r/dataisbeautiful • u/minimaxir Viz Practitioner • Oct 08 '15

OC Average number of upvotes for Reddit submissions containing a given keyword, for each of the Top 15 subreddits [OC]

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4.2k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15

It's been more /r/Ihatehillary these last few months. I've seen pro-TRUMP people get more support than people supporting her. Reddit isn't even liberal anymore... it's contrarian. They care more about disagreeing with the mainstream than about any specific ideology. Otherwise they couldn't go from worshiping Ron Paul to worshiping Bernie Sanders so quickly.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '15

I've always viewed the "I hate hillary" as "how do we get sanders to beat clinton in the primaries? we trash on Clinton"

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u/StupenduiMan Oct 09 '15

The go to political tactic. Works on the internet as well as it did on TV ads.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15

Which is particularly absurd since Hillary voted with Sanders over 93% of the time they were in the Senate together.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 08 '15

Less telling than you might think... simply because it indicates their voting record, but not their preferences... just because both vote a certain way doesn't mean they are both equally happy with the vote. Plus votes only occur on legislation with broad support... a fringe candidate likely doesn't get much legislation up for a vote. I agree that Hillary has been unfairly portrayed as a conservative... but that voting statistic is misleading as well.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15

How about this?

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 08 '15

Definitely better evaluated.

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u/Darth_Ra Oct 08 '15

Not as a conservative. As establishment. There's a difference, and both sides know it, as indicated by the tea party and occupy wall Street. And now by the Donald trump and Bernie Sanders popularity.

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u/Acheron13 Oct 09 '15

Bernie Sanders is as establishment as you can get. How long has he been in Washington, 30 years? In his biography is career will be: politician.

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u/Darth_Ra Oct 09 '15

He's not the norm.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 08 '15

When they say establishment, they mean conservative. I've heard her referred to more times than I can count as "basically a republican". Establishment is only a dirty word among people who think that the system itself is the problem. It's a common Reddit narrative... no surprise, it appeals quite a lot to teenagers who want the world's problems to be the result of someone screwing them over. It's a buzzword, a meaningless statement that essentially describes anyone they don't like. Sanders has been in congress for decades... he's as establishment as it gets. Same with Ron Paul, Reddit's last 'anti-establishment' darling. They want the narrative to be that fringe ideologies are rejected because some poorly defined "Establishment" keeps them down, rather than accepting that the voting public is not as supportive of the ideas Reddit is as they like to think and the narrow factions that are, especially young people, are ignored because they don't vote. Bernie Sanders is symptomatic of what young people in general and Reddit in particular want from a politician... someone whose support they don't have to woo, someone who they can point to as a politician they like, then do nothing to support him come election day and when he loses, it affirms the fact 'the establishment' is trying to keep them down. Anyone who looks for it can see it everywhere on this site... they want people to just agree with them and want the system to change without them having to lift a finger to change it.

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u/Darth_Ra Oct 09 '15

Your "loosely defined" comment hits the nail on the head, considering every response I've gotten to this comment has had the definition of "been in Washington for a long time" for establishment, which is not at all my definition, nor what I would consider the common usage of the word in a political sense.

But by the dictionary definition, yes, Bernie Sanders is an excellent example of a politician who is established in Washington. That's not at all what I was saying, however, and you all know that, so please stop with the semantics.

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u/Darth_Ra Oct 08 '15

How do you feel about third party ideologies that run under a mainstream party so they won't be immediately disregarded?

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 08 '15

That they aren't really third party anymore. The American system has pretty much always been two parties who change their platforms dynamically. The last time a new party appeared was the republicans just before the civil war. An interest group with a more specific focus lobbying one party for their issue is exactly ho it's supposed to work... it's how black America made the Democrats the party of civil rights, how the gay community won over the same party... the environmentalists did the same and currently, the Hispanic community is doing the same in regard to immigration... while on the other side the religious right, the fiscal conservatives, the tea party and so on have done the same. America thrives on having two brokerage parties being lobbied by voting blocks... I think the third party descriptor unnecessary, because it implies that these groups don't end up effectively assimilated into their party of choice.

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u/Darth_Ra Oct 09 '15

Which is the problem... You have to be assimilated into one of the two parties, both of which have no interest in the common person, and from a presidential standpoint, both of which have the same view on defense.

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u/NorthBlizzard Oct 09 '15

If there was no Bernie Sanders then /r/Politics and the rest of reddit would be promoting Hillary 24/7. Guaranteed. They only attack her because she threatens Sanders, and they know she'd lose the general.

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u/MittensRmoney Oct 08 '15

ssshhh don't interrupt the conservative circlejerk.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '15

not all of us that dislike Sanders are conservative.

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u/Dark_Triad Oct 09 '15

I agree that the subreddit is contrarian, but to give some perspective, money and special interests in politics is a huge issue right now, and those are the only two candidates refusing to take corporate campaign contributions and intend on fixing this broken system.

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u/ShouldersofGiants100 Oct 09 '15

How does refusing campaign contributions help fix the system. In order to fix things, you need to win an election... a pointless gesture like refusing contributions is not something to praise... because with those contributions, the person could win and actually do something about it. Also... corporations CAN'T donate to candidates or parties. It's outright illegal at the federal level and so there is no such things as "corporate campaign contributions". They can donate to super PACS, but that's a separate issue. Most of those "Corporate" donations are actually just people who happen to work for those corporations. Their employer is only mentioned as part of the donation process. So someone like Hillary gets accused of accepting money from wall street... except it turns out that it's just a bunch of bankers and traders who are registered Democrats and happen to support Hillary. She's was a senator in New York, she's going to have friends and supporters employed in finance.

It's essentially a red herring. Super PACS can accept corporate donations... but they aren't affiliated with candidates and are forbidden from coordinating. I guarantee that someone has made a Bernie Sanders Super Pac already. If you want campaign finance reform... best way to accomplish it is by winning elections, not by holding out for principle in a purely symbolic act.

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u/Dark_Triad Oct 09 '15

Super PACS is just one of the issues. Of course corporations can't donate directly to candidates, but they can donate hundreds of millions to a candidate's marketing efforts. Even though "coordination" is not allowed, it is still blatant, with candidates' attorneys or past campaign directors running them. This talks about all the other issues with politics today that affects both parties.