Snowflakes. Groomers. Cucks.
For years the MAGA movement has approached politics the way a bully would approach a schoolyard, sparring with labels so nasty, they seemed expressly chosen to appeal to the kind of people who stuffed nerds in lockers in sixth grade. And for years Democrats, abiding by the mantra to go high, not low, have responded by trying to be the adults in the room: defending themselves with facts, with context, with earnest explanations that nobody remembers (if they defend themselves at all).
The problem is that taking the high road only works if politics is a sport played mainly by people who act like grown-ups, which it is not. And also: Facts and context don’t make for particularly sticky messaging.
Enter: Weird.
Over the past two weeks, as “Brat” and coconut memes have taken over the internet and Kamala Harris inches closer to Donald Trump in the polls, the Democrats have finally gone low, deploying a bit of verbal jujitsu so delightfully petty it might just work.
Yes, nearly a decade into “Orange Man Bad” as their sole policy platform, the DNC is just now engaging in name-calling like the GOP 🙄 The paper of record!
I’ve always found this “criticism” pretty funny.
I get the point of it is to be absurdly reductive, and to insinuate a reflexive, unthinking mindset where it doesn’t matter what Trump does; the response will always be, “Orange Man Bad”. Use of the “orange man bad” criticism ends up being more of an indictment of those who wield it though than it is of his critics. It’s not like there’s a failure to elaborate the specifics of each of his misdeeds. The information is out there and widely available to anyone who cares to take a look. That being the case, when specifics are given and Trump supporters or other malcontents dismiss it as “orange man bad” they are really displaying that they don’t care to see why the complaint exists. It’s a tactic of ignoring a legitimate problem, and hand waving it away under the pretense that there’s nothing behind it. It’s lazy and/or willful ignorance.
Beyond that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Trump critic unironically use that phrase. If you’d like to see it though, here you go. Ultimately, this “criticism” fails to take into account that yeah, actually “orange man bad”. Like, that’s the legitimate reality of the situation. Trump is awful and he provides near endless examples of that. The guy is genuinely, unambiguously bad.
I’d like to welcome you out of your coma. Neolibs have no policy objectives that differ from the republicans on non-social issues (and no actual policy on social issues) so they’ve been harping on Trump being bad for a decade while getting into a position where they can’t beat him in an election without a pandemic, which is presumably not their desired outcome, but maybe the strategy is working and this was the plan all along.
I’m undecided as to whether you’re a troll or just an unfiltered idiot. I am sure that there’s not a third possibility though.
Troll. They have a year-long posting history they deleted to try and hide their bad-faith bullshit. They’re just here to be an asshole.
I love how the people who claim to want the dems to win the most do the most to turn off voters online. It’s truly remarkable.
If winning an election requires dumbing things down for the idiots to the point that nuance and substance disappears then maybe America is a failed experiment. Either way, you’re obviously not participating in good faith here.
I do a lot of complaining about the Democrats and their offputting tactics, but I’m having a hard time believing you’re actually engaging with any of this in good faith and simply bothered by the unfriendly responses.
These complaints just seem like repeating slogans rather than engaging with the actual failings of the Democratic party because the idea that they have no policy beside “Orange Man Bad” is just obviously untrue. Plenty of real criticisms, but that one’s just nonsense. Add to that that the “Orange Man Bad” refrain originated with and is primarily in use by conservatives and this whole thread just doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Obama v Hillary 2008 was over whether we do universal healthcare or card check to massively increase union membership. Name ANY serious non-Berniecrat dem who’s run on anything anywhere near that scale in terms of moving progress forward since then.
And here is the predictable moving of the goalposts. Now the bar isn’t that Democrats have no economic policy, it’s that the primary policies weren’t grand enough. Except in the primary that elected Joe Biden the major topics of discussion were just as grand and the super moderate who won still greatly increased anti-trust enforcement and canceled student debt. The most salient difference being the Democrats had a weak super majority in 2009 and the slimmest possible majority in 2021.
But anyway. Why do you use 4chan alt-right slogans as the core of your complaint, fellow leftist?
