The exodus of the blue avatars

[T'Chenka]

Atlas has been around for two decades, through Dubya, Obama, and Trump, but now in the Biden / post-Trump era, a notable number of blue avatars have decided to either post way less or take a hiatus from the blog altogether.

The explanation that has been given to us is that Atlas is becoming a left wing echo chamber, but is that really the case? I'm interested in hearing what the community at large has to say about this.

[T'Chenka]

Personally, I think the Republican Party has jumped the shark, abandoning the truth, abandoning democracy and shifting their focus from more important issues to owning the libs and culture wars (even over democracy). Instead of the blue avatar community here watching the party leave them and becoming green or yellow avatars, I feel like a lot of the Republicans here (and everywhere in general) have instead followed Trump down the rabbit hole. The GOP's actions and policies are no longer as defensible in rational debates, and the blue avatars are frustrated that their ability to win / stalemate arguments in good faith is disappearing.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

My authority to speak on the subject is limited, but I have noticed a decrease in traditional conservative blue or tan avatars during my time here.  

I think that Atlas can be a "left-wing echo chamber" at times, as overused a phrase it may be.

There are instances where threads vehemently attacking the GOP for things are roundly applauded while threads pointing out Democrats' failures are quickly met with "why is this an issue?" or "not a problem. Next!".  And I'm not even talking about threads that are transparently meant to inflame rather than attempting to start a meaningful discussion (e.g. GOP state senator's husband's cousin's dog steals Indian family's newspaper! Explain that one, Trumpsters!" Or "Local cake shop insists cakes are gendered! Explain that one, libs!").  

For as much as I think he needs to sometimes step away from Atlas and not take an online forum so seriously, Fuzzy (sorry to name you, dear) *does* sometimes bring up legitimate complaints regarding double standards in red vs. blue moderation -- though I also understand that our mods are human and can't possibly be everywhere, all day everyday.  And they seem to do a good job of addressing many instances where our left-of-center posters cross the line.  

I also think there's an over-eagerness to immediately accuse any new poster expressing conservative views of being a sock, potentially discouraging the birth of new blue contributors.  This of course does not include new accounts that are obviously just trying to stir up trouble.    

Again, I'm not an authority here considering I'm not an uber right-wing conservative and my time here has been short.  But I think these things may lend a bit of insight into what I perceive to be a decline in blue avvies.  

[T'Chenka]

There are instances where threads vehemently attacking the GOP for things are roundly applauded while threads pointing out Democrats' failures are quickly met with "why is this an issue?" or "not a problem. Next!".

Many people including myself would strongly argue that the organization known as the Republican Party and the politicians that represent it are not as honest, moral or reasonable as they used to be pre-Trump. We would also argue that the current problems with the GOP are MUCH much more serious (and dangerous) than the current problems with the Democratic Party, and they are in fact putting the lives of poor people, women and minorities at risk even more than they usually do, as well as the very democracy that is the fabric of America.

You may not agree with that, but many people do, and the evidence seems to bear that out as well. If ANY political party is doing that, regardless of their place on the political spectrum or what country we're talking about, it's reasonably follows that many people will attack them and cheer when others attack them until they get their s__t together and go back to being a "normal" party that focuses on policy and supports democracy.

I guess blue avatars don't want to have to defend the GOP's actions? Their grievance seems to be that their party is under attack, but they haven't considered the full context of what their party is doing to the country and WHY people are attacking them more than usual. That's my take anyways.

So I guess a more accurate description would be that Atlas in 2022 is an "anti-GOP echo chamber", seeing as how the GOP and the right wing itself are two very different things that have a lot overlap with each other. Many right wingers have rejected the post-Trump GOP and become independents.

[dead0man]

We've always been short on blue avs.  It may be worse now, but not dramatically worse.  We've always been (mostly) an echo chamber.  Are there worse echo chambers out there?  Of course, but there being worse doesn't make us any less of one.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Latisha James just said Trump defrauded the Govt 250 M dollars and Rs still like Trump it's okay to like Rs but there are Rs on this site that wants Rs to win no matter what and the polls are going opposite because not just Dobbs but because the investigation

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

It's just that the modern Republican Party is really impossible to defend intellectually or morally. There's a lot of reason to be concerned that the next presidential election could be in jeopardy if/when states try nullifying the results again (well, y'know, technically just one result, because GOP votes for House and Senate are definitely not tainted the same way Biden ballots are). And there's not much of a reason to be a Republican these days (sorry, PQG) if you're not MAGA.

