Hey guys one of the things I miss about reddit is communities like r/Conservative or r/conspiracy, not because I agree with really anything they say there, but because it’s a challenge for me.
It’s really easy to say “no you’re dumb and wrong”, but I like going down rabbit holes so I will take the bat shit insane stuff they say and find actual sources to refute them. I know it won’t actually change any minds but it’s fun for me.
I know theres @conservative@lemm.ee but that is basically just non-conservatives making fun of conservatives. And I have not been able to find any good conspiracy theory communities on Lemmy at all.
Any advice?
The problem is that it gets really hard to find non-extreme right people willing to post, at least in the states. I refuse to recognize anyone who voted for Trump as being non-extreme, and given Trump’s historic positions, the actual quotable things he said during his campaign, and his subsequent actions, by voting Republican in the last US election they sat down at the table with fascists.
The vitriol between Republicans and Democrats in the US has always been there, and I think it started escalating rapidly after Nixon. Even with George Bush Jr in the early 2000s, which had its own set of big problems, it was still “civilized,” although people look back at that time and think it was insane (because it was). But the rhetoric has only accelerated even more, and the Trump administrations are the natural end result of this ever-increasing polarization, unfortunately.
I feel like “reasonable” Republican positions died with out after Reagan. Even though most people in this space will never say Regan’s positions were reasonable (much less good or defensible), there was still a veneer of civility and respect for what little democratic function America had at the time.
At this point, all of that has been thrown out the window. Even Pence, for how evil of a person he is, still refused to destroy the process, at least.
This is exactly how I feel. it’s like somewhere after 2000 people just gave up being civil, not just in politics although it feels like that’s where it’s become not just acceptable but almost required to demonize your opponent.
I’m not quite old enough to really have first hand experience or interest in politics before 1995 or so, but a lot of people seem to mark the time around Reagan as an inflection point.
I agree: it’s extremely difficult to find what I would call the “middle 80%” since the only people who tend to get all the media attention are the extremes at both ends who are hell bent on maintaining their airtime with ever more insane stunts.
I don’t understand how people can vote for someone who did such a piss poor job his first time around, but then again my province elected a drug dealer who ran with literally no election platform whatsoever and won, twice. It boggles the mind. Populism is a cancer.
I’ve just accepted that I’m completely out of touch with the average American.
I think mass media reporting makes it feel that way but it’s been my experience that it’s not true. I think the average American is doing their best to be a good person with what they’ve got. Their electoral system is broken in a similar way to the Canadian one: boiling down to a binary, two party decision that has no basis in reality, and a media that encourages extreme, polarizing positions.
Even this last election doesn’t (in my mind) reflect the average American. Less than half the eligible population cast their ballots. That’s a separate issue (voter disillusionment) but to me it means that those who did vote aren’t actually representative of what the average American wants or feels.
This all could be me being completely out of touch with the average American, but I don’t think it is based on my daily in-person interactions with them.