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On being a Democrat voter — 28 Comments

1. Neo,

   Pew Research did a study that found conservatives will often read liberal media but liberals will almost never read or watch news from conservative media.

   I think that explains a lot.

   Keep up the good work and Merry Christmas to you and yours!

2. “A mind is a difficult thing to change, and it’s satisfying and validating to cling to preconceived notions that offer a convenient excuse to do so. Joining the supposedly virtuous and good also means that you yourself are virtuous and good.” This!

3. My theory is the censorship brainwashes many people into acting a certain way. As well as the brainwashing / indoctrination in our K-12 and higher education system, with a few exceptions. And the same thing is happening in the corporate world. Woe be the one that challenges the DEI agenda, or other parts of the Woke Agenda.

   You don’t dare have a different opinion, for fear of being ostracized, cancelled, losing your job, etc. It’s a lot easier to go with the flow. They are not even allowed to see a different opinion. And any difference of opinion is demonized, and it’s if we are in a constant Two Minutes of Hate. And Social Media, and Youtube / Google have censored many conservatives.

   An excellent example is how Youtube, Censored Rasmussen Reports for daring to do a poll on how many people feel there is election fraud.

   What is arguable about a poll? That it shows the majority of likely voters feel voter fraud is effecting elections.

   The censored report:
   https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/biden_administration/most_voters_share_gop_concerns_about_botched_arizona_election

   Rasmussen mentioning the censorship.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRhYD1feHG4

4. What’s also interesting is that these same people often will concede that Biden is pretty awful, or that certain specific policies enacted by Democrats are demostrably bad, or even that certain arguments made by people on the right are probably correct (like, for example, certain basic realities about gun control or the border). In fact you can often get them to grudgingly concede certain points if you’re willing to communicate with them calmly and they’re willing to listen without getting too upset or being triggered by something you bring up. But you have to be very careful.

   In a discusion often the old tried and true Socratic method can work well, basically asking simple questions, like “Why do you think that is?” or “Do you think policy x has worked well? And if not, why?”.

   But it is alot of careful work. And it’s best when you’re one-on-one with the person for a while without distractions, which is often impossible in a casual social situation.

5. I ran into this awhile back…FB “discussion” the topic of which I can’t even remember. What I do remember is that I linked an article from the daily mail, and it was immediately dismissed as not being valid as it came from “that British right wing tabloid rag.” Now the DM does have it’s more than fair share of Hollywood, Royals, gossip stories, but I’ve found it also has some good straight up reporting also. But, the person would not even consider reading the link because of the source.

   As Mike Smith mentions, I stop by CNN and MSNBC sites everyday just to see what’s up there. I can’t see any of the lib/D people I know dirtying themselves by even looking at Fox or Townhall. They won’t understand the evil until they are being loaded into the boxcars, but it will be too late then.

6. “THEY” were calling it “faux news” back in the early oughts when they were covering for George McChimpy Bushitler…

   Much the same as the complained about the Drudge Report back in the early days. Guy doesn’t do any reporting, only points out articles that aren’t fitting the corporate line. He was the danger to democracy then, by which Democrats in power mean, DANGER TO THEMSELVES

7. I’ll add this:

   Much right wing media, for example, Rush Limbaugh, is brash, sometimes over the top, funny, and doesn’t take himself (itself) seriously.

   Consider NPR in contrast. Very serious, very practiced “calm voice of authority” production. Sounds sooo smart.

8. Nice phrasing there, zenman. My significant other worked for Faux in their New York studios in the time you reference. She’s extremely attractive, so (of course) was called called into Roger Ailes’ office for a thorough propositioning. Against the advice of a female friend/on-air personality, she declined to do the deed. That got her busted to the overnight crew, and she quit soon after. She confirms that the network was aggressively and blatantly shilling for the Smirking Chimpster. Thanks much for adding to our lexicon.

9. The tremendous imbalance on media sources plays a major role here. Are conservatives more likely to access liberal and leftist media sources than vice versa? Absolutely. But there are infinitely more of these sources; one would really have to build a bubble to filter out any and all ‘news’ coming from a left leaning perspective. It’s very easy to filter out right leaning sources.

