Jeremy Corbyn is having a burst of popularity at the moment. The latest Ipsos MORI poll shows the public still think he would be less effective as Prime Minister than the actual Prime Minister, Theresa May, but he is far ahead of her on 'satisfaction' rating (that is, how satisfied people are with how the person does their job) and Labour support is ahead of the Tories.

Anyway, here's Corbyn's barnstorming gig at the Glastonbury Festival.



Well-known joke-reactionary Jeremy Clarkson, on the other hand, was, until he got sacked for punching a producer, the main presenter of BBC motoring show Top Gear, the most viewed factual TV show in the world. And he seems to be a lot bigger than Corbyn on Twitter. (And a hell of a lot bigger than Linda Sarsour.)

I'm somewhat interested in how FoldN thinks it's important the the left reject Sarsour(lol remember when I clowned on him for not complaining about people trying to deplatform him and he assured me that he totes supported her) but he went to bat for the virtues of Milo?

The burden is always on us, never on them.

Some good news for foldn. Despite him being deplatformed and shouted down by univeristy dwelling pc nazis or whatever I just booked tickets to see chris rock in january in a 10,000 seat arena.

Nearly sold out already even at £70 a ticket. I wish my speech was so restricted that I could make six figures a night saying exactly what I wanted for 2 hours or so.

I'd like to congratulate the forum for the uptick in good faith conversations recently but I can't because there aren't any.

So, we had a big long conversation about why the things you were saying about Evergreen were lies, and a few weeks later went right back to the same lies. The issue at Evergreen was never about "Shutting down a college because you can't have segregation" but shock and awe, you literally cannot stop yourself from lying in order to make a point.

The main problem on the left is that Fold'n thinks there is a problem on the left. This reasoning will break down if you assume that Fold'n is some kind of far right fringe lunatic (and I know that is a somewhat common view in this forum) but I don't believe that is the case. Fold'n probably represents someone approximately in the middle of the right-left political spectrum in America (think 35th to 65th percentile) and is of at least average intelligence.

Fold'n clearly believes that the left has become radical; that people we have never heard of or would consider radical ourselves have become "mainstream" on the left. To be clear, I think he's wrong. But the problem is that view is both common and sincere.

"Liberals caused Trump by being too mean and calling everyone and everything racist" has become a bit of a meme but I think conservatives are being a bit honest with us here. I mean, they are missing an important point which is, again, I think their perception of the left is wrong, but it is sincere.

Everyone (including me) points and laughs when Fold'n posts his YooToob about white genocide or whatever but his post speaks to a point that the alt-right has basically flooded platforms like YouTube with **** like this and I think pointing and laughing at Fold'n for being pulled in by YouTube is off base. His point (and I think Jiggy made a similar point in the Trump thread) that YouTube reaches a large audience is correct, and it is creating a branding problem that is going to make it much, much harder to reach "moderate republicans" in the future.

I think that you are being overly charitable but I'm not sure I want to litigate a posters posting in conversation with another poster and I'm not interested in having the conversation with him.

OK but even at this, taking it at face value, what on Earth can we do? These people are already on the margins! Even if we Sister Souljah out Sarsour as a damn dirty Muslin, they'll find another one. That's the game they have here. 225k followers on Twitter, then it's 100k, then it's some ****ing debate club youtube.

It's not a problem with a solution, he's not asking us to solve it, he's just listing grievances and trolling.

P.S. There are no moderate Republicans and reaching out to them shouldn't even be a thing we consider doing. They damn sure aren't trying to reach out to moderate liberals.

I'm glad you had a long conversation about it.

I'll take Bret Weinstein's account thanks.

Very good post, but I think (and you'll disagree) that you don't go far enough. And there is also a difference between the fringes of the Left and Right online.

The mainstream Left online is very radicalized and they embrace their radicalization. Countless tweets from celebrities, pseudo-journalists, mainstream thought leadership, and in several cases endorsements by congressmen. The radicalized Right is shunned by the Right and Center (and of course Classical Liberals). The Left likes to point to Richard Spencer - but that's all they've got. The Left has thousands of people who, if Richard Spencer is a 10, they're then 8s. Even Milo condemns Spencer (you don't fight identity politics with identity politics).

Listen to Dave Rubin, a former member of the Young Turks (who have 3.3M subscribers) or Phillip Defranco for even handed online media reporting. It's not that they are just talking to a very narrow group of people - they're well aware of what's going on and speak to people with intimate knowledge of the political zeitgeist. It may be true that the radicalize elements of the Left are creating a branding problem - but the Left is doing very little stop dissuade it. It's not just a small minority - it's that they're finally being exposed for who they are.

Brett Weinstein is the man who went on Fox news and told his side while casually omitting the original email that started him on his crusade. You know, the one that politely invited people to join in on a day of absence, and instead claimed that the person writing the original email demanded that all white people leave campus for the day.

