The political forum is kind of embarassing

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I'm not complaining that there are conservatives so much as the place is kind of a dump because there is an established culture where racism is acceptable. It's maybe one shade away from being /pol/ or r/The_Donald which are toilets. I've seen posts in there that would be more befitting of GamerGate and Chimpout.

It's not a debate forum so much as it seems like a place to offload a bunch of extreme, hyperbolic, uninformed opinions. Can we dial down the hyperbole? People in there sound like Donald Trump.

In addition to being embarrassing it creates a climate of hostility.

There does seem to have been an increase in race-based attacks since the Trump camp took over PP&R.

Exactly! The forum seems to be DOMINATED by Trump sympathisers and people complaining about an imagined threat of "social justice warriors." Many of these Trump sympathisers are not respectful towards women, gender and sexual minorities, and ethnic, religious and racial minorities and it makes me really uncomfortable when I see how they talk to a poster who is a muslim woman, demonizing Islam and being really gross to her in general. It makes me concerned as a gender and sexual minority myself.

I feel as though Trump has given people with racist views a sort of confidence they didn't have before. It's almost like they have permission to be overtly bigoted. So much of his support comes from people who say things like "I like that he isn't politically correct." It definitely is a worrisome development and with the rhetoric they are getting violent in real life.

I feel that the culture of the forum doesn't represent a balanced view and it is a really uncomfortable climate.

I don't think this is so much a Trump problem and this sub forum crises shouldn't be used as an opportunity to bash any individual in the press.

IMO the mods have to take what's going on at face value and enforce a zero tolerance approach to the bigotry in PP&R. This shouldn't be blamed on presidential candidates, media figures or other websites. The Individuals here are the ones posting the drivel, so they should be held accountable.

WP is a haven for people who cannot always articulate things in a decent manner, and by a small populous of those who (as much as we would like them to become better people) simply aren't ready for that. While you can't change people, you CAN take a stand as a moderator and say "no, bub, this behaviour is not okay here or in the real world." The users need to be TOLD that because they are being given a soap box away from the public doesn't mean that anything goes.

Honestly I don't think there is a problem.

The PPR has been much the same for years. No major case for concern or change.

There is a degree of volatility yes, however there many valuable discussions being made.

I'm not a Trump supporter or a conservative.

If there are problem threads you report them thought.

The Trump cheer leading threads are funny becuase there is often no point.

I generally steer thing away from party politics because it is unintelligent.

I don't see a problem NOW that all the name calling is gone from the Left. Stop being a sore loser about Trump being a winner.

PS: I was called every name in the book (since I am a loyal Trump supporter ) from the Left and nothing was said at that time about the political forum being a dump. Where were you then, huh? You gotta love the Left.

AND another thing. I tried to have political debates, but the Left couldn't get passed calling me names and sending me satanic emails saying they hoped that I died a extremely painful death. It got so bad that I had to start turning people in and then threads got shut down. You go talk to those people before you start putting the blame on Trump supporters like me -- again. A debate isn't about name calling. If they weren't saying things like how stupid and dumb I was for supporting Trump (and even using my job against me), then they were calling Trump names and saying how stupid he was. That's not a debate. I stopped debating people in regards to this election and that's probably why there are not debates going on - no one on the Right is there to debate.

Hang on guys,

I am going to get some popcorn while this thread turns into exactly what OP is describing.

There are more Trump supporters now, as should be expected as Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee and has probably a 50/50 chance of becoming president, but I'm not seeing these wantonly "racist" posts and just because you disagree with an opinion does not mean you can silence it either. The fact you are makings specific mention of /pol/ and r/The_Donald tells me a lot about the sites you frequent that makes boogeymen out of those places. I'm not particularly interested in this internet culture war because it's stupid and you can't win, I find arguing the merits of whatever Social Justice Warrior cause of the moment and whatever crazy thing is going on with the election to be interesting and stimulating but people need a thicker skin and to be able to deal with the fact that there going to be people that diametrically oppose you without trying to stamp out dissent. Don't take yourself so seriously, you aren't on the floor of the Senate. There are plenty of people that are self-avowed leftists on this site, probably more than there are anyone else and some are pretty cool intelligent people otherwise...

I've posted on this forum for a long time, I'm probably the most regular of all the PPR regulars and the forum always goes in cycles and goes particularly nuts during election years because that's when people are the most engaged. I've gotten along fine with almost everyone, I've been talking about these things for years with a lot of these people and trust me I've been on an island more times than I have not. I support Trump, I've articulated why I support Trump and why I think he is the most qualified competent candidate, I've written at length probably more than anybody on this site about my candidate so it is amusing to see classic anti-Trump attack that his supporters are 'low information' or people just supporting a reality TV candidate when Trump wins on the issues that are relevant to his voters. It bothers anti-Trump people A LOT to be called out on the specifics of what they are saying and to challenge them to articulate on something they're clearly parroting from somewhere else, they do not like having to go over the fine print.

Post some examples of this racism you accuse others of, lets not conflate religion with race and last time I checked the title of the forum with PPR and we're allowed to say whatever we want about Christianity so should things be different for Islam? Is Face_of_Boo not allowed to comment on Islam, the faith he was born into and is the majority of religion of the country he lives in? There is more diversity the posters here than you realize, don't make assumptions based on their opinion.

The Trump cheerleading is pretty funny, you can blame that on the fact that Trump supporters have been so viciously attacked by some even on this site that it is pointless to have any discussion with some so a simple affirmation of the fact we're winning is satisfying enough. PPR is fun if you are interested in the topics and don't take yourself so seriously that you can't read anything that ruffles your feathers.

I've yet to see an example of racism here. Just people claiming it's there without producing evidence. I'm not claiming to have read all threads or anything.

Jacoby is right, Fnord. How can there be any race-based attacks? I don't even know what race anyone is! How can I know anyone's race when I can barely get correct anyone's sex? I don't even know who is male and female around here. So like Jacoby said, where are these race attacks from the "Trump camp" which would include myself?

It's the same damn race card being played again. I expected you to be different Fnord.

Oh, and if you all are speaking about the talk on Illegal Aliens the emphasis should be on the word ILLEGAL which just happens to be Mexicans. And there are LEGAL Mexicans who are for Trump and against these Mexicans entering the country illegally.

AND Muslims are being pointed out because that is who all of the terrorist attacks are coming from.

There is a reason why these two groups are being brought out to the forefront.

I don't normally agree with nurseangela politically even if we back the same candidate for the election.
One thing I do agree on with her is that I have no indication of who or what anyone is in this forum unless they tell me so. There isn't a lot of that self identification in PP&R. People just slug it out with their viewpoints, they don't normally say how it relates to them.

I also haven't seen a rise in race-based attacks. I've seen a rise in bigotry, unrelated to the US elections, sure. But to tie it in with candidates someone doesn't like is rather weak. Let's put it this way, Beyonce's recent performances have caused controversy with racial politics. If someone here is very racist against white people and is a Beyonce fan should Beyonce be blamed? I really don't think so. So why this sudden need to make exceptions, with the less than coincidental timing of Trump becoming the undisputed nominee for the GOP?

I've found an example of what Fnord thinks is racist, and I'm not impressed.

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=316100#p7125943

That would be like saying someone who thought gay sex was gross was anti-gay. Or vice versa. That person says below that as long as mixed race people are happy he doesn't care, so that should have been the end of it, but Fnord still wants him wiped off WP.

That example isn't even in the Political forum.

Angela, Mr. Trump has not won the presidency. He hasn't even won his party's nomination. To call him a 'winner' of the electoral process is premature, to say the least.