The craziest thing is that the left had all kinds of Joe Rogans, they own the establishment media. Arguably, they used to have Joe Rogan.
The problem is that being authentic and honest and having a highly controlled hyperpartisan message are mutually exclusive goals.
Now, some might go "But Joe Rogan is hyperpartisan!" which would only show that person's own personal biases, which right now are "anyone who disagrees with our partisan message in any way is literally the hyperparisan opposite of me".
in a sane world, Joe is probably center-left to solidly left. It's only in clown world that he's considered some far right figure.
The problem is that being authentic and honest and having a highly controlled hyperpartisan message are mutually exclusive goals.
Now, some might go "But Joe Rogan is hyperpartisan!" which would only show that person's own personal biases, which right now are "anyone who disagrees with our partisan message in any way is literally the hyperparisan opposite of me".
in a sane world, Joe is probably center-left to solidly left. It's only in clown world that he's considered some far right figure.
Some people think that "Mastodon is too much about just tech all the time", and that's really missing out on a lot of what the fediverse is. It's a grand tool, but one you have to use with intentionality and find the things you want to interact with, because there isn't some omnipresent algorithm trying to drag you into addiction.
People who want to follow certain topics can follow hashtags, or they can also participate in lemmy communities (I think? I tend to use lotide to interact with lemmy communities since they're kind of the same sort of thing).
@realcaseyrollins for example has done a fantastic job of consistently posting on a wide variety of subjects to lemmy communities. He used to be on lotide but unfortunately that project ceased development earlier this year so he decided to officially move to lemmy entirely.
I believe you can subscribe to communities on lemmy (I'm looking at his history for examples, which is why they are where they are) as if they were users, so for example if you wanted to see all the posts about celebrities from thelemmy.club, you could follow @celebnews or if you wanted to follow the movie community on lemm.ee, you would join @movies. There's tons of options out there, and lots of things being posted and discussed on a regular basis.
I also believe subscriptions to magazines (communities) on kbin also are compatible with mastodon, so if you wanted for example to see a bunch of stuff about industrial design, you could follow @IndustrialDesign@kbin.social and see a bunch of discussion on that topic.
With Mastodon, the ActivityPub support means you can also do cool things like subscribe to your favorite Peertube channels (assuming you have favorite peertube channels). A lot of them are tech related, but for example on makertube.net there's @thegiddystitcher whose channel is about sewing and knitting. Having videos from this platform show up in your posts is pretty exciting, it's an example of how something completely different than mere messages can integrate using the ActivityPub protocol.
There are also other parts of the fediverse that are relatively new but may be quite unique and different. For example, you can follow people on minds, which is a fairly large social media platform in its own right with some media personalities having active accounts there. Threads is a big corporate site, which means that some instances block them by default and some instances are blocked by default, but if you're on a mutually friendly instance it has a lot of users as well that aren't likely to hang out on smaller instances.
It's not as straightforward, but you can also follow and interact with people on nostr through the mostr bridge. There's a lot of bitcoin and the like on mostr, but it's still another option. You can follow former twitter CEO Jack Dorsey at @82341f882b6eabcd2ba7f1ef90aad961cf074af15b9ef44a09f9d2a8fbfbe6a2 (just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?)
There's also portions of the fediverse that you won't know about unless you actually know about it -- for example, journa.host hosts many journalists, as well as the fediverse pages for a number of news organizations. I follow @winnipegfreepress because I used to live in Winnipeg for example.
There are also a number of notable celebrities on the fediverse. American idiot George Takei, famous for saying "oh my!" provocatively, has a very active account. Fascism advocate Robert "Third" Reich also has a very active account. A wide variety of other celebrities also have accounts, for example famous genocide activist Greta Thunberg and red painted doll head collector Kathy Griffin, but typically many of these accounts were created during hissy fits about something or other, and like most political hissy fits by celebrities they gave it up once they realized nobody cares. The fact that they can't just hire someone with thick glasses to game the algorithm was probably a major factor in leaving since they're not special on the Fediverse.
The fediverse really is like the old story of two wolves being inside of you. Whichever ones you feed are the ones that will grow. If you're doing it right, you can have any kind of feed you'd like and you'll find it really enjoyable.
