The Political Satire/Meme Thread

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Fun fact, seatbelts were controversial when they started appearing more regularly in the 1940s. People believed they would trap you in your vehicle during an accident, not allow you to escape if the car was sinking in the water, and would cause way more internal injuries. There was also a pretty common myth that the devices failed frequently so they weren't worth using.
 
I sort of get the welfare v. assistance thing. The perception of welfare recipients is that they're single women with several kids by different fathers, strung out on drugs, and smoke several packs of cigarettes a day. The perception of a "poor person" is someone who's struggling, might be homeless, is dirty, lacks clothes, etc.
 
I sort of get the welfare v. assistance thing. The perception of welfare recipients is that they're single women with several kids by different fathers, strung out on drugs, and smoke several packs of cigarettes a day. The perception of a "poor person" is someone who's struggling, might be homeless, is dirty, lacks clothes, etc.
Don’t forget the racist connotation of who they think would be on “welfare”.
 
I sort of get the welfare v. assistance thing. The perception of welfare recipients is that they're single women with several kids by different fathers, strung out on drugs, and smoke several packs of cigarettes a day. The perception of a "poor person" is someone who's struggling, might be homeless, is dirty, lacks clothes, etc.
Crazy to me how much semantic differences can flip entire perceptions of key issues. Such as, roughly 60% of Americans supporting "medicare for all", but less than 30% supporting a "government takeover of healthcare", meanwhile they are both the same.
 
Don’t forget the racist connotation of who they think would be on “welfare”.
I know there's a racial component in urban areas, but in rural areas where welfare is probably more heavily relied on, most of the recipients are white. In the town I live in, it's 95% white with Native Americans being the second highest group at like 3%. I'd be interested to see the welfare breakdown here though, but I know the only store (a Dollar General) has quite a few people using SNAP cards to buy groceries.
Crazy to me how much semantic differences can flip entire perceptions of key issues. Such as, roughly 60% of Americans supporting "medicare for all", but less than 30% supporting a "government takeover of healthcare", meanwhile they are both the same.
For sure. The weirdest thing is when an older person goes on and on about how evil "socialized medicine" is but then they're happy to use Medicare whenever they feel like it.

I think it's one of the Democrats' biggest weaknesses and one of the Republicans' biggest strengths. The Republicans know how to craft language to get people to believe something and then brand it so they can fundraise off of it. Democrats don't do any of that.
 
I think it's one of the Democrats' biggest weaknesses and one of the Republicans' biggest strengths. The Republicans know how to craft language to get people to believe something and then brand it so they can fundraise off of it. Democrats don't do any of that.
You're right and it's a weird thing. The GOP has crafted and really perfected this kind of professionalized "electioning" discipline (not the same thing as electioneering) which revolves almost entirely around the Democratic party, rather than intrinsically around issues. The job isn't to govern, the job is to win elections or even simply deprive democrats of winning elections. Meanwhile the Democrats seem more interested in actual policy*. I'm overgeneralizing here, of course.

For instance, for a given issue facing the American people, the Democrats will try to come up with some policy to solve it - for good or for bad. The Republicans, on the other hand, will just relentlessly and strategically maneuver around the issue and frame it in whatever way they can to make the Democratic party look weak or sinister or foolish or out of touch...there is no actual interest in doing anything about the issue, it just becomes a prop for the breathless propaganda machine. The Ohio train derailment? The GOP can barely contain their Dotini-esque glee.
 
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The Republicans know how to craft language to get people to believe something and then brand it so they can fundraise off of it. Democrats don't do any of that.

The GOP has crafted and really perfected this kind of professionalized "electioning" discipline (not the same thing as electioneering) which revolves almost entirely around the Democratic party, rather than intrinsically around issues.

I'm guessing both the republican propensity for propaganda and the democrat lack of propensity for it has to do with what motivates their demographics. I'm not saying democrats are good people and republican bad, but I do think that what you see in the major parties has a lot to do with who their voters are and what they respond to.
 
I sort of get the welfare v. assistance thing. The perception of welfare recipients is that they're single women with several kids by different fathers, strung out on drugs, and smoke several packs of cigarettes a day. The perception of a "poor person" is someone who's struggling, might be homeless, is dirty, lacks clothes, etc.
Sadly, it's the same in the UK too. It's down to how a subject gets 'framed' and i think its media-led rather than politian-led, although politians are more than happy to run with that rhetoric too as it provides nice little sound-bites for them to bat around.
 

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