Good points. I like to bounce around between different sources to kind of get the entire picture. Not sure how many other people do. I lean right, but I have friends and family that lean left. Social media in general usually shows a more extreme version of each parties representation. But, when that extremism spills out into the real world (like the protests), and MSM sources are shown reporting on it in some pretty biased and unusual ways, more people that aren't online as much take notice.

COVID lockdowns mixed with a greater amount of people online more often has also produced revealing flaws and bias in media. More centric views are being censored and a lot of people are confused as to why. Some may not challenge it, some may dig deeper. I'm one still digging and still trying to figure out how we got so divided in such an extreme way. But, more importantly, can we bridge that gap to at least a more tolerant level?

I recently saw an interesting episode of TYT, who I normally don't agree with, but in this show hit a couple of really good points about the identity politics game, and how personal attacks like on ACB's religion and children can have an adverse effect on their own base.

[slug.com]

"Even if Trump gets elected , what happens next? And even if Trump stays in office for another four years, what happens after that? The radical left won't stop coming until they are stopped by force. Can the civil war be avoided? Postponed sure, avoided not sure."

I'm not sure either. I might argue we already are in a civil war of sorts. It's not exactly the kind frequently pictured in older history books. But, there is a certain degree of a "call to arms" and "fight for your life" kind of trumpeting coming from both sides in this election. Add the civil unrest, riots and destruction, the "all or nothing" demands, and the kind of vying for your chosen side promotions, gives off the overall impression of one.

@saramarylop3z I won't dispute you on the argument that America might be already in civil war that is not officially declared. After all we are seeing people getting killed or attack based on perceived side of ideology they are on, even if they have not done anything to the other person. And this is escalating with frequency and more violent attacks. Everyone is American it snot American vs some other country. So It does seem like Civil War to me.

As for your post on new Supreme Court judge Amy Coney Barret, I've posted about this in another thread. From where I'm sitting it does not look promising.

If indeed its true that the policy was that one woman must be replaced by another woman and that was the criteria above all, and because of that men cannot qualify, regardless of merit, than that is identity politics, the very same ideology that made a mess of America right now. If Trump chose to support identity politics instead of opposing in in area of major importance like supreme court, than I have little hope he will do much to stop it, if he gets elected. You can't bend the knee to identiterians, they have no respect for that. To do this is to put a gun to your own head.

I've heard her gender, I've herd her religion being thrown around far more than her character which is implied by which tribe can clam her as their own. Supreme Court should be above tribalism that is practically its only function, and yet here we are. Trump lacks a spine on this one. Instead of going with what was needed he went with what was politically correct. Maybe that is the only way to win, tribalism, but than he better declare civil war and make it official and stop pretending that there is United States.

In regards to tribalism its about Abortion for the most part. On that note:

'I'm all for women's freedom of choice, just one made before the fact. (pregnancy). Infamous Roe vs Wade court case was ideological answer to non constitutional question.

Court pretended to be impartial when it was overtly so and beyond the incompetency in being a true to the function of supreme court it was almost certainly partisan and ideological decision.

That is the difference between lefty ideologues and conservatives. “The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless.” ― Russell Kirk

“When we fail to properly civilize people, human nature rushes in. Absent a higher alternative, human nature drives us to make sense of the world on its own instinctual terms: That’s tribalism. “Tribalism is natural, but it can also be manufactured. Manufactured tribalism is the very essence of identity politics, the heart of aristocracy, and the soul of nationalism. “Identity politics” may be a modern term, but it is an ancient idea. Embracing it is not a step forward but a retreat to the past" ― Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy

@Krunoslav
"If indeed its true that the policy was that one woman must be replaced by another woman and that was the criteria above all, and because of that men cannot qualify, regardless of merit, than that is identity politics, the very same ideology that made a mess of America right now."

That's a really good point. I thought, especially how the Democrats made their VP pick, Trump would avoid even appearing to play the same game. Trump did say he was "most likely" choosing a woman and not that it was for certain. But, there's been a lot of focus on "a woman replacing a woman". I'm all for picking whoever's best, sex and other affirmative action type decision making I'm against. It's also irratating because she does appear to be a good pick regardless of sex.

I'm also at a loss on how to fight most identity politics issues. When it comes to laws, policies, and other government functions, I tend to think more of what works for everyone and who's best for the job. I find it hard to argue issues like sex and race without generalizing sex and race. And I'm really bad at generalizing the way I've seen coming from the left. Plus, I simply don't see womens equality the way they do.

