[pubby]

Something I've been wondering lately is how big of a blind spot I have from being habitually online. Like, I'll read the news, and I'll read political discussions on HN and r/politics and r/conservative and Twitter, and I'll try to get a sense of what everyone is thinking, but unfortunately I don't think that's possible. The posters on these sites all have one thing in common: they're into politics and current events.

Having a chance to talk to more people in meatspace this year, it was a surprise to find out how many people have only a passing interest in politics, but still vote. Like, the average user here probably reads 5+ news articles a day, but there are plenty of people IRL that will read one a month, or maybe just skim a headline. They don't really keep up-to-date with the race. They mostly vote by feel and pragmaticism.

People always talk about "shy" Trump voters, but what makes me more curious are voters that match the description above. If you put someone in a voting booth who isn't interested by news, who do they vote for? I mean, Trump has a lot of surface-level qualities - he's a tall, confident white man who's a successful boss of business and an anti-establishment outsider - and maybe that's enough to capture this demographic.

[wwalker2112]

I live in rural Illinois. Surrounded by people west coast elites would consider "simple". They aren't voting for a candidate because he's tall and confident.

They have 401ks. Own small businesses. Have Mortgages. Send their kids to public schools. Budget for their families. Hell, even farmers are trading commodities and are very familiar with the markets. There are so many legitimate factors that go into who they vote for.

[christophilus]

The blind spot won't go away until people feel safe having an honest conversation about their political views.

[sanderjd]

Who doesn't feel safe doing that? This does not seem like a real problem to me. Nearly everyone speaks freely about their views all the time.

[dilap]

I promise you this is not the case.

[umvi]

> Nearly everyone speaks freely about their views all the time

How do you know they are speaking freely and not just trying to fit in while secretly cloaking their true thoughts and views?

[kelipso]

No...you get ostracized or cancelled in many social circles for indicating that you might support Trump or Republican policies. Even mild ostracization would make people hesitate to voice their opinions, never mind the level it is currently.

[cmptrnerd6]

Or you get ostracized for saying you don't want to have to involve lawyers to get your wife the medical care she needs.

Depends on where you are in the country.

[consteval]

This is, largely, because a lot of republicans have a difficult time expressing their views without using tools like racism and misogyny.

Just take a look at the Trump rallies. Even if you agree with 100% of Trump's policies, look at how he talks about women. Could you repeat what he says in the workplace? No, you'd get fired. Not for being republican, but for sexual harassment.

If you were able to support anti-immigration policies without calling entire classes of people "garbage", then maybe people wouldn't get mad at you. But for a lot of republicans, they just can't do that. They don't know how to word their policy support without saying something incredibly offensive.

Or, for example, it's one thing if you're pro-life. But a lot of republicans will use words like "slut" and "whore", and even President Trump wants to "punish women". Again, this just isn't acceptable speech in most social situations.

Until your average republican and, hell, our president, figure out how to address these topics without being offensive, people will get offended.

[cynicalpeace]

This is basically all TDS.

Does my Colombian immigrant wife somehow hate immigrants and women because she thinks Trump would be better than Kamala?

[consteval]

Of course she doesn't. But, can she express that without saying it in a way that says "I hate immigrants"?

This is what I'm pointing out. Having republican beliefs is fine. Can republicans voice those beliefs without bigotry? Often no. For Trump, certainly not. For many, they can't either.

If you just say "Trump addresses immigrant better", then okay. If you say "they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats, we have to clean up our country" then... yeah you're getting pulled into HR.

[idunnoman1222]

the men in your life are dishonest with you. You will never know what people really think (and no one will be able to explain why to you because you won’t hear them)

[consteval]

I absolutely hear them, but they're incapable of voicing their beliefs without bigotry.

You can say, for example, that there are challenges to gender-neutral bathrooms. Okay that's fine. You can't say "those dirty pervy <slurs> are molesting our little girls!". Do you see how that's now bigotry?

How many republicans are able to do 1 without ever touching 2? Very, very few. Certainly Trump can't, and Cruz can't either. If those are your role models then it's no wonder you can't express your beliefs.

[kelnos]

In liberal strongholds (like SF, where I live), many conservatives will hide their political views for fear of social alienation. I've experienced this directly, when someone I'd recently met sort of sheepishly/obliquely brought up that they supported Trump. That fear is warranted: I really had less interest in developing a closer friendship with that person after learning that. It was especially jarring to me that this person was a non-white woman, and I just cannot understand how someone can support someone whose rhetoric demeans her on two axes.

