Hot, Bad & Unpopular Takes

[Virginiá]

This sounds like a very deeply seeded case of denial.  Sorry bud, but homosexuality is just something one is, not something one has.  Acceptance is the cure.

After reading that horrible list, I think I've finally accepted that he is too far gone and not worth reasoning with. Either he is playing a long-con troll or he truly believes it, but both still mean the same thing.

[Virginiá]

Roundabouts are horrible ... when the drivers in them don't know how they work and how convenient they should be.

That sounds about right to me. I like the idea of them, but in practice I've always found it annoying because the few I've used (mostly in NJ and New England) were filled with people to didn't seem to understand the concept or were just bad at driving in general. A few years ago in NJ I actually had someone slow down and try to wave me into the circle.

[Virginiá]

This thread was a mistake. I’d expect a moderator to lock it.

What did you expect ? It's a thread for unpopular opinions where there are also no rules saying don't argue with people about unpopular opinions.

[Virginiá]

Partisan gerrymandering and regional polarization are good things because they allow more people to be represented by people they agree with

That kind of defeats the whole purpose of elections. Forcing everyone into their own little social safe space where everyone agrees only worsens every single divide that plagues America.

I'd prefer if most districts were inside of the R+5 to D+5 range, and as square-shaped as possible.

It goes beyond that really. Partisan gerrymandering would also increase the number of 'safe spaces' for the party that controls redistricting beyond what they should normally have. Unsurprisingly, EC doesn't seem to acknowledge that.

[Virginiá]

Opinion of user polls can be mean and judgey

[Virginiá]

Alcohol should be illegal, but it's too ingrained in society to actually execute the ban without mass protests.  Same thing with tobacco.  And that's my biggest reason for not wanting to legalize marijuana- that we cannot create a third great American drug that becomes readily available and socially acceptable.  I don't think pot is that much worse than alcohol or tobacco (from what I've read- I have never had and will never have any of the three), but they should all be illegal- but it's the only one of the three that isn't so deeply entrenched that it's almost impossible to ban.

I of course agree with the image in spirit, but I'm more curious what is going on in that picture . It seems like something else ExtremeConservative might not approve of

[Virginiá]

Governor Snyder had nothing to do with the Flint water debacle, and he is not a racist.
Likewise, photo ID laws, the death penalty, police officers, the War on Drugs, etc. are not racist, at least not inherently.

It's not inherently racist, but there are no doubt racist people pushing for it for racist motives.

I do actually believe the vast majority of Republican politicians push for voter ID mostly for partisan gain. The fact that African Americans vote almost unanimously Democratic unfortunately makes them a target, but as that North Carolina operative said, if they voted for Republicans, then the GOP would not try to impede their ability to vote. Likewise, while crying "voter fraud" after losing every election is pretty distasteful, there is nothing inherently racist about it I don't think, even if voter fraud was a common excuse back in the day. The John Doe Wisconsin emails showed that Republicans used accusations of voter fraud as a dubious form of political strategy when an election goes down to the wire.

Pushing for strict photo ID laws and undermining confidence in our system with fake accusations of voter fraud is just the natural evolution of a win-at-all-costs political system, where ethics, morals and principles are ejected in favor of any advantage in winning elections. The sad thing is, some of the laws they pass don't even end up helping them, and undermining confidence in our elections doesn't always help them either, but they do it all just to have a single chance at gaining a few extra votes.

That's how little all of this matters to them. They'd rather destroy public confidence in our system than spend a couple years with no power.

[Virginiá]

The suburban Democratic trend is temporary. A more diverse U.S. will force the Republican Party to move back to the center socially, and along with that, the suburbs will shift Republican. Especially with the growth of democratic socialism within the Democratic Party.

America is suburbanizing in general though. Where would Democrats derive their electoral power? You'd have to be more specific. If Republicans controlled rural areas and suburbs in general, that wouldn't leave a whole lot else outside of urban cores.

[Virginiá]

Red avatars on Atlas somehow seem to underestimate the effects of money in politics. It should be one of the most discussed issues here honestly yet I can count on my hands the number of threads we have had on it in the last year.

