How is it that you are presenting different viewpoints as evidence of an echo chamber? That sounds like evidence that it isn’t to me. It just seems like you want it to be one so you’re forcing that conclusion.

There’s lots of different people with different opinions here. If you expect to get the same response from different people that is pretty odd.

You’re obviously allowed to care and to express that. I hope you don’t hear me saying that I think you’re dumb or anything like that. In fact it’s pretty much the exact opposite. Most of the time when I see people complain about downvotes they’re trolls upset that it hampers their ability to be a troll but you seem like a reasonable person so I am simply seeking to better understand your perspective.

To put it another way I agree with your first sentence but I don’t generally feel like visible downvotes prevents that from happening. I actually think downvotes function to encourage good discussion more often than not. That isn’t true in all cases but it seems easier to be discouraged or get the wrong idea about prevailing sentiments if the dumb comments are just sitting there next to the good comments with no indication that a majority of other users also think they’re dumb.

I mean it was mostly a joke but it’s also semi serious. You seem capable of disagreement without it bothering you much so I don’t get why the number next to a comment is different. Yeah some people use it in a dumb way but that’s true of pretty much everything.

I disagree. Have I ruined your mood now or do I have to actually downvote you for it to work?

Thank god the pedantic police are here to prevent any casual use of language!

I don’t have a strong opinion on whether or not downvotes should be used to signal disagreement but I don’t think there’s much point in debating that because that’s how they are used. It seems like the only options are coming to terms with that or not using sites that have the option to downvote. I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal though. If someone doesn’t know how to disagree with others without it ruining their day then they need to learn that skill anyway.

There’s legitimate uses for downvotes but you seem to take issue with people using it to express disagreement. My question is why does that bother you? There’s lots of reasons why that could happen, some valid and some not. Disagreement isn’t usually supposed to signal that you’re a piece of shit or however else you seem to be interpreting it. It just means the people who read your comment don’t share your view but you don’t even know who they are so who cares. It’s a minor thing. It’s equivalent to telling a joke to your friends and no one laughs. Big fucking deal, life goes on.

The nipple ring is a nice touch

That’s beautiful

I understand what you’re saying and I think it’s a reasonable take, I just can’t fathom how there could be anyone left in America who hasn’t seen enough of Trump to make up their mind one way or the other. There’s just so much evidence of him being a piece of shit everywhere you look that even intentional avoidance can’t work for 8 years.

Politicians rarely help the average person and voters are dumb so they listen to fascists who say they can solve all of society’s problems. If the status quo sucks for you then a shake up doesn’t seem like a bad thing. I’d be willing to bet that most of this would go away if moderate politicians started prioritizing regular people instead of rich donors.

If an Independent can look at how the Republican party conducts itself and still be undecided on who to vote for then they aren’t an Independent, they’re simply a Republican that’s socially aware enough to understand that calling themselves a Republican comes with more baggage than they want to take on.

it’s going to look like a smear job.

He said, ignoring that conservative “news” is exclusively smear jobs dressed up as news. If Republicans don’t have to care about decorum then neither do Democrats. If only we could actually learn this lesson.

Call me naive if you like but that doesn’t seem like a direct threat to me. It sounds like him playing into the violent antifa caricature of a leftist they’re always going on about. He’s saying they’re going to win peacably but are prepared to defend their liberties if the evil leftists force them to. At least I think that’s how most of the people he’s trying to reach with those comments would interpret them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think guys like him have any problem with using violence as a means to achieve their goals, and this is very likely part of the plan to plant the seeds of violence in people’s minds. I just don’t think this is him being so blunt as to state that they want to execute political opponents outright. I could certainly be wrong about that but I don’t think that will happen until they’re already doing it.

Well at least so far the Trump clones haven’t been able to gain any meaningful support. Of course one could argue that’s only because Trump himself is still hanging around, but it does show that for whatever reason others are having difficulty gathering and maintaining support using his tactics.

He tried to get Pence killed four years ago. We’ve known for at least that long that this is who Trump is. Republicans don’t care.

You make mostly good points but its stupid to call the game dead or dying. They don’t currently have a bunch of players they never expected to have in the first place. They still sold their product to those people which makes it a huge net win for them. It’s a wildly successful game by any reasonable metric you can choose to evaluate it against.

I hope you’re right about that but I’ll be legitimately shocked if that turns out to be true to any significant degree.

There are no moderate Republicans. Anyone who calls themselves a Republican in 2024 is a fascist, whether intentionally or not makes no practical difference. They will never ever vote for a Democrat. Calling them reachable voters is so hilariously out of touch that it makes me wonder where you’ve been the last 8 years.