The Right is Tearing Itself Apart

[Valmy]

Tell me more about this boobie prize.

It comes from Spanish, bobo. The stupid prize.

Seriously?  I thought it came from the bird.

Yes. Doesn't that make sense than being named after a random bird?

[Admiral Yi]

Yes. Doesn't that make sense than being named after a random bird?

I'm such a dodo. 

[Valmy]

Yes. Doesn't that make sense than being named after a random bird?

I'm such a dodo. 

[Barrister]

Yeah well Ank has basically called me everything from a traitor to a subhuman monster for daring to support a candidate with slightly different policies than his so we will see how long the left holds together

His descent into paranoia and hyperbole has been difficult to watch.

Has he really?

I know he posts constant pro-Sanders articles, but I didn't know he'd gone that far.

[Valmy]

Yeah well Ank has basically called me everything from a traitor to a subhuman monster for daring to support a candidate with slightly different policies than his so we will see how long the left holds together

His descent into paranoia and hyperbole has been difficult to watch.

Has he really?

I know he posts constant pro-Sanders articles, but I didn't know he'd gone that far.

He has announced he will write Bernie in the general. We are all evil and corrupt for supporting her apparently. FFS. The Republicans are less unhinged about Hillary than some of these Bernie supporters.

[lustindarkness]

The truth is we are all subhuman monsters (here in languish).

[Habbaku]

Yeah well Ank has basically called me everything from a traitor to a subhuman monster for daring to support a candidate with slightly different policies than his so we will see how long the left holds together

His descent into paranoia and hyperbole has been difficult to watch.

Has he really?

I know he posts constant pro-Sanders articles, but I didn't know he'd gone that far.

He has announced he will write Bernie in the general. We are all evil and corrupt for supporting her apparently. FFS. The Republicans are less unhinged about Hillary than some of these Bernie supporters.

The Bernie Bros on my Faceborks are really losing it as much as Ank is.  It's really quite weird to see people I talk with on a weekly basis believe there's some sort of conspiracy behind Google calling a state for Hillary when the returns for a primary are at 4%.

[Valmy]

The truth is we are all subhuman monsters (here in languish).

[viper37]

The main means of communications were dominated by more reasonable and rational discourse. 

No, not really.  There are a number of scares, and ideologies like nazism and fascism that spread without modern means of communications.  It's faster today, because in 1890 it took 3 weeks to get news from London while it takes 3 minutes today, including the time to type it, but the problematic remains the same.

People have this inherent need to believe they are pretty, intelligent, special.  They also have this inherent need to seek an outside cause to their perceive ills.  Some people/groups are inherently good at exploiting these weaknesses.  I mean, there were people voting Trudeau because they thought Canada was in danger of becoming a fascist country.  Proves to me that this whole conspiracy thing isn't exclusive to the US and the conservative movements.

[viper37]

The Republicans are less unhinged about Hillary than some of these Bernie supporters.

Most Democrats believe Trump will be beaten by Hillary, so no real cause for concern.
Most Republicans believe Sanders will be beaten by a monkey flying GOP colors, so no real cause for concern.

Any attack by the Republicans against Hillary will make her more popular.
So, that likely explains why the Republicans are less unhingd about Hillary than some of these Bernie supporters.

[Martinus]

I think people just want war or a crisis. If there isnt one they make it.

[Valmy]

So, that likely explains why the Republicans are less unhingd about Hillary than some of these Bernie supporters.

I am not talking about this election V, I am talking about 1992-present

[Barrister]

I think people just want war or a crisis. If there isnt one they make it.

Well maybe not a crisis, but...

Who is the bedrock of Trump supporters?  Whites without college education.  And those people are in a lot of trouble.  They're dying at ever increasing rates, living standards are falling, etc.

Who is the bedrock of Sanders supporters?  Millenials.  And again, they're in some trouble as well.  Crippling student debt, housing prices make owning a home look unobtainable.

[viper37]

So, that likely explains why the Republicans are less unhingd about Hillary than some of these Bernie supporters.

I am not talking about this election V, I am talking about 1992-present

oh, sorry.

[Martinus]

On second thought, I think it is too easy to write it off on "people have it too easy these days". I think it's a combination of many things, some of them even contradictory, eg:

- asymmetric recovery from the financial crisis
- complacency of political elites
- breaking of the stranglehold of the mainstream on public discourse because of emergence of social media
- growing irrelevance of the old right vs. left divide leading to massive political realignment
- domination of leftist identity politics in academic and intellectual discourse
- lack of single geopolitical existential threat / emergence of the multi-polar world
- decline of Christianity in the West creating a "values' vacuum"
- increasing pace of technological growth, deepening the cultural divide between generations
- policies prioritising growth over social cohesion
- post-Marxist sociopolitical models reducing human differences to economy

I could go on.