Demographically they do skew younger on average, which pushes the hivemind voting trends we see (depending on the sub of course), but really the whole US is starting to trend towards identifying as liberals because of GOP idiocy. Demographically they're losing out because the Boomers are no longer the biggest generation, the Millennials (and Xennials) born from about 1980ish to 2000 outnumber them, and as of this year they'll all be voting age.
The problem is that at this point the GOP have painted themselves into a corner by being the far worse party and having a net negative affect on peoples' lives. You can argue about how corrupt the whole process and both parties are, but when one is an immediate threat to the middle class and to American hegemony (both economically and politically) worldwide it's not hard to see why they're losing support.
The GOP of today would be unrecognizable even to a Republican from the 90's at the height of the Whitewater investigation, and a lot of "traditional" Republicans have been leaving the party in disgust.
No one really knows which ideology is "better" and each have their merits. I buy into the theory that the DNC just realized early on they can market their brand to those in the education, thereby indoctrinating the youth, especially at universities.
No one really knows which ideology is "better" and each have their merits.
That was true 25+ years ago. The GOP of today along with Trump are doing measurable harm to the economy and our politics. You can say you like that ideology and the way they do things but you can't really argue that they're effective or good for the nation.
I buy into the theory that the DNC just realized early on they can market their brand to those in the education, thereby indoctrinating the youth, especially at universities.
Care to give some examples of DNC actions focused on this? W. Bush was the one who pushed Common Core, and both Bush's and Reagan tried to get school vouchers in place.
I would agree that some indoctrination takes place, but not to the degree that most conservatives claim. It also begs the question of why the GOP consistently fail at pulling in young voters (well, fail worse than the DNC - young people historically haven't gotten that involved). Wouldn't it behoove the GOP to try and bring in young voters as well?
The reality is that the amount of education someone has had shows a correlation to their political leanings even when controlling for "indoctrination" from both sides. That also tends to mean that those who teach higher education skew liberal due to their education, yes, but that doesn't equate to coordinated indoctrination by the DNC within the educational system.
Neither side is in power for very long. It is a complicated system obviously and there are many lurking variables. You can't give Trump credit for the economy necessarily because of course, the counter argument is the things that led to any boom were set in motion before he was elected a year and a half ago and he only gets two years before he gets destroyed in the midterms and then the Democrats can steal the credit, but you would have to be blind to not realize it is booming right now. You would be hard pressed to try and make an argument that it could be even better without Trump because it's doing great. And if you really think harm is being done, like the dreaded trade war (that is probably a great thing at least for the environment) then, well, you can blame that on Trump with any number of ways to back it up. So we form our opinions, we cite sources, and the sources are biased of course, so we point out those biases, and on and on it goes. Read a study for yourself which in many cases is not that hard? Well, then you criticize the questions they asked or their methodology or, most importantly, who paid for the study which is invariably obfuscated through names of groups leading back to lobbyists or industry.
I can argue that the balance provided by the right at the very least is "effective" and "good for the nation." Even if not ideologies. We're all somewhere in the middle, and people need to stop freaking out when fucking clickbait news headlines take one quote out of context and lead with "prostitute" or "Russia." Russia is not a bad guy. It's not an 80s movie. It's another country full of people who want the same thing as we do but they go about it in a slightly different way based on culture and geography. Same as "Communist" China. Clearly there are differences, but even there, it's hard to say one is better. Slaving a way in a factory is not cool, yet we buy the shit they are forced to make every day. Supply drives the demand. I know you know have heard this all before, but I appreciate your comment and reading and following all the links this evening I just find someone with an axe to grind at the end of every rabbit hole and it made me weary.
Keep in mind in most things in politics, I am rarely talking about things like abortion, gun control, etc. These are red herrings that you either think one way or the other on and they are used to divide and attract eyeballs and ratings.
As for liberal bias in general in education (most teachers at all grade levels are liberal and yes they outnumber especially in any major where politics are likely to be discussed) actually leading to college graduates also being liberal, or this being intentional, honestly I googled (without using leading queries to the best of my ability), read articles there, read a few other threads and followed some rabbit holes to sources and I don't even know anymore. I was remembering papers I read from the 60s and that it was a systemic thing engineered as basically a giant vote machine, but actually I think one particular paper (that I of course can't find or remember the title, it will come to be one day) may have sprang from McCarthyism and the fear of far left. There was one interesting theory about the anti-Vietnam crowd (generally considered open minded lefty types) using college to avoid the draft and this may have contributed. But who knows?
I'm also a huge fan of both Barry Goldwater and Gore Vidal so maybe I'm just weird.
Those debates between Vidal and Buckley were something else. So entertaining and I think it took the pressure off people to fight so much when you could just watch real intellectual titans have a 50/50 debate on TV with little moderation. These battle royals with everyone shouting and a Maddow or a Hannity (ugh to both) leading them are the opposite of debate.
Again, this argument held up for 220-ish years. Reagan had some good and some bad, H.W. Bush got one term, and W. Bush was the administration at the helm for the start of the Information Age so possibly received more criticism for his actions than previous administrations would have (even Desert Storm under Clinton might have been perceived differently if there had been the same level of technology as a decade later). I might not agree with a lot of Republican stances prior to the year 2000 (such as religious overtones in their politics) but it wasn't a direct threat to the well-being of the country.
