A good in-depth discussion of media bias in political reporting, or why is it that Biden voters are encouraged to understand an empathize with Trump voters but Trump voters are never asked to understand Biden voters?

8 points

This is the best summary I could come up with:


CONSERVATIVE AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA don’t agree on much, but one point of consensus is that everyone should work harder to understand Trump supporters.

A common style of this coverage is the safari to “Trump Country,” in which journalists from various outlets, most of whom live in big metropolitan areas, go to a rural community or Rust Belt town and talk to Trump voters, often white, working-class men in diners.

A great example is a May 2019 New York Times story titled “There’s No Boom in Youngstown, but Blue-Collar Workers Are Sticking With Trump.” It’s such a well-trod trope that it’s inspired parodies and running jokes.

Going beyond those attempts to understand Trump voters are two recent arguments that got attention on social media.

First, in his New York Times column early this month, David Brooks argued that “elites” have been “behaving in ways that make Trumpism inevitable.” In particular, Brooks writes, “it’s easy to understand why people in less-educated classes would conclude that they are under economic, political, cultural and moral assault—and why they’ve rallied around Trump as their best warrior against the educated class.” Brooks encouraged his readers to imagine what the last half-century of American history looks like from the vantage of those non-elites.

“He’s clearly quite racist,” Yglesias conceded, “but I also think he’s written some good pieces and it’s important to read conservatives.”


I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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43 points

It’s not hard to understand Trump voters. They love the way Trump is portrayed on Fox “News,” and they love licking boots. Getting them to understand that a convicted rapist, six-time bankrupted, twice-divorced irreligious grifter makes a bad president can be quite challenging.

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2 points

The biggest shock/challenge to me is how many would explicitly be okay with the example set for their children or acceptance of such as a prospective in-law. You ask any of those chucklefucks if they’d let their daughter date a jackass like a Trump clone, they’d almost guaranteedly balk…unless they are the sort to admit they’re exactly the same. And those would be the sorts who would encourage their sons to act the same.

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5 points

Hell, you could still be a good president and be all those things. “Irreligious” is a point in favor for me, compared to having Preacher Pence in office.

The self-enrichment, abuse of power, and attempt to overthrow the government are the problem.

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6 points

Preacher Pence

Pence is a known Christian nationalist. People aren’t as afraid of him as they should be, just because he seems quiet.

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3 points

Dominionist, more specifically, and very supportive of the Quiverfull movement, which we should all be concerned about.

These people want the Duggars as the example of the perfect American family, pedophiles and all.

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-4 points

Why should I put who the president is as a person above any relevant political aspects?

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1 point

Bad people can’t be trusted to follow through on their promised political aspects more than they cause other issues

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21 points

Brainwashed Trumpers are in such bad shape they’d literally need professional cult deprogrammers… is that still a thing? They are utterly impossible to reason with.

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1 point

Professional cult deprigranners was never a real career. They tended to be church councilers.

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7 points

Steven Hassan begs to differ

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2 points

I didn’t say that there weren’t legitimate people in the field, i said many of the original era of them were not legitimate people. They were either pastors or others affiliated with a church who largely were kidnapping women and holding them hostage at the behest of the parents, who were almost always members of the congregation.

Most of the deprogramming going on nowadays is done by volunteers in the digital spaces, and the time and resources invested is going mostly to fighting post-Qanon and white supremicist cells, because that is where the majority of group violence is coming from.

Believe me, i wish our problems could be solved by taking kids hostage until they renounce religious/political extremism but that is not the case.

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1 point

Hysterical spelling aside for a bit…

Deprogramming one cult with another seems counterproductive.

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15 points

A very good article and the author answers their own question. Because they’re the “big tent party,” democrats support a spectrum of views and compromises, albeit largely unified on some issues (the author notes a few widely accepted positions across the party, like abortion)

Whereas Trump voters are in lockstep in their hatred and fear mongering (let’s not pretend trump had or has any policy positions). You’ll find those same views at the Iowa primaries or at that diner in Ohio. It’s simply easier to summarize this relatively simplistic and basically apolitical view, so journalists took the easy out. Short, punchy articles with increasingly excessive “hot takes” got them clicks and now here we are

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72 points

Trump voters are never asked to understand Biden voters?

They can’t. They can’t understand anything outside of their tiny sphere. Everything else angers and terrifies them. Otherwise they wouldn’t be conservatives.

So there’s no point in asking them. It’s like asking a turtle to fly.

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-29 points

They can’t. They can’t understand anything outside of their tiny sphere. Everything else angers and terrifies them. Otherwise they wouldn’t be conservatives. So there’s no point in asking them. It’s like asking a turtle to fly.

being an elder millennial has afforded me to opportunity to experience biden’s trump like behaviors that he signed into law and watching w fascination that his current supporters are just as willfully ignorant as trump supporters.

the real mind boggling thing is that all of biden and trump’s homophobic, racists, and classicist sins are both alike and easy to find with a 30 second google search; but both groups continue to ascribe values to their politician despite it being very easy to disprove and each person will dig in their heels when you point it out to them.

conservative trump supporters are no different than liberal biden supporters in that neither group is aware of what biden has done (or what trump wants to do) and both groups are fervently willfully ignorant about it so long as their politician wins.

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17 points

What Biden supporters? I don’t know any Biden supporters. Does anyone here know any Biden supporters? I’m voting for Biden because he’s not a Republican, not because I support him.

Do you really think Biden won the election in 2016 because people liked him?

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-19 points

What Biden supporters? I don’t know any Biden supporters. Does anyone here know any Biden supporters? I’m voting for Biden because he’s not a Republican, not because I support him.

Do you really think Biden won the election in 2016 because people liked him?

i think you meant 2020 and, yes, he’s got a cult following, especially on the fediverse who defend him no matter what and all of the exchanges start like this.

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6 points

Depends on your definition of supporter. I voted for him in the primary. Didn’t donate, put up a sign, wear a sticker, or base my life on him or his candidacy in any measurable way.

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5 points

Yeah I mean…I generally think he’s doing a pretty good job. I wouldn’t say I am aligned to him much beyond that or I have any ideological attachment to the guy, but yeah he’s at least helped steer away (mostly through appointing the right people to the right roles) from what could have been a pretty bad recession and his foreign policy handling of Russia and China particularly around Taiwan and Ukraine are aligned with my views. My only hesitation towards voting for him again is his age and I would prefer someone younger at this point who isn’t likely to die on the job.

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2 points
*

I’m a Biden supporter. He’s done a pretty good job for a moderate, in an extremely difficult political environment. He’s orders of magnitude better than other major contenders. Now that we’ve recovered somewhat from the dark ages, we just need to find a good liberal/progressive candidate to take the country forward

Do I have merch? Of course not. Do I idolize him? No. Do I think he’s perfect? Far from it. Do I salivate over his every utterance? Of course not. Would I follow him into tyranny? You’ve got to be kidding

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24 points

New account made 3 hours ago? Check.
Comments almost exclusively on political threads? Check.
When doing so, almost exclusively makes “both sides are the same” comments? Check.

How’s the trolling going, friend?

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-18 points

New account made 3 hours ago? Check. Comments almost exclusively on political threads? Check. When doing so, almost exclusively makes “both sides are the same” comments? Check.

How’s the trolling going, friend?

i used to believe reddit was the king dumbass echo chambers; now i know that the fediverse makes reddit same sane and reasonable by comparison.

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