It should be easier to be liberal

[Cary]

It should be easier when I am armed with facts and logic. It should be easier when my opponents are emotional basket cases afraid of their own shadows and dumber than a bag of hammers. It should be easier when I and my fellow liberals are the majority. It should be easier when my values are truth and justice.

Why is it difficult? Even posting here is a stinking food fight. Why?

[sandensea]

1. Because big bidness, with the help RW media, has convinced many that only 'lazy minorities' benefit

"Them lib'ruls take mah hard-uhrned tax dollurs, and give it to the nigrahs!"

Neo-fascists do the same in every other country with a white majority: just turn them against their own interests, by turning them against whatever minority population happens to live there.

And it works.

[ismnotwasm]

2. A combination of tribalism and laziness

Facts are out there. You can feel different ways about them, but they are, facts. Certain facts are very uncomfortable, no matter where you are on the political scale. A lot of people want to pretend those facts aren’t there, aren’t real, or maybe don’t matter.

Meme politics suck, as does slogan politics.

[TidalWave46]

3. It's more difficult to....

Health care for all.
Protection of workers rights.
Protection of womens rights.
Affordable access to college for all.
Implement regulations to fight global climate change.
Etc...

Be for things.

[maxsolomon]

4. Binary thinking. On/Off, Right/Wrong.

Everything, even policy, has gray areas.

When you propose a policy that cannot solve 100% of a given problem (take any Gun Control proposal), it gets quibbled to death, or simply obstructed by people with an interest in not understanding nuance.

The Perfect is the enemy of the Good. The Obama Administration in a nutshell.

[Cary]

6. I can handle gray areas

Today I have people telling me what I read in the released "transcript" isn't true and to prove that I am directed to a Russian troll blog decreeing that Orange Hitler did nothing wrong and that impeachment is backfiring on Democrats. I ask this person to not post this garbage on my page and I am told that I am calling hin names and not looking at all sides.

He is gaslighting me. I know it. I call him on it. I don't tolerate it and I tell him that I won't tolerate it. I am right. I know I am right but I have gained nothing.

The idiot is still an idiot and I am dumber for just being civil to him.

[maxsolomon]

7. Yeah, they take glee in the Trolling.

And they're much better at it for lack of a conscience.

Just like their leader, President Asshole Troll.

[Hortensis]

5. :) Who says we're ALL solidly liberal, though, socially and economically?

People are complex, not either-or. Sure, we're virtually all liberalish in some ways, and the large majority of us are part of a solidly liberal spectrum. But our grand alliance represents almost all types.

The farther left from our ideologically dominant solidly liberal bloc, the more and more people start reacting less like ordinary liberals and start showing similarities to their counterparts on the extreme right, even becoming downright anti-liberal.

And the same for Democrats on the right edge of our party; big surprise when conservative Dems act like conservative Repubs.

We all have overlapping commonalities, but the overlap for those yelling "lock her up" at our national convention was not with liberals. Nor was it "liberal" of those who went after the most powerful woman in American history, literally willing to potentially cripple our party and empower the Republicans, to take her out; no surprise that that largely drew people from both the farther left and right, our least liberal members going after the liberal leader.

Here's a statement from a solid liberal in the middle of our big ideological bloc, lots of overlap among almost all of us on this.

Link to tweet

[Cary]

8. Hillary Clinton should be our president

I am right about her. I was right about her.

You know, Hortensis, the price I paid here for being right. You paid it too.

Thank you for your insight and sanity. I appreciate you. There is no good reason why you should have paid any price here.

[Hortensis]

10. :) Same right back. No one would want to be a Republican who's

addicted to the lies that define their world, though, who chortles happily and proudly at their most immoral and destructive "victories," rationalizes extreme cruelty to children, hoots with righteous satisfaction at viciously libelous chain emails, and sleeps with a clean conscience.

They've paid a far higher price even though they will never understand that. Either.

[Cary]

11. It is no consolation that they pay a greater price

It should be easier for us, but it isn't.

[Hortensis]

13. :) Yes, we're humanity's best, all great advances could and would

never have happened without us, alone or leading, and we not only don't get the special respect and emulation we deserve but usually get attacked for it.

Oh, well. We're in a tougher time right now. Conservatives weren't exactly happy in the New Deal era, and I know those whose bubbles aren't sealed tight aren't happy now either. Their self image, that they're the moral ones, the wise ones, the sensible and responsible ones, the good ones, the ones who live closest to God, is under constant bombardment by reality.

[Initech]

9. Hate, fear, and misinformation sell. It's good for the advertisers.

Why be armed with facts when only the outrage matters?

[Cary]

12. One of them tried to tell me that he didn't need to go to college

I asked him how he could know that. I told him he had no way to know what he missed and that he is therefore not qualified to comment either on my education or his own lack of one.

He called me a schmuck.

[Initech]

14. Oh yes I know a lot of these types.

My dad has some clients of his who I normally like as people except when it comes to politics - they are 100% total Fox bots who regularly trash California's educational system because, reasons. And then while visiting them I found out one of their sons was a Proud Boys / Qanon truther. Explains a lot.