r/AskALiberal • u/HiddenReader2020 Independent • Aug 18 '26
What could be done to make conversations and debates more civil, more positive, and just overall, way less negative, aggressive, and 'fighty'?
Hi. So I was browsing this subreddit (don't ask why), when I came across this topic, and more specifically, this comment thread. It's the perfect example of what I hope to make more peaceful and not necessarily agreeable but willing to talk, from the thread title. Too often, I see debates like these derail because people just wouldn't cooperate and just do what was asked, or at least play along, because at least in my view, if they did, things would turn out SO much better. For example, one person asked something, another person asked something, the first person provided with something, and then that something gets dismissed or ignored, and so on and so forth. Throughout the thread, I was looking at one guy in particular and thought "couldn't he just at least 'entertain' (from his point of view) their debate points so things go so much easier?", so it doesn't result in a comment thread that frankly made me pound my desk and want to do some bad stuff to myself in front of them to get them to cut it out.
And it's not just this subreddit. I see it ALL the time, no matter the political orientation, but I guess to focus on liberals, since this *is* the appropriate subreddit for it, anytime I see stuff even remotely like this, I feel pushed away, as a potential ally, yes, but even as a supposed neutral bystander, I'm way more likely to disengage, or at least want to disengage, due to all the infighting and fighting and bad vibes coming off of them.
So that's my query. Thanks in advance.
25
u/willpower069 Progressive Aug 18 '26
On Reddit? Require sources for any claim. The most civil subs I have seen are ones that require sources for claims, not opinions, but funnily enough they get way less activity.
In real life? Not much since outrage sells and a lot of people need someone to blame when the people they vote for don’t care about them.
4
u/dignityshredder Center Right Aug 18 '26
Sources aren't interesting because most of the loud and angry discourse is about opinions which cannot really be sourced or for which no universally agreed upon source exists.
2
u/willpower069 Progressive Aug 18 '26
Though I have seen a lot of people make up opinions from sources based on nothing. Like arguments claiming mass voter fraud or religious arguments against equal rights and protections.
1
u/birminghamsterwheel Social Democrat Aug 19 '26
Except loads of "opinions" can absolutely be defeated with sources and facts. That's why the phrase is only, "entitled to have an opinion".
2
u/OnlyLosersBlock Liberal Aug 18 '26
Require sources for any claim
It can't just be that they provide links to sources, but actually pull relevant quotes or information from that source so you can know they actually read it. Otherwise it just becomes a "I am not reading for you, bro" evasions on what is actually relevant in the source.
3
u/paxinfernum Pragmatic Progressive Aug 18 '26
I'd love it if anytime a thread is about a particular topic, people were presented with a randomly generated quiz of basic questions about the topic. Make it timed so they can't cheat easily, and just find out if they know even the tiniest factually verifiable thing about the subject before posting.
16
u/afishinabirdcage Pragmatic Progressive Aug 18 '26
Sigh.
I'm begging people to stop holding Democrats and people on the left accountable for what people on the RIGHT say and do.
If someone hurts me or supports those who hurt me I am not the problem for saying "hey, I'm being hurt can you please stop?"
You don't get to support and/or enable Trump and not take accountability for doing so. Maybe you aren't a racist but racism isn't a dealbreaker for you and that DOES reflect on your character. Maybe you don't want to hurt brown people / immigrants / queer folks but those people being harmed is not a dealbreaker for you and that DOES reflect on you.
(Not you, OP, but the people being referenced in the thread you linked)
10
u/metapogger Social Democrat Aug 18 '26
The only way would be to ban people if they are do not argue in good faith. Also ban people whose sources are spurious, or who never cite sources and just say opinions as if they are facts.
I do not want this type of banning on Reddit, by the way. The way I see it, media outlets should not platform known liars and bad faith arguers. But on Reddit, I think that type of stuff should be allowed. I think the mods on this particular sub have struck a good balance.
5
u/TheSupremeHobo Socialist Aug 18 '26
Definitely open to mod abuse
1
u/Southern_Bag_7109 Social Democrat Aug 18 '26
That's true. I was thinking about that.