People who want to follow certain topics can follow hashtags, or they can also participate in lemmy communities (I think? I tend to use lotide to interact with lemmy communities since they're kind of the same sort of thing).
@realcaseyrollins for example has done a fantastic job of consistently posting on a wide variety of subjects to lemmy communities. He used to be on lotide but unfortunately that project ceased development earlier this year so he decided to officially move to lemmy entirely.
I believe you can subscribe to communities on lemmy (I'm looking at his history for examples, which is why they are where they are) as if they were users, so for example if you wanted to see all the posts about celebrities from thelemmy.club, you could follow @celebnews or if you wanted to follow the movie community on lemm.ee, you would join @movies. There's tons of options out there, and lots of things being posted and discussed on a regular basis.
I also believe subscriptions to magazines (communities) on kbin also are compatible with mastodon, so if you wanted for example to see a bunch of stuff about industrial design, you could follow @IndustrialDesign@kbin.social and see a bunch of discussion on that topic.
With Mastodon, the ActivityPub support means you can also do cool things like subscribe to your favorite Peertube channels (assuming you have favorite peertube channels). A lot of them are tech related, but for example on makertube.net there's @thegiddystitcher whose channel is about sewing and knitting. Having videos from this platform show up in your posts is pretty exciting, it's an example of how something completely different than mere messages can integrate using the ActivityPub protocol.
There are also other parts of the fediverse that are relatively new but may be quite unique and different. For example, you can follow people on minds, which is a fairly large social media platform in its own right with some media personalities having active accounts there. Threads is a big corporate site, which means that some instances block them by default and some instances are blocked by default, but if you're on a mutually friendly instance it has a lot of users as well that aren't likely to hang out on smaller instances.
It's not as straightforward, but you can also follow and interact with people on nostr through the mostr bridge. There's a lot of bitcoin and the like on mostr, but it's still another option. You can follow former twitter CEO Jack Dorsey at @82341f882b6eabcd2ba7f1ef90aad961cf074af15b9ef44a09f9d2a8fbfbe6a2 (just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?)
There's also portions of the fediverse that you won't know about unless you actually know about it -- for example, journa.host hosts many journalists, as well as the fediverse pages for a number of news organizations. I follow @winnipegfreepress because I used to live in Winnipeg for example.
There are also a number of notable celebrities on the fediverse. American idiot George Takei, famous for saying "oh my!" provocatively, has a very active account. Fascism advocate Robert "Third" Reich also has a very active account. A wide variety of other celebrities also have accounts, for example famous genocide activist Greta Thunberg and red painted doll head collector Kathy Griffin, but typically many of these accounts were created during hissy fits about something or other, and like most political hissy fits by celebrities they gave it up once they realized nobody cares. The fact that they can't just hire someone with thick glasses to game the algorithm was probably a major factor in leaving since they're not special on the Fediverse.
The fediverse really is like the old story of two wolves being inside of you. Whichever ones you feed are the ones that will grow. If you're doing it right, you can have any kind of feed you'd like and you'll find it really enjoyable.
The glass ceiling for incompetent buffoons who made it far past their Peter Principle limit long ago is real.
-Was the first to drop out in the 2020 primaries after being bombed into the stone age in the first debate
-Selected as vice president solely based on race and gender and party seniority
-so incompetent she made Electric Fence Mike Pence look good in the 2020 debates (and he's so full of shit the flies stuck to him)
-During violent riots that caused at least 2 billion dollars in damage across the nation said "They're not gonna stop [...] and they should not" on national television and the facebook post where she raised money to raise bail for violent rioters is still up on facebook
-the least popular vice president in history
-even the administration she was a part of kept locked up in the freezer because every time she talks she looks like an idiot
-never had to personally win an election outside of the bluest cities in the bluest state in the nation
-Didn't personally win the 2024 primary and instead was installed by fiat
The only shocking thing about her loss is that anyone with half a brain thought she could win.
