Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The Gaza war thread continued as the most active thread yesterday with over 500 new posts. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Rob Reiner: a vote for No Labels, Bobby Kennedy, Cornel West or Jill Stein is a vote for Trump". The thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a tweet by actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner in which he made the claim in the thread's title, essentially that a vote for anyone other than President Joe Biden is a vote for former President Donald Trump. This, of course, is only true if you would have otherwise voted for Biden. As one poster pointed out, if you choose to vote for a third party rather than voting for Trump, your vote helps Biden. This is the dilemma of a two-party system. Third parties act as little more than spoilers. It is no surprise that right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow, who has famously lavished extravagant gifts on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has given a maximum donation to the presidential campaign of Cornel West. Crow obviously has no interest in West becoming president and probably doesn't agree with him on a single policy issue. However, Crow does have an interest in seeing West draw votes away from Biden. Many of those who agree with Reiner portrayed those who might vote for a third party as naive or childish. One pro-Biden poster referred such voters as "idiots" and "morons". I am not sure that such language is going to be helpful in attracting others to your viewpoint. It is true that some of the posters who rejected Reiner's stance appear to be motivated primarily by emotion, but that is probably true of voters across the political spectrum. One, non-emotional argument that I see in response to Reiner is that third-party voters are disaffected and that they wouldn't vote for Biden in any circumstances. As one poster put it, "If Cornel West dropped out, his voters would either vote for another hopeless 3rd party candidate, sit out the election, or vote for Trump—in that order." While I didn't notice it in this thread, one of the biggest groups of disaffected voters that I've noticed are those who sympathize with the Palestinians in Gaza. They tend to strongly oppose Biden due to his complete support for Israel in the Gaza conflict. Their criticism of Biden has often been countered with a reminder that Trump will likely impose a Muslim ban and also be pro-Israel. Nevertheless, many of those concerned about Gaza have signalled that it is the line in the sand for them. They are essentially single-issue voters and should be viewed no differently than single-issue voters on any other topic. Moreover, with increasing frequency, I've heard the argument that Trump may ban Muslims, but Biden is participating in killing them. They don't necessarily see Trump as the lesser evil. Ultimately, attempting to guilt, shame, or bully voters to your viewpoint is probably self-defeating. If such voters are important to you, then they should be treated as such.

The next most active thread was the thread I discussed yesterday about Virginia's in-state college options. The thread after that was also posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "Top Schools For Conservative Family", the original poster wants to know which colleges would tolerate a conservative student. It seems like this sort of question has come up repeatedly in the college forum. Many posters seem to almost believe that conservative students will be hunted down and tarred and feathered on the average collage campus. I have two sons in college now, one in a state flagship university and the other in a small public university and neither one of them seems to encounter anything political in their daily lives. If they wanted to get involved in politics, they would have to actively go look for the opportunity. Therefore, I agree completely with one of the earlier responders who wrote, "While colleges tilt liberal (mainly because young people in general tilt liberal), the vast majority of colleges are comfortable for people of all political stripes...". Nevertheless, many posters persist in providing lists of schools that they believe are conservative. A number of posters note that almost all prominent conservatives attended Ivy League schools which are often viewed as bastions of liberalism. Posters like the original poster could possibly be excused for viewing colleges as hostile to conservatives given that there appears to be a cottage industry that has sprung up to convince conservatives that they are victims of liberal oppressors on campus. These organizations highlight and hype each and every incident of anti-conservative bias — either real or imagined — to create a distorted view of life on campus. As a result, many posters steer the original poster towards known conservative bastions such as Hillsdale College or Oral Roberts University. However, those are not the sort of schools the original poster was actually seeking. She is not afraid of a diversity of opinions, but simply wanted assurance that a conservative would not be ostracized. As such, I think almost any school would fit the bill.

