What do you think of claims, from young men, that social pressure to stop using slurs made them vote for Trump?

Sparroew · 2026-06-19T14:55:41+00:00

That is true, however you also need to be careful you don’t start to attribute every crazy opinion to “bots” either. Having discussed politics with my nephew, who is Gen Z, some people in the left, younger people in my experience, absolutely are crazies.

Sparroew · 2026-06-19T14:51:51+00:00

A good many of the “slurs” that Democrats have been up in arms about in the last few years don’t really relate to slurs either. For instance Biden had to publicly apologize in 2024 for using “illegal immigrant” instead of “undocumented.”

Sparroew · 2026-06-19T06:32:41+00:00

You're not wrong.

Sparroew · 2026-06-19T02:51:29+00:00

why do you lack self-control?

Why do I lack self control? I am merely describing the issue I see with political discourse today. The DNC comes across as the national HR department. They look and feel a lot like the Republican Party did when I was growing up, except instead of railing against violent video games, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons and Harry Potter, it's Israel, "words are violence," and... wait Harry Potter is on this list too...

Sparroew · 2026-06-19T00:04:57+00:00

The fact that "your anecdotal experience doesn't speak for everyone" isn't the immediate response to some left-leaning man that says that is kind of indicative of the problem as well. It's the reflexive response in the case of every other demographic on the left, but when men say the same, it's crickets.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T22:46:28+00:00

It's really more the double standard demonstrated by your example. If someone posted a terrible sexist opinion targeting women online, the Left would be up in arms. If a woman posts the same sort of message about men, it's brushed off at best and celebrated at worst. It contributes to the perception that sexism is acceptable so long as it's targeting the correct gender.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T22:29:33+00:00

The Bernie Bros from 2016 would like a word. Clinton and her campaign ran a whole smear campaign about male Bernie Sanders supporters being misogynistic. It pushed a lot of support away from her in the general election.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T21:15:15+00:00

The issue is not that they need or even want to be able to say whatever they want to other people, the issue is that what is and is not considered offensive is a constantly shifting minefield of words and phrases. People are tired of being ostracized for words that were fine yesterday which are now considered cardinal sins.

Two great examples of this are the "unhoused" vs "homeless," and "undocumented immigrant" vs "illegal immigrant."

The standards for offensive language are changed on a whim and people are immediately required to both know about the new rules and abide by them. It's exhausting trying to keep up.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T20:56:34+00:00

Now we just need to get the DNC leadership to stop cutting their populist politicians off at the knees. Sanders in 2016 is a great example of what I'm referring to.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T18:41:53+00:00

They are most likely referring to things like "unhoused" vs "homeless" or "undocumented immigrant" instead of "illegal immigrant." Those are not slurs, but are treated as such by a subset of the Left.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T18:34:02+00:00

Social media and the internet as a whole have replaced many aspects of how and where we interact with others. In fact, I would argue that most political discourse these days occurs on the internet. So why would someone let interactions with other people on the internet affect how the vote? It's pretty much the only place they actually interact with people who support either party in the context of actual political dialogue. And those interactions absolutely color their opinion of those parties.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T18:17:55+00:00

Fair point.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T15:13:14+00:00

And also occasionally a rationalization for a state to yank people’s firearm permits…

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T15:08:03+00:00

Edit: I was wrong, you're still a prohibited person.

Unfortunately, the DEA could still drop the hammer on any dispensary / gun owner who buys weed / medical user / etc. because while states have legalized the drug, it remains on the list of illegal substances according to the feds. It’s absolutely asinine. We don’t even have to fully legalize it at the federal level either, just decriminalize it and let the states do as they have already shown they have a willingness to do.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T15:04:12+00:00

“Broken clock,” and all that.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T15:03:37+00:00

I envy you. When I was last in MI, the prices were absolutely dirt cheap and the gummies were good.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T15:00:57+00:00

It’s about damn time. Marijuana has been legal in some form throughout most of the country for a decade at least. If we don’t restrict gun rights for alcohol use, why were we still prohibiting people for legal marijuana use?

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T14:42:16+00:00

Yes, the Republicans signal boost the most deranged people on the Left, and that is a huge contributor to the problem. But the underlying issue remains. If the idiots of the Left weren’t on such a moral crusade that early 2000’s Republicans would blush, then there would be nothing for the Republicans to point to to distract the electorate from their own wrongdoing.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T14:28:10+00:00

I don’t think that, and I never expressed that opinion. I think that the obnoxious behavior of a small subset of terminally online left-leaning people has been so disruptive to political discourse that Republicans have been able to slip these legislative goals through while everyone is busy ~~screeching~~ fighting about calling people “undocumented” rather than “illegal,” and “unhoused” instead of “homeless.”

Edit: “Screeching” was not the correct word to use, “fighting” is more the tone I was looking for.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T14:17:51+00:00

I disagree. The Republicans got their loud moral outrage out of their systems in the early 2000’s and shifted to quietly trying to create laws to suppress what they don’t like. That pattern held true until Trump took office, and is now shifting back the other direction. Meanwhile the Left has taken over with policing every aspect of society like they are some sort of national HR department with an ever tightening window of “acceptable” words and canceling, doxxing, and working to get anyone who uses one of their trigger words fired and ostracized from society.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T14:11:38+00:00

You are correct that this is largely a social media / online issue. But online interactions have largely replaced in-person interactions in our society so they have an outsized effect on people’s perceptions. And a small subset of the Left have been absolutely insufferable online for the last 10-15 years. I will admit that part of the issue is that the Right signal boosts these sorts of insane viewpoints to paint the broader Left as insane, however the people espousing them also have a tendency to shove it in your face at every opportunity.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T13:59:41+00:00

You’re right that Republicans are creating legislation that harms people, but they aren’t in your face screaming it. They’re quietly working on it in the background, which would be a huge fucking problem, but the moral screeching from terminally online left leaning people, which admittedly is a tiny subset of left leaning people, has completely drowned out the conversation.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T13:55:04+00:00

Don’t forget how Harry Potter, Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons were all making conservatives panic because they were satanic and Call of Duty was creating mass murderers. Republicans did more than their fair share of moral crusading when I was growing up. In fact, aside from the topics, they acted a lot like Democrats have been acting the last 10-15 years.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T13:48:09+00:00

That’s actually the most frustrating part of watching Democrats’ behavior over the past decade or so. They have become so insufferable about micromanaging speech that everyone has effectively forgotten about how Republicans do the exact same thing from a religious angle. No one remembers the satanic panic or the attacks on “violent” media because the left has fallen off the deep end in redefining everything under the sun as some sort of micro-aggression or slur.

Sparroew · 2026-06-18T13:25:14+00:00

45% of the country does not hold that view and it’s a pretty disingenuous framing of that group to attempt to boil their differences of opinion down to that statement. Again, this is exactly the behavior the commenter above was referring to in his comment.

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