The press was entirely on her side, for example with one media outlet that reported on her becoming the "border czar" revoking the story years later so they could claim she was never made "border czar". That's just dystopian and fascistic in the truest sense of a cooperation between government and corporations to establish total control over people's reality. Thank God it failed.
It's just shockingly bad. Could a woman be President? Yes, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in my lifetime. Many countries have had female leaders including closely aligned UK and Canada. But the Kamala Harris was never going to be that. The only way she's getting made president is by being installed by fiat (and some of her supporters are suggesting exactly that, that Biden step down so she can be president for a couple months, in part to screw up the process on January 6th so Trump isn't elected)
-Was the first to drop out in the 2020 primaries after being bombed into the stone age in the first debate
-Selected as vice president solely based on race and gender and party seniority
-so incompetent she made Electric Fence Mike Pence look good in the 2020 debates (and he's so full of shit the flies stuck to him)
-During violent riots that caused at least 2 billion dollars in damage across the nation said "They're not gonna stop [...] and they should not" on national television and the facebook post where she raised money to raise bail for violent rioters is still up on facebook
-the least popular vice president in history
-even the administration she was a part of kept locked up in the freezer because every time she talks she looks like an idiot
-never had to personally win an election outside of the bluest cities in the bluest state in the nation
-Didn't personally win the 2024 primary and instead was installed by fiat
The only shocking thing about her loss is that anyone with half a brain thought she could win.
The press was entirely on her side, for example with one media outlet that reported on her becoming the "border czar" revoking the story years later so they could claim she was never made "border czar". That's just dystopian and fascistic in the truest sense of a cooperation between government and corporations to establish total control over people's reality. Thank God it failed.
It's just shockingly bad. Could a woman be President? Yes, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in my lifetime. Many countries have had female leaders including closely aligned UK and Canada. But the Kamala Harris was never going to be that. The only way she's getting made president is by being installed by fiat (and some of her supporters are suggesting exactly that, that Biden step down so she can be president for a couple months, in part to screw up the process on January 6th so Trump isn't elected)
You man the guy who literally wrote a book basically saying "Holy fuck I love cocaine!!! EVERYONE should try this shit!!!" wasn't the best option for civilizational stability?
I said this 4 days ago:
"The left is like 'Oh, he's hitler, he's going to bring about ethnic purges' and every wignat I see is like 'Shut up! He's not going to do that! He's not cool enough!'"
"The left is like 'Oh, he's hitler, he's going to bring about ethnic purges' and every wignat I see is like 'Shut up! He's not going to do that! He's not cool enough!'"
One thing guys like this don't realize is you can't get blood from a stone, so doing something like that will have knock-on effects. For example, maybe they cancel 75% of credit cards and only let the 1% have them to keep risks down low enough that they can be profitable at 10% interest. Maybe they introduce very high annual fees, like a couple hundred dollars a year on a 1500 credit line. Credit cards are the riskiest unsecured debt, so they won't just give away free money they won't get back in any other way.
I hate to say it, but when someone goes "We're a bunch of nerds" these days, I immediately hear "we're a bunch of far left tourists destroying your shit"
I mean, maybe that isn't fair, but disco stu doesn't advertise.
I mean, maybe that isn't fair, but disco stu doesn't advertise.
I mean, they tried saying "You're a racist sexist misogynistic homophobic transphobic russian nazi" for the past 8 years, so maybe it's time for the fascists to make a tactical change.
"Women who never had a chance with the sort of men they're trying to hurt proclaim they're not going to have sex with them!"
If the Vice-Chair of the DNC was a Russian asset, doesn't that mean that the DNC was compromised and can't be trusted since it's been infiltrated by Russian assets?
Part of me hoped he would be part of the administration, but being in powerful positions in the senate is good too.
"nobody could possibly do what the fediverse and matrix and xmpp and nostr and aether have done! We'd need to become millionaires to do that!!
Trump won the 2024 election which took place last week. In addition to winning the presidential election both by the electoral college and the popular vote, the Republicans took the senate and retained the House.
Many on the left don't understand how someone could vote for someone who they claim is a threat to democracy.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, the "Trump is a danger to democracy" bit is a somewhat of a fabrication of the partisan establishment media, and isn't compelling given the actions of Donald Trump that day, or the Democrats over the past decade.