Consider that Ray Goldfield, Torie, Goldwater, MasterJedi, and many others all used to don blue avatars. One of Trump's loudest critics here is someone who registered with the name GWBFan. After a certain point, the deification of a corrupt false prophet and idiot who wants to overthrow democracy, and all the doublethink required to justify that and his party's actions, become too heavy a burden. And this is simply not a "both sides" problem.

American politics is also, frankly, stupid. The archaic electoral system we have is stupid. Many, but not all, of the controversies are stupid. The culture wars of today are pretty stupid and so are the hills that people choose to die on now.

It's so stupid, that it makes you nostalgic for the early 2010's GOP compared to what we have now. And many of those Tea Party-backed Republicans are considered either moderate or establishment now. We've set the bar so low now that simply affirming that the 2020 election wasn't stolen makes you a profile in courage in today's GOP. Things just shouldn't be that way, and there are some issues where there's not a left and a right point of view, but lies versus the truth, and it's impossible for a democracy to function when everyone's entitled to their own facts.

Like with most problems today, I blame it on alienation and the effects that the social networking obsession has on people's brains.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Also, alot of people were receiving that extra unemployment and stimulus checks and living high on the hog when it stopped it was back to reality alot people like me had to relocate with family from other states due to Housing crisis, in the is Post Pandemic era unless you are making real goodoney you can't live out of state away from relatives and my cuz in Sacramento died in 2018, so that ended that in Cali too


Like in shared living there was several person's living there that was on program that paid your rent after you finish GR  for yo to sux months and many applied for SSA and got denied this guy was from MD and went back home from Cali before  the Housing crisis, anyone that don't believe it's a Housing crisis it is they passed Pandemic rental relief but no section 8 vouchers long term Housing due to migrants were already on it before Pandemic
We are in a Post Pandemic world not pre Pandemic world most people are going to school online because of Students Loans crisis 10 K online v 50 K in class and to take out more than 20 K a yr it's called Plus Loan A+ credit, so most take out 20 K and use. 10 K for living expenses


COVID is over but we aren't in a Pre Pandemic world we are post pandemic world and everyone is playing the lottery to get Millions I am too, that why Rs are losing I posted Trump losing to Biden and DeSantis losing it doesn't matter about red states it only matters about WI, MI and PA and since 2017 after Hillary we have thelead in them but we will win those two OH, NCand FL and TX have Blk and brown 5/6 of the vote. And many polls are 5 pts

Jojo oh they are expanding inn Cali for 800 K Homes like Rabbits in IL the average home is 400 K everyone don't have 800 K give Blks reparations from slavery that Elizabeth and royals took from Jamaica and I am Jamaican decent my grandma was Jamaica we can pay for 800 K homes Kennedy got their wealth from slavery Ireland participate in slave triangle

[jamestroll]

It is simple. Blue Avatars here will tend to be more in tune with reality. With the way the GOP has went, it is hard for them to continue with the party or in politics so they either switch sides or drop politics. And the crazy blue avatars just give up on this site all together.

It is why I can mingle with conservative posters here, but IRL I have very few... really just one.. conservative friend.

I am not voting for a party that takes an extreme anti-intellectualism stance.

[It’s so Joever]

My authority to speak on the subject is limited, but I have noticed a decrease in traditional conservative blue or tan avatars during my time here.  

I think that Atlas can be a "left-wing echo chamber" at times, as overused a phrase it may be.

There are instances where threads vehemently attacking the GOP for things are roundly applauded while threads pointing out Democrats' failures are quickly met with "why is this an issue?" or "not a problem. Next!".  And I'm not even talking about threads that are transparently meant to inflame rather than attempting to start a meaningful discussion (e.g. GOP state senator's husband's cousin's dog steals Indian family's newspaper! Explain that one, Trumpsters!" Or "Local cake shop insists cakes are gendered! Explain that one, libs!").  

