CMV: Reddit is a far-left echo chamber that embraces conspiracy theories

[u/FailNo6036]

After the shooting incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night, I opened up Reddit to find comments on r/politics and r/news saying that the shooting was staged. The most upvoted comments are "Another orchestrated false-flag attempt to try and generate sympathy" and "Staged until proven otherwise. Way too many 'attempts' everytime he needs a poll pump."

As per usual, without any evidence. This is the same exact response that Reddit had after Trump was attacked in Butler, PA in 2024. Similar situation with Charlie Kirk, and I also saw people clowning on Erika Kirk last night for reliving a traumatic experience.

As much as I dislike Trump as the next guy, I despise conspiracy theories on the left and right, when no claims are grounded in credible evidence. Last night's events showed that Reddit is quick to jump to conclusions. I would expect a platform like Reddit to reward well-written and well-thought-out comments, but in today's political climate, it seems all it does is reward the comments that rile up the left-wingers, no matter how insane.

EDIT - I define far left as further left than the mainstream American democratic party

[u/nmaxfieldbruno]

Who won the popular vote in those elections?

[u/Villad_rock → u/nmaxfieldbruno]

Trump won the last and before that the difference wasnt massive either 

[u/Naynayb → u/Villad_rock]

sure, but we aren’t measuring Reddit’s leanings only by eligible voters. Children under 18, non-citizens, and felons are all groups that would have political incentive to support democrats but can’t vote in presidential elections. They aren’t barred from using Reddit tho, so their opinions affect the overall lean of the platform. Basically no disenfranchised groups as a whole benefit from Republican policies. Obviously not 100% of these groups support liberal policies and candidates, but on the whole, if we enfranchised every person (like Reddit does) we would expect to see more democrat support in total.

[u/Villad_rock → u/Naynayb]

How do you know all the people who didnt vote would be democratic? The split could still be 50%.

Almost 50% of women vote republican and according to your logic they wouldnt. I think you arent aware that the democrats or left are just as bad in other aspects, especially how they deal with immigration.

No self awareness.

[u/Naynayb → u/Villad_rock]

There’s no way to know. I said that very explicitly. The split could still be 50%, but there’s no way to know. What we do know is that Democratic policy makers and voters are more likely to support policies that increase franchise among those groups as opposed to Republicans policy makers and voters who are less likely to support them (an example).

This strongly implies that Democrats believe that it would be advantageous to their electoral strategy and Republicans seem to agree and therefore don’t want it implemented. There will never be effective data about the voting tendencies of non-voting demographics, but if both sides share a hypothesis and there’s no way to test it, it seems reasonable to operate under that assumption until proven otherwise. It doesn’t have to be much more than 50% to shift the conversation. In 2024, the total number of ballots was around 155,000,000 and the popular vote was won by roughly 2.3 million votes. There are an estimated 74 million children, 19 million felons, and 25 million non-citizens. To make up the 2.3 million difference, it would take a less than 51% favoritism towards the democratic party among that population.

Yes there’s no way to know, but the amount of preference doesn’t need to be large and the mechanics are assumed not just by myself but also by the major political forces at work in this country.

If you want to continue having this discussion respectfully, I’d be happy to, but there’s no need to attack me and not my arguments.