One thing that a lot of Democrats don't understand is that most people were democrats 15 years ago, and so they know what Democrat arguments are deeply, because they were Democrats. The move right has been people who might have liked Bill Clinton, might have been disappointed that John Kerry lost in 2004, might have cheered for Barack Obama and maybe even thought Hillary Clinton was the better pick for president. 2016 was an upset victory for the Republicans and Trump, but it was a narrow victory. In 2020, he got far more votes, and the increased vote totals essentially remained in 2024. Because of that, they're fully aware of arguments made in 2000, 2004, and 2016 about why the election was stolen and the president was illegitimate.
The riot on January 6th obviously happened and it was obviously wrong. It shocked a lot of people, and it shouldn't have happened. Trump's attempt to delay certification of the election until perceived election irregularities were addressed was ineffective and given that any "rigging" was likely more procedural as a result of changing to universal mail-in ballots at the last second, were unlikely to succeed even if he delayed certification. But ultimately his plan to try to shame the vice president and congress into not certifying the election was a long shot, but possible under the law, and in fact was promoted by election denying Democrats in 2016.
Some Democrats did try to overturn the 2016 election by objecting to the certification of the election despite lacking procedure basis to do so. Barbara Lee, the representative from California, opposed certification of the election on January 6th, 2017 on the grounds of voter suppression and election integrity. MAXINE WATERS of California also opposed certification of the election on January 6th, 2017 on grounds of voter suppression and election fairness. Mr. RASKIN, the representative from Maryland, opposed certification of the election due to objection to electors holding more than one office. Ms. JAYAPAL, the representative from Washington, opposed certification, but the vice president shut down her comment as to why before she was able to say why. Mr. GRIJALVA, the representative from Arizona, opposed certification State of North Carolina based on violations of the Voting Rights Act and confirmed hacking by someone but he was cut off by the Vice President before finishing his sentence. None of these objections moved forward, as they lacked the required support of a senator.
In that sense, they were only doing what Trump was trying to do, overturning election results citing problems with the election, but Trump used protesters to add leverage. Unfortunately, then those protesters turned violent. I can understand an argument that what happened with Trump was way bigger in scope and he pulled every lever he could to win -- He actually treated being cheated out of the election like it happened unlike the token resistance from the democrats who seem to only be doing it to give plausible deniability to the idea of a mandate from the people. If you think you are losing because of a coordinated effort to cheat in an election you're convinced you can win, why wouldn't you use every legal means at your disposal including trying to use peaceful protests to pressure congress and the senate and the vice president? You wouldn't do that if you knew you lost fair and square.
But you can hardly blame those individuals for thinking that employing political violence was ok at that point, and you can hardly blame them for thinking that trying to overturn elections was acceptable to the Democrats!
The democrats spent 6 years, starting before Trump's inauguration and continuing after he left office, trying to overturn the 2016 election.
The democrats fully supported 6 months of violent riots, including firebomb attacks on federal buildings, an attack on the whitehouse so violent the president and his family were moved to underground bunkers Kamala Harris said of the violent riots: "They're not gonna stop [...] and they should not", and the facebook post raising money to pay violent rioters bail after they were arrested is still available to view on facebook. Moreover, Democrat prosecutors decided violent rioters were the test case they were going to use for things like bail reform so they could be arrested and released immediately, leading to an overall impression that violent riots are ok now. Some people may argue that the Democrats supported non-violent protests and not violent riots, but there are several points in opposition to this idea including the trotting out of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote "*riots* are the voice of the unheard", raising funds to release violent rioters, many references to the 2019 book "In Defense of Looting" which as you might expect, defends looting, and the partisan establishment media's reference to violent riots with the text "firey but mostly peaceful protests" against a backdrop of a burning building representing this tacit approval of violent riots. Insurrection is legally defined as "any act of rising against the authority of the state or its laws. Legally, it’s the violent uprising against governmental authority. This includes taking up arms or otherwise actively opposing the government’s power and lawful authority." -- the instances of "Autonomous Zones" popping up in 2020 which claimed to create new zones not under the the control of the established US federal, state, or municipal governments (as the iconic photo saying "CHAZ - you are now leaving the United States" showed) meet this definition, but those insurrections were supported in full by the Democrats.