For as much as I think he needs to sometimes step away from Atlas and not take an online forum so seriously, Fuzzy (sorry to name you, dear) *does* sometimes bring up legitimate complaints regarding double standards in red vs. blue moderation -- though I also understand that our mods are human and can't possibly be everywhere, all day everyday.  And they seem to do a good job of addressing many instances where our left-of-center posters cross the line.  

I also think there's an over-eagerness to immediately accuse any new poster expressing conservative views of being a sock, potentially discouraging the birth of new blue contributors.  This of course does not include new accounts that are obviously just trying to stir up trouble.    

Again, I'm not an authority here considering I'm not an uber right-wing conservative and my time here has been short.  But I think these things may lend a bit of insight into what I perceive to be a decline in blue avvies.  

I will admit the sock issue is real. That is less of an issue with mods and more of an issue with generic Atlas posters though.

[Senator Incitatus]

The mainstream internet has become more hospitable to Republican views since the invention of social media, relieving the need to go to a forum like this to talk politics from a Republican perspective. Instead, the forum is now just for election nerd types, who disproportionately tend to be technocratic Democrats for ample reason.

I'm here mostly because I'm not a strict partisan and interested in international and global politics, but if I were otherwise, I would just go to Twitter or Gab. The idea that every forum needs to have some sort of strictly proportionate affirmative-action for partisan representation is a form of psychosis. It functions just fine as-is.

[OSR stands with Israel]

One of the biggest problems outside what PQG mentioned is also the fact that USGD is not even fostered for actual debate or discussion anymore. Some of the biggest problems are this :

1. When blue avatars post it’s usually followed up by 5-6 red avatar posters responding in the harshest way possible and given that red avatars outnumber blue avatars , that makes it really hard to debate .

2. The view that many democrats have now days is that being a Republican itself is illegitimate so strawmanning every thing a blue avatar says is ok and calling one side traitors or terrorist enablers is ok . Why would blue avatars even want to debate these people and frankly it’s why I have gotten much more aggressive in my responses cause if we are gonna be attacked like this then why should we respond in serious or nice ways either .

3. Moderators don’t have clear rules on what is or what isn’t ok in culture war threads because frankly in a political forum it should be ok to post anything that is in the mainstream of public debate on an issue . It is why I said there should be a megathread on this so you can stop the clutter as well

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The fact that few Republicans don't want to participate in a forum about election results and maps when so many believe that elections now are rigged and illegitimate is hardly surprising.

Another issue is that Atlas posters have always been significantly more educated than the general population, either graduated or in college, so Trump scaring off so many educated voters from the GOP definitely had an impact on our membership.

[Хahar 🤔]

I wrote these messages almost a year and a half ago and they all seem basically germane:

I think the point about ideological diversity is more interesting, although reading old posts in isolation may not clearly indicate that back then most prominent blue avatars were basically seen as clowns. Post count was not inherently worthy of respect a decade ago any more than it is now. That said, I was younger then and more tolerant of ideological diversity and more willing to believe that the other side had points worth considering; I think that this is an evolution that has taken place in the minds of a lot of people here over the last ten years.

The biggest change in that regard doesn't have to do with this forum directly: it's the complete disavowal by the Republican Party not just of intellectual respectability but of coherent thought. The intellectual case for the Bush administration was wrong, but its existence meant that one could position oneself as an intellectual. By contrast, "right-wing intellectuals" online can get somewhere by making obvious criticisms of the Democratic Party agenda, but eventually they face a crossroads where either they have to admit that they voted for Biden anyway or else they have to give away any intellectual pretense by parroting the literally absurd claims of the Republican Party. It's no surprise that people here don't take kindly to the latter option, since that kind of agitprop is not meant for a politically sophisticated audience.

I was gone for a long time, so I don't recognize the names of all the posters who popped up in the last five years or so, but the dynamics of the forum in this sense feel similar to what they always have been. The one difference has to do with the obvious fact that avatar color is not indicative of political orientation or even partisanship; it has struck me how many blue avatars now are either not Republicans in any sense or else express sentiments that are unacceptable in the contemporary Republican Party. When I refer to Republican posters, I am not referring to those posters.

