2016 U.S. Presidential Elections: The Circus Is In Full Swing

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

19 [...] It was them who demanded decreased police presence which (when agreed, expressly or tacitly by local authorities) resulted in multiplying rates of "ordinary" crime.

most crime did not go up significantly, and in fact a lot of it is below average. the types that did were largely brief spikes for about a week before dropping back to below average.

murders did go up, but infering causality with the protests would be too hasty, given everything else going on (covid, joblessness, economic hardship, the mass surge of gunbuying, overloarded hospitals etc.) https://www.vox.com/21454844/murder-crime-us-cities-protests

cooking up half baked "facts" like that and laying the blame on the protests is just an easy scapegoat.

2) [...] Oh ok, then ****ing pick up a phone and call Cuomo, call DeBlasio, call Inslee, call Brown, Waltz, Durkan, Wheeler, Frey and tell them to do something.

they've been plenty capable of encouraging mass police violence against protestors without his input.

3) I appreciate the irony of someone from London or continental Europe or anything along those lines telling me I am unfamiliar with and too far away from what happens in (sort of) my country, my (for real) city, my neighborhood and on my block.

you're as far from seattle and portland as i am from you.

4) I fail to see how far right internet cells that apparently are well monitored and neutralized by the appropriate agencies are more of a threat to the American society than the actual mass political violence perpetrated or enabled and defended by BLM and Antifa.

literally all of said agencies have repeatedly stated extremely clearly that the danger from white supremacists is exceptionally higher than any "actual mass political violence" () from "antifa" and blm. 90% of terrorist plots and attacks in the states in 2020 originate in right wing extremism. then there's like 8% religious, and they call the 2% left wing terrorism "increasingly negligible".

5) 5 murders for BLM/Antifa v 0 to 1 for the militias was already generous towards BLM/Antifa.

leaving aside that these numbers are just flat out wrong (just one example), it must be very convenient for you to ignore the hundred+ people that white supremacist terrorists have killed in the last year to create this false equivalence.

6) "mostly peaceful" and "peace intesifies'

quit blaming cops rioting on the protestors.

also, >ben shapiro. lol.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

...say that throughout most of his political career, Hitler was a peaceful politician.

And you only have to agree to skip the preamble where he blatantly lines out that you're a lesser form of life, only fit to work yourself to death making ration tins, for that to work.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

>Ben Shapiro

This explains a lot.

 

[Cute Anime Girl]

I think it's important to acknowledge to people like kurzack that violence happens. You're never going to convince people that are legitimately stressed out and personally affected by the violence to just suck it up. Not giving it the attention it deserves (as judged by them) feels like we're trying to gaslight them. And just like we have to recognize BLM's feels, we have to recognize the people affected by the protests feels (feels are a proxy for satisfaction). Man, civics are complicated.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

This explains a lot.

As a rule*, there's really only one of two ways a non-Russian, post-communist Eastern European will treat Shapiro, so not really, no.

*(Of thumb, anyway)

 

[eddiemccandless]

On a somewhat unrelated note, you gotta appreciate the irony in this video:



I do hope that his experience will cause him to do some self reflection, although I am probably asking for too much.

 

[Cute Anime Girl]

Despite Pence lying almost every time, it feels good to at least be lied to in coherent sentences.

I like Harris but she's not the strongest debater.

 

[eddiemccandless]

I think that she was being conservative (in the non political sense) on purpose. At this point the Biden Harris strategy seems to be to just let Trump destroy himself. The whole debate seemed pointless and as bland as unsalted crackers. It was however very entertaining to see Pence trying to sound like the voice of reason while trying to support a deranged man. Part of me just wanted Harris to be like "come on, man! are you for real???" but I can see why she didn't do that.

 

[Cute Anime Girl]

Yeah, you're right. Biden is campaigning on a composure of decency. Would defeat the sentiment if Harris would go hard. Line between strong prosecutor lady not taking any **** and crazy radical black woman is also thin when you're addressing republicans.

 

[Lord Brutus]

On a related note, 13 members of a right wing white supremacist group were taken into custody before they could carry out their planned mission, kidnapping the Governor of Michigan. Night of the Long Knives, perhaps?

 

[Arvenski]

Trump being President and the Covid-19 pandemic have combined to bring out the nutjobs in staggering numbers. It's so disheartening to see how many of the people in this country are retards.

 

[eddiemccandless]

Yeah I am going to have to just stop reading comments on Youtube videos. There's people everywhere spamming conspiracy theories and general madness, it's not even about politics anymore. This is just sheer insanity. I am sure a lot of those are paid to do this kind of stuff, but still... It's kind of depressing.

