Thursday's Most Active Threads

The three most active threads yesterday were all ones that I've previously discussed and will skip today. Those were the Gaza war thread, the Fairfax County murders thread, and the thread about not allowing children to attend a wedding. Yesterday's fourth most active thread, but the first that I will discuss today, was titled, "Biden’s latest Poll numbers" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started back in January and has been more or less active since then. Apparently it was particularly active yesterday though I am not exactly sure why. As with the last several elections, polls are a source of great controversy these days. Conservatives, in particular, have long argued that polls are biased against them and a popular theory during the last two elections was that former President and current cult leader Donald Trump's poll numbers were lower than his real support because Trump supporters refused to talk to pollsters. More recently, suspicion of polls has shifted towards the left due to the belief that younger voters — who are more likely to vote for Democrats — would more likely voluntarily undergo a root canal operation than answer an unidentified caller. It is true that since the US Supreme Court ruling overturning the Roe vs. Wade decision, Democrats have out-performed the polls. The result is an almost total flip of positions regarding polls. As poll after poll shows Trump leading President Joe Biden, Republicans tout poll results as infallible and clear indications of a certain Trump victory in November. Democrats, on the other hand, warn that the polls shouldn't be taken seriously and that they don't reflect the eventual outcome. If there is one thing that does seem to be consistent with polling of the Presidential race, at least at the national level, it is that they show the election to be close at this point. One day Trump may be slightly ahead and the next day Biden is ahead by a hair. But, the Presidential election is a state-by-state election rather than a nationwide vote. In the critical battleground states, Trump has been consistently leading most of the polls. But, not to fear say Democrats. Biden still has time to build support and Trump will be hanged on his own petard due to his opposition to mail-in voting. This thread demonstrates that there are two battles going on. One to publicize favorable poll results and the other over the interpretation of those results. This creates a pattern in which partisans rush to post results of polls that support their side while simultaneously criticizing and expressing disbelief about poll results that are not favorable to them. I believe that there is a rule of thumb that you should not pay attention to opinion polls before Labor Day. If this is true, we still have several months of what is likely to be meaningless chatter in this thread.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Titled, "JK Rowling hate law posts not criminal, police say", the original poster posts a link to a BBC article reporting that author JK Rowling will not be charged under Scotland's hate crime law that prohibits "stirring up hatred" based on transgender identity. Rowling made a number of social media posts in which she misgendered trans women as males and grouped trans rights activists with sex offenders, leading to complaints that she was violating the law. However, the police apparently did not agree. Most of those responding in this thread support Rowling, arguing that she was well within her free speech rights. Even some of her supporters agreed that the remarks were offensive, but argue that they did not rise to the level of "hate speech". Supporters of trans rights argued that Rowling was indeed spreading hatred. I have discussed several threads about transgender topics in this blog. To be clear, I am a strong supporter of trans people and very unwilling to tolerate hatred towards them. I would not allow, for instance, the types of posts in which Rowling engaged that intentionally described specific trans women as males. At the same time, I recognize that not everyone is proficient in the "correct" vocabulary for discussing this topic and I prefer to worry more about what appears to be a poster's intentions rather than their choice of words. This thread quickly tested the limits of what I am prepared to allow. Poster after poster referred generally to trans women as "men", something that I personally find offensive but was willing to overlook for the sake of discussion. Notable in this thread is the clear hardening of positions among the anti-trans posters. A year ago or more, posters would have gone to great lengths to stress their belief that trans people should be able to live in peace and exercise their true identities. They would have argued that their dispute was limited to very specific circumstances such as sports or prisons. There was little to none of that in this thread. Rather, there were attacks on the entire concept of transgender identity, with posters denying any separation of gender from sex. I have come to conclude, and this thread reinforced the belief, that there are a number of anti-trans posters whose brains have simply been broken by the trans issue. Not all, of course, but there are some who are literally obsessed and simply can't get trans people out of their mind. They tend to dominate threads like this one and pop up even in unrelated threads. Yesterday I had to remove an anti-trans post from a thread about hunting for ghosts. Someone read a thread about ghosts and immediately was compelled to attack trans people. In this thread, a poster became more preoccupied with posting about me than JK Rowling. When I removed one post, she simply reposted. Between those posts and others making broad attacks on the trans community, I decided that it was time to lock the thread.