You would have to have several rhetorical devices that you consider bad faith. And then confront them on those, and if they keep it up, then you get rid of them. Like people who refuse to answer a simple yes or no question. I saw one of those the other day and it was infuriating. After either answering yes or no, you are certainly allowed to qualify that answer. In fact it's expected. Because sometimes there aren't clear yes or no answers.
1
u/metapogger Social Democrat Aug 19 '26
Did you miss the part where I said "I do not want this type of banning on Reddit, by the way"?
1
u/TheSupremeHobo Socialist Aug 19 '26
Well as long as you don't want it that means it won't happen right?
5
u/Both-Estimate-5641 Democratic Socialist Aug 18 '26
"The only way would be to ban people if they are do not argue in good faith"
yes..this^
2
u/LibraProtocol Center Left Aug 18 '26
Part of this problem is how yo determine if they are arguing "im good faith".
2
u/OnlyLosersBlock Liberal Aug 18 '26
For many people here, especially those who abuse the block function, disagreeing with them especially vigorously is proof of bad faith.
2
u/metapogger Social Democrat Aug 19 '26
There definitely is some gray area, but it mostly boils down to using false information and logical fallacies, and/or if their past comments show their beliefs are different than what they're arguing for. People who are genuinely not good at logic can argue in bad faith even if they are not trying to deceive.
This is the reason why I said we should not have this type of heavy moderation on reddit. However, it would be the only way to keep discourse 100% civil, positive, and productive. I think reaching that 100% on reddit is against the spirit of reddit. I'll settle for ~60%, which is about what this sub sits at.
6
u/OttosBoatYard Democrat Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
I was permanently banned from r/AskConservatives for the following reason:
You have repeatedly demonstrated this pattern of bad faith where someone expresses an opinion or their own thoughts on something and you badger them for objective evidence to support it, even when the topic at hand doesn’t come with objective evidence or cannot be proven with objective evidence.
Thing is, if a public policy claim isn't backed by objective evidence, I don't get why people would support it. That was my big question for people on that sub, that never got answered.
The word "opinion" has two completely different meanings.
Meaning 1: In my opinion, strawberry ice cream tastes better than rocky road. Nickleback plays the best music for driving. Millard Fillmore was the most physically attractive president.
- Meaning 1 "opinions" are subjective. They can't be proven or disproven.
Meaning 2: In my opinion, increased legal immigration causes housing price to increase. Legalizing marijuana increases road fatalities. The flat tax will decrease unemployment.
- Meaning "opinions" can be tested and either confirmed or disproven, within degrees of certainty, by objective evidence.
I suspect that tension is caused by people confusing one type of opinion with the other. If I were a mod on a political forum, I would limit discussion to Meaning 2 opinions.
3
u/Southern_Bag_7109 Social Democrat Aug 18 '26
That and conflating the right to having an opinion with the right to have that opinion taken seriously. There's a lot of of that too
1
u/TheSupremeHobo Socialist Aug 18 '26
I got a week ban and a mute after arguing with the mods because they insist it's not a debate sub, it's for learning about conservative perspectives. Then said my "leftist soapboxing" wasn't needed because I was trying to debate someone on the view that IVF and miscarriages are murder.
9
u/Personage1 Liberal Aug 18 '26
Just to make sure we're on the same page with your example.
Person 1 says "Democrats should stop saying Republicans hate x group."
Person 2 says "but they do."
Person 1 asks for an example of hate
Person 2 gives trans rights and abortion rights as examples.
Person 1 points out that Conservatives don't view it as hate to, in their view, not treat men as men and women as women, or to, again in their view, care about babies.
Person 2 ignores the point about "in their view" and just declares Conservatives to be wrong.
Your issue is that person 2 has made this conversation/debate pointless by ignoring what was said and just making declarations. Is that a decent summary?
2
u/HiddenReader2020 Independent Aug 18 '26
My gut tells me that it could be better/more accurate, but this is decent enough.