When I joined, I cared a lot about this, but over time I've had to think it over. The effect of money on high profile races is definitely limited, and I think 2016 was a reasonable example of that. When the country is already intimately aware of the candidates, you can't just paper that over with tens of millions in ads. In fact, ads are probably the least effective way to do things, especially months away from the election. The best investment is a sustained GOTV effort that engages in persuasion but mostly base turnout. But again, it's really hard to make a dent on a national scale, and when people just don't want to vote, it doesn't matter how many canvassers you send to their house. The national mood matters a lot in this regard. However, money does matter more the further you go down ballot, where candidates are less known and thus voters are more open to persuasion about them. But even with this there are still limits. Republicans having a cash advantage in some races post-2016 does not seem to be guaranteeing any wins. I think there have been a few notable cases of a big spending discrepancy not really mattering at all.

What I do fear about money in politics is its ability to corrupt the candidates who gobble it up like crazy. It bothers me that these people take millions in checks only to blow it on some useless campaign ads, and then they walk away indebted to those donors for something that probably didn't help one bit. That makes everything so depressing. These people are willing to sell out completely just for a chance. Not even a guarantee. And they really have no idea what works, and I doubt they really care, because that's what expensive campaign consultants are for, right?

It would make me feel a little better if the stuff they spent all that money on actually helped. At least then it wouldn't feel so pointless when they get into office and suddenly lose the will to make good on promises to voters but have no problem pushing donor priorities.

Almost all posts on The Atlas section of this board are worthless.

100% agreed.

It's not like we haven't told users that we don't care about petitions, but it never seems to stop. Plus, think about it like this, even if Moderators did focus on those petitions, the sheer volume of BS on that board kind of cheapens the whole process. If these petitions were less prevalent and only created when a user really does something to deserve it, they might be worth paying attention to, but I don't think that'll ever be the case.

As it stands now, the only petitions that have ever led somewhere was when a user brought up a ton of (new) evidence and/or unacceptable posts that people didn't notice before, and posted about it in the thread. OTOH, you don't need to make a petition for that.

[Virginiá]

Universal Basic Income is both sad and inevitable.

I used to think that a long time ago, but I've since significantly warmed up to the idea that if society wants to be more than a greedy infection of planet Earth, then a post-scarcity human civilization would eventually lead to a scenario where people's needs are taken care of because most of their work has been automated by more efficient AIs/robots. Our solar system has enough resources to sustain our every need for arguably millions of years, at which point we'll either have spread out into the cosmos or died off for any number of reasons.

I would hope that society, in this situation, evolves so that people find a purpose in more than just menial slave labor for faceless multinational corporations. Humanity has too much potential to be consigned to such a sad existence.

[Virginiá]

Unpopular opinion: Sometimes it's ok to see an AMA thread and not make one yourself, especially if you did less than 3 months ago.

[Virginiá]

Unpopular opinion: Sometimes it's ok to see an AMA thread and not make one yourself, especially if you did less than 3 months ago.

How is that unpopular?

Have you seen the Forum Community index? We already did a historically-large wave of AMAs back in May, and now for some reason it's happening again.

[Virginiá]

Still more active users not participating than participating.

That doesn't really make sense even using your own logic. First off, if you're going by current threads created, you have to wait a reasonable amount of time for the process to play out before you can draw conclusions. Second, having been on Atlas for over 2 years now, it's absolutely true to say that this forum has a thing for bandwagoning, which makes not jumping on the bandwagon unpopular. Third, as I said, we already did a huge wave of AMAs a few months ago, and the large number of users who participated represented a pretty sizable chunk of the active users. Combined with a handful of users who didn't do AMAs back then, I'd say my point is proven: It is unpopular here to not pile on an idea, at least among active users.

I don't even know why I'm arguing this out lol. My point was to blow off steam at how annoying this is, not to make a scientific assessment. But I will say this is totally the kind of argument that would come to mind if someone said "imagine arguing about something with Solid4096"

[Virginiá]

The GOP's demographic situation will be fixed in a generation.  US election results aren't going to look like post-apartheid South Africa in fifty years.

Most of the people who have actually thought out the idea of a demographic realignment don't usually suggest America will have a permanent Democratic supermajority or something like that. A lot of it is based on generational cycles between the parties, and those tend to last 35 - 45 years, with distinct rising and falling periods. For instance Republicans began rising in the 60s, peaked nationally in the 80s, with the downfall beginning in the 90s. Although even as they lost a national advantage, they gained a reliable one downballot that continues to this day - for now, anyway.

Myself and others don't think America will be SA 2.0. We just think Republicans aren't going to magically rebound with zero effort on their part. Any rebound is likely to take place over multiple generations, and with changes in both their coalition and policy agenda.

