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I think what is posted here are extreme versions of how people feel in real life.
The kind of people who post here are (in general) people who have a lot of time on their hands, watch a lot of one sided news - (which lets face it, is the only type of news available here in America) or biased news from their social media newsfeed and build up an extremely biased world view.
Most regular people don't have time for this. They have families and jobs to worry about.
I believe that people have similar views to what is posted here but a far more moderate version.
EDITING TO ADD.
Actually you don't have to spend much time here to notice that it is a very small handful of people that dominate this forum. It's always the same people ready to dive in as soon as any thread is posted, with an extreme knee-jerk response. You have to be spending many hours of the day, everyday on the forum to be able to do that.
I think this is pretty much how people really think. In public they don't want to say they believe in conspiracy theories, etc, but I am starting to notice more and more among friends and family really strange beliefs on both sides left and right. Many including myself now openly question whether the US will really survive the next decade or two.
I think it just gets worse from here.
Watch you tube videos from Trump rallies and you will be surely frightened. Who are these people? Openly chanting for death to a US Senator (McCain). I mean wtf has happened to this country?
Maybe it is time to seriously consider breaking the US up into smaller more homogeneous nations where similar states join together. The US is basically ungovernable now and as our population continues to rise problems will only get worse.
I remember that, when Obama encouraged millennials to start fights at Thanksgiving dinner. I am glad people in my family were smart enough not to fall for it. You still gotta live with some people, you know? I mean especially now when people who hate Trump don't even want to suffer the existence of people who support him, even if they do so reluctantly.
Remember, after Charlottesville, everyone is a Nazi except for people who support antifa. How do you have a face to face conversation under those circumstances?
No President Obama encouraged people to step away from message boards and have a civilized conversation with people at politics. People spew a lot more anger and hatred on a message board. President Obama was encouraging people like you and I to have a conversation and understand differences.
Your post is the absolute extreme thought process that everyone is a Nazi except for people who support antifa, which is exactly why we need to have real conversations not just posting what we paint everyone on the other side to be.
What you have here on CD P&OC forum is the same 50 or so members trading punches back and forth on a daily basis and about another 100 or so that venture in a couple times a week just to get their feet dirty. There are a LOT of CD users who refuse to even visit this subforum. Every one of the daily contributors here can tell you what side of the aisle another poster stands on. It is always nice to see a post from someone that normally has a differing view than you and thinking to yourself "Wow, this is refreshing and unexpected". It actually happens more than one would expect.
I think most users are like me in the sense that they come to this subforum more to read the posts of others and get a glimpse of what people are thinking. Around 80% of my participation on CD is reading. Only a fifth of my effort is spent posting.
To answer the OP's title question, I would say yes and no. Yes in the sense that almost everybody in the US leans to one side of the fence or the other and likes to make it known, but no in the sense that their entire day is occupied by political discourse like one would be led to believe by coming to this forum. Everything is magnified here, mostly because of the benefit of anonymity.
Seriously, is this just the pressure cooker view, or are we that far gone that people really believe all the conspiracy theories.
Coming to this forum anymore makes me think there is no hope for America. And blame is on both sides.
Mostly on the fringe-right for believing all the crap that is fed to them, but also to those on the left that can't seem to come up with simple solutions, and responses that don't just empower these people to think "see, I told you so".
Seriously, if you spend enough time here on CD-P&OC, you can get sucked into the vortex.
The CD politics forum is heavily slanted toward the far right. I visit a number of political forums all over the Internet, and I try to get my information from as unbiased sources as possible. Plus, I do a lot of fact checking. This forum has a lot of lunatic fringe posters.
I come here because I like the all the other forums on CD and this one is only a click away - so to speak. But keeping a hand on the pulse of America? Nah, not here.
I can and have come up with any number of "simple solutions," but people don't come here for solutions. They come here so they can say "Hurrah for our side!" I can't believe the amount of time I spend here trying to make intelligent replies in a forum infamous for its zaniness. I keep making resolutions to stay away and one of these days, I'm going to follow thru on them.
What you have here on CD P&OC forum is the same 50 or so members trading punches back and forth on a daily basis and about another 100 or so that venture in a couple times a week just to get their feet dirty. There are a LOT of CD users who refuse to even visit this subforum. Every one of the daily contributors here can tell you what side of the aisle another poster stands on. It is always nice to see a post from someone that normally has a differing view than you and thinking to yourself "Wow, this is refreshing and unexpected". It actually happens more than one would expect.
I think most users are like me in the sense that they come to this subforum more to read the posts of others and get a glimpse of what people are thinking. Around 80% of my participation on CD is reading. Only a fifth of my effort is spent posting.
To answer the OP's title question, I would say yes and no. Yes in the sense that almost everybody in the US leans to one side of the fence or the other and likes to make it known, but no in the sense that their entire day is occupied by political discourse like one would be led to believe by coming to this forum. Everything is magnified here, mostly because of the benefit of anonymity.
It's not even that many, really.
I have sat here day after day, week after week, month after month, and yes, year after year and watched the rise and fall of many posters. Here we see the extremes of all views. Those that are level headed usually get fed up after some time and leave. Still others, and there are more than you know, sit and read but, never post. They see people taken to task for their OPINION and want no part of it.
I know I read many things and I hold on to the hope that most are not like that IRL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler
The CD politics forum is heavily slanted toward the far right. I visit a number of political forums all over the Internet, and I try to get my information from as unbiased sources as possible. Plus, I do a lot of fact checking. This forum has a lot of lunatic fringe posters.
I come here because I like the all the other forums on CD and this one is only a click away - so to speak. But keeping a hand on the pulse of America? Nah, not here.
I can and have come up with any number of "simple solutions," but people don't come here for solutions. They come here so they can say "Hurrah for our side!" I can't believe the amount of time I spend here trying to make intelligent replies in a forum infamous for its zaniness. I keep making resolutions to stay away and one of these days, I'm going to follow thru on them.
That's not really true. I once thought the very same thing. And at other times I thought that the posters were leaning more to the left. And then I realized that when there is a topic being discussed, actually discussed not just a lot of poo being slung, I found that this is a fairly balanced place. Of course the liberals and conservatives think it really is partisan in favor of what ever they are not. There are many moderate members here. They just don't post very often because few others want to engage with anyone that is truly fair minded.
I belong to many, many groups on Facebook. Some AntiFa, some (self procaimed) Patriots, BLM, Conservative, Liberal, Confederate, Civil War buffs, Pro-Trump and Anti-Trump, etc. What I see going on in some of those groups is much more disturbing than anything I see here.
Honestly, I don't know. Most of the people I know IRL have pretty strong opinions, which they are more likely to share when they are with others of like mind. I'm usually the token opposition in these conversations, simply because I live in a heavily conservative community right now. This has not always been the case.
As for whether or not people are more extreme on the internet, I can only speak for myself, and I'm not. What you see here is pretty much what you get.
I think a big reason I enjoy reading and posting here is that most who participate are willing to debate! I know many IRL who are not, who believe that debating is the same thing as fighting, and whose immediate reaction to being confronted with an opposing view is end the discussion, even one they themselves initiated. I never know quite what to think of that.
I suspect that a lot of people come here to vent because it is easier and safer than arguing with the people they see every day.
I also take a break when it's starting to wreck my peace. I avoid C-D, shut off the news for a bit, and watch BBC documentaries about the Tudors, so I can see someone else's crazy for a while.
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