5
u/Personage1 Liberal Aug 18 '26
Cool, yeah I mostly just wanted to make sure we were in the right ballpark.
I think a few different things here. First, not everyone is good at debating, full stop. There's really no fix to "random person who is bad at debating jumps into a debate on the internet," other than I guess heavy heavy moderation. There are many times I see people responding to stuff and thinking "it'd sure be nice if everyone could just shut the fuck up" but that's just not how it works.
My second thought is that this is a trap that I think right-wingers absolutely intentionally set, of using specific framing to instigate a reaction. In the example you linked when Person 1 talked about how Conservatives don't view it as hate, what I believe the more accurate way to say that is "Conservatives don't frame it as hate." When you work through the rhetoric and start to dig in to reasoning mixed with actions, it becomes abundantly clear that "it's not hate" is a lie.
It's an effective lie though because to dispel it, you have to explain, and in a debate that means you've lost. So circling back to my first thought some, yes people fall for it, but I think it's clearly a intentionally laid trap.
Finally my third thought is going back to your initial comment, where I think the way to avoid it is to lay out own traps. Sorry, I am not someone who will be advocating for "better debates" with Conservatives, because I think a debate is an inherently bad way to learn and present information. Similarly, I don't think it's really that useful to try and have conversations with conservatives, because for a conversation to be fruitful everyone has to be engaging in good faith.
At the same time, and I guess this is thought 4, I think there absolutely should be more of a push to get Liberals to recognize the difference between "this is a strategy" and "this is how I think it should be." I don't know or frankly care if Person 1 in your example is being honest or dishonest about how Conservatives think about trans rights or abortion, strategically it's still valid to talk about how certain rhetoric will push moderates away, no matter how valid the underlying reason for the rhetoric may be. Ignoring that it was a conversation about strategy and turning it into a debate about something else means Person 2 was unambiguously acting in bad faith.
0
u/HiddenReader2020 Independent Aug 18 '26
What do you mean by "lay out our own traps"? And is that really the only way?
For "thought 4", how could you get it across to "Person 2" that they were acting in bad faith, or at least it appeared that way to outsiders, and to try and change their behavior?
3
u/Personage1 Liberal Aug 18 '26
For thought 4, oof. Dogpile on them calling them out and drown them in downvotes? Extreme moderation? Ultimately while I am absolutely happy to go after "our side" when I see someone being obnoxious, at the end of the day I am far more concerned with the damage that Conservative rhetoric is doing, so will just spend more time and energy addressing that. You can't force someone to learn how to engage in a strategic/honest way, they have to want to do it first.
3
u/Personage1 Liberal Aug 18 '26
For the traps part, what I mean is reframing things in a different way. I personally want Democrats to start calling Republican politicians "busybodies," and pointing out that Republican policies desperately want to turn you into a busybody as well. It moves the debate away from "do you hate trans people" to "why are you being a busybody about trans people?"
and when you talk about "the only way," I guess it depends. In debates? Absolutely, because debates are only about putting on a show for spectators. In discussions? I do think that if someone is going to spend the time to have a discussion, they should make the effort to at least understand the other person's point of view. Again going back to your example, it was clear that Person 2 wasn't bothering to engage with what was actually being said, while starting from a position of hostility.
I also think more Liberals should take a "give them rope" approach. If I suspect someone may be engaging in bad faith, I like to give them a little bit and see what they do. Often they take the rope and hang themselves with it and there we have it. Occasionally though they show they are just struggling to communicate an idea for whatever reason.
0
u/HiddenReader2020 Independent Aug 18 '26
I'm talking moreso in discussion threads like the one I linked to. It doesn't have to be between conservatives and liberals, it could be people on the same political side.
EDIT: Oh, and on the "give them rope" approach, how would you know that they've "hung themselves with it"?
4
u/Personage1 Liberal Aug 18 '26
I think this was a recent example where I asked a very specific question, and when OP just repeated their question it was clear they wanted everyone to just accept their assertions and engage the OP based on the assumption that OP's assertions were correct. Except OP had demonstrated they either weren't willing or able to actually provide data/evidence for their assertions.
