GET OUT: US politics November 2020

God, listening to This American Life this morning, specifically the section where they are interviewing people about the alleged "voter fraud" and I just, good lord, there is no hope of these people ever embracing reality. No matter how much evidence is presented, they just continue doubling down and expanding the definition of who must be lying. It's exhausting.

Points to sign

Give people a choice between a mountain of reality-based evidence, and a whispered hint of a conspiracy that validates their beliefs, prejudices, and victim complexes, and how many will refuse the evidence and embrace the conspiracy? It used to seem like the conspiracy theorists were the fringe 10% at most, but now it’s closer to half the country. Trump has functioned as the GOP’s perfect accelerationist in many ways.

Careful, clearly table doesn't think we are allowed to talk about this, as demonstrated in the usual completely snide and dismissive way that makes this thread end up being so fucking unbearable sometimes.

Lol, I wasn't being snide or dismissive, just saying pointing to the sign that reads 'racist honky death cult.'

That's the sign that I point at in these threads. No other sign.

Nice projection of your frustrations onto me tho.

It's not projection when you actually are being snide and dismissive. Explaining it away as a private joke inside your own head doesn't make it any better.

sign sign
everywhere a sign

“I’m working on what I want to say about this topic,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). “I think I want to wait ... until I get my thoughts cleared on a piece of paper and in my brain.”

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 17, 2020 4:37 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Get a brain, Moran

https://www.milb.com/images/572383/t238/180x270/572383.jpg

I've talked about and used this term numerous times in this thread. I've referred to it as the sign I want to hold up when we get into these conversations, not to dunk on you or anyone else, but just to agree while reinforcing the idea that a large swath of the population is part of this cult. There were no hard feelings or snideness intended on my side.

Tbh I'm a little taken aback that it was read that way! I was agreeing!

Everyone's nerves are frayed.

I think you should totally get an actual neon sign tho, Table. And pls share photos when you do.

https://www.thefix.com/sites/default/files/styles/article/public/bobpollard.jpg

The way I read "read the sign" was to read the thread title, which is "GET OUT". That is why it felt really snide and dismissive. This thread has seen a ton of action this month, so it's hard to keep up with every individual poster's inside jokes.

I get it, Jon, and sorry I was a bit prickly in my initial response.

TBF every time someone mentions that evidence won't change their minds and that they just double down / dig their heels in, it triggers my own "points to sign" gut response because it's literally their only consistency. The more anyone pushes the more passionately they refuse to budge.

As if they have embroidered pillows that say "Keep Calm And Double Down".

I vaguely gathered it was a Simpsons reference but couldn't quite see how it relates here

we can image shit-post in here, take advantage!

caek and Alfred were tapping their own signs in the approach to the election itself, it's surely a politics thread thing by this point.

Anyone reckon there's any chance yesterday's revelations will see Lindsey impeached or anything?

Yes, the fact that there are multiple different signs being tapped makes it a bit confusing.

I tend to read as a signal that a post is taking the thread in a discouraged direction.

God, listening to This American Life this morning, specifically the section where they are interviewing people about the alleged "voter fraud" and I just, good lord, there is no hope of these people ever embracing reality. No matter how much evidence is presented, they just continue doubling down and expanding the definition of who must be lying. It's exhausting.

Sorry Jon not hanging up on you.

Ganging

I read this thread pretty often and somehow missed that we’re all making signs that we can tap to

My sign is that it’s ok for people to be sad and disappointed in public, given the circumstances of...wait, do we have a sign I can tap that refers to *gestures wildly at the world*?

Keyboard letters are signs, in some ways. They seem to represent something fundamental to the human experience, like language

To clarify for myself I was commenting on the sentiment. I haven't literally used the phrase.

Ferdinand de Saussure to thread

I had some vague notion as I was drifting off last night that Trump and his death cult represent the pure + unrefined endpoint of capitalism, just basically a horde of locusts picking the carcass clean without the hindrance of any recognizably human qualities. Parasites going balls out in an effort to completely burn put the host upon which they depend. The death drive made manifest.

btw my sign is a picture of a sign, and beneath it is a caption that says "Yeah, I'd tap that."

this little incident and Moodles's comment make me think we should probably abandon "taps sign" type comments --- it's way too hard to remember what "the sign" is for each individual poster, not to mention considering Ace of Base and the Five Man Electrical Band. these threads become clusterfucks of misread meanings and deciphering the intentions behind even posts that are intentionally full of cryptic sarcasm and ambiguous referents, let's not add to it when we're actually just trying to use shorthand and lighten the mood.

https://listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mcdonalds_id_hit_it_ad-jpg.jpeg

Strokes tombstone

Ferdinand de Saussure to thread

Charles Sanders Peirce works better in this context because we're having some issues with interpretants

Who listens to This American Life in the year of our lord 2020 that is some 00s flashback.

Fair question imo. Idk, my wife has really gotten into NPR during the pandemic and she plays some of the podcasts while doing stuff around the house, so I'm hearing it.

When some NPR dweeb, maybe Inskeep, referred to "the disputed election results" early last week I almost swerved off the road.

Ha, Alfred, I believe I posted that exact thing last week, fortunately I wasn't driving at the time. That comment infuriated me.

NPR is a litmus test that tells you the state of the world based on how much heartburn it gives you to listen to it

This American Life is not an NPR show

can't listen to five seconds of npr tbr

npr voice makes me want to throw over tables

Wait what's actually so bad about NPR? Besides that one comment.

lady if you have to ask

all media is biased but there isn't a single outlet in existence that is more condescending and smug in its house tone

NPR often has excellent reporting, but the way the commentators introduce and thereby shape the coverage represents one of the last bulwarks of #bothsidesism.

xxxp good thread here:

i have given up on @NPR on this particular point. Still a member, via @WNYC, still a supporter of public radio. But I can't listen any longer, and cut it out of my morning routine. https://t.co/lHEx8RHQfN

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 24, 2019

npr tone is also just a personal bugbear and most people seem fine with it so ymmv

Please don't misinterpret this, but while they should have added a qualifier--theatrically disputed, pointlessly disputed, falsely disputed, insanely disputed--if one of the two participants are disputing the results, aren't they indeed disputed? Nothing to do with the NPR or Trump or anything except language.

it's the lack of a qualifier that's the issue, aiui

I feel like it's like saying the results are "in question" -- I guess formally you could say that if someone has questioned them, they are by definition "in question," but there's no denying that in practice it reads as saying "are uncertain."

People will hear that differently, and I guess that's the problem. I simply hear "Trump can't accept the results," but his cult would hear "in question."