[pubby]

Something I've been wondering lately is how big of a blind spot I have from being habitually online. Like, I'll read the news, and I'll read political discussions on HN and r/politics and r/conservative and Twitter, and I'll try to get a sense of what everyone is thinking, but unfortunately I don't think that's possible. The posters on these sites all have one thing in common: they're into politics and current events.

Having a chance to talk to more people in meatspace this year, it was a surprise to find out how many people have only a passing interest in politics, but still vote. Like, the average user here probably reads 5+ news articles a day, but there are plenty of people IRL that will read one a month, or maybe just skim a headline. They don't really keep up-to-date with the race. They mostly vote by feel and pragmaticism.

People always talk about "shy" Trump voters, but what makes me more curious are voters that match the description above. If you put someone in a voting booth who isn't interested by news, who do they vote for? I mean, Trump has a lot of surface-level qualities - he's a tall, confident white man who's a successful boss of business and an anti-establishment outsider - and maybe that's enough to capture this demographic.

[wwalker2112]

I live in rural Illinois. Surrounded by people west coast elites would consider "simple". They aren't voting for a candidate because he's tall and confident.

They have 401ks. Own small businesses. Have Mortgages. Send their kids to public schools. Budget for their families. Hell, even farmers are trading commodities and are very familiar with the markets. There are so many legitimate factors that go into who they vote for.

[christophilus]

The blind spot won't go away until people feel safe having an honest conversation about their political views.

[sanderjd]

Who doesn't feel safe doing that? This does not seem like a real problem to me. Nearly everyone speaks freely about their views all the time.

[cynicalpeace]

You were respectably drifting away from your elitism in the first two paragraphs.

Then the last paragraph shows you have a long way to go.

> If you put someone in a voting booth who isn't interested by news, who do they vote for? I mean, Trump has a lot of surface-level qualities - he's a tall, confident white man who's a successful boss of business and an anti-establishment outsider - and maybe that's enough to capture this demographic.

I live in a rural working class region. I have beers with these guys all the time. They're my best friends and I'm the odd coder guy that works from home.

They do not care about the surface level qualities, besides the fact that he's hilarious. They might not read articles but they listen to podcasts a lot on their commutes at 4AM in the morning.

They don't want war with Russia, they're pissed about the COVID stuff, and they aren't happy with the price of gas.

They don't care that he's tall.

[cruffle_duffle]

> they're pissed about the COVID stuff

Pretty much the entire reason I stopped being a loyal democrat. It’s hard to call the other team a bunch of fadcists when your own party set up hotlines to dime out your neighbors for having a picnic in their backyard. Or close your kids school for two years. Or destroy your community by shutting everything down (except protests, but only for certain topics). Or threatening your job unless you take a medical procedure. Etc…

And let’s not forget the massive economic damage caused by all that. This election is basically the result of democrats absolutely horrible covid policies.

[physicles]

> I live in a rural working class region. I have beers with these guys all the time. They're my best friends and I'm the odd coder guy that works from home.

This is what America needs more of — people from different worlds just having beers together, and realizing that we’re all normal people trying to get by.

Do you know of anyone who can articulate a compelling case of why Trump would make a good president? I’m left-leaning but I want to understand where others are coming from.

[egonschiele]

What do they care about, then? I have no connection with people like you're describing, so anything you can say would be interesting to hear. My understanding is based on the news is the economy, and gun control.

[mattpallissard]

Are you me?

[siffin]

Not wanting gas to be expensive, without knowing literally anything about why gas might cost more, is about as surface level as you can get.

What happened with covid? Trump was a complete clown, but they still support him? Sounds again, very, very surface level.

You say they don't care about his height, or his gender maybe, or his race, but if he were a short female minority, that would 100% affect their opinion, even if they didn't understand it or wouldn't admit it. Very surface level no?

[pubby]

I didn't intend for my post to be about rural vs urban, or smart vs dumb. The point I was trying to make was that some people just aren't interested, no matter their background. You can find these people everywhere, which might explain why Trump gained in almost every county this election, even urban ones.

It's a spectrum of course. The friends you describe sound like they fall somewhere in the middle of caring about politics vs not. My point of discussion is on the people at the low end, as these are likely to swing. People past a certain threshold of attachment have had their votes locked in for years.