You mean that Brett Weinstein? His lies about the severity of the situation is what started all this bull**** rolling.

Not re-litigating this. The defense of opposing Bret Weinstein is moronic.

Did you not see Milo lose his book deal and get kicked off Twitter?

Has Milo threatened to take away anyone's vagina?

Has Milo supported any cop killers?

Calling feminism cancer is no where near this level, although there is humor in it. Do you find taking FGM victim's vaginas away and making hit lists funny? Do you find wanting to bring about Sharia law in the United States amusing?

Yes, our radicals are better than your radicals. Hell, we even have to defend Richard Spencer because your side ****ing punched him - and everyone on the Right hates Richard Spencer. And then we have to tell you why you don't punch Nazis. smh

It is certainly possible I am being overly charitable with respect to Fold'n specifically but even if that is true I think a large class of people exist with essentially the attributes I ascribed to Fold'n.

I agree with you 100% here and it is what I was trying to say with posts like this:

So, again:
- I don't think the perception is correct, I just think it is widespread.
- I don't know how to counter it.
- I do think it represents somewhat of a problem and if we did have a way to counter it without compromising on ideals it would be beneficial to do so.

Yeah, maybe, again I want to reiterate my position is not "Fold'n perception is correct.", it's "Fold'n perception is common, even among those who are not on the fringes of the right wing".

I see what you are saying here, which is basically that on the global scale the entire Republican party is way right of center and so all the moderates are Democrats. This is fair enough but when I say "moderate Republican" in this context I mean "moderate" with respect to the American scale. These people exist by definition; they are just the left-most portion of the Republicans.

You might be correct although I don't think the bolded is relevant. Obviously Democrats shouldn't reach out to them for some grand moral reason; they should only do so if it is good strategy. That being said, you risk alienating further left portions of the party and just trying the energize the people we already have is perhaps the optimal strategy.

Well, no ****, Donald ****ing Trump is President. The fringes of the right wing are literal ****ing Nazis. The mainstream right view is the anti-white racism is rampant, campus PC is a threat to free speech, ISIS is trying to do the Sharia law with anchor babies in Kansas, and so forth.

And that they aren't reaching out to moderate liberals is a data point one should consider before you write:

Both flatly and obviously not true.

The problem here with your view of these erstwhile republican centrists is that repeated attempts to have conversations with them lead nowhere. Now if I'm just popping in to call them a ****ing idiot they can't be expected to review their positions, but when reasonable smart people attempt constructive conversations with them which lead nowhere either they aren't as smart as you are giving them credit for or they are far too deep in the derp for said constructive conversations. Or both.

They literally reject the concept of politics as being about policy, for all their ****ing whining about "identity politics" cultural resentment is literally the only thing they ever want to talk about.

Talking about race turns into them whining about their hurt feelings.

Talking about immigration turns into them whining about having to press 1 for English.

Talking about healthcare turns into them whining about a chain email they saw about a poor getting a lung replacement for free or whatever the ****.

Thank you for proving our point - you are just as radicalized as the rest of the online Left. I know you can't see that you're part of the problem, and that's why the Republicans will continue to win elections.

And yes, many moderate liberals who voted for Obama also voted for Trump. You can't say that the first pro-gay marriage candidate isn't a part of the a big tent party. You can try - but your position rings hollow.

More radicalization. All we care about is what Trump does. The Left wants to bring up "Rush-ah, Rush-ah, Rush-ah". You'd be much more effective if you were on the "He's effective, but we don't like his policies" bandwagon. It's coming by the end of summer anyway.

whereas you're an idiot who thinks that acid attacks in the UK can't be random and so must be perpetrated by non UK nationals. You ****ing clown.

Interesting you bring this up.

Notice how we know the names and races of the white person who did it, but no report on the paramedic perpetrator. I've been keeping an eye on it.

Fascinating. I'm sure if he were a British national we'd know his home address and the name of his high school sweetheart by now.

But your head is so far up your ass that you're already missing the point.

I disagree almost entirely with this point but I think it illustrates my point well. Basically all of the bolded is stuff I believe is untrue but is instead stuff that the alt-right has consciously spread around YouTube et al in order to get people to believe it.

Your problem with my point is that it's... too obvious? Okay.

Well, yeah, I guess I used the word "fringes" too broadly, but I mean it's commonly believed by people who aren't even in the right half of the Republicans.

I'm... not... seeing how this refutes my point in any way? Unless your point is that my point is right, but it doesn't matter because everyone right of center in America is a deplorable lost cause and we should just focus on beating them instead of analyzing what they think. If so, yeah, I think I already conceded that might be right.

Uh, what, how are they flatly and obviously not true. I mean, if you consider that "right of center" represents ~50% of Americans and that then doesn't... that... support the view that Fold'n is both not significantly right of the American center and not dumber than average.

Yeah I'm not really trying to defend Republican centrists here.

Fair enough I just disagree that there's a sincerity that I'm missing.