One type of Republican poster is the one who treats politics as nothing but a parlor game where they're on the opposite side of the rest of the forum. Republican95 is a good example of this now; Sam Spade is the classic example, even if he wasn't a registered Republican. This type of poster will often make interesting and useful contributions in terms of election analysis and the like (that is to say, the purpose of this forum), but over time their attitude starts to grate on everyone who sees politics as something that actually matters to real people rather than just a way to show everyone how smart you are.

Another type is the blue avatar who refrains from expressing political opinions and often does not really seem to post about politics at all: Rin-chan, who was the first Facebook friend I ever had, is the obvious example of this, and I'm sure there are plenty of blue avatars like this now. Everyone loves these people because they are nice.

Beyond that, it really is very difficult to be a partisan Republican who sincerely believes that Republican Party policies are morally right in the way that Democrats here feel about their party as a rule, because everyone will dismiss your words as laughable or abhorrent or both. (Back in the Bush years, there was a certain type of Christian politics that provided partisan Republicans with this moral dimension, but that never played well on this mostly irreligious forum and political Christianity is thoroughly dead anyway.) This doesn't bother me: Mike Naso did nothing but chant Republican Party rhetoric, and he was justly banned for it, because that's the level of Republican discourse. No thinking person wants or needs that.

So why on Earth did they leave? It's a bit of a failure that Atlas is echochambery (could be worse but we aren't in a good position)

To answer the immediate question at hand, they left because they got bored or otherwise outgrew this place, just like plenty of other posters of all persuasions; continuing to post on a message board for a decade or more is what's strange, not leaving at some point. It seems like what you're really asking is why they haven't been replaced by more right-wing posters, to which you can see what I've already said in this post.

A fair number of conservative posters of old are just not conservative in any sense now: MasterJedi, who still posts here, is one example. Another is Supersoulty, who was always a rarity among Republicans here in that his interest in politics seemed to actually be about helping people. It's not surprising that he was for Bernie Sanders in the last election. Plenty of Republicans here were always sort of liberal to begin with, and the subsequent direction of the Republican Party hasn't really attracted them. A sizable portion of the Republican contingent here has always been made up of teens who identify as Republicans because their parents are Republicans, and sooner or later plenty of those people realize that they're just liberals. (This is not limited to the Internet; I have plenty of friends who were Republican teens and all of them would describe themselves as either liberal or socialist now.)

And then, of course, there's Mike Naso, who, as I mentioned before, is the embodiment of the contemporary Republican Party. He was banned because nobody wanted to see his posts. Welcoming posters like that would certainly help change the partisan alignment of the forum, but it would do so at the expense of most good posters.

I know this was a lot of text, but hopefully it helps explain my views on the dynamics of the forum community.

In summary, as BRTD has mentioned, there are fewer Republicans here for the same reason that there are few communists here: followers of a political movement that doesn't believe in democratic elections don't have much reason to post on a forum about elections. Furthermore, contemporary Republican arguments are so insulting to the intelligence of anyone who has to hear them that it's difficult to interact with people in a respectful way while also proclaiming oneself to be a loyal Republican.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I wrote these messages almost a year and a half ago and they all seem basically germane:

I think the point about ideological diversity is more interesting, although reading old posts in isolation may not clearly indicate that back then most prominent blue avatars were basically seen as clowns. Post count was not inherently worthy of respect a decade ago any more than it is now. That said, I was younger then and more tolerant of ideological diversity and more willing to believe that the other side had points worth considering; I think that this is an evolution that has taken place in the minds of a lot of people here over the last ten years.

The biggest change in that regard doesn't have to do with this forum directly: it's the complete disavowal by the Republican Party not just of intellectual respectability but of coherent thought. The intellectual case for the Bush administration was wrong, but its existence meant that one could position oneself as an intellectual. By contrast, "right-wing intellectuals" online can get somewhere by making obvious criticisms of the Democratic Party agenda, but eventually they face a crossroads where either they have to admit that they voted for Biden anyway or else they have to give away any intellectual pretense by parroting the literally absurd claims of the Republican Party. It's no surprise that people here don't take kindly to the latter option, since that kind of agitprop is not meant for a politically sophisticated audience.