I expect the same happens in conservative strongholds too, with liberals self-censoring. I know I wouldn't be comfortable openly discussing my (leftist) political views in, say, suburban Texas.

[SirMaster]

>I really had less interest in developing a closer friendship with that person after learning that.

>I just cannot understand how someone can support someone whose rhetoric demeans her on two axes.

Hmm. Doesn't seem like you are interested in understanding.

[TheSisb2]

Apparently people that support Trump

[sanderjd]

I really think this conventional wisdom is drastically overblown. Especially in places like this, which are San Francisco liberal adjacent.

Yes, it is not surprising that people who are in the minority in a place with a strong majority viewpoint are less excited to rock the boat. But very few places are like San Francisco.

[cynicalpeace]

You were respectably drifting away from your elitism in the first two paragraphs.

Then the last paragraph shows you have a long way to go.

> If you put someone in a voting booth who isn't interested by news, who do they vote for? I mean, Trump has a lot of surface-level qualities - he's a tall, confident white man who's a successful boss of business and an anti-establishment outsider - and maybe that's enough to capture this demographic.

I live in a rural working class region. I have beers with these guys all the time. They're my best friends and I'm the odd coder guy that works from home.

They do not care about the surface level qualities, besides the fact that he's hilarious. They might not read articles but they listen to podcasts a lot on their commutes at 4AM in the morning.

They don't want war with Russia, they're pissed about the COVID stuff, and they aren't happy with the price of gas.

They don't care that he's tall.

[cruffle_duffle]

> they're pissed about the COVID stuff

Pretty much the entire reason I stopped being a loyal democrat. It’s hard to call the other team a bunch of fadcists when your own party set up hotlines to dime out your neighbors for having a picnic in their backyard. Or close your kids school for two years. Or destroy your community by shutting everything down (except protests, but only for certain topics). Or threatening your job unless you take a medical procedure. Etc…

And let’s not forget the massive economic damage caused by all that. This election is basically the result of democrats absolutely horrible covid policies.

[cynicalpeace]

You, me and millions of other Americans. Just that there are few of us in spaces like Hacker News or the New York Times.

[cruffle_duffle]

This election is honestly vindicating. At least I can know I’m not going crazy when I scratch my head about the massive double speak from democrats. Forgive me for speaking so crude but my former “tribe” flushed their entire set of values down the toilet and went all in on Covid.

Bodily choice? Nope. Get a shot or loose your job.

Deaf or have language issues? Hope you enjoy not being able to read lips. Fuck you though. Only Covid mattered.

Education? Nope. Close schools for two years. Prevent kids from going to the only sanctuary they have from abusive care givers. Fuck kids. Only Covid mattered.

99%? Nope. Transfer massive amounts of wealth from poor to rich. But hey at least I’m privileged enough I can work from home.

Small business? Nope. Close small businesses and celebrate ordering all your shit on Amazon (to be delivered by poor working class, expendable delivery people so you can stay comfortably isolated working from home at your large house and not get exposed to those deadly deadly Covid germs)

Science? Nope. Almost none of the covid interventions had any science supporting them. We were literally running an uncontrolled experiment that nobody consented to.

Data? Nope. We will actively suppress people who take public data showing Covid isn’t as bad as portrayed. Let’s also treat deaths with and from COVID as the same.

Elderly care? Nope. Lock them in their care home and let them die completely alone. But hey, zoom calls, right? Oh yeah and when grandma dies, no funeral for him! Only George Floyd can have a funeral.

Minority’s? Fuck them. Only Covid matters

Community? Close it all down. Fuck them. Only Covid matters.

Anti-authority? Naw. Call this 800 number and dime out your neighbors BBQ. Cheer on when the police arrest somebody for sitting on a park bench or going onto the beach. Cheer on authorities towing cars parked at trail heads. Cheer on people getting fired for not electing a medical procedure.

Naw… these assholes deserve the loss. They brought it on themselves when they sold their souls to politically driven covid hysteria.

It blew mind how so many people I thought were in “my tribe” could so rapidly turn against virtually every single value I thought we shared. The real moral is fuck tribalism and if you are scratching your head wondering why Harris lost. This is why.