Next was a thread titled, "Orphaned niece struggling to have a relationship with Dad" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster explains that her sister died during the covid pandemic, leaving behind a high-school aged daughter and her husband,  the original poster's brother-in-law. He remarried after nine months which tremendously upset his daughter. The daughter refused to talk to her father or step-mother and immediately moved to the original posters home after high school graduation. She subsequently left for college, where she is now. The girl's father contacted his daughter to invite her to join them for Thanksgiving, but she refused. The original poster doesn't mind having her niece spend time with her family, but wants advice about how to end the estrangement without making the girl feel that she is unwanted by the original poster's family. The first three posters point out that the girl is not an orphan as she was described in the thread's title. While true, that is not the real issue here. Most of those responding suggest that there is nothing the original poster can do. They argue that the girl needs therapy and time to work through her issues. Most of the posters are sympathetic to her and blame her father for remarrying too quickly. However, not all posters are convinced that the girl is in need of therapy, suggesting that her behavior is an understandable expression of her feelings and that she is protecting herself from people who have hurt her. A number of posters express suspicion that the original poster is a troll. That is a possibility. The original poster previously posted about a brother (not a brother-in-law) who had remarried and was estranged from his children (not child). In addition, the original poster once discussed herself marrying a man who had a high school-aged daughter from a previous marriage who was very hostile to them. But, in that case, the daughter has tried to reconcile. So, this family may have more second spouses and estranged children than any other family on earth, or there is some creative license being taken here. I'll leave that determination to the readers.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Titled, "Tilden Middle School DEI Teacher", the original poster linked to a story in the Daily Wire about social media posts by a teacher at Tilden Middle School, a school in the Montgomery County Public Schools system. The social media posts claimed that many of the atrocities blamed on Hamas during its attack on Israel had not actually occurred and that Palestinians were being killed so that their organs could be harvested. The original poster asked why the teacher had not been fired and claimed that had she insulted other races, she would have been let go immediately. Due to our current climate regarding the expression of ideas, I am compelled to issue a disclaimer before I write anything further. In no way am I defending the teacher or her social media posts. However, I do want to comment on this topic in a way in which some posters may not agree or even find offensive. That said, I along with more than one poster in the thread, were immediately suspicious that the story originated with the Daily Wire. This publication has a history of distorting facts in order to generate controversy. As such, I would take anything published by that source with a grain of salt. For instance, none of the teacher's social media posts mentioned Jews. Some, either explicitly or implicitly, targeted Israel and at least one mentioned "zionists". Yet, the Daily Wire article repeatedly claimed that she had made allegations against Jews. That is true only to the extent that most Israelis are Jews, but that was clearly not the teacher's intention. Turning what is obviously an anti-Israel controversy into an antisemitic controversy may serve the Daily Wire's interests, but is misleading. Nevertheless, either because of the Daily Wire's framing or due to their own conclusions, several posters accused the teacher of antisemitism. Moreover, the original poster claimed the teacher had talked about a "race" which I think is entirely inaccurate. I think that it is more accurate to say that the teacher is strongly anti-Israel, a promoter of conspiracy theories, and has beliefs that are not supported by the evidence. The opposite point of view of mine is that some of the teacher's allegations are lodged in historically antisemitic tropes and, therefore, even though she didn't explicitly target Jews, the historical context makes them antisemitic. Reasonable people can disagree about which is the case here. Eventually, a letter from the school's principal was published that said that an investigation of the teacher was underway and strongly hinted that she had been placed on leave. Posters whose kids are currently taught by the teacher expressed mixed feelings because their kids liked her and she was considered to be a good teacher. Some suggested that her controversial views didn't involve topics that she taught, but others argued that they did and that Jewish students couldn't feel comfortable with her as a teacher. Most posters had little sympathy for the teacher and, like the original poster, believed she should be fired immediately. The thread soon diverged to discussions of "equity", critical race theory, and an obtuse discussion of God granting Canaan to the Jewish people. At that point, I locked the thread.