General US Politics

[Time the Crestfallen]

Reddit shouldn't be talked about as an example of anything political or used as a resource for anything political when the Clinton campaign is working with a super PAC to spam and downvote anything unflattering to her or supportive of Trump on r/politics lol. Mods on r/politics have been demoted for supporting Trump. Reddit is the absolute worst place to discuss politics right now because it's being used the same way mainstream media is.

There really isn't an unbiased place to discuss things.

Preaching to the choir man. Even if you ignore the Clintion thing, Reddit as a whole is to the right what Tumblr is to the left.

[Tangerine]

I'm not sure how things are on tumblr because I've never used it before, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Tryhard]

It was just the first example I could think of to demonstrate how the most ardent supporters of supposedly being able to say anything you want on a private medium can oversee the exact opposite.

[Tangerine]

I've never used subreddits like that, it seems like you may as well expect that type of thing to go on in a Clinton or Trump specific subreddit. It's when it seeps into what's supposed to be neutral ground and you see things like that happening that it bothers me, you'd think something would be done about it. Like are we really at the point where presidential candidates are openly hiring internet trolls to spam our discussion forums and we're okay with it? lol

Edited August 20, 2016 by Tangerine

[Nobody]

i'd be okay with it because it's their campaign money and they use it however they want, as long as it's legal. I vote for policies, not over petty stuff like this. If I were American, I'd not only be voting but also campaigning for Clinton

Edited August 20, 2016 by Nooooooooooooooooooooobody

[Tangerine]

Nobody is talking about it impacting their vote, we're talking about our discussion forums and the matter of ethics. People need open, unbiased discussion forums and resources to make informed decisions. Politicians being allowed to openly poison said discussion forums by hiring groups of trolls to keep relevant information buried is ridiculous.

If you can campaign for someone like Clinton and be proud of it then you either have very twisted values or are horrifically uninformed. This is a lesser of two evils vote, not a "this person would be a good president" vote.

[Nobody]

there's literally no unbiased news source, platform, forum, whatever. It's literally impossible to be unbiased, everything and everyone has biases. You yourself sounds quite biased in your posts, mostly by the way you complain about mainstream media. I'm pretty informed when it comes to policies and i'm happy with my values, thank you very much. The biggest step for someone to be a good president is having good policies. Obama has good policies, and I think Clinton has good policies from economic and social points of view.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Nooooooooooooooooooooobody

[Tryhard]

Yeah, I knew about that and it's pretty telling how disliked Hillary is that her or her associates thought that getting people to lie on her behalf would be beneficial to her image. I have seen the same thing happen on supposedly neutral sources before, though.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Tryhard

[Tangerine]

there's literally no unbiased news source, platform, forum, whatever. It's literally impossible to be unbiased, everything and everyone has biases. You yourself sounds quite biased in your posts, mostly by the way you complain about mainstream media. I'm pretty informed when it comes to policies and i'm happy with my values, thank you very much. The biggest step for someone to be a good president is having good policies. Obama has good policies, and I think Clinton has good policies.

Uhhh, what's your point, that I'm biased against corruption in Journalism and Government? lol. Guilty, you got me.

I've voted liberal my entire life, you don't need to be so blinded by your preferred ideology that you can't look at something objectively and determine serious issues with the way your party and fellow voters conduct themselves. I've specifically avoided discussing the candidates in much detail because I don't believe either of them deserve or are fit for the position and I have a very hard time discussing either of them positively, instead choosing to focus on other important issues that the election is bringing to the forefront. Issues that effect US neighbours as well.

Yeah, I knew about that and it's pretty telling how disliked Hillary is that her or her associates thought that getting people to lie on her behalf would be beneficial to her image. I have seen the same thing happen on supposedly neutral sources before, though.

Yup, it definitely happens, just not to this scale and not so openly. We're talking about a $5 million super PAC created to spam our forums, lie, and suppress support for the opposition or negativity surrounding their candidate - and even further, allowed to work directly with the campaign through a loophole. It's something that needs to be addressed.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Tangerine

[Nobody]

Uhhh, what's your point, that I'm biased against corruption in Journalism and Government? lol. Guilty, you got me.

I've voted liberal my entire life, you don't need to be so blinded by your preferred ideology that you can't look at something objectively and determine serious issues with the way your party and fellow voters conduct themselves. I've specifically avoided discussing the candidates in much detail because I don't believe either of them deserve or are fit for the position and I have a very hard time discussing either of them positively, instead choosing to focus on other important issues that the election is bringing to the forefront. Issues that effect US neighbours as well

The thing is; is it corruption if it's legal? Isn't corruption by definition illegal?