[cynicalpeace]

Agreed down the line. My parents are actually Deaf and had a tough time.

When COVID happened in March 2020, I talked to my Trump supporting cousin and she said it was being blown out of proportion because there was an election coming up.

I dismissed it and even expected it from the Trump side to say that.

But now I realize they were totally right.

It just goes to show that party politics has nothing to do with values- just does my tribe have power or not.

Glad to see there are some of us that still care about these basic American values, and willing to change our minds in defense of these values.

[physicles]

> I live in a rural working class region. I have beers with these guys all the time. They're my best friends and I'm the odd coder guy that works from home.

This is what America needs more of — people from different worlds just having beers together, and realizing that we’re all normal people trying to get by.

Do you know of anyone who can articulate a compelling case of why Trump would make a good president? I’m left-leaning but I want to understand where others are coming from.

[cynicalpeace]

I tried to make one earlier. I also consider myself left-leaning.

1. Don't want war with Russia. Trump's presidency was relatively low-war. He's also expressed a great desire to end the Ukraine conflict. If the Donbas and Crimea is the price of avoiding Nuclear war, I'm on board. The moment that switched me to deciding on Trump was when Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala.

2. Protecting kids. I don't think kids can consent to medical gender transition. It amounts to state sanctioned child abuse. I have kids. Once you're 18 go ahead do what you want.

3. Illegal immigration. I lived in South America for 4 years. My wife is Colombian, we just moved back to the States. Legally. It was a long and arduous process to come in legally. That should be made easier (something Musk at least has espoused) and coming in illegally should be made harder. I know quite a few illegal immigrants and they are being abused by the urban elite to build their summer homes. They're not living a better life and they're stuck here.

4. Federal bureaucracy. The federal bureaucracy has become a parasite on our progress. Just look at what's happening with SpaceX. This ties in with the immigration thing. The problems we have with immigration are actually that the lazy and corrupt bureaucracy takes years to process something that should take 2 hours. (and does! even in "third world" countries like Colombia)

5. Trust. Everyone who hates Trump likes to talk about how much he makes stuff up. But he's authentic. Meaning he rarely reads from a script. He talks off the cuff. He's not controlled. I'm tired of having politicians that basically hate half the country and think we're dumb because we don't like to listen to their corpo-bureaucrat speeches

[nickpp]

> Donbas and Crimea is the price of avoiding Nuclear war

On the contrary, the risk of nuclear war increases when Putin gets Donbas and Crimea. Because what he wants next will be even more valuable to nations with nukes.

Appeasing sounds great but at some point you run out of other people's countries.

[hajile]

I don't understand this perspective.

Russia is gettin North Korean troops to fight for them because they are losing so bad, but Russia is also an aggressive superpower hell-bent on invading even more countries with far better defenses than Ukraine.

This isn't accounting for Russia's disastrous demographics problem. The biggest reason they are moving so slowly is because they can build new artillery, but are demographically forced to do everything they can to minimize casualties.

It also isn't accounting for Russia trying to get a permanent peace deal 2 months into the conflict. That's not the behavior of a country bent on conquest.

Finally, I can't take people seriously when they are basically asserting that Russia believed they could take over all of Eastern Europe with just ~200,000 troops. When Ukraine changed from regime toppling to an actual war, Russia was caught with their pants down. They had to hire Wagner and draft prisoners to buy time to start pushing soldiers through training. If they'd been planning some large invasion campaign, they would have started serious troop training a handful of years prior and have millions of already-trained troops.

[aguaviva]

It also isn't accounting for Russia trying to get a permanent peace deal 2 months into the conflict. That's not the behavior of a country bent on conquest.

When invading powers think they've prevailed and have their prey over their knee, and attempt to seal their conquest with a treaty -- they always call it a "peace deal".

You knew that, right?

[cynicalpeace]

> I don't understand this perspective.

It's because it's not based on fact. These people (rightly so) hate Putin. But just because you hate Putin does not mean he is capable or intending to be Hitler.

Same actually goes for Trump actually. Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean he's literally Hitler.

[cynicalpeace]

The Neville Chamberlain comparison has been used to involve us in every major war since WWII and literally all of them turned out to be total disasters.

It's like Charlie Brown and the football.

[geoka9]

One could argue there have been no major war since WWII and the belief in the futility of appeasement is exactly the reason.

