-right hate.
Trump, for all his flaws, has disavowed white supremacy so many times it hurts to watch and even the most famous "very fine people" quote was [0] taken out of context (if you can call that anything but an outright lie, frankly).
The membership of racist organizations like the KKK is small, vanishingly small. It's not even .1% of Trumps base. [1] And, more importantly, it's shrinking. It has been for a very long time.
[1]Despite their diminishing numbers, there are still approximately 3,000 Klan members nationwide, as well an additional but unknown number of associates and supporters. Even with relatively small numbers, groups like the North Carolinabased Loyal White Knights (LWK), perhaps the most active Klan group in the United States today, have a fairly expansive geographical reach. In 2015, with just 150-200 members, they were able to draw attention to themselves in 15 different states (mostly in the south and east), typically through fliering, which requires only a single participant.
[2][3] It is a matter of public record that Biden supported segregationists, voted against integration-supporting policies like bussing (which Kamala Harris roasted him for repeatedly), and pushed legislation that disproportionately harmed black folks.
Ultimately, there's plenty of good reasons to dislike Trump that are completely and unarguably valid. Covid, John Bolton, numerous conflicts of interest (like using personal assets for the military and government functions) are a small piece of that. But calling Trump racist or a nazi is just taking the bait that his political opponents have set out.
In my personal opinion, Biden is the worse choice for president purely on the basis of his likelihood of supporting additional war efforts (whereas Trump is the first president in 40 years not to start a new war - AND has helped bring about a series of peace treaties in the middle east.)
I'm totally with you on Trump not starting any wars (which is a low bar for a US president, but one which is rarely hit).
However, his treatment of Israel and Saudi Arabia were perhaps 100 times worse than any previous president.
He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, which was incredibly inflammatory to both the Palestinians and the wider world, and will make it very, very difficult for any peace deal to be signed there (as the Palestinians want it as their capital).
His support of Saudi Arabia, regardless of their extra-judicial killings was another low point in the US relations in the middle east.
The other "peace" deals he signed were more caving to particular factions rather than bringing them together.
Each deal can be criticized and certainly worth exploration, but the overall trend is, at least in my opinion, quite clear. Comparing Trump's record on international conflict to any president in my lifetime makes him look like a saint. And all of the criticisms levied at him (in my opinion) pale in comparison to stopping the literal mass-murder in the middle east. If the US reverses course on vying for peace, and instead picks up the big stick approach, it will make it clear what the policy of established politicians really is. If that happens I hope America has the conscience to remove them all.
> Although Trump has talked of withdrawing completely from Iraq, Pentagon officials have cautioned that a U.S. troop presence remains necessary to guard against an IS resurgence and to help the Iraqi government limit the political and military influence of Iran, which supports militias operating inside Iraq. [1]
His actions in the middle east have been far from universally positive (not that any American president in 50 years has done any good there).
He has supported Saudi Arabia with weapons to help their slaughter in Yemen.
He has reneged on the Iran nuclear deal, proving for the second and probably last time that making deals with the USA is a fools errand (it's the second time the US has reneged on a deal with Iran; I doubt there will be a third).
He has publicly assassinated a high dignitary of Iran, during an official visit to a different country, an act of war by any measure.
He has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, an extremely inflammatory decision that further stops any remaining chance that the USA can ever be seen as a negotiator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Overall, while maybe not as bad as Bush and Obama in direct deaths, his legacy has shut down any hope of peace in the region with America's involvement. So I wouldn't rank him too highly on this area.
Let's also not forget that he has unilaterally cancelled the USA's nuclear disarmament deal with Russia, another extremely anti-peace move, one that will have far-reaching consequences.
The only truly decent external policy that he has shown is his handling of the North Korea crisis - that was a true diplomatic success by any measure, which I gladly admit.
And of course, we shouldn't forget that all of his other horrible decisions pale in the face of his anti-climate moves, which have likely helped push the world over the brink.
I don't disagree with a single thing you've said. That said, when comparing presidents you have to compare them to each other, or to candidates that might replace them.
In that light the bar is set so appallingly low that even Trump managed to get across it. Presidential candidates in the US are almost universally pro-war and pro-military escalation, even while pretending otherwise.
It's great for you that your Twitter feed has managed to avoid the most depraved, violent side of the right. I'll attribute that to the relatively rarefied air of Twitter broadly. Fact is, the Internet skews left; Twitter skews left of that; and the Twitter feed of an educated Hacker News commentator (which I presume you are) skews even lefter. So you might not be getting an accurate reading of the temperature of the country.
Go visit r/The_donald (or wherever they find themselves these days), 4Chan, or just go to any small town in the South. Violent racism is a badge proudly worn.
I think you’re underestimating the power of filter bubbles. I’m very left, mostly live in SF and LA, and browse r politics. I’ve never seen what you’re talking about. R politics has an strong point of view but if anything is posted along those lines it gets downvoted to oblivion.
I think you need to reassess how your feeds are being filtered because they appear to have zeroed in on ultra extreme pockets. Either your clicks or the algorithms have put your feeds in a skewed place. It sounds like you’re being shown the right wing caricature of the left. Of course that makes them look insane.
I follow primarily esports players, a handful of folks like Patio11 and Paul Graham, some constitutional conservatives, a handful of John Locke style liberals, a few gun people (Colion Noir, and others) and that's it.
Despite this, I am rarely shown anything conservative on Twitter. If the algo gods have decided I'm extreme left, then they are broken beyond repair. It seems more likely to me that Twitter simply de-prioritizes conservative media.
Rhetoric that I've seen is essentially that "anyone who voted for, donated to, or promoted Trump's policies should be on a list which should be used to remove them from 'polite' society."
Use of the words polite society has popped up quite a few times as well. I'm sure you can find substantially more by googling around.
What I meant to ask, though, was whether you saw liberal or conservative folks sharing these?
Personally I'd only seen them shared in conservative circles... Wondering if it's more an example of "one side taking an extreme comment and applying it to everyone on the other side" (like many on the left have done with racism etc) or an actual movement of mccarthyism.
I've seen this get traction in both circles. The left leaning people I know are what I would describe as "sane" but they are still willing to like/retweet this message.
Of course the conservative leaning people are responding more along the lines of "And you called US fascists?!"
I think having mainstream media writers and hosts, as well as an elected representative promote this message is enough to suggest that it's spread too far already. Hopefully this sort of rhetoric dies down and the legal claims about the election are resolved through fair evidence-based examination. If not, I think we might be headed towards yet more unrest.
Thanks! It's so hard to find out what the world looks like from other people's digital/social bubbles...
I totally agree - it's really, really important that conservatives don't feel attacked (let alone hunted) and that concerns about election integrity are taken seriously and investigated thoroughly.
The extremes tend to dominate the messaging on both sides. And frankly, the internet being dominated by younger people, there is a good case to be made that the extreme left's voices are louder.