krashmo

I understand the situation at hand. I don't understand what you're suggesting I do though. There are Republicans everywhere in America. There is no place to move to get away from them. I don't really want to either. I'll tell them their ideas are ridiculous until they lock me up or kill me. I'm not running away from the fascists. That's how they win.

You joke, but wouldn't you prefer a less aggressive snake if you had no choice but to live with a snake?

Yes that's correct. It's also the place where Republicans recently rejected some anti-trans laws, which they could have easily passed, after an impassioned speech from a trans representative that we also recently elected. Things aren't always black and white.

I'm good. There may be Trumpers around but there's more space between me and them than just about anywhere else. Republicans are saner here than most other places as well. Not sane, but less insane.

I've been trying to think of a phrase to use on a sign for the 50501 protest on 4/19 and I think this might be the one

Putin could not possibly have any dirt on Trump that is worse than the publicly available knowledge we have of his personality and activities. If he's working with Russia it's because he wants to, not because he's being coerced.

What is looking like more of an idiot than he already does going to accomplish? He's the most idiotic politician in living memory, by far, and there are some absolutely colossal morons on that list. The people who haven't figured that out are never going to. They will be praising him until the day they die.

It must be nice to have the capacity to care about everything, everywhere, all the time. That sounds like the height of privilege.

They might have some things to say about that if they could read

Yeah well, that's pretty much where the whole world is at right now. It's easier to lie than explain the truth

That's fair. I suppose a better wording would have been "let people articulate their weird positions in their own words". I think that's a good thing in conceptual form. However, as you noted, it doesn't really work if you aren't equipped to push back and make them address the counter arguments. That's where Joe is lacking. He's good at getting people talking and asking layman's questions but that's as deep as he can go. He needs to book the guys who can give the rebuttals either on the same show or immediately after.

I'm conflicted about Joe Rogan, or at least the concept he had at the start. Clearly he's fallen down the right-wing rabbit hole but the original intent he had of letting people defend their weird positions is a good one imo. One could argue that the reason the right-wing funnel exists is because there isn't really space to talk about some of those things on the left.

For example, it's not crazy to ask questions about vaccines and how they work. However, when people do that those who are educated on the topic will largely assume ill intent by default and treat the people asking questions as if they're stupid or malicious. There's some good reasons for that but such an approach is pretty alienating for those who are genuinely seeking information. That leads at least a portion of those people to listen to more right leaning information because they feel like that is the only group taking them seriously.

We need to do better at meeting people where they are instead of assuming they are trying to spread misinformation. Yes it's true that all the information you need to develop an informed opinion about the vast majority of topics is available on the internet, but finding and understanding that information does take skills and time that not everyone has. In order to understand why a statement or belief is incorrect or misinformed you have to create a space in which it can be discussed without fear and shame driving people away.

Based on the limited amount of his older podcasts that I've been exposed to, I do think that Joe genuinely tried to do that, he's just not particularly well equipped to handle that kind of environment. Over time he fell victim to the same kind of radicalization that he was intending to subvert by letting people share their actual thoughts instead of assuming he already knew what they were going to say.