[kgeist]

Putin himself is already tired of the war. He just doesn't see a way out where he can save the face. He wanted it to be a 3 day campaign, remember? I have doubts Putin is eager to start Ukraine War 2.0

[geoka9]

Russia wants a few years of respite, ideally without sanctions and with the Ukraine military stripped to the studs, so that its own military can regroup and finish the job in a few years. Once that happens, the rest of Eastern Europe will be next and the Ukrainians will be first in the meat wave attacks, just like their compatriots from Eastern Donbass in 2022 (it has been occupied by Russia since 2014 and by now the towns there are nearly void of male population).

[nickpp]

Russian conquest wars in the last 30 years: Chechnya 1994–1996 and 1999–2009, Georgia 2008 (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) & Ukraine (2014 - today).

If Putin ever gets tired of war, he seems to quicky recover and start again.

[darkhorn]

We let it go with two land parts in Georgia. Then he attacked Ukraine. Now, if we let it go with land parts Putin will attack again.

[egonschiele]

What do they care about, then? I have no connection with people like you're describing, so anything you can say would be interesting to hear. My understanding is based on the news is the economy, and gun control.

[cynicalpeace]

It seems you didn't read my comment?

> They don't want war with Russia, they're pissed about the COVID stuff, and they aren't happy with the price of gas.

[egonschiele]

Sorry, to clarify: I did read that part, but I'm saying, can you expand on that?

[cynicalpeace]

Sure. They care about most of the stuff people have cared about for thousands of years.

They want to grow their families, low prices, government to stay out of their business. They want to grow their side jobs, like contracting or excavating or HVAC. They distrust smarty-pants paper pushers. They work side-by-side with a sudden increase of illegal immigrants.

None of this is simply surface level, at least not more so than any other human being. We're all just humans bro.

[egonschiele]

Cool, thanks for the response!

[mattpallissard]

Are you me?

[siffin]

Not wanting gas to be expensive, without knowing literally anything about why gas might cost more, is about as surface level as you can get.

What happened with covid? Trump was a complete clown, but they still support him? Sounds again, very, very surface level.

You say they don't care about his height, or his gender maybe, or his race, but if he were a short female minority, that would 100% affect their opinion, even if they didn't understand it or wouldn't admit it. Very surface level no?

[cynicalpeace]

You're just taking every policy position and asserting it's surface-level.

We're now 8 years in of the elitists calling anyone who disagrees with them stupid, shallow, and racist.

You have learned nothing.

[siffin]

I agree, except we're more like 80 years into elites calling everyone else stupid.

Your first sentence is based, if you can't see how following a couple of simple talking points like "herp derp gas is to spensive" isn't anything but surface level, you're actually stupid, because I'm telling you, there is a shitload more to gas than it coming out of the pump at a price someone wants it to be. You can't just vote for cheaper gas, trump isn't an oil well.

[cynicalpeace]

I understand you think everyone who voted for Trump is stupid. But it's simply not true.

Also price of gas isn't the only things I mentioned. You hilariously omitted war with Russia, and all the other plausible reasons one might vote for Trump, like making illegal immigration harder than legal immigration, reducing bureaucracy, wanting to cut red tape to go to Mars, lower taxes.

You could assert all these things are somehow superficial, but that doesn't make it true.

[siffin]

I didn't say that at all, I was responding to a commenter talking about their particular friends, who they claimed weren't voting on shallow premises, when the examples they provided were absolutely as shallow as they were trying to claim they weren't.

You went off topic and started defending all trump voters.

[steve_adams_86]

I don’t understand the war part.

It does seem like Russia will continue to push west once they take Ukraine. At this point it seems like this is almost inevitable without US support.

We have a lot of Ukrainian people in Canada and they are mortified by this event. To them, US support was a lifeline. Some friends were literally crying over this turn of events because they’re terrified for their family back home.

If Russia takes Ukraine and is emboldened to continue west, how will this impact the USA? Will you want to remain uninvolved and isolated? Does it really seem safe to allow this to continue?

Or do you think nothing much will happen and this hand wringing is unnecessary? Or perhaps that Russia won’t move further west, or it’s fine that they might?

It strikes me that a lot of Trump’s policy is that of a remarkably uninformed person who struggles to connect dots and anticipate the results of these actions.