Next was a thread titled, "Democrats getting a lesson in Economics 101" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster claims that since California's $20 minimum wage for fast food workers went into effect, fast food restaurants have been raising prices and laying off workers. He argues that such jobs were never expected to pay a living wage and claims that this is an indication that Democrats don't know how the economy works. Just like DCUM has a group of posters obsessed with trans issues, there is a similar group who is obsessed with California. Just about anything that happens in that state becomes the topic of a DCUM thread. Needless to say, the original poster did not provide a link to support the claims made in his post. More than likely, he would be embarrassed to reveal his news sources. Without further context, it is impossible to evaluate the original poster's claims. If the price of food went up, by how much did it increase? Most of the examples I've seen — even those promoted by right-wingers — show price increases that are far below the percentage of the wage increase. Similarly, the original poster provides no evidence that Democrats did not foresee limited job losses. Republicans tend to be believers in "trickle down" economics and argue that tax cuts for the wealthy will result in job creation benefitting lower classes. In reality, the wealthy simply buy another yacht or further pad their children's trust funds. Many Democrats, conversely, argue in favor of "trickle up". Give the poor additional funds and they will use those to grow the economy. The poor, unlike the wealthy, don't have the luxury of hoarding cash but, instead, have to spend it. It is quite likely that Democrats expected job losses but also expect those jobs to be replaced by others created by the increased spending power resulting from the increased minimum wage. Moreover, as a poster pointed out, when rent or other things go up in cost, Republicans attribute it to capitalism. But, when the cost of labor increases it is decried as socialism. Most of this thread is taken up by posters accusing each other of simply parroting their side's taking points. When a poster claimed that Panera Bread was exempt from the increase because several locations were owned by a supporter of California Governor Gavin Newsom, another poster described this as "right wing propaganda" and linked to an article saying that Panera is not exempt. Other posters in return argued that the language in the article was not definitive and left room for Panera to still be exempt. This debate continued for several pages with one right-winger complaining that Democrats should take off their blinders. Really, folks, how hard would it be to find out what wage Panera in California is currently paying? For those who are Google-challenged, Panera is paying the new minimum. But, even after all of this discussion, another poster brought up the same Panera Bread topic as if he was the first to come up with it. The first rule of the Political forum is don't read the thread.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "Woman I like it a conservative", the original poster says that he is interested in a women who leans conservative on most political issues while he is a centrist who takes different sides depending on the issue. The original poster and the woman agree on some issues and disagree on others. He wonders if it is worth dating someone with whom he disagrees on some political and life issues. Topics such as this are fairly common in the relationship forum and, like this one, they always turn into political debates. I always wonder why posters like many in this thread who can't stop themselves from engaging in political debate don't spend more time in our political forum. Some of those responding in this thread advise the original poster not to get involved with the woman because they don't think a relationship in which there are strong political differences will work out. Some posters have convoluted formulas for what might work with what in a relationship, but these ideas, like many in the thread, are mostly based on stereotypes that have little value in real life. Other posters suggest that it depends on the specific issues on which they disagree. Differences on certain issues wouldn't be a big deal, they say, but others would be deal breakers. The original poster later revealed that both he and the woman previously voted for Trump and will vote for him again. But, as the thread broke down into posters accusing each other of being either full of hatred, ignorant, or both, the original poster bailed out, saying "I see this forum isn’t mature or civilized for these discussions." It is true that the level of discourse in this thread was very low, even by the forum's own standards. Somewhat hilarious to me was the number of posters who insisted that they alone understand politics and everyone else was ignorant. One poster, in particular, insisted that while "liberal" and "conservative" are philosophies, "independent" is a political party. I can't speak for every jurisdiction, but in most places "independent" means not registering for a party and, therefore, not being a member of any party. But, I am sure this poster knows better than me. Eventually the thread turned into an abortion debate and I decided to lock it.