Being able to say that as a political figure and not getting an unequivocal drumming down by everyone else shows how far gone the west is. There is no turning this ship around.

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cowlevel a day ago | parent | next [-]

I hope you agree it's because she identified a demographic group of as causing a lot of problems, not because of which group she chose, right? The most powerful man in the world is blaming trans women for half the world's ills and we can all agree they're both bad statements?

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hsuduebc2 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Well, if she deliberately singled out this specific group to appeal to certain voters, then it makes perfect sense to be angry about it. In principle, it's no different from racists or bigots targeting minorities and blaming them for society's problems.

I'd guess that's exactly what's happening here. She could have simply said "men," which would have been a truthful statement. Instead, she specifically said "white cis men," which is a blatant lie.

It's the same tactic as blaming everything on immigrants or Roma people. You know what your voters already believe and what they want to hear, so you tell them exactly that. You reinforce their prejudices to win their support.

It's Horseshoe theory again and again.

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Viliam1234 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[flagged]

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shoobiedoo a day ago | parent | next [-]

Is it even possible to step back from this level of polarization? Centrists quickly get shoved into one side or the other depending on where their funding or family loyalties are. It just keeps ratcheting up when I start to think it's starting to level off

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Viliam1234 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know how. When people get sorted into fighting tribes by politics or religion, you can simply refuse to tell about your own, or pretend that you have none, or choose a weird option outside of the main conflict.

But when people get sorted by gender, or black versus white, it doesn't matter what you do, they have already sorted you. (You can choose a neutral nickname online, but offline you don't have that option.)

You can say that you don't care about these things as much as they do, or in the way they do -- they will call you a liar.

You can say that they are free to disbelieve but you won't join their fight anyway -- "your" side will call you a traitor, and the other side will accuse you of trying to trick them.

One option is to avoid the public places where the fight is going on, and only interact with your sane friends. But that's limiting, and sometimes you can't avoid the fight, for example when it comes to your job.

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cowlevel 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's because most supposed "centrists" are just one side or the other pretending to be not that side. Real centrists exist, but are rare.

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jimmyjazz14 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Honestly, yes I think it is possible for things to get better because they have frankly been FAR worse, for reference see most of human history. Most of us lived our formative years in an era of unprecedented peace, we currently find ourselves in an era of transition which often leads to periods of tribalism and strife.

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shoobiedoo a day ago | parent [-]

I suppose that's the long and short of it. Material excess just gives us a break from tribalism, but it's always there just under the surface. I'll try to share your optimism

	▲	antisthenes 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Material excess just gives us a break from tribalism Material excess is what gives many people a means to express their tribalism in the way that they do instead of being occupied with some productive activity for the common good.

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throwawaypty a day ago | parent | prev [-]

This, this right here! A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

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whoanoway 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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datsci_est_2015 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The New Zealand Green Party got 13.3% of the vote. I could pull all sorts of absolute drivel from any party in any country of the world that got ~ 13.3% of the vote.

Declaring "the west gone" is something better left on a reactionary platform like X, rather than something like Hacker News.

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shoobiedoo a day ago | parent [-]

Seems like a fairly high percentage for a green party. Are you saying it was low because of their comments? Did they lose media support or have to apologize?

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datsci_est_2015 a day ago | parent [-]

I'm not well-read on New Zealand politics outside of the broadest strokes (e.g. positive indigenous involvement). I would imagine very few people on this forum are well-read on New Zealand politics, given the demographics that we can probably collectively safely assume.

> Seems like a fairly high percentage for a green party.

Which makes this statement, unless you're well-read on New Zealand politics, pretty strange. Do you even know if they have something like ranked choice voting, or vote-for-party rather than vote-for-candidate, that could greatly impact the performance of smaller national parties?

	▲	shoobiedoo a day ago \| parent [-]
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