Political bickering is like a sitcom slapfight

Post Reply New Topic

You know that gag in sitcoms where two characters are about to have what they think is a very serious fight and then they just weakly slap each other over and over instead? That's basically my view of partisan political bickering.

There can be art to insulting people with wit and insight. It's like watching two highly skilled martial artists fight. Even if you wish the two sides didn't fall into such terrible conflict, you can't help but admire how well they do it. This isn't like that at all.

Now picture if there were a sitcom where that slapfight was the only gag in every episode, nobody involved knew they were making a sitcom and it randomly pre-empted every other show on every other channel to show you that gag over and over. That's what the political discourse is like on social media.

(And I'm not talking about the debate, which I didn't watch, but political discussion on sites like Facebook.)

A lot of political bickering is a waste of time and energy.

I'm not sure if that's true. There are people on the Left and Center who are debating seriously, or trying to. I'm not aware of any on the Right.

I admit, it's a broad statement. I'm sure it's not always true. But it is highly prevalent, in my experience. Highly, highly prevalent. (I also find it hard to believe that there isn't a single person on the Right who isn't attempting to debate seriously.)

Also, part of the point is that the people involved in the silly slap fight think they're having a serious fight. We, the audience, see that they aren't. That's the joke, when it's done in a sitcom. For example when I see a random post like this pop up in my feed:

NEWS OUTLET: *Literally anything.*

COMMENTS: "IT'S ALL THE FAULT OF THE POLITICIAN I DON'T LIKE!! !"

I think all of the many people who post that think they're being serious. I just don't take them seriously.

I think it's more a matter of the right has been much more open to existing within their own reality with their own "facts", combined with a greater willingness to employ trolling as a debate tactic. The combination of the two means it's harder to trust that they're operating with good faith, but also makes their opponents more likely to be dismissive when they genuinely disagree on the facts because those opponents used to being trolled.

An example would be when stats show crime is down and that native-born citizens offend at a higher rate but someone's feelings tell them crime is worse than ever and it's mostly because ð'm immigrants.

But it's actually true that a lot of the truly terrible things that are happening are Trump's doing (not just when he was President but all the lies he's whipped up since that have gotten lots of people into a frenzy, and have encouraged other Right wing legislators to enact draconian laws), so it's not silly or vacuous to point it out, though it might be fruitless, and I personally don't engage in it. And while Biden isn't blameless, most of the things he is accused of are false and are not things he has actually done. You're creating a flawed comparison by saying that the two arguing sides are alike.

I also didn't say that someone on the Right who is debating in good faith doesn't exist, just that I'm not aware of them.

I'm not talking about whether Trump or Biden is more to blame for the nation's problems. I'm talking about the knee-jerk reaction of people seeing a news story and just assuming it's the fault of a politician they don't like without providing a reason why. Often in those cases, they're talking about city or state politicians, not the president. And the news articles are not about major national issues, they're like, a local restaurant went out of business or things like that.

When it comes to petty nonsense in political discussions, it does come from both sides. I'm not saying it's necessarily evenly distributed between the two, but if you want to claim all of the petty nonsense is on your opponents' side (if that is what you're saying?) then I disagree.

I responded to this conversation thread too, so I'm not saying I didn't encourage it, but it is fascinating to me how quickly my nonpartisan thread about the absurdity of how online political discussion is conducted turned into a partisan discussion of which politician is more to blame.

Cue that laugh track .

^What you're bringing up isn't a nonpartisan issue. To treat it as such would be dishonest.

There's both different levels of nonsense as well as different types of nonsense. It's not really partisan to point out certain blocs are more prone to certain types of nonsense and it's would be fair to point out nonsense that's more common within the bloc the person is making their observation from as a counterpoint, if there's examples that exist.

I agree with this:

And this:



I think I have difficulty communicating with people who engage with politics, because my way of thinking is so different than theirs. Bee33 and I may be talking about two different types/levels of nonsense. What I was referring to as "partisan" is specifically the stuff about Trump vs. Biden, whom I only alluded to in my OP to say that their debate wasn't what my post was about.

Exactly, sometimes it is ok to just know someone is wrong, but it doesn't mean you have to spend the energy arguing with them. Some people will just never learn, so it can be a waste of effort.

Carlin was a big influence on me, growing up.