Since then, the democrats spent 2 years trying to illegally overturn the 2024 election before it started by keeping Trump of the Republican ballot
The Democrats rigged their own primary in 2024, leading to "none of the above" winning one state because no other options were allowed. Joe Biden "won" that rigged primary because of course he did. This is after superdelegates effectively decided 2016 and 2020, which itself is a highly undemocratic process.
The Democrats overturned the results of their own rigged primary, running Kamala Harris by fiat, a candidate who never had to win anything in her life.
Ultimately, the American people made their choice, and not only did Trump win the popular vote and the electoral college, the Senate flipped red and the house remained red, resulting in an overwhelming mandate. It should be noted that some rank and file democrats have been calling for an investigation into voter fraud (because apparently that's not far right and anti-democratic ground for being banned from all social media anymore), and one top Kamala staffer has suggested the results of the 2024 election be effectively overturned by having Biden resign and Harris take over as president, leaving the slot of vice president empty thus allowing the Democrats to avoid certifying the election as is required by law.
Anyway, fundamentally one doesn't need to agree with me or disagree with me, because the results speak for themselves: The American people were obviously not convinced that Trump and the Republicans are enough of a threat to democracy to refuse to vote for him or to go out and vote for his opponent. Some people claim this is due to a fanatical base, but presumably he lost 2020, so obviously he could have lost in spite of that base. The combination of people choosing to vote for him or not vote against him in spite of the media narratives show this argument is unconvincing to many people in the aggregate, so my personal opinion really doesn't matter in the end. On the other hand, many people keep repeating the zeitgeist from their personal echo chamber thinking that's axiomatic truth, which is a problem if the data doesn't support their belief.
Many on the left don't understand how someone could vote for someone who they claim is a threat to democracy.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, the "Trump is a danger to democracy" bit is a somewhat of a fabrication of the partisan establishment media, and isn't compelling given the actions of Donald Trump that day, or the Democrats over the past decade.
One thing that a lot of Democrats don't understand is that most people were democrats 15 years ago, and so they know what Democrat arguments are deeply, because they were Democrats. The move right has been people who might have liked Bill Clinton, might have been disappointed that John Kerry lost in 2004, might have cheered for Barack Obama and maybe even thought Hillary Clinton was the better pick for president. 2016 was an upset victory for the Republicans and Trump, but it was a narrow victory. In 2020, he got far more votes, and the increased vote totals essentially remained in 2024. Because of that, they're fully aware of arguments made in 2000, 2004, and 2016 about why the election was stolen and the president was illegitimate.
The riot on January 6th obviously happened and it was obviously wrong. It shocked a lot of people, and it shouldn't have happened. Trump's attempt to delay certification of the election until perceived election irregularities were addressed was ineffective and given that any "rigging" was likely more procedural as a result of changing to universal mail-in ballots at the last second, were unlikely to succeed even if he delayed certification. But ultimately his plan to try to shame the vice president and congress into not certifying the election was a long shot, but possible under the law, and in fact was promoted by election denying Democrats in 2016.
Some Democrats did try to overturn the 2016 election by objecting to the certification of the election despite lacking procedure basis to do so. Barbara Lee, the representative from California, opposed certification of the election on January 6th, 2017 on the grounds of voter suppression and election integrity. MAXINE WATERS of California also opposed certification of the election on January 6th, 2017 on grounds of voter suppression and election fairness. Mr. RASKIN, the representative from Maryland, opposed certification of the election due to objection to electors holding more than one office. Ms. JAYAPAL, the representative from Washington, opposed certification, but the vice president shut down her comment as to why before she was able to say why. Mr. GRIJALVA, the representative from Arizona, opposed certification State of North Carolina based on violations of the Voting Rights Act and confirmed hacking by someone but he was cut off by the Vice President before finishing his sentence. None of these objections moved forward, as they lacked the required support of a senator.
