[palmotea]

> Some of us, for the first time in our lives, made substantial personal campaign contributions to the other side because the nationalist leader looked really dangerous for US economics and international relations.

It's too bad for those people that the other side they supported was so stupid they lost anyway.

I wrote that side some angry letters over the years. For a long time, there were strong signals they arrogantly thought that "nationalist leader [who] looked really dangerous" was actually an opportunity for them to win on an unpopular platform that appealed to their elites. They did some really stupid shit that undermined their credibility.

[seanmcdirmid]

It was never about "the democrats aren't perfect", I think we gave up a long time ago on politicians that would actually push things forward. Nope, it was more like here is the "status quo" (things don't get better but they don't get worse either) and here is "batsh*t crazy" (99% chance things get really bad). And I guess that's what many Trump supporters are going for: they know Trump is nuts, but they don't want to see the status quo stand. They want destruction while hoping that they will come out better for it.

[s1artibartfast]

I think this is the natural outcome mode of Anarcho-liberalism on the left versus populism on the right, as demonstrated in many countries around the world.

Turns out leftist anarcho-liberal movements mean they simultaneously fuel the right, but ultimately fail due to lack of organization and platform coherence.

[seanmcdirmid]

It’s weird because Trump emboldens the far left locally. Here in Seattle, we have some crazy city council members that can only get elected when Trump is President (it’s been drifting right since the end of Trump’s last term). Turns out leftist anarchy-liberal movements are fueled by rightist authoritarian-conservative movements as well. And some of us really want moderates running things, not extremists on either side.

[JumpCrisscross]

Extremist partisans fuelling each other is a sign of too much democracy. We’ve known this since the Athenians. The solution may be in slowing down the signal transmission between base population, elites and policy.

[s1artibartfast]

I tend to agree that speed is a key issue, but so is bandwidth.

Democracy by itself is meaningless and valueless. It becomes useful or not based on the systems, institutions, expectations it mediates.

I think that with the advent of digital media, many parts of the system have (specifically parts of the electorate) been rendered non-functional by overload. With a firehose of issues, there is insufficient time for organization, solution seeking, and consensus building.

So yes, slow down the signal, but also prioritize to prevent political and cultural DDOS.