   “Those on the right who say “but isn’t it obvious how evil, mendacious, and destructive the left is?” My answer is simply no. To see that, you must be paying closed attention to those very things that have already been discredited in your eyes. It’s a hurdle to overcome, and although some do, most will not.”

   Precisely. Here’s a challenge: try to go two weeks only accessing the NYTimes, NPR, and MSNBC for news. Nothing else. Not your local newspaper, not any other platforms, not this blog or any blog. And…do not discuss current events or politics with any right leaning friends or family. Two weeks…nothing but the above three sources. If you’re able to do it, you will have a glimpse into the perspective of an average left leaning voter.

10. physicsguy. Dollars to donuts your friend had never heard of the Brit paper, or had no opinion. His view of the paper’s quality followed the reporting which was inconvenient.

11. Richard Aubrey as quoted
    [T]he dem/lib/prog and anti-Trump folks are…..strange.
    If one mentions a fact inconvenient to their views, they’ll say, “Fox” or “Trump” with the self-satisfied air of intellectual triumph. Logic and facts are meaningless

    Back in the day, when I commented on blogs regarding Venezuela, one reply to a comment of mine was that I got my information from Fox News. I replied that I got my information from English language blogs run by Venezuelans (two run by Vens with STEM doctorates), such as Devils Excrement, Venezuelan News and Views, and Caracas Chronicles. (also World Bank for economic data.)

12. There’s probably more than one reason for this. One reason is that they don’t research and just believe whatever they are told by the media and those around them. Any subject takes considerable research to truly understand, but they don’t want to do the research.

    There is also an assumption that somehow being on the left is a sign of righteousness. They see it as a sign of the inherent goodness.

    There is also what I call “shallow” thinking. This is related to the lack of research earlier, but it is also that they go for the ideas that seem good on the surface. Socialism seems like a good idea as long as you don’t think deeply about it. It’s giving to poor! Except its not. It’s actually taking from the productive to give to the non-productive by force. But they just here it is going to “help” the poor and don’t think about it anymore.

13. @Gringo

    Caracas Chronicles is fascinating in its own way, because I actually read it fairly regularly way back when. It had quality reporting and could inform about Venezuela better than most, including the lie that most of the Venezuelan economy is privately owned and how the regime politicized welfare.

    But it was run by people who were distinctly Latte Leftists, albeit from Venezuela. Their knowledge of Trump, US politics, or the economy was came from the likes of the MSM or even worse. They also had some disturbingly odd articles like this one praising a late 19th/early 20th century leftist populist dictator (named Castro, because reality rhymes) as a guide to how Venezuela could work its way out of international sanctions while ignoring A: that was dependent on US support that did not exist, and B: while the US helped Cipriano Castro negotiate out of a confrontation with a UK/German/Italian alliance they did not save him from the Dutch a while later (who they did not view as a threat) and Castro fell.

    And people noticed. The commentary section was notably more right wing than they were and happily called them out on it. The tipping point in my opinion was the Brazilian elections, where they endorsed the leftist Petro over Bolsonaro. And in isolation they raised some decent points… while COMPLETELY ignoring or downplaying Petro’s connections to the Chavistas and how he was regurgitating literally the same rhetoric as Hugo had, complete with “Socialism for the 21st century.”

    And the commentariat noticed and called them out on it. For a while there was even something like an insurgency in it, along with a few passive-aggressive posts about commentators.

    But then the editor in chief at the time resigned and was replaced with a new one, and “coincidentally” comments were not only disabled, but flushed. It was a monumental betrayal. And it disgusts me. Apparently these people even while living with the palpable effects of Chavistas totalitarianism could not “break caste” and now muffled discussion.

    I stopped reading around then. Obviously my commentary and my loyalty was not important to them. It is around that time when I grudgingly washed by hands of Venezuela. If they do not want to be free urgently enough, the tragic fact is they won’t be.