I was gone for a long time, so I don't recognize the names of all the posters who popped up in the last five years or so, but the dynamics of the forum in this sense feel similar to what they always have been. The one difference has to do with the obvious fact that avatar color is not indicative of political orientation or even partisanship; it has struck me how many blue avatars now are either not Republicans in any sense or else express sentiments that are unacceptable in the contemporary Republican Party. When I refer to Republican posters, I am not referring to those posters.

One type of Republican poster is the one who treats politics as nothing but a parlor game where they're on the opposite side of the rest of the forum. Republican95 is a good example of this now; Sam Spade is the classic example, even if he wasn't a registered Republican. This type of poster will often make interesting and useful contributions in terms of election analysis and the like (that is to say, the purpose of this forum), but over time their attitude starts to grate on everyone who sees politics as something that actually matters to real people rather than just a way to show everyone how smart you are.

Another type is the blue avatar who refrains from expressing political opinions and often does not really seem to post about politics at all: Rin-chan, who was the first Facebook friend I ever had, is the obvious example of this, and I'm sure there are plenty of blue avatars like this now. Everyone loves these people because they are nice.

Beyond that, it really is very difficult to be a partisan Republican who sincerely believes that Republican Party policies are morally right in the way that Democrats here feel about their party as a rule, because everyone will dismiss your words as laughable or abhorrent or both. (Back in the Bush years, there was a certain type of Christian politics that provided partisan Republicans with this moral dimension, but that never played well on this mostly irreligious forum and political Christianity is thoroughly dead anyway.) This doesn't bother me: Mike Naso did nothing but chant Republican Party rhetoric, and he was justly banned for it, because that's the level of Republican discourse. No thinking person wants or needs that.

So why on Earth did they leave? It's a bit of a failure that Atlas is echochambery (could be worse but we aren't in a good position)

To answer the immediate question at hand, they left because they got bored or otherwise outgrew this place, just like plenty of other posters of all persuasions; continuing to post on a message board for a decade or more is what's strange, not leaving at some point. It seems like what you're really asking is why they haven't been replaced by more right-wing posters, to which you can see what I've already said in this post.

A fair number of conservative posters of old are just not conservative in any sense now: MasterJedi, who still posts here, is one example. Another is Supersoulty, who was always a rarity among Republicans here in that his interest in politics seemed to actually be about helping people. It's not surprising that he was for Bernie Sanders in the last election. Plenty of Republicans here were always sort of liberal to begin with, and the subsequent direction of the Republican Party hasn't really attracted them. A sizable portion of the Republican contingent here has always been made up of teens who identify as Republicans because their parents are Republicans, and sooner or later plenty of those people realize that they're just liberals. (This is not limited to the Internet; I have plenty of friends who were Republican teens and all of them would describe themselves as either liberal or socialist now.)

And then, of course, there's Mike Naso, who, as I mentioned before, is the embodiment of the contemporary Republican Party. He was banned because nobody wanted to see his posts. Welcoming posters like that would certainly help change the partisan alignment of the forum, but it would do so at the expense of most good posters.

I know this was a lot of text, but hopefully it helps explain my views on the dynamics of the forum community.

In summary, as BRTD has mentioned, there are fewer Republicans here for the same reason that there are few communists here: followers of a political movement that doesn't believe in democratic elections don't have much reason to post on a forum about elections. Furthermore, contemporary Republican arguments are so insulting to the intelligence of anyone who has to hear them that it's difficult to interact with people in a respectful way while also proclaiming oneself to be a loyal Republican.

On that note we had two notable recent departures although one was a nominal independent and light green avatar for basically this reason outlined at the end, they were so abrasive that the backlash against them became too much and they couldn't stand the heat anymore, probably also coupled with the collapse of the red wave depriving then of gloating opportunities. I'm referring of course to ElectionsGuy and Politician.

The latter is also an interesting example of how in the last few years the primary method of messaging amongst forum Republicans has been just parroting stale and contrived memes almost entirely based around strawmen because they don't really have anything else.

