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Monday's Most Active Threads
Yesterday's topics with the most engagement included the Democratic National Convention, the impact of DCUM on votes, the arrest of Trayon White, and a proposal for down-payment support for first-time home buyers.
Yesterday was another day in which politics dominated discussion. Over half of the ten most active topics were political, including the top four that I will discuss toda. The first of those was titled, "2024 Democratic National Convention" and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started Saturday in advance of yesterday's opening day of the Democratic National Convention. The original poster appears to be a Republican who asked if anyone was planning to attend the convention and then quickly turned to expectation setting by suggesting that the DNC might get a bigger audience than the Republican National Convention because the RNC was held while everyone was on vacation. It is clear to anyone that enthusiasm and momentum have clearly switched to the Democrats since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the presidential nominee. That even Republicans understand this is evident from the preemptive excuse-making of the original poster and the apocalyptic tone of many of the Republican posts. For instance, one MAGA poster claimed that the DNC would be "watched for decades to come as the death of democracy in America". The thread was 10 pages long before the convention even got started as posters debated whatever political issue crossed their minds. I have long since given up that any thread in the political forum will stay on topic for longer than a few posts. In this thread, posters were debating Harris' anti-price gouging position and Doritos, both of which have their own threads. Once things finally got started, the thread settled into a routine of each side trying to spin events as much as possible. There have been expectations of large, possibly violent, protests against Israel's war in Gaza. As it turned out, the number of protesters was smaller than expected. Police had erected several rows of fences to contain the protesters and, while protesters broke through one row at one point, things remained under control and there was no real violence. That didn't stop some posters from fixating on the protests and doing their best to blow them out of proportion. On the other hand were posters who attempted to minimize the authentic anger aroused by Biden's complete and total support for Israel while it kills tens of thousands of Palestinians, blaming the protests on Iran. With regard to the speeches, things were much the same. Conservative posters found many things about which to complain while liberals were full of praise. Much of the discussion revolved around Biden and his stepping down from the race. Many posters, most of whom were probably Republicans, claimed that there was something irregular about Harris replacing Biden at the top of the ticket. Former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump has been referring to this as a coup and some of his supporters in this thread followed suit. Several posters asserted that nobody had voted for Harris and, therefore, her accession to presidential nominee was anti-Democratic. Factually, due to the peculiarities of the American political system, voters in the primary elections actually select delegates rather than an actual candidate. The majority of the delegates elected were pledged to Biden. When he stepped down, however, Biden asked his delegates to support Harris. Those delegates were free to support any candidate of their choice, but most chose to support Harris. There is nothing anti-Democratic about this, particularly since Harris was Biden's running mate in the first place.