So one generation is not enough, imo, especially depending on what you believe a generation to be. I've seen people say it's ~15 years or between 15 - 25 years.

[Virginiá]

The prosecution of Bob Menendez was entirely motivated by politics.

And his taking of bribes?

Technically, the decision to investigate + prosecute could be political in nature even if the actual crimes are, well, crimes. Kind of like how some see the prosecution of Manafort - yea, he's corrupt as sin, but probably would have never been investigated if it weren't for the RIGGED WITCH HUNT™

That being said, I think Solid is just being Solid here. A true partisan!

[Virginiá]

My dog-related hot take is that most dogs are kinda gross, dumb and annoying.

You've forced me to do this:

[Virginiá]

A Democratic coalition based on suburbanites, white college graduates and upper-class whites is not inherently bad. People are generally sheep and will twist and alter their political views to fit the "tribe" they identify with, so if those people basically become Democrats, then there is a lot of latitude, policy-wise. Further, it's not just flipping previously Republican voters. Millennials have always been strongly Democratic and once they fan out into the burbs, they will shift them into the D column. Ditto for POC who are diversifying districts as well.

I agree that this kind of coalition probably isn't the best long-term bet due to the issue of higher taxes, but Democrats have to play with the hand they are dealt, not the one they want. We can't just decide we want to win "economically leftist" working class whites and then snap our fingers and make it happen. We'd have to change the entire perception of the national party, which includes de-emphasizing and/or dropping certain issues which will probably piss off other faction(s) that we need. It's a very complicated needle to thread and it takes decades to do it, not one or two election cycles.

Also, speaking in terms of pure electoral politics, white college grads are a reliable midterm voting bloc, so that is a bonus for Democrats. They need something to counter their unreasonably low-propensity voters.

[Virginiá]

I think in the context of political appeals and strategy, white and non-white voters probably need to be looked at differently. For instance, I've posted on here an article that observes that while white voters' political leanings can be shifted by economic pressures, non-white voters barely respond to those effects. They are staunchly Democratic through and through. I'm not saying nothing will change that, but it's just not the same as it is with white voters.

As for 1938, that situation seemed inevitable. Democrats had 330+ House seats and over 70 Senate seats. That was unsustainable, without a doubt. Especially when your party controls the White House for long enough. There were a lot of older voters and other demographics who were Republican-leaning but had spurned their party for a number of years due to the economic collapse. I'd really like to see some detailed voting data based on age from this era, but unfortunately it doesn't exist.

[Virginiá]

Life without parole doesn't make any sense to me. If you have decided that someone is too dangerous or has done something so bad that they can never be reformed and reintegrated into society, you might as well give them the death penalty.

I never really understood why people get so bent out of shape about the death penalty but then seem content with LWOP. I meannnnn..... do they not realize that locking someone in a cage for their ENTIRE LIFE is worse for most people? Not to mention people who get shoved into solitary confinement for months or years at a time, and whose minds slowly unravel. That is torture.

I'm not really in favor of the death penalty either, but simply being anti-DP but pro-LWOP seems like an issue position more designed to make the advocate feel better than contribute meaningfully to the issue of criminal justice reform.

[Virginiá]

Sure, that's an issue to consider. I'm just saying that, at least to me, it's strange to see people get all emotional, riled up and crazy about ending the death penalty, only to be pacified at the thought of the same criminals instead rotting in a cell until they are thoroughly broken. It makes no sense to me. If the death penalty is barbaric, then life imprisonment should be worse. Where are the picket lines for juveniles and adults alike falling apart in solitary for months on end?

As far as I am concerned, this is like refusing to eat beef because it's cruel to cattle only to later gorge yourself on chicken.

[Virginiá]

A "permanent" lock on a generation is an exaggeration imo. It's just a bond built during a person's formative years, and the strength of the bond isn't always the same. A bond can be broken down the line, but most people do indeed get set in their ways as they age. This isn't even a political thing (hence why it's practically a stereotype). The older people get, the less apt they are to change certain behaviors or beliefs. It takes bigger and more meaningful events to shift those attributes. Not impossible, but not easy either. It's probably why it doesn't happen that often.

There are also other factors, and what erosion of support there is over time may have a multitude of smaller causes. For instance, African Americans have seen little change in their demographic's overall voting behavior, despite major changes in the parties and the country at large.

[Virginiá]

New thread: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=319391.0