politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I half agree with Shapiro. It is stupid to vote for someone because a celebrity or anyone else famous that you like endorses someone.
However, people do, so it does indeed get votes.
It's less stupud to listen to Taylor Swift than it is to Ben Shapiro.
Choose who you listen to wisely. And no, her being a singer has little influence on that decision.
Ben Shapiro has zero qualifications to say anything
I would agree if she were a vapid pop star. But she's very clearly an intelligent business woman who also has musical talent. There are worse public figures to take cues from.
Unless you are yourself an intelligent billionaire business woman, why are you taking advice on who to vote for from her?
What I'm getting at is people shouldn't behave like sheep. Think for yourself and make your own voting decisions instead of listening to other people's decisions.
A solid chunk of the population always behaves like sheep, even with the opportunity to educate oneself and form one’s own opinion, as well as people warning them not to behave like sheep. I certainly don’t know how to stop this from happening on a mass scale. So, when some chunk of the population takes a cue from a famous person, if that person has intentions that seem benevolent and point people towards what I consider to be a wise choice, I can at least be glad about that.
At scale everyone behaves like sheep, but these are all independently thinking beings making their own decisions.
Your opinions don't really matter as, like all sheep, they are ultimately irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, I'm not mad about it in this instance because it lines with my vote, but what about when it doesn't?
It’s bad! I just don’t know what to do about it
This sounds a lot like you’re telling people that the way to not be a sheep is to only listen to people who are just like you.
And yeah you have to make your own decision and not just be told that to do. However, I’d also throw out there that it is an extremely natural thing for us as social creatures to consider the breadth of outside opinions available to us when making a decision.
We model good decisions based on what people we respect tell us all the time. Maybe Taylor Swift isn't the ideal role model, but she's certainly not the worst one I can think of.
Politics is not something most normal people think a lot about or have coherent views about. I don't think it's all that crazy to think that an important role model could work as a heuristic for figuring out what their own values are.
I disagree. Celebrities are paid for movies, music, tv, ads, etc, and at any time, they can say they only did that one thing you didn't like because someone paid them money. They take a chance by endorsing a candidate because they could potentially lose lots of money, jobs, friends, or more. The type of people that do vote for candidates based on endorsements are also the type of people that don't generally follow politics, but when you talk to them, you'll find they are for the same issues as the candidate.
That endorsement could be the one that made some 18-21 year old go and look up the endorsed candidate. When they look up the candidate, they may not be really interested, but then they may find something that the candidate supports, and that makes them want to vote. They never would have voted if they didn't find that information, and they wouldn't have looked up the information without the endorsement.
Have you ever bought something that you saw an influencer endorse on social media? Have you ever gone to a new place because someone else recommended it? Have you ever found a new friend because one of your friends was friends with them? What about dropping thousands of dollars into a stock because someone said you should? All of these are just other forms of endorsements from people you pay attention and listen to. Maybe someone recommended a show on Netflix that you passed on previously but decided to watch because of the endorsement, and you really loved it?
Don't forget, Shapiro didn't just say you shouldn't base your vote off of an endorsement. He said that people who do should have their rights stripped. What does that mean? Does he want your Google searches to be checked to see when you started looking things up? He also wants to raise the voting age to 21. He wants voters to be tested to even qualify.
Look at what conservatives scream about during elections. Voters where their signature is slightly different, when their name matches a dead person, when purged voters try to vote because they haven't voted in awhile, illegals voting in mass, voting by mail, voting at the wrong location, etc. They're trying to stop people who most likely won't vote for them. They push wild conspiracies, but if you believe their conspiracies, they think you are good to vote. Problems exist on both sides, then again, if two cars caught fire in opposite sides of the same city on the same day and one of them was a Tesla, which one would be all over the news the next day?
The moral here is never let anyone tell you that your inspiration is wrong. Ordinary individuals are inspired to do extraordinary things every day, and all it takes is that spark of inspiration. Now, go out and do something cool or something!