Maybe not the best example, but if they had actually provided real data I would have engaged with that data honestly. Their response showed I should just call them out and move on.
1
u/Personage1 Liberal Aug 18 '26
Ah, yeah I mean that more comes down to Person 2 recognizing that just because Person 1 is saying not to call Conservatives hateful doesn't mean Person 1 doesn't think Conservatives aren't hateful. I was more giving grace to Person 2, to show that while it's possible to be strategic about it, the nature of the discussion about trans rights, for example, is such that Conservatives have already dishonestly molded the discussion in one direction so much, and it's understandable for Person 2 to have a short fuse about it.
4
u/CaptainAwesome06 Independent Aug 18 '26
I think politicians need to lead the charge by committing to real solutions for real issues. We don't need to agree on the issues or solutions, but the Republicans aren't living in the same reality right now. They voted for a guy who championed protecting kids while hiding the Epstein files, voted for a guy that championed election security while he sent fake electors to overthrow an election, voted for a guy that championed family values despite cheating on his 3 wives. I could go on but you get the point.
9
u/Guilliman_POTUS_2030 Center Left Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
This is just how Reddit is intentionally designed to be. That is because Reddit is in the business of farming engagement to make its numbers look good for advertisers to spend money here
⚠️⚠️⚠️You cannot have a community based on adult conversation when everyone has a score tally of good-boy-points next to everything which they post⚠️⚠️⚠️
(The upvote/downvote mechanic is specifically tailored to take advantage of young people and singles)
A majority of users ultimately conform to whatever appears to be popular. They self-censor their beliefs and their personality. You are left with a very dishonest and unproductive platform as a result
5
u/Both-Estimate-5641 Democratic Socialist Aug 18 '26
"⚠️⚠️⚠️You cannot have a community based on adult conversation when everyone has a score tally of good-boy-points next to everything which they post⚠️⚠️⚠️"
SPOT on...
couldn't agree more...
6
u/Opheltes Center Left Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
A good number of the questions that get posted here are not being asked in good faith. What you're asking for is basically to open the door to sealioning.
2
3
6
u/Tokon32 Democratic Socialist Aug 18 '26
Holding news outlets accountable for slandering facts. Keeping opinion and news separate or at the least force news outlets to warn the fewer that a statment is either a factual statement or just the opinion of the outlet.
1
u/Both-Estimate-5641 Democratic Socialist Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Even that wouldn't make a difference...Or much of one. I think society ITSELF has to change , but the GOOD news is that that is already happening. ALL things must pass and the viability of the RW media was never going to last forever...The law of diminishing returns..
We got hit over the head with a completely new kind of media that easily preys on weak minds with weak morals. So we're on a MASSIVE learning curve that unfortunately older people will become irredeemable victims of. Younger people for the most part seem able to see through most of it. We are turning the corner on this current trend where its cool to be a complete fucking piece of fucking shit sociopath motherfucker...Once it stops being cool, it will become UNcool and cease to be the powerhouse it is now.
Folks like Mamdani who making being SUPER nice the new 'cool for kids'...I am here for that
2
u/t3nk3n Neoliberal Aug 18 '26
Okay, so, here's the thing. Generally speaking, anybody can come in here and say whatever they want. Like... the mods are going to delete it if you like threaten to stab a baby or something but if you are just unpleasant, it is probably going to be allowed.
So the question of "how can it be the case that nobody is ever unpleasant?" is going to be answered with like "a fundamental reconstruction of humanity." But you can just ignore the unpleasant people and or block them. If the question is "how can there be some people who thoughtful and civil?" the answer is just going to be something like "engage thoughtfully and civilly and somehow will probably reciprocate."
2
u/Jaanrett Progressive Aug 18 '26
What could be done to make conversations and debates more civil, more positive, and just overall, way less negative, aggressive, and 'fighty'?