Social media companies will have a lot to answer for in history books I think.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I watched a documentary yesterday that compared the neoconservative movement to Sayyid Qutb and the Taliban. I thought it was hyperbole at the time but I really don't know anymore.

It's so funny when terrorist groups have this grand plan that committing some extravagant act of violence will mobilise the sleeping masses like a secret codeword for an army of androids or something. Has that ever worked, even remotely?

Social media companies will have a lot to answer for in history books I think.

Mass conspiracy movements like this predate social media or even mass media by centuries. Facebook and Whatsapp have definitely helped spread these ideas, but the sentiment of powerlessness and impotence in the face of large institutions and systems that drives it can be traced directly back to at least the crusades. The only way this hysteria is going away is if people have more autonomy and control over their lives, or at the very least if the expectations of upward mobility are made more realistic. I've heard a lot of "solutions" from liberals like a better education system or even a fact checking institution, but they're missing the common thread in that the people who believe insane grand conspiracies are almost always responding to a gulf between the expectations of their life and reality. The worse this gap gets, the more insane the conspiracy theories will get, because without believing that satanist lizards are running the world, you have to come to terms with the horrifying, ego destroying assertion from the ruling ideology, that everything bad in your life is your fault.

 

[eddiemccandless]

Mass conspiracy movements like this predate social media or even mass media by centuries. Facebook and Whatsapp have definitely helped spread these ideas, but the sentiment of powerlessness and impotence in the face of large institutions and systems that drives it can be traced directly back to at least the crusades. The only way this hysteria is going away is if people have more autonomy and control over their lives, or at the very least if the expectations of upward mobility are made more realistic. I've heard a lot of "solutions" from liberals like a better education system or even a fact checking institution, but they're missing the common thread in that the people who believe insane grand conspiracies are almost always responding to a gulf between the expectations of their life and reality. The worse this gap gets, the more insane the conspiracy theories will get, because without believing that satanist lizards are running the world, you have to come to terms with the horrifying, ego destroying assertion from the ruling ideology, that everything bad in your life is your fault.

You are probably right. I was trying to see if anyone had done any study on how widespread conspiracy theories were before and after social media, because I have the impression that they made things much worse. But I wasn't actually able to find anything that corroborates or denies that, so it's anybody's guess I suppose.

I did find a book on conspiracy theories that makes the case that the American Revolution was basically started by one. I find the thought interesting, hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

I do think that the sense of alienation that you talk of became more and more widespread over time. And the covid pandemic was kind of like a bomb in this regard, in the sense that it's such a movie-like thing to happen that we can't blame people for not knowing what to believe anymore. I am what one would call highly educated, and used to digging deep, and still it sometimes takes me a while to figure out if some news are real or not.

 

[Lord Brutus]

Rumor is that the 13 are members of the Proud Boys, who Trump referred to before his bout with COVID

 

[kurczak]

TLDR: comparing alt right and BLM does not make any sense. Neo nazis militias (let's call them with their names) are looking for violence for violence's sake. BLM wants a better life for black people, and is trying to achieve that with non violent methods, just like MLK did.

<democratic mayors and governors> been plenty capable of encouraging mass police violence against protestors without his input.

quit blaming cops rioting on the protestors.

Stuff like that is just through the looking glass to me. I'm not going to take Vox's cherry picked sample statistics to brainwash myself that I didn't see the stabbings and burning buildings and looted blocks of streets that I saw with my own eyes. Or that I didn't see thousands of people cheer on the active looters. That I didn't hear endless streams of profanities and calls for physical violence against groups of people which again were met with rousing applause from the peaceful protestors. That these peaceful protestors didn't openly brag in public about their loot from the peaceful demonstrations. Yet, these people enjoy generous support, rhetorical and financial, from essentilly the entire Demoratic establishment, some parts of the Republican one too, 90% of the national media, about every single ****ing corporation and tens of % of the general population. But yeah they are the unlikely underdogs fighting The Man. Who we really need to look out for is the occasional white lunatic who shoots several people, then promptly gets the chair or several lifetimes without parole and is hated on by everybody except the tiniest permiles of the general population.

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

Rumor is that the 13 are members of the Proud Boys, who Trump referred to before his bout with COVID

they are boog, not proud boys.

~

ok boomer, facts don't care about your feelings.

 

[Lord Brutus]

they are boog, not proud boys.


ok boomer, facts don't care about your feelings.

Once again the German expert on American affairs has chimed in.

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

it's not my fault that y'all get stuff wrong sometimes

here. boogaloo. not proud boys. they are, in fact, different things.

 

[Lord Brutus]

I read a similar article which speculated that Proud Boys were involved, possibly since they are the older group. All neo-Nazi, Fascists look alike to me.