    Edit: and imagine my shock. I just checked and They have brought comments back… using Disqus, the horribly centralized and often corrupt and partisan hatchet piece.

    One of the articles on the front page blathers about “Musk-owned Twitterzuela”. And there are no comments in the articles on the front page except for formulaic spam bots.

14. There is an element of behavioral conditioning to most network news broadcasting, I think. Maybe it’s in the vein of trying to ensure the listener continues to tune in. Back in the late 70’s, I was painting houses in the afternoons while attending university in the NE, and I would tune in to NPR, to listen to All Things Considered. Man! I was never a liberal, even in high school I thought it was a national shame that Nixon was driven to resign, against almost everybody that I knew.

    But A-T-C was a great show! It was interesting and it led the news cycle with reporting that would generally (-often-) turn up in the networks’ coverage a week later. And it had a great, catholic range of interests and insights. But: Compare that to A-T-C now! The show is a propagandistic, unimaginative joke, and I say that not because I’m 40+ years older, or more conservative.

    I honestly have a hard time staying with it now, with its prescription-level bias, its ultra-woke far-left mantra-type reportage. It has become boring and predictable, and it no longer leads the news cycle. It has replaced journalistic independence with formulaic material that (I believe) is at least partly intended to condition its listeners, to keep them within a narrow, comfortable range of reinforced beliefs. And of course, one needs only to tune into Sean Hannity on Faux to see the exact same kind of droning repetition, night after night, designed for a similar result. Ugh.

15. i tried some things considered and wait wait forget about it in the 90s, sporadically until around 02, Hannity is uninteresting in his delivery, Tucker and Laura, bookend for better material,

    down in south florida, there was the jimmy cefalo show, a minor sports celebrity who branched into talk, there was also an offering from tampa I think todd schnitt they were kind of meh, opposite them, we had neil rogers who was a dyspeptic liberal gasbag, (well you might have heard a little about him)

16. “Those on the right who say “but isn’t it obvious how evil, mendacious, and destructive the left is?” My answer is simply no.” neo

    I agree that its not obvious to those liberals who would never vote for a republican. That said it is because the democrat party base has lost touch with their moral compass. I base that assertion on what the left is doing with children and liberal’s condoning of it. Where is the groundswell of liberal outrage against it among those who are not parents of school age children?

17. Gringo. I expect your friends who heard your actual sources cared not one little bit. Using “fox” or similar syllables is to discredit in advance anything said, even if it doesn’t come from one of those.
    Years ago, going around with feminists on work issues, I mentioned the difference in workplace death and serious injury.
    “You got that from Warren Farrell.” Obvs end of discussion and I lose.
    No, I said, I got it from work comp stats. Made no difference. The prediscrediting formula had been uttered and nothing mattered.
    So, on the grounds that nobody can be that stupid all the time, I figure it’s a deliberate tactic.

    I should say that Warren Farrell is not in good odor with feminists.

    But to sit down and calmly discuss it…. Nope. It would hurt too much to buy into actual reality plus Trump might approve.

    Closest I’ve gotten is “Okay, we’ll agree to disagree.” Which means, “Okay, Aubrey, you’re right but it’s not going to make a flake’s worth of difference to me.”

18. cefalo was definetely in the top men, gop establishment of south florida, if anywhere on that score board, I also had interactions with rick edelman, one of these weekend financial pitchmen, who seemed exceedingly shallow, not jim cramer shallow, that’s like a damp sand pit on the beach,

19. I run into the same thing constantly. I think Mike Smith and physicguy are right on, but I’ll add that because most left-of-center people don’t bother to read anything other than left-leaning media, their only understanding of conservative positions comes from 20-second clips of Hannity and Tucker played on MSNBC or linked on their left-wing blog.

20. Of course, calling Bush II a chimp is just A-OK because he’s so evil. OTOH, mentioning black people and primates in the same breath is one of the most horrible things a white person can do, second only to dropping the N bomb. TPTB are even changing the name of monkeypox, because that name might hurt someone’s feelings.