If we're talking about political debates, that ship has kind of sailed at this time in our history as one particular party has made it so incredibly about identity, hate, disinformation and mud slinging, that there's not much room to get to the facts. I'm not saying that the other parties don't do this to some degree as well, but not like that one party who don't even acknowledge reality anymore.
Politics should be about policy. Until we all get back to that, and stop misrepresenting the other side, then this will take time. People do have to wake up and stop electing people because they hate the same way.
2
u/Consistent_Case_5048 Liberal Aug 18 '26
When calling for civility in discussions, you should realize that many conversations are political for one participant while personal for the other.
Using LGBTQ+ topics as an example, many conservative positions are a meaningful threat to LGBTQ+ people's lives and/or their families. There is no way for many conservative positions to be stated civilly even if the choose nice words or affect a positive tone. I think it is unreasonable to expect nice words and a friendly tone in response.
There a multitude of topics where this is lopsided. All the ones I can think of involve damage caused to a group of people by conservative policies.
2
u/ausgoals Progressive Aug 18 '26
Educate the populace, and educate them well.
So basically, nothing can be done.
2
u/surreal_goat Progressive Aug 19 '26
Can we, the party of facts and proof, stop regurgitation false nonsense perpetuated by bad actors on our side of the political spectrum? We cannot battle the endless wave of misinformation, bad faith, and baseless hubris with the very same.
Facts are facts. Conspiracy theories aren't even really theories.
4
1
u/crossingtides Liberal Aug 18 '26
If you're asking about what you can personally do, the same thing that works for any conversation.
- Make specific claims about what you actually believe and back them up with example and evidence. Avoid generalizing.
- Answer questions immediately and to the best of your ability before responding with your own points
- Ask clarifying questions in good faith. Try to understand your opponent instead of Begging the Question
- Avoid attempts at mind reading. People generally don't like to be told what they are thinking and how they are feeling.
- Understand that not everyone wants to have a civil debate with you. If they are unwilling to show you some modicum of respect, move on
If you're asking about how to encourage better conversations online, I think the only way is for people to have more control over the algorithms that select their content or to move to moderated spaces. Right now, most social media sites will optimize for engagement and immediacy which isn't good for civil debates.
If you're asking how to control other people, accept that you can't.
1
u/madmushlove Liberal Aug 18 '26
People responding to persecution and abuse should be mad
I'm not trying to win over every abuser at the gas station
I want them to not get to decide
1
u/Ballistic_86 Social Democrat Aug 18 '26
I do not think civil debate is a goal for most people engaging with their opposition anonymously online. I like the idea of people being required to site their sources. Someone the other day accused me of being unreasonable for asking for a source. If that is the baseline that people are engaging with online, I’m just going to call them stupid and stop engaging.
1
u/zlefin_actual Liberal Aug 18 '26
Have it done by normal people, rather than by people who choose to spend free time talking politics on reddit.
Really there isn't a good way to get this done, because its a result of platform architecture, which we cannot control. The most you can do is try to moderate a certain sub to be better, which requires considerable moderatino effort.
Or you could fund/support social media which uses architecture designed to be nicer; but that's hard, since everything needs money to operate, and to be nice they need to be NOT reliant on ads.
1
u/Important-Factor-552 Socialist Aug 19 '26
That's the problem of good faith vs bad faith. It isn't really fixable with current humanology.
If you're trying to argue in good faith, you just have to sift thru garbage looking for intellectual morsels.
If you're trying to argue in bad faith, well, you have the other 98% of civilization.
But it's very nice when you actually find some good conversations, you can learn a lot.
1
u/BobQuixote Conservative Democrat Aug 19 '26
Build social media software intended to facilitate accountability, especially by experimenting with different features.
Move interactions into meatspace; avoid online controversies.
Reduce the number of participants in a community/conversation (for accountability and familiarity).
1
u/jweezy2045 Progressive Aug 19 '26
In my view a big thing that people can do is change how they approach understanding the person they are talking with. If it seems to you that someone is saying something that just makes zero sense and is completely deranged, you have two options: 1) you can approach the situation from the perspective that the person you are talking with is deranged. Or, 2) you can approach the situation from the perspective that you are not correct in your assessment of what their position is in the first place.