Good point about Supersoulty btw, he was a very rare example of someone who actually supported the GOP because he legitimately believed their policies were the best to help people in general, it was laughably naive but at least not outright evil.

[jamestroll]

Liberals do irritate me in several areas but I post here because it is leans left without being a complete echo chamber.

Liberals irritate me in some ways though..

1) being overly legalistic to a micromanaging point and believing that every problem can be solved through some law. We saw that during covid.. Our ability to control the virus was always unrealistic.

2) too much NIMBY in very progressive communities and makes them seen as hypocrites to me. I am glad there was less of that in nova.

3) their main sympathies can be in the wrong area. Such as rights of criminals over the suffering victims.

4) The political correct language from bipoc to latinx to using unhoused instead of homeless solves no problems.

The reason I do not join conservatives is basically the following:

1) way to unrealistic to people who are less fortunate even through no fault of their own.  Believing people have equal chances in life is a bunch of crap. People do not have equal chances from both an economic and a natural standpoint!

2) They ignore the effects of prejudice in society. Sure, black communities do have higher crime rates, but they never even think about WHY that happens.

3) Despite my confidence that technology will mitigate climate change and we can work around it, conservatives tend to not give any care about the environment at all.

4) Most conservatives do not tolerate any mistakes and believe people should be punished their entire lives over one mistake.

5) conservatives tend to be more selfish.

6) Also the people who do not believe in evolution, believe the world is 6000 years old, are anti vaccine, and completely distrust science are largely conservatives.

7) Not to mention the anti-immigrant attitude among conservatives.

I generally picture conservatives basically two groups

1) fat white racist red necks

2) privileged and sheltered cold hearted people.

Neither of those types would be inclined to post on online forums.

Do you know any conservatives who have any sympathy for disabled people?

yea me neither.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The fact that few Republicans don't want to participate in a forum about election results and maps when so many believe that elections now are rigged and illegitimate is hardly surprising.

Another issue is that Atlas posters have always been significantly more educated than the general population, either graduated or in college, so Trump scaring off so many educated voters from the GOP definitely had an impact on our membership.

Not really and btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

[OSR stands with Israel]

There are instances where threads vehemently attacking the GOP for things are roundly applauded while threads pointing out Democrats' failures are quickly met with "why is this an issue?" or "not a problem. Next!".

Many people including myself would strongly argue that the organization known as the Republican Party and the politicians that represent it are not as honest, moral or reasonable as they used to be pre-Trump. We would also argue that the current problems with the GOP are MUCH much more serious (and dangerous) than the current problems with the Democratic Party, and they are in fact putting the lives of poor people, women and minorities at risk even more than they usually do, as well as the very democracy that is the fabric of America.

You may not agree with that, but many people do, and the evidence seems to bear that out as well. If ANY political party is doing that, regardless of their place on the political spectrum or what country we're talking about, it's reasonably follows that many people will attack them and cheer when others attack them until they get their s__t together and go back to being a "normal" party that focuses on policy and supports democracy.

I guess blue avatars don't want to have to defend the GOP's actions? Their grievance seems to be that their party is under attack, but they haven't considered the full context of what their party is doing to the country and WHY people are attacking them more than usual. That's my take anyways.

So I guess a more accurate description would be that Atlas in 2022 is an "anti-GOP echo chamber", seeing as how the GOP and the right wing itself are two very different things that have a lot overlap with each other. Many right wingers have rejected the post-Trump GOP and become independents.

I mean this post embodies the problem with how things have gotten on here because too many democratic or progressive posters on here come in with the idea that to be a republican is to be enabling treason or terrorism and take that belief as objective reality when it is not . Like how the hell do you expect then for republicans on here not to be very aggressive towards you guys or post at all . Also a political forum should allow any posts that are in line with current public debate on the issues and this forum does not do that . Take Atlasia where a bill was taken down even though it was word for word a bill that was passed into law in an actual state .


This is why I will say I actually have much more substantive debates on conservacord than I do here and while it may be hard to believe, well that’s cause of how unbelievably terrible USGD has gotten at that here .