21. What is becoming even clearer to me, is that the pursuit of politics is not enough to reverse our slide into decline. You have to change the PEOPLE … convince them that just going with the flow puts them at risk, because it does.

    We have a century of conditioning to simply accept social technocracy, that has left millions selling their own common sense short and simply going with the flow of busybodies and demagogues, because it is easier than making the efforts and taking the risks (including the risks associated with offending those Nice People™ who Know Better™) to manage their own lives, treating the “experts” and “leaders” as simply advisers to them while retaining their own decision-making authority.

    Without that conditioning to their own expedience, the expedient politics that besets us today would not get a foothold.

    But there is no magic bullet of an election to cure this – we have to make the coherent case to others that the GOP will not: that government’s job is “to secure these rights”.

    Not to solve our problems FOR us.
    Not to save us from the crisis du jour.
    Not to be our virtue signal.
    Not to impose tribalism, or theocracy – or ANY flavor of herd collectivism.

    It is our neighbors – and ours, in some cases – expedient acceptance of social technocracy that is the problem behind the problems.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12bd050a259c7142e55bd58a9761d55cc9b98d7e5032755865f12f37ccbf8b70.png

22. This morning I tried Ackler’s great suggestion of looking only at MSM news sources. It really is quite amazing. Only after about an hour did I find out, after having enough and going back to my usual sources, that Musk just fired Baker.

    Twitter files??? The only mention of any such files, let only Baker’s firing, was a snarky and sneering column way down on msncb.com. In the column was reiterated the now standard talking point of rehashing 2 year old news with no new information. Hmmm…same thing KJP just said yesterday.

    I’ve been asking this question for more than 10 years: who is coordinating and deciding the “talking point” of the day??? This is a big job and the level of organization and control is impressive. There’s obviously a cabal of unknowns who, within a few hours, decide on a response to a topic and it is disseminated across the entire left spectrum from the White House down to left blogs and then endlessly repeated. The right has nothing like this. Not that it should. That level of message control is Orwellian and has been in place for at least a decade or more. Very difficult to fight against when a large proton of the population never strays from the MSM.

23. It’s called “collusion”…but “There’s Nothing to See Here”(TM), etc…

    (We know it’s called “collusion” because this is PRECISELY what they accused Trump and Flynn et al. of “committing”….
    …And they’re STILL accusing them…)

24. Zombies. It’s become just Zombies all the way down.

25. Turtler

    Caracas Chronicles…was run by people who were distinctly Latte Leftists, albeit from Venezuela. Their knowledge of Trump, US politics, or the economy was came from the likes of the MSM or even worse.

    Agreed. As Quico is a Reed graduate, that is no surprise. Is it any accident that someone my age from a neighboring town went to Reed, and had a Red Diaper Baby background? (Not that all Reedies are of that ilk, but that RDBs would have been more comfortable there than at other places.)

    And people noticed. The commentary section was notably more right wing than they were and happily called them out on it.

    What latte-lefty Quico ignored is that contact with Venezuela often turned Gringos toward the right. It did for me. Purchasing and reading Carlos Rangel’s
    “Del Buen Salvaje al Buen Revolucionario” (in translation: The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relation with the US) while working in Venezuela changed my political views. Working with anti-Chavista Venezuelan engineers in the US also had an effect.

    The tipping point in my opinion was the Brazilian elections, where they endorsed the leftist Petro over Bolsonar

    Correction: CC endorsed Petro over Duque in the 2018 Colombian election. Yes, that article was shocking. Looking at Petro’s Twitter feed was sufficient to show his blatantly pro-Chavista leanings. Such as his eulogy calling Hugo a “great Latin American leader.” Such as the photos of the well-stocked Caracas grocery store, to refute empty grocery shelves, when the photos were from a Dominican Rep chain. Such as his Twittering about the 2017 “Constitutional Referendum” (or whatever you call it).

    The tipping point came earlier, in 2016. CC went stridently anti-Trump. “Is Trump more like Chavez or like Maduro? We conclude he is more like Maduro.” Though that may have come from a Quico op-ed in the WaPo, it is quite similar to other CC articles.