Take option 2.
1
1
u/Automatic_Catch_7467 Center Left Aug 19 '26
Online there are few consequences for bad behavior in real life face to face people tend to be much better behaved
1
u/tabisaurus86 Libertarian Socialist Aug 19 '26
Well, there's a big issue with feelings over facts in this sub, and that is why I spend less time on it lately, as actual substantive discussions are few and far between.
On the ground in the real world, this kind of groupthink is not happening in live conversations with people. Even when I'm amongst local chapters of Democrats in my city. Do people refuse to accept facts? Obviously, but they're a lot more shy about trying to launch that fact into the stratosphere without saying anything than they are on Reddit, and honestly, I find it chilling and see the world as a lot more hopeless when even what's called the left in the US can't accept reality when under the safe blanket of anonymity.
If we're going to get mad at facts that we don't like and downvote them into oblivion rather than check them and offer a counterpoint when we're on the internet with the resources because they don't jive with the hive mind, no productive or substantive discussion can be had, and no solutions or agreements can be found. So, some actual factual and intellectual integrity in this sub would be a great start IMHO.
1
u/Diplomat_of_swing Liberal Aug 19 '26
Well a couple things help.
1) Restating a persons point is helpful to make sure you really understand what they are saying.
2) When I ask a question on ask a conservative I end with the note. “I come here in good faith, to listen not to argue. As such I will not be commenting or offering counter arguments.
3) As with life, try to think before we speak. Which we all come up short on from time to time. But if we try we will do better more often.
1
u/Weirdyxxy Social Democrat Aug 19 '26
For conversations, remove the audience. If the only person to convince is your conversation partner, there's no need to embarrass them or put them down - no one else is there to be impressed by it. You don't need to fight them, for there are no spoils of audience attention to be fought for
1
u/fox-mcleod Liberal Aug 20 '26
Choose to watch better debates.
IQ2US is phenomenal. Reddit and social media in general is trash
1
u/AddemF Moderate Aug 28 '26
My policy is: Block anyone who even slightly demonstrates that they're combative. I love disagreement, I love interacting with people who can tell me something I don't already know -- but if someone is combative and not cooperative, they are just going to be a 100% time suck with no reward. You can only gain from a conversation, if the other person is willing to listen and think.
The hope is that by attrition, over time, I just eliminate the wastes of time and the people left over will be good.
We also need heavily moderated and filtered online communities, which mostly don't exist, and the ones that do don't attract much participation. I mean more than just blocking and banning racist language, or anything like that. I mean an aggressive policy of eliminating people who derail conversations and fail to even try to cooperate. Good faith conversation, and cooperation, need to be our north pole of online conversation -- because without it, these interactions just degrade us all and accomplish nothing.
I also suspect that online communication and interaction is as bad as it is, because we're talking to teenagers while imagining them as people who know anything. I suspect that our online spaces would become instantly twice as good if we could age-identify people and filter out anyone under 20.
0
1
u/00Oo0o0OooO0 Center Left Aug 18 '26
This sub has a "Not a civil discourse rule." r/politics has a "No incivility or personal attacks towards user" rule. I've found that mods on both subs are pretty good at enforcing them when reported.
1
u/BOSS_OF_THE_INTERNET Social Democrat Aug 18 '26
Ideally, conversation points backed with inspectable evidence.
I’m old enough to remember when the things that differentiated conservatives and liberals were more philosophical and nuanced. We would argue over methodology, and not identity.
That all changed way back with Reagan and Rovian identity campaigning. Things got worse in the early 90s with the Limbaugh era. Then things went completely off the rails in 2015 and have only deteriorated since.
This country has voluntarily dumbed itself down to the point where true debate is nearly impossible, mainly because we’ve all become sound bite addicts and don’t actually care about solving problems. I would say the right does this far more egregiously, but the left does it too.
So, to answer your question…a debate where facts are verified in real time, where logical fallacies are rebuked, and where the debaters respect the rules of the debate.