[tightbookkeeper]

> he's a tall, confident white man

Imagery, vibes, personality, all of these have powerful effects on people, educated or not.

Few can express how these intangibles impact them, and if they can they are usually won’t say it out loud,

This is why you NEED to run a primary, to debug your campaign. You don’t know how your candidate looks and feels to people in Tennessee, etc until you try it.

[kccoder]

Apparently searches for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" spiked yesterday. That's a level of unawareness that is difficult to comprehend.

[beAbU]

Not an American, not a Trump fan - he grosses me out a bit.

But I've come to the realization that both sides have an ugly component that is winning out on online forums. It's the classic tale of the vocal minority controlling the narrative.

So to answer your question, being habitually online, and using that as a basis for your opinions on the world will very much make you vulnerable to a serious blind spot.

The amount of shit-flinging on Reddit, from both sides, is shocking to me as a non-American. That people can espouse so much hate towards their literal neighbours is unreal to me. This country is so divided that I'm not sure how things will be fixed soon. Online has become such a cesspool that it's not possible to sit around the same fire any more.

I like to think that the majority of people are waaaay more moderate than what you might think from looking at social media. And I would encourage anyone to try and interact with more people in meatspace. Don't try and convince anyone of anything, but try to understand why they feel the way they feel, and have some goddamn empathy.

I blame two things for our current situation:

1. Social Media. In hindsight it makes perfect sense, but polarizing content will generate more engagement, and since engagement is a primary KPI for many platforms, that is what the Algorithms will select for naturally. It's a positive feedback loop, that resulted in people defacing their neighbours front-yard political posters, and then smugly posting about it on social media. Because of course that's how you'll convince them to vote for the other party.

2. Two party system: I like eating meat, and I would like to continue doing so if I can. But I also care for the protection of animals and sustainable utilisation of resources. But because meat is part of the Carnivore party's platform, and everything else is part of the Herbivore party's platform. People might support more worker's rights, but now in order to get that they must also be anti abortion. It's a broken system and it breeds deep deep divisions.

[jiggawatts]

The divide is real and very noticeable in meat-space, not just online. This is also happening in the rest of the western world, and has been brewing not just since the Internet but since WWII.

There was a study done on bipartisanship in the US senate, where senators were mapped into a 2D space and pulled together slightly if they voted together, and pushed apart if they voted against each other. 50 years ago the two parties were mixed together, then slowly but surely drifted apart. The animation over the years was like watching cell division. There's now only a couple of senators left in the centre, everyone else is far apart in two blobs.

I have zero in common with people that make their hatred of transgender people a substantial part of their politics -- but have never talked to one and have never been influenced by one in any way.

It's like talking to an alien species that singles out green eyes. Not blue, not brown, just green, but with a seething hatred that goes beyond anything I have ever felt. "You need to also hate the green-eyes or you're bad." is not something I can wrap my head around. Not now, not ever.

The Internet has nothing to do with me feeling this way about green-eye-haters.

[sanderjd]

Yep, spot on.

And these same people are gonna be pissed about a bunch of the stuff Trump does, because they truly had no idea what he was saying he would do.

This is how "thermostatic public opinion" works.

[silexia]

All of the news sources you cited are extreme far left sites. All of Reddit is only far left extremism since they banned all conservative viewpoints and block any conservative comments.

Try X.com for a full rounded perspective where all are welcome. Community Notes show misinformation, but do not ban someone from sharing their ideas.

I read all of the major sites, subscribed to NYTimes, WaPo, etc, and X.com is by far the best source of information.

[aurareturn]

>How nauseatingly condescending. How about issues like illegal immigrants coming in raping/killing women, taking over apartment complexes and living off struggling Americans' taxpayer dime? How about all time high inflation or massive layoffs?

Just curious, I agree on the illegal immigrant issues.

But for inflation, how do you think Trump will help given that inflation is expected to increase during his presidency due to expected tariffs?

Also, why do you think mass layoffs is attributed to democrats and how do you think Trump would help? To me, mass layoffs was just a repercussion of covid spending, zero interest rates.

[istjohn]

Your vomit of misinformation makes their point for them.