Neolibs have no policy objectives that differ from the republicans on non-social issues
That’s just blatantly untrue. I don’t see any Dem calling for disbanding the Department of Education. Stances on environmental protection are also starkly different between the two parties. Voting rights protections, abortion rights, access to medical treatment for transgendered people, funding of and access to Medicaid and food programs… how many more do you want?
Being against republican policy plans is not actually a prescriptive policy plan and won’t turn out voters who aren’t already 100% with you already. Democrats always lose on Hillary/Kerry “I promise you nothing but defeat for the republicans” platforms without a Clinton/Obama charisma dynamo as an incumbent, and not to downplay Harris’ charisma, but she had to drop out before her home state in 2020 to avoid embarrassing under-performance and isn’t really an incumbent.
The phrase “hold your nose and vote for _______________” exists entirely because voters turn out for candidates who they aren’t 100% with.
You’d agree that the 2020 primary is quite a bit different from the current scenario we’re looking at, yeah? As the Brits say, chalk and cheese.
As far as prescriptive policy, yeah, I’d love to see more, and wish it were more politically viable. That’s the point where we need to start talking about extended strategy, which the US citizenry needs to get a better grasp on if we’re going to claw our way forward. In the mean time harm reduction is a valid mindset.
It’s not just politically viable for the democrats to be more proactive, it’s smart politics. The right wing of the DNC has convinced everyone that to run on a non-GOP platform is politically nonviable. This is a lie, but it persists, and has fundamentally turned the DNC into a conservative party. They’re conserving post-Great Recession America against the GOP’s Fallout-style future 50’s, but it’s still fundamentally a conservative position ill-suited to the age demographics that trend DNC in terms of votes.
I largely agree with this. That’s different than saying that the two parties as they currently exist are mirror images of one another though.
As far as the content of your post, that’s where the need for extended strategy comes in. Until enough progressives/leftists work their way into the structure of the Democratic party on a state and federal level what you’re describing is unlikely to change. Bemoan the two party duopoly as much as you like, but it’s a reality. The way to change it is to infiltrate it and fundamentally alter the mechanisms that perpetuate it. It’s not going to work to just hope for one progressive/leftist at the top of the ticket, and complaining that the person at the top isn’t progressive/leftist enough can frankly be met with, “well, yeah, not much of a surprise there.” The Tea Party is the template. They completely turned their party to shit (well, more so anyway), but successfully infiltrated the party apparatus to reflect their political preferences. If the left does something similar we can actually make 3rd parties viable and no longer be beholden to the Democratic party, but that’s most probably a decade+ long project if we’re being honest about it. It’s unfortunate that the left is as fractious as it is; it only makes something like this more difficult.
It is, in fact, bad to sell classified documents that you stash in your bathroom and jeopardize the safety of all Americans. It is, in fact, bad to rape people. It is, in fact, bad to ignore scientists during a global pandemic. It is, in fact, bad to raise taxes on the working class while cutting taxes for billionaires. It is, in fact, bad to be racist. It is, in fact, bad to pay illegal hush money bribes to protect a campaign. It is, in fact, bad to say that democracy will end after you gain power.
I could do this all day.
Wow, you are smart. Guess everyone who was going to vote for Trump isn’t now that you said he was bad!
Would you say that any of the things I listed are good? Or are you just going to not address facts and reality?
Turning a critique of an NYT article as being lazy and dumb (which it 100% is) into yet another instance of a neolib screaming “ORANGE MAN BAD AND THE DNC CANNOT FAIL ONLY BE FAILED!” on the internet isn’t helping your cause, no matter how bad he is. There are millions of voters who would maybe show up if promised something, who simply aren’t going to turn out to vote against Trump for being a rapist. That’s just the reality.
I asked a direct question and you refuse to answer it. Since you can clearly read, I am forced to assume that you know all of those things are bad but admitting it hurts your feelings so you instead rely on avoidance behavior instead of confronting reality.
Edit: I also didn’t say any of the things you claimed I did. You are just lying at this point. It’s pathetic.
God, you blue MAGAs and your ad-hominems… You people really make Lemmy a VERY unpleasant place.