How do you plan on making the mainstream media unbiased? Should the State regulate media? Isn't that by definition anti democratic? Couldn't a authoritarian State just skew media in their own favor (see Russia, Venezuela, China, etc)? I just don't see why biased media is an issue, as long as it can be sued for lies, which it can definitely be. You can't force anyone to choose which news to publicize (as long as they're all true) and what prominence to give them. I don't think people are dumb enough to be manipulated by the big evil mainstream media -and if they can that's their own issue-, and I don't see how any attempt to force it to be unbiased could work, other than suing for lies, which is already a thing. Almost no bias happens because of lying, but rather because of the prominence given to each news, i.e. things that actually happened, as well as opinion pieces, which are just that, opinions.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Nooooooooooooooooooooobody

[-Cynthia-]

there's literally no unbiased news source, platform, forum, whatever. It's literally impossible to be unbiased, everything and everyone has biases. You yourself sounds quite biased in your posts, mostly by the way you complain about mainstream media. I'm pretty informed when it comes to policies and i'm happy with my values, thank you very much. The biggest step for someone to be a good president is having good policies. Obama has good policies, and I think Clinton has good policies from economic and social points of view.

I don't feel 'ashamed' for supporting Clinton either, despite attempts by the media to make me feel otherwise (and yes the media attacks Clinton regularly too, it's highly disingenuous of people to suggest otherwise). She's the remaining viable candidate that has policy views that match mine the closest which I think is a pretty good reason to vote for someone.

[Tangerine]

The thing is; is it corruption if it's legal? Isn't corruption by definition illegal?

How do you plan on making the mainstream media unbiased? Should the State regulate media? Isn't that by definition anti democratic? Couldn't a authoritarian State just skew media in their own favor (see Russia, Venezuela, China, etc)? I just don't see why biased media is an issue, as long as it can be sued for lies, which it can definitely be. You can't force anyone to choose which news to publicize (as long as they're all true) and what prominence to give them. I don't think people are dumb enough to be manipulated by the big evil mainstream media, and I don't see how any attempt to force it to be unbiased could work, other than suing for lies, which is already a thing. Almost no bias happens because of lying, but rather because of the prominence given to each news, i.e. things that actually happened, as well as opinion pieces, which are just that, opinions.

It's not possible to achieve perfection, but it IS possible to force networks and journalists to hold themselves accountable and change the way they do things. You're already seeing this happen, CNN has been forced to apologize for deceptive journalism this election season (the most recent being the milwaukee video) and is starting to report more evenly (by their standard anyway) as a result of public outcry and plummeting ratings. Giving up is how nothing changes, people can have an impact and fight for fair practice. There is absolutely nothing wrong or foolhardy about fighting for fair and even reporting on our major networks.

As for "people dumb enough to be manipulated", it's not about being "dumb". Poor and uneducated (uneducated - not necessarily "dumb") communities are the ones most vulnerable to media deception, the common person who doesn't know their way around the web and trusts the news stations and social media sites they're subscribed to.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Tangerine

[Crysta]

As long as there's a grab for money and ratings, it will be biased, because news is a product to market now. How the hell do you think Fox News got off the ground and flourished? Their core demographic want news which is tailored to their liking and biases. It is not just the result of some shadowy network execs simply trying to push their political agendas, though that is certainly a part of it; they are also giving people what they want.

People have the internet at their fingertips now. You can't wholly blame the media for willful ignorance.

[Tangerine]

As long as there's a grab for money and ratings, it will be biased, because news is a product to market now. How the hell do you think Fox News got off the ground and flourished? Their core demographic want news which is tailored to their liking and biases. It is not just the result of some shadowy network execs simply trying to push their political agendas, though that is certainly a part of it; they are also giving people what they want.

People have the internet at their fingertips now. You can't wholly blame the media for willful ignorance.

Fox News was (and is) also the only major network with a right-wing slant and has had more than its fair share of criticism levied on it for that. If people were okay with the state of journalism right now then trust in the media wouldn't be at an all-time low and people wouldn't be so up in arms. Of course there are people who want media to tailor to their beliefs, but more of us want balanced news without an agenda. It's possible to achieve, people just need to keep doing what they're doing now.

