Hotter, Badder, and Unpopularer Takes

[Tartarus Sauce]

Trump's obvious atheism is what gives me the most pause about my likely vote for him in 2020. A person with as much power as the US President needs to feel accountability to something greater than themselves.

His atheism isn't what causes him to hold no accountability, it's his narcissism.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Regardless of your personal opinions about Parrotguy and his ability to accurately detect bigotry in others, his point about this site's general political leanings are correct.

While the site is left-leaning overall, it's important to note that:

A. It's not nearly as deep of a liberal echochamber as the people who frequently decry it as such make it out to be. There are many longstanding, well respected conservative members on the site and it's not actually that uncommon for the more conservative voices to start dominating particular threads at times.

B. Multiple left-leaning members have been banned, disciplined, and had their content moderated. Some people give off the impression that only right-leaning members get flagged for moderation, but this is patently false.

C. It's been getting somewhat less liberal recently as the alt-right is establishing more of a presence on the forum. There certainly seems to be a somewhat larger pro-Trump block around now then when I came here just a few years ago. Maybe that's just a faulty memory, but it certainly feels that way.

[Tartarus Sauce]

I'm pretty sure I made this point earlier in this thread's life, but it bears repeating: the ignore function is one of the most useful features of the forum and people here have this rather silly notion that using it must make you weak-minded and overly sensitive to differing opinions.

There are multiple people on this forum of both left-wing and right-wing persuasion who are little more than white-noise generators that rarely add substantial, thoughtful contributions to political discussion. Empty words from empty minds so to speak. Time is a valuable commodity and I care about how it gets spent here, and I've never felt like I've cheated myself from being exposed to a diversity of thought by putting said individuals on my ignore list. If anything, it has made the forum browsing experience immeasurably better by actually leaving up the thoughts worth reading, including from those on the opposite side of the aisle whom I disagree with ideologically.  

And we should all be thankful that the ignore function is there for those in our community who are "weak-minded." It makes them far-less likely to get into petty spats with other members they don't get along with anyway, leaving the rest of us with less garbage to sift through.

[Tartarus Sauce]

For all of the talk of Atlas being full of Democratic hacks, I'd say that the Republican hacks are far more hackish and delusional on average. Of course, this doesn't apply to all or even close to all blue avatars, since many aren't hackish and make perfectly reasonable predictions. However, you'd be hard-pressed to find any Democrats on this forum who think that states like Mississippi or South Carolina are competitive (maybe one or two fall into this category), while at least a handful of Trump supporters on this forum think states like New Mexico, Oregon, or even Connecticut are competitive.

An addendum to this point, which I'm pretty sure is another thing I said earlier on in this thread: just because somebody has opinions that go against the grain of a particular group doesn't mean they actually hold good opinions. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, just like everybody else. But going against the grain is only as good as the perspectives they offer in alternative.

There are some genuinely garbage right-wing posters on this forum that more reasonable conservatives will defend just because they add another conservative voice to the tally.

[Tartarus Sauce]

I genuinely, honestly cannot grasp--emotionally, empathetically grasp--how a decent human being can possibly be right-wing on material issues, although I believe strongly enough in fair play and honest discussion and have a clear enough intellectual understanding of most arguments for right-wing positions that I'm able to act as if I can grasp it.

This, except replace right wing with Trump supporter.

He is such a scumbag of such epic proportions that it’s very hard not to judge people harshly when they unwaveringly support him.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Maryland is 100% southern. It's more southern than West Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri, or Florida.

Fight me, bro.