    Before 2016, CC was relatively neutral towards US politics. Previously CC had some balance with Juan Cristobal Nagel’s more centrist views in addition to Francisco “Quico” Toro’s latte-lefty views. After Nagel left, the lefty deluge came. Chicken or egg regarding Nagel’s leaving, I imagine. I imagine that Nagel left before CC published all that Trump-trashing stuff.

    To Quico’s credit, he didn’t respond to Fidel Castro’s death the way Petro did to Hugo’s death. Quico really laid it on Fidel. Excellent article.

    I glance at CC every couple of weeks. One article that stuck with me was an article by a Venezuelan living in San Francisco. She was SHOCKED that the SF lefties (is there anyone there who is NOT a lefty?) loved Maduro. She went on to say that she didn’t live in Miami because she didn’t like the “right-wing” views of the Cubans there. She never stopped to consider that the Cubans in Miami have experienced life under the Castro regime- the regime that Hugo loved and is Maduro’s greatest ally.

    No Disqus comments for me at CC.
    Yes, the Twitterzuela article was puzzling.

    I shouldn’t be shocked at Quico’s latte-leftist views. Rather, I should be shocked at Juan Cristobal’s more centrist views. Venezuela was leftist long before Chavez took over. The only place in Latin America I ever met someone named “Lenin” was in Venezuela. Recall that the parents of Carlos the Jackal, Venezuela’s contribution to terrorism, gave him a Leninist name- was it Ivan Illich?

26. For decades, the Democratic Party contained people of diametrically opposed ideological views, so the party had to really play up the theme that the Democrats were for the little guy or the people and against the fat cats and the corporations. There’s much more ideological unity in the party now, but you can still find people who are Democrats because they think the party will keep the fat cats and the corporations in line and people who are Democrats because they think the party will supported enlightened policies from above and keep the little people in line. Hard as it is to believe, they vote for the same candidates. The reason is that the idea of Republicans as the “bad guys” has been drummed into them for years. Even people who vote Republican haven’t been unaffected by the propaganda.

27. There seems to be a certain personality type that is perfectly happy to be brainwashed. In a certain sense they seem to brainwash themselves — holding to a mantra and ignoring everything else. I had an astonishing encounter with a person like this. The topic was not partisan politics, but a dispute about a local oyster farm. The oyster farmer had done nothing wrong, but National Park Service authorities wanted the farm gone and they didn’t have the guts to just say so, so they cooperated with environmental activists on the creation of a false narrative that the oyster farm was harming the environment. Oysters are in fact known to help the environment, as they filter the water. At the exact same time the Park Service was publishing lies about this one oyster farm, other federal agencies such as NOAA were working to put oysters into the water. But NPS and its NGO partners have lots and lots of money for propaganda, and when the propaganda fits with what people want to believe, people will readily believe it. This situation happened in the San Francisco Bay area, where environmentalism is practically a religion, and the narrative got boiled down to Save the Wilderness. The oyster farm was in the end destroyed and declared a Wilderness — on paper; it’s a wilderness you can drive to and park at. I was one of hundreds of people who worked for years to try to save the oyster farm. We were so naive! We had no idea what we were up against, we imagined that getting the facts across to our adversaries would solve the problem. The astounding encounter took place at one of the early public meetings. I asked one of the anti-oyster people why he held the position he did. I said I wanted to understand his perspective. He said “Wilderness!” I asked him to say more, and instead he just raised his voice and again said “Wilderness!” And then he kept it up, like a chant: “WILDERNESS! WILDERNESS!” I felt like I was talking to a caveman. Or worse — someone who thought I was a savage, beneath contempt. At the time this seemed unusual. Eventually I realized that, sadly, it is not.

28. Sorry for the long link but my computer skills are limited. I hope this will take you to a hilarious video someone patched together of local news programs all saying the same thing. Cracks me up every time I watch it.
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/11/on-the-same-page.php

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