22% of Black Americans, 19% of Hispanic Americans and 15% of White Americans do not have Internet access or otherwise do not use the Internet. Those are real statistics and they account for millions of people. These are the groups most likely to be impoverished and uneducated. If they wanted to fact check information, they don't have the most useful tool to do so. There are people who are "willfully ignorant", but there are also a lot of people that expect what they're told is the truth.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Tangerine

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

as much of a lying mess alot of the news is these days, i typically choose to listen to fox news over CNN and MSN these days.

then again i'm also a tad bit to the political right.

[Tangerine]

I mean, you have to get your news from somewhere, just make sure you look deeper into whatever claims are being made. Especially in this election cycle you need to be an informed reader. I wouldn't say it's correct to choose one slanted site over the other though, they typically complete or debunk one another's claims.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Tangerine

[Phoenix Wright]

It's not possible to achieve perfection, but it IS possible to force networks and journalists to hold themselves accountable and change the way they do things. You're already seeing this happen, CNN has been forced to apologize for deceptive journalism this election season (the most recent being the milwaukee video) and is starting to report more evenly (by their standard anyway) as a result of public outcry and plummeting ratings. Giving up is how nothing changes, people can have an impact and fight for fair practice. There is absolutely nothing wrong or foolhardy about fighting for fair and even reporting on our major networks.

As for "people dumb enough to be manipulated", it's not about being "dumb". Poor and uneducated (uneducated - not necessarily "dumb") communities are the ones most vulnerable to media deception, the common person who doesn't know their way around the web and trusts the news stations and social media sites they're subscribed to.

while true, poor people don't vote, so really it doesn't matter if they're manipulated any one way. this is especially true when congress doesn't act based on public opinion. why would they?

money in politics is why things are so fucked.

cnn fox and msnbc are all crap sources anyhow. breitbart and huffpost are right there with them.

[Tangerine]

Well, no, that's disingenuous. The most relevant information their research found was, from your link:

Those making under $50,000, who account for 48 percent of the population, made up only 36 percent of voters, while those making over $100,000 made up 30 percent of voters, but only 22 percent of the population.

That's not "poor people don't vote", it's telling us that lower income households don't vote in the same numbers that higher income households do relatively. There is a disparity, and it's a noteworthy one. To say it doesn't matter if people are being manipulated is a little ridiculous and I'd hope it was poor phrasing lol.

Otherwise I agree with your post, money in politics is absolutely a huge problem and the root of a lot of our issues.

[tuvarkz]

Debatable on both sides, unfortunately. When Donald Trump actually went and had an AMA on the The Donald subreddit, it was estimated that at least 2000 users were shadowbanned for asking unflattering questions. This is supposed to be a place that champions the supposed role of free speech, but the moderators went and shown that they evidently don't care about it. There's almost nowhere on the internet where you could not be restricted for what you say.

If you're being offensive for the sake of being offensive, or an asshole, or breaching that sites code of conduct (even though any private site can punish/ban you for any reason) then I don't really have a problem with private sites removing you. It's just that the government shouldn't be able to take action over what you say with exceptions like threats and others.

Honestly, Trump was pretty much forced to do the AMA on reddit. The only other place where the AMA could've been hosted would've been 4chan, but then the issues of how threads come and go (and particularly the flooding of posts that would happen) would make questions and answers get lost (And the shitposting would intensify to even higher levels than usual); and it would be giving mainstream media a massive amount of ammo, given /pol/'s reputation (And trying with /int/ (international) would hardly be any better, as it still remains one click away from /pol/).

Edited August 20, 2016 by tuvarkz

[Crysta]

If people were okay with the state of journalism right now then trust in the media wouldn't be at an all-time low

They may say this in the poll, but it's usually in regards to the news sources they don't trust, i.e the ones not favorable to their political leanings. Most people do have a news source they trust and don't distrust them all.

There's also this weird thing where people accuse, say, a newspaper of bias when they write about something they don't like in a favorable light - by daring to say something positive about it. People themselves aren't very fair and balanced. The "truth" to them isn't necessarily... well, the truth.

22% of Black Americans, 19% of Hispanic Americans and 15% of White Americans do not have Internet access or otherwise do not use the Internet. Those are real statistics and they account for millions of people. These are the groups most likely to be impoverished and uneducated. If they wanted to fact check information, they don't have the most useful tool to do so. There are people who are "willfully ignorant", but there are also a lot of people that expect what they're told is the truth.