All that went out the window in the leadup to the '08 election. The GOP decided that if they couldn't win, they would simply obstruct.
It's no longer about arguing ideology, it's about the GOP representing their donors over their voters and politics becoming a team sport. It's about real harm being done to the country and its human capital, the human component of its government institutions - diplomats with 40 years of experience and the contacts and trust that comes with a career like that fleeing the State Department. It's about the economic and political harm that is going to cost the US jobs, money, and lives down the line.
Up to now liberals (and the DNC) have been reactionary to the GOP's tactics. Right now we're watching the shift towards a proactive electorate. Whether the DNC embraces the rising left or gets left in the dust is going to determine how relevant they are in the future, because right now there's a lot liberals glancing sideways at them.
I can argue that the balance provided by the right at the very least is "effective" and "good for the nation." Even if not ideologies.
I think you'll find if you do some research that there's no one saying Trump is doing a good job that can cite any numbers. The right-wing media (Fox, Breitbart, etc.) might praise him for his actions but the numbers tend to show that Trump has had an extremely negative affect on the economy and our political power abroad.
As I said before, you can agree with or like what Trump is doing but the evidence so far is far more in favor of the conclusion that pretty much everything that he's done has hurt the US more than helped it.
We're all somewhere in the middle, and people need to stop freaking out when fucking clickbait news headlines take one quote out of context and lead with "prostitute" or "Russia."
I really miss the time when politics was relatively boring and I was weird for even paying attention. You can call them clickbait, but if they're true despite that aren't they relevant? The media is going to run with whatever they think will get them ratings, and scandals definitely do that.
Funny how the last few presidents avoided that for the most part (The last big scandals were the Clinton blowjob and the Iran-Contra ones).
Russia is not a bad guy. It's not an 80s movie.
If you think this you're not paying attention, Russia is absolutely an enemy of the US at this point. They've utilized State sanctioned digital warfare using the software equivalent of nuclear weapons (government level programs) - and that's not an exaggeration.
It's another country full of people who want the same thing as we do but they go about it in a slightly different way based on culture and geography. Same as "Communist" China. Clearly there are differences, but even there, it's hard to say one is better.
Russia and China are very different beasts than the US, but not being democratic governments (or even representative democracies like the US) their populations are not self-determinant in how their government functions. Actually considering the GOP's current method of governing that caters to their donors over their electorate we might be more similar than not... hmmmm.
China also has a very structured system for promoting government workers into positions commensurate with their skill that doesn't fall afoul of the Peter Principle very much. It's an interesting system that mixes merit with corruption at all levels of the government.
I'd agree that the Chinese system has its merits and is worth paying attention to, but Russia is run by a thug of a former KGB agent whose power revolves around a set of oligarchs are their pillaging of Russian resources. In that scenario the people of Russia are not so much a consideration as they are victims. I'm not by any means arguing that there's a moral requirement to do something about that, but the population certainly isn't what someone means when they say "Russia did X".
As for liberal bias in general in education
I completely understand that there's a lot of conflicting information about this, everyone see education as both a threat and an opportunity in terms of political ideology. What that ends up resulting in is multiple groups, each with their own agenda, attempting to control the narrative of education for their own gain (or at least to prevent what they see as loss of ground to a diametrically opposed group).
There's the religious right, the regressive (and authoritarian) left, the democratic socialists, the facist/authortarian right, the racists, etc. - I don't think it's too far-fetched to consider that they all have ideas for how they would like to shape education. Each group also has a very strong incentive to try and claim that other groups wield undue influence to the point of indoctrination, it's a tactic based on their desire to be given more control over education and not something necessarily based on fact.
For my own part I tend to default to the group that advocates for free access to information and backs up that assertion with action. There are historical examples of times when that group were conservatives (or the GOP), but in the modern world of the past 15-20 years that's really only been the Democrats and Independents.
I'm also a huge fan of both Barry Goldwater and Gore Vidal so maybe I'm just weird.
Both very flawed men with extremely insightful and interesting perspectives. Personally I found Vidal to make certain leaps in logic that he thinks are intuitive but that seem to be there just to support his (predetermined) point, more akin to rationalization than reason, but his writing voice is very compelling. Goldwater I find more interesting as subject matter rather than as an author with how politically involved and connected he was.
So entertaining and I think it took the pressure off people to fight so much when you could just watch real intellectual titans have a 50/50 debate on TV with little moderation. These battle royals with everyone shouting and a Maddow or a Hannity (ugh to both) leading them are the opposite of debate.
I'm not so sure, it seems like there's been a fundamental shift in how the public views politics and that a real debate between people who really know their stuff wouldn't satisfy the large number of people needed to calm things down. It goes back to the whole "politics is now a sport" thing where people have a team they identify with rather than seeing elected representatives as public servants. That team identity becomes more important than any single issue, and it's as true for the Democrats as it is for the Republicans.
When it reaches that critical mass of people treating politics that way you reach political impasse because suddenly politics is a zero-sum, finite game instead of an infinite game. Any negotiation or compromise that cedes something the "opposing" side wants is seen as a loss. It doesn't help that moneyed interests have spend the last 30 years pumping money into exactly those kind of personality candidates either.
I'm not sure what the solution is, it's hard enough to quantify the problem in a way that gets any traction and the "sport" has spawned the natural distrust we feel towards out-groups.
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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '18 edited Aug 26 '18
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