@saramarylop3z Yes. Identity politics is poison to society. How to fight it? Make it illegal. Funny thing is that in America there in fact anti discriminatory laws, that you could not discriminate or fire people simply based on race or gender. But identity politics reversed that to make it exclusive to one group and not the other. its reverse of where the society was in terms of progress. So its ironic when regressive left calls themselves progressives.

“The concept of “social justice,” which purports to promote equality among the lines of gender and ethnicity, is based on intersectional feminist theory. Per the theory, certain classes of people are naturally oppressors, while others are victims. There’s nothing more divisive than that.” ― Ian Miles Cheong

That is essentially Marxism. The left is implementing the so called Critical Theory, now known as Cultural Marxism. They see the world trough Marxism and than applied it trough cultural changes via all the key institutions, starting it collages and than busted out to every other institutions. You change the culture by changing language, which redefines the terms of discussions in your favor, you than use that to change everything else in society. And so now Critical Theory of 1930's becomes Critical Race Theory where all white men are racist and all blacks are victims of systemic racism. Tear it all down they say.

“But I had little knowledge of Marxism, and in political discussions with my communist friends I found myself handicapped by my ignorance of their philosophy. I decided to remedy this.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom

The proletariatis the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian.

Marxist philosophy considers the proletariat to be oppressed by capitalism, forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie. Marx claimed that this oppression gives the proletariat common economic and political interests that transcend national boundaries, impelling them to unite and take over power from the capitalist class, and eventually to create a communist society free from class distinctions.

In Marxism, bourgeoisie refers to the capitalist class who own most of society’s wealth and means of production. According to Karl Marx, during the medieval era, bourgeoise consisted of businessmen such as bankers and merchants. Their economic role was similar to that of an intermediary – between feudal lords and peasants.

However, by the time of the industrial revolution and capitalism, bourgeois has become an economically powerful class of people. They owned the means of production, i.e., capital, land and property, and had control over the means of coercion, i.e., the legal system, police forces, etc. This ownership of production allowed the bourgeois to exploit the wage-earning workers, whose only economic means was their labour. Meanwhile, the ownership of means of coercion helps the bourgeois to suppress the working class and maintain their status quo.

Besides nationalism, the people’s state stimulates yet another kind of belligerent, avaricious, and collectivist spirit: what Karl Marx called “class consciousness.” In Revolutionary France, just as nationalism drove foreign international warfare, class consciousness drove domestic class warfare.

In political theory and particularly Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to sparking a revolution that would "create a dictatorship of the proletariat, transforming it from a wage-earning, property-less mass into the ruling class"

Policies like the General Maximum and the plundering of rural peasants to feed the urban proletariat were implemented by the Jacobins in order to appease the working class sans-culottes, who flexed the strength of their numbers both through street mobs and voting.

In the new people’s state, “partial plunder” was replaced by what Bastiat called “universal plunder.”

"And then, at that exact dispirited moment when there seemed no one at all willing to play the proletariat, along came the women's movement.” ― Joan Didion, The White Album

...and the rest is as they say, history.

Just as Karl Marx has oversimplified and invented story of how history was one of oppression, he also invented the idea that there are classes in capitalism and they are fixed. Which off course is not true. People can become less or more wealthy in capitalist system. And indeed they do. Very rarely if ever someone is as wealthy as when they started after school and when they retire. Over time people buy cars, houses, they go to vacations, they accumulate wealth, and if they are ambitious they can have upward mobility. But those who took on Marxist ideas like for example feminists they too invented history of oppression , and that women cannot advance in society because they are being oppressed by evil patriarchy. Gay movement did the same.

“Why, when gay rights have never been better, are they portrayed as if they’ve never been worse? Why, when women have never been freer and able to make choices about their lives, is everything about the lack of opportunity for women… Why do we hear talk of the patriarchy at the least plausible time in human history? … Why? What’s actually going on?” – Douglas Murray, from an interview with Peter Whittle, Oct 2019

Civil Right movements never end. They can't. its like a stray cat. Feed it once and it never goes away. No one gave civil rights to various nations and people's trough history. They had to fight for it. That is why you don't hear talk about slavery in Europe. Everyone has been a slave at some point or another. Its an American invention to serve as a narrative for the kind of politics we see now..... oppression Olympics. Its never about the equal rights, it about the exchange of rights under pretense of oppression withing the Marxist inspired framework.

Marxist ideology is immortal because it lives as a shadow of capitalists society. Remember that word, stray cat. You don't feed stray cats.