Libraries. Schools usually have them. I used them quite often when I didn't have an internet connection at home. There will be places you can't reach, but I'm not sure how you remedy that particular problem.

[ping]

Tradition is the main reason I suppose. I have heard the argument that if it were all based on the popular vote, then candidates would only focus their campaigning on major cities because that would be more efficient population wise but I'm not sure if that's true or important in reality. I don't think you're dumb, the electoral college seems outdated to me.

Yeah, you could make pretty much the same point against the current system, couldn't you? It's all about the swing states, why bother with Texas or California?

I was speculating if one of the big parties benefits from this system and therefore blockades any changes, since that was kind of the case in Germany a few years ago. A weird quirk about our voting system could lead to less votes resulting in more seats in parliament for a party. But since that favoured the larger parties, those weren't that keen on fixing that... ;)

[Balcerzak]

What do you guys think about the voting system in the US? Personally, I don't really see the point in the electoral delegates. I mean, this makes it very possible that a president is elected with less than 50% of the votes, it makes individual votes more or less valuable depending on the quota voters/delegates and if you're living in a state where the outcome is clear anyway, your vote kinda doesn't matter at all, even if the election is close nationwide.

I might just be dumb (very real possibility ;) but I just don't see any real advantages... So is there a reason why the voting system doesn't get changed?

It's actually a really clever way to increase the representation of the less populous states, to help avoid a tyranny of the majority. It's flawed, obviously, but it's better than nothing, and it's honestly something I'm all for keeping. It's intimately tied to the notion of the United States not as one monolithic entity, but as a collection of smaller republics, each with their own quirks and differences, a notion that has been steadily declining thanks to the creep of federal government overreach. The common flaws of the electoral college (aka I live in an x state, my vote doesn't matter) are all a matter of how the electors are assigned, which is a matter handled by the states. If you don't like the winner-take-all method of assigning electors, get it changed at the state level to a representative distribution. I think most of the legislatures that enacted winner-take-all did so because they perceived it as making campaigns more likely to spend money there as a result of the higher risk, higher reward.

[solrocknroll]

It's actually a really clever way to increase the representation of the less populous states, to help avoid a tyranny of the majority. It's flawed, obviously, but it's better than nothing, and it's honestly something I'm all for keeping. It's intimately tied to the notion of the United States not as one monolithic entity, but as a collection of smaller republics, each with their own quirks and differences, a notion that has been steadily declining thanks to the creep of federal government overreach. The common flaws of the electoral college (aka I live in an x state, my vote doesn't matter) are all a matter of how the electors are assigned, which is a matter handled by the states. If you don't like the winner-take-all method of assigning electors, get it changed at the state level to a representative distribution. I think most of the legislatures that enacted winner-take-all did so because they perceived it as making campaigns more likely to spend money there as a result of the higher risk, higher reward.

And where exactly is the federal government overreaching? The federal government always knows best for pretty much every topic, and the states who want their own choices just want to use them to spout their homophobic, transphobic, racist vitriol. It's the federal government's job to keep the backwards states from forcing their horrible ideas on the people who live there. I shouldn't be disadvantaged because I live in Tennessee, one of the worst states in the entire country.

[Balcerzak]

And where exactly is the federal government overreaching? The federal government always knows best for pretty much every topic, and the states who want their own choices just want to use them to spout their homophobic, transphobic, racist vitriol. It's the federal government's job to keep the backwards states from forcing their horrible ideas on the people who live there. I shouldn't be disadvantaged because I live in Tennessee, one of the worst states in the entire country.

Just about everywhere, tbh. The enumerated powers are extremely few and limited, but progressives have over time chiseled away at the restraints the founders put in check. You can read one summary of such things from Cato. As for your "federal government knows best" comment, it's so absurd I'm not sure if you're trolling or if ignorant enough to legitimately believe that.

[-Cynthia-]

Yeah, you could make pretty much the same point against the current system, couldn't you? It's all about the swing states, why bother with Texas or California?

I was speculating if one of the big parties benefits from this system and therefore blockades any changes, since that was kind of the case in Germany a few years ago. A weird quirk about our voting system could lead to less votes resulting in more seats in parliament for a party. But since that favoured the larger parties, those weren't that keen on fixing that... ;)

I wouldn't say either Democrats or Republicans benefit heavily from the Electoral College IMO. Bush did win the college in 2000 while losing the popular vote, but some shifts in states like Colorado and Virginia have favored the Democrats recently.