politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
For the longest time I thought this was solely a matter of education; but these days, I'm beginning to think such right-wing extremism is also a matter of mental illness.
Things like poor parenting, brain injuries from football, lead exposure from guns and motorsports, substance abuse, shitty diets, etc. -- all culminate in a banner of people who are... Not of sound mind.
Saying this as a former rural Appalachian Republican from decades ago.
Edit: added "solely" for some clarification.
I agree that a lot is mental illness but I think it's more education. They fall for the lies and get in line and do what they're told to do by sources like fox "news". It's scary how it's changed, I had Republican friends that we could all hang out and even discuss politics with no problems. Now, we don't talk at all, there is no discussion. I am the enemy and I don't even care about politics, just be a good human. I don't think you can be a good human and support the Republicans at this time, it's gone off the rails.
You're likely right that education is still the prevailing issue, but I think we need to get more specific on what kind of education people receive in terms of safeguarding against false rhetoric. Drilling in the logical fallacies, teaching ethics, and even teaching common propaganda techniques so you can identify them. We need to step back and ask ourselves how we managed to escape the rabbit hole when others could not.
The echo-chambers have become so ironclad that it's so difficult to pierce through and drag someone out.
This is a great indicator that free will isn't what we think. I've been chatting to maga family about free will through that "how we managed to escape the rabbit hole" lens. There's often a lot of reasons we have different opinions and tracing the distributed causality is pretty fun because you can avoid the propoganda talking points but still make progress. I think it helps them question information or to be more guarded instead of immediately parroting fox news lines.