@Krunoslav
"Yes. Identity politics is poison to society. How to fight it? Make it illegal."

Totally agree. While I do respect peoples rights to whatever they believe, CRT, anti racism, affirmative action, and a slew of other divisive SJW causes are extremely toxic as well as set us back decades. (Like you said, regressive not progressive)

I'm very glad that Trump is banning CRT and I hope to see more action taken to continue weeding out all teaching similar.

"Civil Right movements never end. They can't. its like a stray cat. Feed it once and it never goes away."

Exactly. It needs to end. Stop playing victim. Stop bowing down. Stop making excuses. I also find claiming sexism at every turn very insulting to both women and men who fought for our rights. It's pretty sad that they've become so hateful good guys are going their own way. It makes all of us look bad.

@torontogal4388 "In choosing a woman to replace Ginsberg did Trump throw the other side "a bone" (as a trade off for the "deal" ) or was he challenging their "woman power" stance to enjoy the vicious reaction the Left would raise anyway. She does have an exemplary set of credentials, Trumps choice was sound."

I'm sure she has good set of credentials. Although in the culture war, that was not even discussed. Topics of discussion were, her religion, her gender, how many children she has, and what political party she belongs to or can claim her as theirs and finally her credentials... in that order. Other gender candidates with potentially equal or better credentials were not even considered.

Ultimately for the left the big fear is abortion Roe vs Wade case. Can it and will it be overturned. And that is a big problem because supreme court is now used as the ultimate political weapon instead of what it was designed to do. To protect the laws in place, not change them based on ideological tribalism.

Whatever 4D Chess Trump thinks he is playing or if there was some kind of backroom deal, I don't know, but seems like he made a choice playing by the rules of the other side. Instead of going back to foundation of American constitution and founders, Trump is playing by rules of the ideologues. A very dangerous game to play if he hopes to keep America functioning.

Reminds me of a quote: "During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or that question if he is elected except the candidate; he's too busy wondering what he'll do if he isn't elected." - Everett Dirksen

Personally to me gender in this is less important, although it matters for other reasons, but when they announced potential candidates I have only seen women in the candidacy and everyone seems to have been talking about identity politics and abortion.

This is very dangerous. Because supreme court was made for the reasons of being impartial way to resolve issues when lower institutions get in disagreements and no one wants to back down. It was checks and balances idea. Now its identity politics idea. That undermines the very concept of United States.

And this worries me because Trump can't have it both ways. Either he declares that there is in fact civil war and its a tribal thing, or he needs to get back to the core function of supreme court. What we are seeing is precarious game being played where impartiality of supreme court is traded for political function of election.

I don't know if Trump did this to make it to the election, hoping he will win. But it is dangerous game he is playing.

As for throwing them a bone. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said: “You have to understand the nature of Communism. The very ideology of Communism, all of Lenin's teachings, are that anyone who doesn't take what's lying in front of him is a fool If you can take it, do so. If you can attack, strike. But if there's a wall, retreat. The Communist leaders respect only firmness and have contempt for persons who continually give in to them. "

So far everyone who bends the knee to identierians only was attacked more. Never did they backed down. So I don't think that would have worked with radicals. This is fanatical Marxism. Rioters even had planed occupation of White House for 50 days. I don't think they would respect weakness. Only strength. BLM co founder claims they are trained Marxists after all. That trans-communism at this point.

"On the current civil war and how to quell it, once it is determined who won, and if that person is in fact Trump, he has said he would use the Insurrection Act to stop the violence we are about to see escalate."

I truly hope he does that. I don't see other way. The radicals won't stop. And they smell blood in water. Defunded police, support from democrats in democrat run cities, media covers for them, special interests groups like ones funded by Geroge Soros got the DA's in many states to play catch and release game with criminals, so there is no consequences for many of them. It does seem like civil war and I fully support Insurrection Act from Trump. I hope he does it.

@saramarylop3z Yes. Agreed.

@Krunoslav I have no idea what his thinking was, however, I personally am happy he has chosen to add another women to the Supreme Court. Whether we like it or not many including myself believe that men and women see the world through a slightly different prism even when dealing in the hard sciences. I'm happy he chose to keep what was the mix. As far as challenging Roe vs Wade only time will tell if a case that meets all the right criteria is accepted for presentation to the Supreme Court. I understand she has a track record of sticking strictly to traditional interpretation of the law and is not a crusader for any particular cause. Only time will tell.

@torontogal4388 Fair enough.