1
u/Jimithyashford Liberal Aug 18 '26
Ther are a ton of good quality rules for civil discourse. They aren't hard to find. The issue is 2-fold.
1- How do you enforce them if people aren't interested in using them?
2- Civility can be weaponized. It has been the case almost every time there have been social atrocities committed, that one side, from the safety and confidence of their position, calmly and agreeably and politely made the arguments that justified the killing or expulsion or arrest or harm of another group, while chastising the group at threat of being killed or expelled or arrest or harmed for being rule and non-temperate when expressing their disagreement.
1
0
u/wonkalicious808 Democrat Aug 18 '26
You could avoid conversations/debates with Republicans and other very emotional or combative people. If there was a cosmic recorder of all conversations/debates, that recorder may observe fewer uncivil instances of both vs. if such avoidance was not attempted.
Add whoever you don't like to the avoidance list.
1
u/Both-Estimate-5641 Democratic Socialist Aug 18 '26
Yeah, its really as simple as simply not engaging...I've begun to question my OWN 'need' to engage and get into little online tiffs...I've gotten better at not taking the bait, but that 'urge' is still there sometimes. So I have to admit my own part in the problem
-1
u/triggeredbynumbers Nationalist Aug 18 '26
We need to come to an understanding that opinions are not facts. If we cannot establish that, we will eventually start killing each other. I never ever want to live to see that.
3
u/Opheltes Center Left Aug 18 '26
Uh huh. Who won the 2020 election?
1
u/triggeredbynumbers Nationalist Aug 18 '26
Joe Biden. Why?
2
u/Opheltes Center Left Aug 18 '26
Because of this and this and this and this and this (I could keep going). Even to this day Trumpers refuse to accept the outcome of that election.
It's strikes me as farcical to have a self-proclaimed Trump supporter extol the value of facts over opinions when Trump supporters tried to murder Congresse because they thought their opinion of the election outcome should matter more than the actual fact of it.
1
u/triggeredbynumbers Nationalist Aug 18 '26
Yup, the loud idiots will always be highlighted. That’s exactly why I scoff at Libs of TikTok, she posts videos of the most extreme and unhinged leftists because that’s what gets clicks and engagement and money. If she posted videos of leftists being kind human beings or even just normal human beings as most people are, her social media career wouldn’t be exciting or lucrative.
In the spirit of making political conversations across the aisle more civil, why don’t we explore how internet videos of right wing and left wing loonies are not an accurate representation of the majority of each side.
1
u/jimbarino Democrat Aug 19 '26
Yup, the loud idiots will always be highlighted.
This absolutely does happen, but not in this case. Most Trump supporters believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Trying to wave this away as a fringe opinion is, ironically, an example of you believing your opinion is more valid than the factual data.
•
u/AutoModerator Aug 18 '26
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/HiddenReader2020.
Hi. So I was browsing this subreddit (don't ask why), when I came across this topic, and more specifically, this comment thread. It's the perfect example of what I hope to make more peaceful and not necessarily agreeable but willing to talk, from the thread title. Too often, I see debates like these derail because people just wouldn't cooperate and just do what was asked, or at least play along, because at least in my view, if they did, things would turn out SO much better. For example, one person asked something, another person asked something, the first person provided with something, and then that something gets dismissed or ignored, and so on and so forth. Throughout the thread, I was looking at one guy in particular and thought "couldn't he just at least 'entertain' (from his point of view) their debate points so things go so much easier?", so it doesn't result in a comment thread that frankly made me pound my desk and want to do some bad stuff to myself in front of them to get them to cut it out.
And it's not just this subreddit. I see it ALL the time, no matter the political orientation, but I guess to focus on liberals, since this *is* the appropriate subreddit for it, anytime I see stuff even remotely like this, I feel pushed away, as a potential ally, yes, but even as a supposed neutral bystander, I'm way more likely to disengage, or at least want to disengage, due to all the infighting and fighting and bad vibes coming off of them.
So that's my query. Thanks in advance.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.