[tombert]

Fair enough. I meant to type Democratic but I guess I typed Democrat by mistake and didn’t realize it had baggage. I was typing on a phone.

It does seem like a pretty easy mistake to make regardless and I don’t think it’s reasonable to call me “extremely conservative” for making it. It’s still pretty common to call these politicians “democrats”, so someone who isn’t terminally tuned into semantic games might not realize it.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

> It’s still pretty common to call these politicians “democrats”

Yes, this was the Republicans being successful in their efforts.

I appreciate you acknowledging the term has baggage.

[tombert]

Sure, but at this point it just kind of feels like splitting hairs and just a means of getting offended on purpose.

Calling people “extremely conservative” because I used a term that is very commonly used pretty much everywhere but leftist circles is needlessly pedantic and very annoying. I think it’s reasonable to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Also I’m not fucking conservative. I think Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder and Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk and pretty much anyone on the internet who has ever challenged anyone to a debate is a fucking moron.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

The commonality of the term is the result of intentional usage over a long span of time by right wing politicians, media, and personalities.

If you've ever disregarded or downplayed the power and reach of right wing media and propaganda, think on this conversation and how a derogatory term for members of the Democratic party entered common usage.

You don't have to actually watch or like right wing propaganda to be influenced by it because it is pervasive in the United States and has been for decades.

[tombert]

Lots of etymologies have depressing origins, I do not think it makes someone “extremely conservative” just because they’re not fully aware of all these etymologies.

For example, the term “grandfather clause” originates due to racist laws designed to prevent black people from voting, but I don’t go around calling people who say they were “grandfathered in” are huge supporters of slavery because that would be fucking stupid. They clearly are just using a colloquialism and pretending you are offended by something that you’re actually not offended by as some kind of bizarre justification of your terminally online persona is weird.

But that’s just my opinion; apparently I’m extremely conservative, which is news to me. Maybe I should hang out in leftist circle jerk discord servers.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

To be clear, I never called you a conservative. That was someone else.

You appeared misinformed about the origin of the term and how it came to common usage, so I filled you in.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The reason it seems like an easy mistake to make is that you've been consuming conservative media that uses it routinely. Presumably this is the same media that told you about this ETF whose ticker is a joke about Nancy Pelosi, and suggested that it proves some fact comparable to the current administration's misconduct. Again, I'm not saying you personally consider yourself to be conservative - but if you don't, you've been tricked, and you need to urgently reevaluate how much you listen to the people who tricked you.

[tombert]

Which “conservative media” are you referring to? I don’t watch Fox News, I don’t watch Newsmax, I don’t listen to Alex Jones, I don’t watch CNN, I don’t watch MSNBC, I don’t listen to any political commentators.

The fact that the ETF is outperforming the regular market demonstrates that there’s some shiftiness going on. I am pretty sure that was the point.

I didn’t say it was comparable to the Trump admins misconduct, read my comment again. I said that democrats aren’t immune from shittiness.

Pretending to not understand what I was saying is extremely irritating.

ETA:

I reread my comment and I realize that I said “not categorically better”, which can easily be interpreted as an equivalence.

That wasn’t what I was trying to say. I was just trying to say like we shouldn’t act like there isn’t some level on shittiness on the democratic side.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Hard for me to know what you watch and listen to. Stereotypical "podcast bros" are one big thing I've seen - there's a lot of political content out there that gets cast as "apolitical" because the nominal topic is something else or the hosts are sympathetic to Bernie Sanders. (And this is something I'd absolutely is a both-sides thing, a lot of the content creators I follow do take broadly left-wing themes for granted.)

[tombert]

Well good news! I also don’t listen to podcasts! I think Joe Rogan is a big stupid idiot, and may have singularly caused more damage than nearly anyone currently alive. I used to listen to a lot of NPR podcasts but I haven’t in years.

I guess I do read The Onion so I am not divorced from politics, but I try to mostly avoid consuming much political shit.

Yeah yeah I know everything is political, I promise you that you don’t need to lecture me on that fact. I am just saying that most of the shit I consume now largely boils down to videos about how video games work or “documentaries” about lolcows on YouTube. I have tried to unplug from everything that gravitates around the political news sphere. The only place I get any “news” is HN nowadays, and I mostly try and read the tech shit.