[pubby]

I didn't intend for my post to be about rural vs urban, or smart vs dumb. The point I was trying to make was that some people just aren't interested, no matter their background. You can find these people everywhere, which might explain why Trump gained in almost every county this election, even urban ones.

It's a spectrum of course. The friends you describe sound like they fall somewhere in the middle of caring about politics vs not. My point of discussion is on the people at the low end, as these are likely to swing. People past a certain threshold of attachment have had their votes locked in for years.

[cynicalpeace]

No, my friends don't care about politics except that some of them went to vote.

If you went to vote you obviously care about politics at least a little. The idea Trump won because people don't care about politics but then went and voted for him is inherently self contradictory.

That they're simply "attached" to him because he's tall or whatever is obviously elitist and it's exactly this mentality that repulses the people who voted for him, ie the majority of the country.

[tightbookkeeper]

> he's a tall, confident white man

Imagery, vibes, personality, all of these have powerful effects on people, educated or not.

Few can express how these intangibles impact them, and if they can they are usually won’t say it out loud,

This is why you NEED to run a primary, to debug your campaign. You don’t know how your candidate looks and feels to people in Tennessee, etc until you try it.

[kccoder]

Apparently searches for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" spiked yesterday. That's a level of unawareness that is difficult to comprehend.

[beAbU]

Not an American, not a Trump fan - he grosses me out a bit.

But I've come to the realization that both sides have an ugly component that is winning out on online forums. It's the classic tale of the vocal minority controlling the narrative.

So to answer your question, being habitually online, and using that as a basis for your opinions on the world will very much make you vulnerable to a serious blind spot.

The amount of shit-flinging on Reddit, from both sides, is shocking to me as a non-American. That people can espouse so much hate towards their literal neighbours is unreal to me. This country is so divided that I'm not sure how things will be fixed soon. Online has become such a cesspool that it's not possible to sit around the same fire any more.

I like to think that the majority of people are waaaay more moderate than what you might think from looking at social media. And I would encourage anyone to try and interact with more people in meatspace. Don't try and convince anyone of anything, but try to understand why they feel the way they feel, and have some goddamn empathy.

I blame two things for our current situation:

1. Social Media. In hindsight it makes perfect sense, but polarizing content will generate more engagement, and since engagement is a primary KPI for many platforms, that is what the Algorithms will select for naturally. It's a positive feedback loop, that resulted in people defacing their neighbours front-yard political posters, and then smugly posting about it on social media. Because of course that's how you'll convince them to vote for the other party.

2. Two party system: I like eating meat, and I would like to continue doing so if I can. But I also care for the protection of animals and sustainable utilisation of resources. But because meat is part of the Carnivore party's platform, and everything else is part of the Herbivore party's platform. People might support more worker's rights, but now in order to get that they must also be anti abortion. It's a broken system and it breeds deep deep divisions.

[jiggawatts]

The divide is real and very noticeable in meat-space, not just online. This is also happening in the rest of the western world, and has been brewing not just since the Internet but since WWII.

There was a study done on bipartisanship in the US senate, where senators were mapped into a 2D space and pulled together slightly if they voted together, and pushed apart if they voted against each other. 50 years ago the two parties were mixed together, then slowly but surely drifted apart. The animation over the years was like watching cell division. There's now only a couple of senators left in the centre, everyone else is far apart in two blobs.

I have zero in common with people that make their hatred of transgender people a substantial part of their politics -- but have never talked to one and have never been influenced by one in any way.

It's like talking to an alien species that singles out green eyes. Not blue, not brown, just green, but with a seething hatred that goes beyond anything I have ever felt. "You need to also hate the green-eyes or you're bad." is not something I can wrap my head around. Not now, not ever.

The Internet has nothing to do with me feeling this way about green-eye-haters.

[sanderjd]

Yep, spot on.

And these same people are gonna be pissed about a bunch of the stuff Trump does, because they truly had no idea what he was saying he would do.

This is how "thermostatic public opinion" works.

[silexia]

All of the news sources you cited are extreme far left sites. All of Reddit is only far left extremism since they banned all conservative viewpoints and block any conservative comments.

Try X.com for a full rounded perspective where all are welcome. Community Notes show misinformation, but do not ban someone from sharing their ideas.

I read all of the major sites, subscribed to NYTimes, WaPo, etc, and X.com is by far the best source of information.