Which of the things I listed is good?
Bout damn time we give up this “We go high” bullshit
This is much, much “higher” than the right.
We’d have to have Joe Biden drop the Hard-R on Mark Robinson to reach anywhere near the lows of the Right
Future Presidential debates:
“Shut up you lying little bitch”
“Come make me, fuckface!”
Schoolyard Insults: Presidential Edition
I love how b!t©h is removed but “fuckface” is peachy.
wait is it just straight up removed, or censored like b****?
There’s a hunter2 joke here but I’m too old and tired
Why did you just type a bunch of asterisks in the middle of a sentence?
Only because you’re on ml, my instance gives me the full uncensored text.
Still hilariously arbitrary, no matter who’s dumb idea it was.
Republicans are disgusting
https://archive.is/JGSPb Because I hit that wall.
Also, holy shit. That’s the most mind-blowing article I’ve read in awhile. Thank you!
You’re welcome. I did my own research after Trump got elected into the Authoritarian Personality, Dark Triad and the F-Scale.
I fear this is Harris stalling on detailing her platform. Please, don’t just bank on your age difference; even though Trump is a weirdo. Will someone run an actual campaign or am I just out of touch here?
Kamala is talking a lot about what she wants to accomplish.
This is the newest I could find. Uses quotes from 2019; even though the article is a few days old. It also contains alot of speculation.
Regulatory agencies have been captured, scotus is corrupt, women’s rights have been taken, the largest industries are enriching a miniscule handful of Americans, fascism is increasingly coming into style and our noble democrats have only just started a new grand strategy of… name calling?
Forget about getting people fed, using the new immunity ruling, stacking courts, or any serious material change for Americans. We are fucked.
A doomer .ml account. How original.
Seriously. Doomerism and defeatism are just pathetic and detrimental. When has giving up and rolling over in the face of opposition ever led to anything good? Especially when so much is at stake and worth fighting for every step of the way.
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Beep boop. This action was performed automatically. If you dont like me then please block me.💔
If you have any questions or comments about me, you can make a post to LW Support lemmy community.Besides, I’ve heard that Trump smells kinda yucky.
(If this is more effective to steer away the followers than guilt on 34 points, rape and hush money, then let’s roll with it.)
Supposedly has for decades, this is not an age issue
looks like what a faint, unclean clogged garbage disposal would smell like.
Don’t let Shady Vance go near your couch cushions.
You mean JD Vance, the man who wrote Wet Goddess: Recollections of a Dolphin Lover under the pen name Malcolm Brenner?
Are you saying JD Vance not only
lovesfucks couches, he also reallylovesfucks dolphins?Does he like fish sticks?
Are you saying JD Vance keeps Kanye’s song “Gay Fish” on constant rotation?
I was annoyed at that “when they go low, we go high” rhetoric. No you kick them in the teeth. Politics is a pig wrestling competition and you gotta get dirty.
Finally?
It’s all they have been doing for 10 years, this is just the latest programming as the others have all been disproven to the masses.
I’m still in the group of… This is childish behavior.
The walk around while holding on to your ankles group?
No the, “politics should remain professional” group.
McCain Defending Obama: https://youtu.be/JIjenjANqAk&t=30s
That ship has sailed years ago. Maybe we’ll get back to it if everyone votes and the Fanta Menace goes to jail.
I think it’s missing the point. It’s not effective for being name-calling. It’s just saying what everyone is already thinking. Like in the 2020 debate when Biden said “Will you just shut up, man?” It was relatable because Trump runs his fucking mouth all the time.
This is the same. It’s a relatable feeling - Trump is deeply weird and out of touch. Vance is so creepy people didn’t even bother to check if he really wrote about fucking a couch.Vance is so creepy people didn’t even bother to check if he really wrote about fucking a couch.
Nailed it. Pre-Trump era I would have frantically searched for a source. These days my expectations from the Republicans are so unbelievably low.
I don’t like the implications for future political discourse…
but fuck it, for now it’s refreshing to see the reactions of surprise by that camp… Did they think that Dems didn’t dunk on them “playground style” cuz they couldn’t?