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Having been on the forum for a long time, I have noticed that there has been a steep decline in posting quality. I don't know when the tipping point happened exactly, but the first time I noticed this being a problem was in 2014, when any poll that showed Republicans doing well was just dismissed by spamming "junk poll" at it. As it happened, those "junk polls" turned out to be quite accurate, but moreover it was a sign of a serious problem for the forum at large.

     It makes it hard for me to care about what gets posted on Atlas or to engage seriously with it, knowing that the effort will go to waste. I've found that when I try to put in an effort, my post will usually get ignored to mock something more ostentatious, and if responded to it will almost certainly be twisted and misread. And that is supposing the topic is worth the effort in the first place, because USGD these days is dominated by culture war threads (usually started by red avatars, mind you), and anything that lacks a clear culture war or Trump angle is unlikely to make it past a few pages. Knowing that there is little value in making serious contributions to Atlas today whereas there had been a much greater value proposition a decade ago, I post far less frequently and rarely make an effort when I do post. Admittedly, I don't know how representative my situation is of conservatives on Atlas in general.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

Maybe for LokCord v2.0, definitely not for AAD.

I will say that I dislike USGD for similar reasons that previous posters have mentioned, and I deliberately try to respond to USGD posts in other threads to try and steer activity away from that cesspool. My opinion of certain D-avatars who frequently post and start threads there has gone down during the Biden administration.

[OSR stands with Israel]

btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

Maybe for LokCord v2.0, definitely not for PhilCord (whose most active members are disproportionately S-avatars) or AAD.

I will say that I dislike USGD for similar reasons that previous posters have mentioned, and I deliberately to respond to USGD posts in other threads to try and steer activity away from that cesspool. My opinion of certain D-avatars who frequently post and start threads there has gone down during the Biden administration.

Isn’t Philcord basically the atlas left of center cord

[7,052,770]

The fact that few Republicans don't want to participate in a forum about election results and maps when so many believe that elections now are rigged and illegitimate is hardly surprising.

Another issue is that Atlas posters have always been significantly more educated than the general population, either graduated or in college, so Trump scaring off so many educated voters from the GOP definitely had an impact on our membership.

Not really and btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

I get there is a generational gap here and maybe as a millennial I just don't and can't  "understand," but anyone who posts on "Atlas discord" but is afraid to post here is a total pussy and should be laughed at.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

I get there is a generational gap here and maybe as a millennial I just don't and can't  "understand," but anyone who posts on "Atlas discord" but is afraid to post here is a total pussy and should be laughed at.

From one Millennial to another: Discord servers are useful for sharing photos, memes, and day-to-day life updates that don’t fully belong on a publicly visible message board about elections and political campaigns.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Personally, I think the Republican Party has jumped the shark, abandoning the truth, abandoning democracy and shifting their focus from more important issues to owning the libs and culture wars (even over democracy). Instead of the blue avatar community here watching the party leave them and becoming green or yellow avatars, I feel like a lot of the Republicans here (and everywhere in general) have instead followed Trump down the rabbit hole. The GOP's actions and policies are no longer as defensible in rational debates, and the blue avatars are frustrated that their ability to win / stalemate arguments in good faith is disappearing.

Are you under the impression this forum encourages rational, good faith debates?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

One of the biggest problems outside what PQG mentioned is also the fact that USGD is not even fostered for actual debate or discussion anymore. Some of the biggest problems are this :

1. When blue avatars post it’s usually followed up by 5-6 red avatar posters responding in the harshest way possible and given that red avatars outnumber blue avatars , that makes it really hard to debate .

2. The view that many democrats have now days is that being a Republican itself is illegitimate so strawmanning every thing a blue avatar says is ok and calling one side traitors or terrorist enablers is ok . Why would blue avatars even want to debate these people and frankly it’s why I have gotten much more aggressive in my responses cause if we are gonna be attacked like this then why should we respond in serious or nice ways either .

3. Moderators don’t have clear rules on what is or what isn’t ok in culture war threads because frankly in a political forum it should be ok to post anything that is in the mainstream of public debate on an issue . It is why I said there should be a megathread on this so you can stop the clutter as well

"I just said transgenders don't deserve human rights, why am I catching flak?"

Everyone has a right to 'contribute' to USGD, but your opinions don't get immunity from criticism.