In that sense, they were only doing what Trump was trying to do, overturning election results citing problems with the election, but Trump used protesters to add leverage. Unfortunately, then those protesters turned violent. I can understand an argument that what happened with Trump was way bigger in scope and he pulled every lever he could to win -- He actually treated being cheated out of the election like it happened unlike the token resistance from the democrats who seem to only be doing it to give plausible deniability to the idea of a mandate from the people. If you think you are losing because of a coordinated effort to cheat in an election you're convinced you can win, why wouldn't you use every legal means at your disposal including trying to use peaceful protests to pressure congress and the senate and the vice president? You wouldn't do that if you knew you lost fair and square.
But you can hardly blame those individuals for thinking that employing political violence was ok at that point, and you can hardly blame them for thinking that trying to overturn elections was acceptable to the Democrats!
The democrats spent 6 years, starting before Trump's inauguration and continuing after he left office, trying to overturn the 2016 election.
The democrats fully supported 6 months of violent riots, including firebomb attacks on federal buildings, an attack on the whitehouse so violent the president and his family were moved to underground bunkers Kamala Harris said of the violent riots: "They're not gonna stop [...] and they should not", and the facebook post raising money to pay violent rioters bail after they were arrested is still available to view on facebook. Moreover, Democrat prosecutors decided violent rioters were the test case they were going to use for things like bail reform so they could be arrested and released immediately, leading to an overall impression that violent riots are ok now. Some people may argue that the Democrats supported non-violent protests and not violent riots, but there are several points in opposition to this idea including the trotting out of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote "*riots* are the voice of the unheard", raising funds to release violent rioters, many references to the 2019 book "In Defense of Looting" which as you might expect, defends looting, and the partisan establishment media's reference to violent riots with the text "firey but mostly peaceful protests" against a backdrop of a burning building representing this tacit approval of violent riots. Insurrection is legally defined as "any act of rising against the authority of the state or its laws. Legally, it’s the violent uprising against governmental authority. This includes taking up arms or otherwise actively opposing the government’s power and lawful authority." -- the instances of "Autonomous Zones" popping up in 2020 which claimed to create new zones not under the the control of the established US federal, state, or municipal governments (as the iconic photo saying "CHAZ - you are now leaving the United States" showed) meet this definition, but those insurrections were supported in full by the Democrats.
Since then, the democrats spent 2 years trying to illegally overturn the 2024 election before it started by keeping Trump of the Republican ballot
The Democrats rigged their own primary in 2024, leading to "none of the above" winning one state because no other options were allowed. Joe Biden "won" that rigged primary because of course he did. This is after superdelegates effectively decided 2016 and 2020, which itself is a highly undemocratic process.
The Democrats overturned the results of their own rigged primary, running Kamala Harris by fiat, a candidate who never had to win anything in her life.
Ultimately, the American people made their choice, and not only did Trump win the popular vote and the electoral college, the Senate flipped red and the house remained red, resulting in an overwhelming mandate. It should be noted that some rank and file democrats have been calling for an investigation into voter fraud (because apparently that's not far right and anti-democratic ground for being banned from all social media anymore), and one top Kamala staffer has suggested the results of the 2024 election be effectively overturned by having Biden resign and Harris take over as president, leaving the slot of vice president empty thus allowing the Democrats to avoid certifying the election as is required by law.
Anyway, fundamentally one doesn't need to agree with me or disagree with me, because the results speak for themselves: The American people were obviously not convinced that Trump and the Republicans are enough of a threat to democracy to refuse to vote for him or to go out and vote for his opponent. Some people claim this is due to a fanatical base, but presumably he lost 2020, so obviously he could have lost in spite of that base. The combination of people choosing to vote for him or not vote against him in spite of the media narratives show this argument is unconvincing to many people in the aggregate, so my personal opinion really doesn't matter in the end. On the other hand, many people keep repeating the zeitgeist from their personal echo chamber thinking that's axiomatic truth, which is a problem if the data doesn't support their belief.
I'm sorry.... I support you guys(always have), and I've even donated to the Internet archive so I don't have any beef with them, but archive.org is the largest piracy site on earth and if they get shut down forever it's their own damn fault.