I mean, John Quincy Adams called Jackson’s wife a slut and Andrew Jackson called Adams a pimp.
Adams, “yeah, pimping out your wife!”
Jackson: Oh boy, here I go dueling again!
“Your wife is everyone’s Huckleberry” - Adams
All due respect to Michelle Obama otherwise, but I think she was flat out wrong when she said ‘When they go low, we go high’. It’s the paradox of tolerance applied to the political realm. How do you ensure a tolerant society in the face of intolerant people? It’s impossible if you’re not allowed be intolerant of intolerant people. How do you ensure that political discourse sticks to concrete policies and objective facts when your opponent refuses to engage with either but instead stoops to conspiracy theories and personal attacks? Also impossible if you’re stuck talking about difficult concepts and nuanced facts while your opponent is free to sling personal insults and cognitively sticky memes that may have absolutely nothing to do with reality.
The solution is to apply social contract theory. Tolerance doesn’t have to be a rule that you’re not allowed to break. It can be a social contract instead, so when someone breaks the social contract by being intolerant you are no longer bound by the contract, freeing you to not tolerate their behavior in return. Similarly, sticking to policy- and fact-based political debate doesn’t have to be a rule you’re not allowed to break, it can be a social contract between political opponents. If the other candidate won’t debate policy or facts then you’re free of the contract, which means you’re free to say they’re weird. Which they very much fucking are. Once you get most of the figurative children out of the room, you can go back to making actual progress amongst the contract-adhering adults who remain.
You said it so well. 8 years too late but hopefully still enough time to avert a real disaster.
You are no longer bound by the contract, freeing you to not tolerate their behavior in return.
An important perspective here is also: by not agreeing to the terms of a social contract the other party is, in fact, forfeiting their right to be treated as a signatory to contract, and any implied protection that accompanies it. When I frame it like that it feels less like I have a license to actively be hostile in response to douchebaggery of the right, and more that they have opted to stand in the douchebaggery lineup.
6 in one, half dozen in the other, but I like putting the responsibility on them for a change.
https://app.getrecall.ai/share/b53f83e5-f90e-555e-a808-aaf7ca787ee0
The Prisoner’s Dilemma The video discusses the Prisoner’s Dilemma, a famous problem in game theory that arises in various situations, from international conflicts to everyday life.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma illustrates the potential for conflict and suboptimal outcomes when individuals act rationally in their own self-interest.
The example of the US-Soviet nuclear arms race highlights how the Prisoner’s Dilemma played out in a real-world scenario, leading to a costly arms buildup and a stalemate.
The video introduces the Prisoner’s Dilemma through a hypothetical game involving two players and a choice between cooperation and defection.
The game demonstrates that regardless of the opponent’s choice, the best strategy for each player is to defect, leading to a suboptimal outcome for both.
The video also mentions the role of the RAND Corporation in studying the Prisoner’s Dilemma and its implications for the US-Soviet conflict.
The video concludes by highlighting the prevalence of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in various contexts, including the behavior of impalas in removing ticks.
Impalas face a dilemma when grooming each other: cooperating by grooming another impala comes at a cost, but they also need to be groomed.
The dilemma is similar to the Prisoner’s Dilemma, where the rational choice is to defect, but repeated interactions change the dynamics.
Robert Axelrod’s Prisoner’s Dilemma Tournament Robert Axelrod conducted a computer tournament to find the best strategy in a repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma.
He invited game theorists to submit computer programs, called strategies, which played against each other for 200 rounds.
The tournament was repeated five times to ensure the results were robust.
One of the simplest strategies, Tit for Tat, won the tournament.
Tit for Tat starts by cooperating and then mirrors its opponent’s last move, cooperating after cooperation and defecting after defection.
Tit for Tat’s success highlights the importance of cooperation and retaliation in repeated interactions.
The tournament results demonstrate that simple, consistent strategies can be more effective than complex ones in repeated games.
Tit for Tat’s Success and Qualities of Successful Strategies The Prisoner’s Dilemma Tournament: Robert Axelrod conducted a tournament where computer programs played the Prisoner’s Dilemma game against each other. The goal was to see which strategy would be most successful in maximizing its own payoff.
