I would say that the fact people have had to self-censor when they held "conservative" views instead of engaging in public discourse without being villified is why they had to turn to someone like Trump when they were handing in their ballots.
If they felt safe, perhaps more of them would have appreciated the other side's arguments (and vice versa, obviously).
Is that what you meant? Or why did self-censorship help get Trump into power twice?
Oh. What conservative views are those?
I think the main one was "they (immigrants) took our jobs" (whereas I would argue USA was as successful as it was for as long as it was due to how long they benefited from influx of smart, hard-working immigrants who were willing to work for less than "born Americans").
The other ones about "non-whites are criminals", "marriage is a union between a man and a woman", "let me have my gun or I'll shoot you with it", "transgender people don't belong in sports" and similar, were mostly sideshow to stir the pot, but it was obvious people had to be careful before Trump not to get "cancelled" for some of those views, especially if they were in any somewhat public position (like an executive of a public company). And yes, today this seems to continue to happen in the other direction, but due to tribe mentality, one side is probably enjoying that today even if it's not really fair either.
Again, this is just looking from the sidelines somewhere in the non-EU part of Europe. And don't for a moment think I believe we've got it better over here: it's really much worse instead (we've had our Trump-like president in power for over 12 years now).
That men shouldn't go to women's bathrooms. Trump focused pretty hard on that sort of issue last election.
I think that's just a liberal fantasy, it's simply people's lives got worse over the last few decades under end-stage liberalism/capitalism, Trump successfully made a (albeit bullshit) case for genuine change, liberals didn't. If liberals hold on to that myth, that all they have to do to win is throw trans people and immigrants under the bus, then they will loose again. What they should focus on is the fact that no your lives didn't improve because we took trans people's rights away and threw some brown children in concentration camps, your rent didn't go down did it? So instead perhaps it's your landlord we should be focusing our anger towards...
See that for social cooling: I just pissed off everybody. It can be done lmao
Ah yes liberal fantasy.
His promises:
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/05/10/trump-promi...
- https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/30/donald-trumps... (see under LGBTIQ issues)
I'm not saying it is the only reason, but it is a big reason.
It's idiotic because what do you learn from that? You should also move to the right on LGBTQIA+ rights to win? That's about all you would learn from Trump's win and liberals loss. It's surely is convenient for the corporate democrats and their donors if you think that.
Again you misinterpret, I said a big reason, not the only one. I'm also not just talking about the Trans rights part, it was also about censorhip and self-censorship. Take DEI for example, when you have a contrarian stance to the status quo (at the time) [1], you're villified and outcast. Then there is cancel culture. 1000 paper cuts and all of that, and you'd see people swaying their vote combined with Trump's rhetoric.
Also I'm not suggesting anyone has to learn anything from Trump's win, just stating the reality of what happened.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
But if you believe in liberal censorship, cancel culture and DEI and critical race theory and immigrant crimes and all that other culture war/scapegoat nonsense being real then wouldn't you just be a Trump supporter? I'm saying that's all nonsense. That's why I'm saying liberals shouldn't cater to conservative delusions even if they think to be liberals, Trump will always outmatch them, he is a way more convincing bigot. Why do we need two conservative parties, it's just not a winning strategy.
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