Tit for Tat’s Success: The simplest strategy, Tit for Tat, emerged as the winner. It was a “nice” strategy, meaning it didn’t defect first, but it was also retaliatory, defecting only when its opponent did.
Qualities of Successful Strategies: Axelrod found that the best-performing strategies shared four qualities: they were nice, forgiving, clear, and simple.
The Importance of Being Forgiving: Forgiving strategies, like Tit for Tat, were able to retaliate but didn’t hold grudges. This allowed them to build trust and cooperation over time.
The Second Tournament: Axelrod held a second tournament, this time with an unknown number of rounds. This change was significant because it removed the incentive to defect in the final rounds.
The Rise of Nasty Strategies: Some contestants in the second tournament submitted “nasty” strategies, hoping to exploit the forgiving nature of others.
Tit for Tat’s Continued Dominance: Despite the emergence of nasty strategies, Tit for Tat remained the most effective strategy in the second tournament. Nice strategies continued to outperform nasty ones.
Axelrod’s research identified four key qualities of successful strategies in the repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma: being nice, forgiving, retaliatory, and clear. These qualities are similar to the “eye for an eye” morality that has evolved around the world.
Tit for Tat, a strategy that cooperates on the first turn and then mirrors the opponent’s previous move, was a successful strategy in Axelrod’s tournaments. However, it is important to note that there is no single best strategy in the repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma, as the best strategy depends on the other strategies it interacts with.
The Evolution of Cooperation Axelrod conducted a simulation where successful strategies reproduced and unsuccessful strategies died out. This simulation showed that even in a world where nasty strategies initially thrive, nice strategies like Tit for Tat can eventually dominate the population.
Axelrod’s research suggests that cooperation can emerge even in a population of self-interested individuals. This is because cooperation can be a more successful strategy in the long run, even if it requires some initial risk.
Axelrod’s insights have been applied to various fields, including evolutionary biology and international conflicts. His work suggests that cooperation can evolve even in the absence of trust or conscious thought, as long as it is encoded in DNA and performs better than other strategies.
The Impact of Noise and Errors The text discusses the impact of noise and errors in game theory, using the example of the Soviet satellite system mistaking sunlight for a missile launch. This highlights the importance of studying the effects of noise on strategies.
The text explains that Tit for Tat, a strategy of cooperation followed by retaliation for defection, performs poorly in a noisy environment due to the potential for misinterpretations.
To address this issue, a more forgiving version of Tit for Tat is introduced, where retaliation occurs only 9 out of 10 times. This allows for breaking out of echo effects while still maintaining a deterrent against exploitation.
The Importance of Cooperation and Win-Win Situations The text emphasizes that winning in life is not always about beating the other player, but rather about finding win-win situations and working together to unlock rewards. This is illustrated by the example of the US and Soviet Union gradually reducing their nuclear stockpiles through cooperation.
The text concludes by highlighting the enduring lessons from Axelrod’s tournaments: be nice, forgiving, but not a pushover.
The Speaker’s Insights and Recommendations The text mentions that Anatol Rapoport submitted Tit for Tat to the tournament at the request of the speaker.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of choices in life, as they shape not only our own future but also the future of those we interact with.
While the environment initially influences our success, in the long run, it is our choices that shape the environment.
The speaker encourages viewers to play the game of life strategically, as their choices have a wider impact than they might realize.
The speaker recommends Brilliant, an online learning platform, as a resource for developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Brilliant offers a course on probability, which teaches viewers how to analyze real-world situations involving chance and risk.
The speaker highlights the hands-on nature of Brilliant’s lessons and encourages viewers to try the platform for free for 30 days.
Yeah. I think they thought that. The bully doesn’t think the victim can fight back. Or maybe they just think they never will. But someday the victim does
Can we make a meme referencing the MyPillow guy with Vance’s sofa smashing? After that all we’ll need is Trump embracing the Turks to get the Ottoman reference in there somehow and we’ll have a completely furnished set!
